- This article is about the U.S. territory of American Samoa. For the Samoan Archipelago, see Samoan Islands. For the Independent State of Samoa, see Samoa. For the town in the United States, see Samoa, California.
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- This article is about the U.S. territory of American Samoa. For the Samoan Archipelago, see Samoan Islands. For the Independent State of Samoa, see Samoa. For the town in the United States, see Samoa, California.
American Samoa ( or lang: Sāmoa Amelika) is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa. The main (largest and most populous) island is Tutuila, with the Manu a Islands, Rose Atoll, and Swains Island also included in the territory. American Samoa is part of the Samoan Islands chain, located west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 300 miles (500 km) south of Tokelau. To the west are the islands of the Wallis and Futuna group. The 2000 census showed a total population of 57,291. The total land area is 200.22 km² (77.305 sq mi).
Pre-Western contact
main: History of American Samoa It is generally believed that the Samoan Islands were originally inhabited as early as 1000 BC. Samoa was not reached by European explorers until the eighteenth century.
Colonization
Early Western contact included a battle in the eighteenth century between French explorers and islanders in Tutuila, for which the Samoans were blamed in the West, giving them a reputation for ferocity. Early nineteenth century Rarotongan missionaries to the Samoa islands were followed by a group of Western missionaries led by John Williams of the Congregationalist London Missionary Society in the 1830s, officially bringing Christianity to Samoa. In the second half of the 20th century, the Samoan Congregationalist Church became the first independent indigenous church of the South Pacific. In March 1889, a German naval force invaded a village in Samoa, and by doing so destroyed some American property. Three American warships then entered the Samoan harbor and were prepared to fire on the three German warships found there. Before guns were fired, a typhoon wrecked both the American and German ships. A compulsory armistice was called because of the lack of warships.
As a U.S. Territory
International rivalries in the later half of the nineteenth century were settled by the 1899 Tripartite Convention in which Germany and the U.S. divided the Samoan archipelago. The following year, the U.S. formally occupied its portion: a smaller group of eastern islands, one of which surrounds the noted harbor of Pago Pago. Since 1962, the western islands have been an independent nation, adopting the name The Independent State of Samoa in 1997.
After the United States Navy, on behalf of the United States, took possession of eastern Samoa, the existing coaling station at Pago Pago Bay was expanded into a full naval station under the command of a commandant. The navy secured a Deed of Cession of Tutuila in 1900 and a Deed of Cession of in 1904. The last sovereign of , the , was forced to sign a Deed of Cession of following a series of U.S. Naval trials, known as the "Trial of the Ipu", in Pago Pago, , and aboard a Pacific Squadron gunboat.[http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/catalog/productinfo.aspx?id=672997&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 Sovereignty Matters article ]
