Fa'a Samoa

Known as the “Happy People” among their Polynesian cousins, the Samoans quickly established a sophisticated and hierarchical society of chiefs and commoners. Though rigid in its structure, all politics were pervaded by the fa’a Samoa, or traditional Samoan way–a communal way of life founded upon a common sense of respect. With these basic principles, life in Samoa hinged on collaboration with little privacy, an attribute best represented by the open-air architecture of their fales, or houses.

The well-established fa’a Samoa met a worthy adversary when the “White Man” set foot upon those same sun-washed shores. The first visitor from afar was Jacob Roggeveen in 1722, a Dutch explorer and author of the earliest recorded account of Samoa by a foreigner. After Roggeveen’s visit, the European obsession with the “savage” South Pacific erupted and soon the shores of Samoa were flooded with missionaries, whalers, and traders. One of the greatest cultural impacts came with the arrival of John Williams and the London Missionary Society (LMS) on August 24, 1830. Eager to share his teachings, Williams went straight for the source and docked at Sapapali’i in search of the paramount mata’i, or chief, named Malietoa. The two men finally met at a large community gathering, during which Malietoa announced the acceptance of the London Missionary Society and John Williams, who Malietoa fondly renamed Ioane Viliamu.


As the LMS grew popular in the hearts of the Samoans, Samoa grew popular as a commercial and diplomatic pursuit for Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. By 1870, the scramble for global territory spurred all three international powerhouses to send troops and lay claim to Samoa. This sharp influx of foreigners devoid of the fa’a Samoa made the Happy People very unhappy and drove them to war with the White Man. Undisturbed by the discontent of the locals, Germany, Great Britain, and the US tightened their grip; Samoa was a geographical gem to be used as a refueling station for coal-fired shipping. With imperialistic intentions, the White Man turned the “savage” and “warlike” Samoans on each other; a manipulation that plumed into full-fledged civil war. For the eight years that followed, the powerhouses supplied training, troops, and arms to war with each other via the Samoan people.

Graver consequences seemed imminent when all three nations launched steel-gray warships into Apia harbor on the island of ‘Upolu. Just as the obliteration of the fa’a Samoa appeared on the horizon, a massive storm pummeled Samoa, destroying the warships and thus ending the military struggle. When the shores of Samoa calmed, Germany, Great Britain, and the US attempted to smooth the wrinkles between them with the Treaty of Berlin, known in the South Pacific as the Anglo-German Samoa Convention. Signed on November 14, 1899, the treaty declared the western portion of the archipelago property of Germany and the eastern portion property of the United States. Great Britain withdrew its occupancy of Samoa in return for Fiji and a cluster of Melanesian territories. Upon the ratification of the treaty on February 16, 1900, Western Samoa and American Samoa became two separate countries. In 1904, the mata’i fully ceded the eastern islands to the US, who bestowed American Samoa to the Department of the Navy.

Assimilation of the new regimes proved less difficult than expected. Displeased with the outcome, many Samoans were forced to accept their acquiescence to a non-native authority. At the end of the war, it appeared that all parties were satisfied: Germany ruled Western Samoa, the US ruled American Samoa, and the Samoans were finally at peace. Yet on August 29, 1914, the British government, not content with their share of the loot from years past, dispatched troops from New Zealand to ‘Upolu and seized control of Western Samoa from German authorities. For the next half century, New Zealand controlled Samoa via a trusteeship organized through the League of Nations. What followed was a pair of catastrophic incidences resulting from wayward Kiwi administrators.

The first incident was the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. The fragile Samoan immune system–a result of geographical isolation in the South Pacific and minimal foreign contact–could not stand up to the strain of pneumonic influenza brought in by Kiwis aboard a ship named Tahune. On November 7, 1918, a mere seven days after the arrival of the Tahune in ‘Upolu, the influenza became an epidemic that ripped voraciously through Western Samoa. By 1919, one-fifth of the Samoan population lay dead in its wake. Britain’s Royal Commission of Inquiry reported that the outbreak occurred due to a misjudgment by the New Zealand administrators who allowed the Tahune to dock at ‘Upolu, in breach of its quarantine.

After the epidemic ceased, Germany relinquished its rule of Western Samoa to New Zealand. On the other side of the divide, the US established a firm grip on Pago Pago as a critical naval base. The constant struggle for power over Western Samoa and the growth of the US government’s influence in American Samoa demonstrated that these political affairs occurred with little consideration for the Samoans themselves.

In the 1920s, Kiwi administrators committed another misdeed during a demonstration by the newly developed Mau movement (Mau translates to “strongly held opinion”). Upset with their mistreatment by New Zealand, the people of Western Samoa took up a non-violent protest, popular among the generally good-natured Samoans. On December 29, 1929, High Chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi led a group of Mau supporters to a peaceful demonstration in downtown Apia. A struggle began when a Mau leader resisted arrest by a Kiwi police officer. Despite the peaceful nature of the demonstration, the melee escalated to the point where the officers opened fire with machine guns to clear the fray. As he called out to his followers for peace and stillness, High Chief Tamasese was shot from behind. Ten other Mau supporters were killed and 50 more were injured by bullet or police baton at the end of what is still referred to in Samoa as Black Saturday. Over the course of the next ten years, the Mau movement blossomed, developing a chapter in American Samoa, which was largely suppressed by the US Navy.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, American Samoa grew in importance for rear staging of US offensives in the South Pacific. The US military came to American Samoa in droves, eventually outnumbering the locals. During WWII, many young Samoan men were trained and enlisted as soldiers, medical personnel, coders, and maintenance workers.  Although much of the US military withdrew at the end of the War, its impact on Samoan culture remained.

The 1960s brought drastic political changes to both Western Samoa and American Samoa. After repeated attempts, Western Samoans finally gained independence in 1962 and signed a Friendship Treaty with New Zealand. On the eastern islands, American Samoa resisted incorporation by the US and instead developed the American Samoa Fono, a local and bicameral legislation that still congregates in the village of Fagatogo. On July 1, 1967, American Samoa drafted and signed a constitution that allowed them self-governance. Eleven years later, the first locally elected governor took office. The fa’a Samoa was properly restored, with both countries under Samoan rule.



In recent years, Western Samoa (renamed the Independent State of Samoa in 1997) and American Samoa have developed distinct cultures in light of their proximity, shared ethnicity and language. Based on Samoa’s fork-in-the-road history, Western Samoans typically immigrate to New Zealand while American Samoans typically immigrate to Hawaii and the US mainland. Cultural influences correspond with these immigration patterns. It is for this reason that rugby and cricket are popular in the western islands and American football and baseball are more popular in the eastern island.

While many contemporary Samoans find themselves far from the islands, their common history and shared sense of pride remain as strong as the va’a that first brought them to that utopian archipelago.