American Samoa History

American Samoa consists of several islands in the eastern portion of the Samoan archipeligo. The Samoan islands were first settled by immigrants from the Lau Islands in Fiji, approximately 3,500 years ago.

Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century, and by the mid 19th century, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States of America, had all established trading posts and were all claiming parts of the islands. The 1899 Treaty of Berlin divided the Samoan islands between Germany, and the United States of America, and U.S. Navy subsequently established a coaling station at Pago Pago Bay.

During World War I, the German part of the islands, was captured by New Zealand and became a New Zealand protectorate. After World War I, a peaceful independence movement, the Mau movement, emerged in both the New Zealand (Western Samoa) and American parts of the islands, but was unsuccessful.

In World War II, American Samoa was an important military base, and U.S. Marines outnumbered the local population, and left a huge cultural influence.

Subsequent to World II, the U.S. Department of Interior sponsored an attempt to incorporate American Samoa into the United States. This attempt was however defeated in Congress, prinicipally due to the efforts of American Samoan chiefs. The chiefs' efforts eventually led to the creation of local legislature which meets in the village of Fagatogo. Additionally, the Governor of the American Samoa is no longer appointed by the U.S. Navy, but is instead locally elected.

As of today, American Samoa, remains an unorganized unincorporated territory of the United States. Although technically unorganized, American Samoa is self-governing under its constitution which became effective on July 1st 1967.

Coming of Age in Samoa: a Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation

By Margaret Mead American Museum of Natural History Mass Market Paperback (170 pages)	Lowest New Price: $4.99 Lowest Used Price: $0.01 (As of 16:23 Pacific 3 Jul 2008 More Info) Click Here
Product Description: A psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation. From preface "the first piece of work by a serious professional anthropologist written for the educated layman"

The Fateful Hoaxing Of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis Of Her Samoan Research

By Derek Freeman

Basic Books
Hardcover (304 pages)

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Amazon.com:
Margaret Mead's 1928 Coming of Age in Samoa, a report of her anthropological study of adolescent girls and a triumph of cultural relativism, firmly established her as a guiding voice of anthropology. Her work was mostly unquestioned during her lifetime, but in 1983 anthropologist Derek Freeman released a critical review of her work, showing that her assertion that adolescence in Samoa is easier because of free sexuality (upon which she based her nurture-over-nature theories) is in conflict with the facts of Samoan life and even with her own field notes. He suffered insult and approbation from nearly every member of the scientific establishment, to whom Mead was a hero and a saint, but he has rejoined the fray, perhaps to finish it, with The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead.

This scholarly review examines all of the primary sources related to Mead's fieldwork and the important 1987 recanting of one of her informers. Forcefully written and carefully constructed, Freeman's book shows that Mead's stay in Samoa was too brief and too consumed with a much larger ethnographic project to have accumulated much data on adolescent sexuality. Her need to finish the project and her fervent belief in culturalism then led her to accept the joking references of her two closest informers about free sex as truth. Careful to make it clear that his focus is on Mead's science, Freeman shows that it is extremely unlikely that Mead deliberately falsified her report, simply that her preconceptions blinded her to inconvenient facts. Given the impressive evidence arrayed here, it's hard to see how Mead's work in Samoa can be now viewed as anything but a pretty fable. --Rob Lightner

Amerika Samoa: An Anthropological Photo Essay

By Frederic Koehler Sutter

University of Hawaii Press
Hardcover (136 pages)

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AMERIKA SAMOA: HISTORY OF AMERICAN SAMOA AND ITS UNITED STATES NAVAL ADMINISTRATION

By J A C GRAY

US NAVAL INST.
Hardcover (302 pages)

Mau: Samoa's Struggle for Freedom

By Michael J. Field

Polynesian Press
Paperback (262 pages)

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American Samoa: 100 Years Under the United States Flag

Island Heritage Hardcover (213 pages)	Lowest New Price: $100.00 Lowest Used Price: $34.29 (As of 16:23 Pacific 3 Jul 2008 More Info) Click Here
Product Description: A richly illustrated history of the Samoan Islands, particularly its relationship with the U.S., published to commemorate its 100th year under the American flag.

Amerika Samoa - History Of American Samoa And Its United States Naval Administration

By Captain J. A. C. Gray

U. S. Naval Institute
Hardcover

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The Samoans: A Global Family

By Frederic Koehler Sutter

University of Hawaii Press
Hardcover (232 pages)

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The To'Aga Site: Three Millennia of Polynesian Occupation in the Manu'a Islands, American Samoa (Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility)

Archaeological Research Facility University o
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Pacific Islands (Portrait of America. Revised Edition)

By Katherine Kristen

Raintree
Library Binding (48 pages; 1)

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