A Timeline of Selected Relations between the United States and Samoa

1700–1900 EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT

• 1722 Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen becomes the first European to discover Samoa.
• 1768 French captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville visits the islands on his expedition of circumnavigation. He names Samoa "The Navigator's Islands."
• 1770s Traveling along the spice route between Europe and Asia, trading ships begin to stop in Samoa on a regular basis.
• 1787 The French La Perouse expedition visits Tutuila and Upolu. Captain Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle goes ashore at Au, on the north shore of Tutuila, with four boats in search of water. Natives eventually surround the party and kill de Langle. After his death, his men open fire during which 12 Frenchmen are killed and 20 injured, and many natives are massacred.
• 1830 John Williams arrives with the London Missionary Society. The local population generally embraces the missionaries. Christianity soon becomes the predominant religion in the islands.
• 1839 The U.S. Exploring Expedition lands on Tutuila, the largest island in Samoa. One of its key findings is that the harbor at Pago Pago would serve as a much-need American Pacific coaling station.
• 1857 The trading company J.C. Godeffroy and Son opens a depot in Apia, which results in Samoa becoming the most popular trading post in the Pacific at the time.
• 1872 The U.S. wins exclusive control of Pago Pago Harbor and receives permission to establish a naval base, in exchange for protecting the people of Samoa from many civil wars and foreign intrusions.
• 1873 The U.S. State Department sends Colonel A.B. Steinberger to Samoa as a special agent to report on conditions in the islands. Steinberger drafts a constitution and bill of rights and sets up a government. He ultimately seizes control of the new government and becomes Samoa's premier. He severs ties with the US government and begins negotiations with Germany regarding taxes, land claims and administration of financial interests in the Samoas.
• 1876 British and American consuls deport Steinberger to Fiji. Samoan self-government collapses, leaving warring political factions and the First Samoan Civil War in its wake. A delegation of Samoans seeks protection from Britain, the U.S., and Germany but all refuse to come to Samoa's aid.
• 1879 Germany and Samoa sign a treaty under which Samoa gives Germany the right to establish a naval station in the harbor of Saluafata. All previous flags are abolished and a new one adopted to show the unity of Samoa.
• 1884 German troops land in Samoa.
• 1889 In March, a German naval force invades a Samoan village, destroying some American property. Three American warships subsequently enter the Samoan harbor, adjacent to the three German warships already there. Before an attack is waged, a typhoon wrecks both the American and German ships. A compulsory armistice is called. Under the Treaty of Berlin, Britain, Germany, and the United States agree to recognize the Kingdom of Samoa. The three countries later cancel the treaty to be able to intervene in the factional fighting over the Samoan throne, which eventually breaks out in another civil war.
• 1899 After the Second Samoan Civil War reaches a head, Germany, Britain, and the U.S. argue over who should have control over the island chain. When the war is over, the Tripartite Convention in Berlin divides the archipelago between Germany and the U.S. - with Germany receiving the larger and more populous islands to the west, and the US receiving those to the east, including Tutuila with its bay of Pago Pago, the best naval base in all the South Seas. The British are given other Pacific island chains formerly belonging to Germany. However, the tripartite convention of 1899 did not grant sovereignty to the United States. The three powers had previously acknowledged Samoa to be independent, and by this convention Great Britain and Germany merely renounced in favor of the United States all their "rights and claims over and in respect to" the eastern islands.

1900–1949 AMERICAN SAMOA AND THE UNITED STATES

• 1900 The U.S. formally occupies the area later known as American Samoa after the chiefs ceded their lands. In the Instruments of Cession, the U.S. agrees to allow local matai (chiefs) to retain power over the villages and the right to keep their property according to Samoan custom. The chiefs believe that the Cession gives them American citizenship, but instead, they become “nationals” – a term not officially defined until 1940. President Roosevelt signs an Executive Order on February 19 which announces that American Samoa would be placed under a military government controlled by the U.S. Department of the Navy. Thereafter, the Navy sets out to protect Samoan cultural, religious, and political institutions, but the Samoans themselves are given very little say in such decisions.
• 1901 In the first of the Insular Cases, the U.S. Supreme Court examines the expansionist policies of the McKinley administration and creates a new set of rules for governing territories. It gives McKinley the right to continue expansion and govern as he saw fit and describes the territories as neither foreign nor domestic. The series of Insular Cases ends the era of Manifest Destiny and put into place a new doctrine of political and military control over lands that were never destined to become part of the United States. These newly-described “unincorporated” territories only enjoy the protection of the Constitution for the most “fundamental rights.”
• 1904 The eastern Samoan islands become territories of the United States. This marks the official beginning of American sovereignty over the islands. At this time, the western islands become known as Western Samoa.
• 1914 Western Samoa passes from German control to New Zealand.
• 1920 Samoans become aware that they are not citizens of the United States, a fact that propels the Mau opposition movement that demands a larger role for Samoan governance, a stronger relationship with the U.S., a formal organization of the territory, and full U.S. citizenship for American Samoans. They organize a campaign for citizenship with support from the people and their chiefs. The U.S. Senate supports the recommendations, but the measure fails due to opposition from the U.S. Navy.
• 1925 The U.S. officially annexes Swains Island and it becomes part of American Samoa.
• 1940 The Port of Pago Pago becomes a training and staging area for the U.S. Marine Corps. American Samoans enlist in the Marine Corps, establishing a home guard unit. Congress creates a new designation – “national” – to describe those who are born within U.S. territories but who are not granted citizenship.

1950–PRESENT MODERN AMERICAN SAMOA

• 1953 The American corporation, Starkist, builds a huge fish cannery on Pago Pago harbor.
• 1962 Western Samoa becomes independent, later changing its name to Samoa in 1997.
• 1967 The first American Samoa Constitution – originally put into effect by Executive Order in 1962 - becomes effective and the territory becomes self-governing. The Constitution allows for an elected governor and legislature, returning de facto control to the Samoans.
• 1988 The National Park of American Samoa is established by entering into a 50-year lease for the parkland from Samoan village councils. The park is distributed across three separate islands and includes coral reefs and rain forest.
• 2012 Tuaua v. United States (July 10) is filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint seeks recognition of the State Department that persons born in American Samoa are citizens based upon the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument is based on the belief that individuals born in the territory of a nation are automatically citizens of that nation.
  • The U.S. argued to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the series of Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases deny constitutional citizenship to those born in the territories.
  • On June 26, 2013, the case was dismissed, with U.S. District Judge Leon arguing for the decision based upon the Insular Cases.

Today in American Samoa:

• The status of “national” only applies to those who are born in American Samoa. American Samoans live in the only remaining unorganized territory and are the only territory in which its people are not U.S. citizens.
• Canned tuna is the primary export of American Samoa, earning $300 million in revenue annually. While some American Samoans work at the cannery, most of its 5,000 employees are workers from independent Samoa who are willing to work for $3.60 an hour.
• American Samoa is one of two U.S. jurisdictions where the federal minimum wage laws do not apply.
• American Samoans are divided about the issue of citizenship.