History of Samoa

The history of Samoa traces the settlement, societies, colonial rule, and political division of the Samoan islands, whose people share deep cultural and linguistic ties.

Lapita culture: A prehistoric Pacific archaeological culture associated with distinctive pottery and the expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples. Lapita sites mark the wider Pacific migration context for settlement in Samoa.
Malietoa Laupepa: A Samoan paramount chief who ruled during the late nineteenth century and became central to disputes over succession and foreign influence. His contested authority drew Samoa into rival foreign interventions.
New Zealand occupation of German Samoa: The 1914 military takeover of German Samoa by New Zealand during the First World War. The occupation transferred western Samoa into a new colonial administration.
Samoa: An independent country occupying the western islands of the Samoan archipelago, formerly known as Western Samoa. It emerged from the western islands’ colonial history as a sovereign state.
Polynesian expansion: The settlement of central and eastern Pacific islands by Polynesian-speaking peoples over many centuries. Samoa became a major western center within this broader movement across the Pacific.
Samoan Civil War: A series of late nineteenth-century conflicts among Samoan factions competing for political authority, with foreign powers backing rival sides. These conflicts exposed how chiefly succession struggles became entangled with colonial rivalry.
Black Saturday (Samoa): The 28 December 1929 killing of Samoan demonstrators by New Zealand police in Apia. The deaths intensified opposition to New Zealand rule and became a defining event in the Mau struggle.
Samoan diaspora: Samoan communities living outside the Samoan islands, especially in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. Colonial-era mobility and later migration extended Samoan society far beyond the islands.
Samoan people: An Indigenous Polynesian people whose homeland is the Samoan archipelago and whose communities also span a global diaspora. Their changing communities and political institutions are the central subject of this history.
Tripartite Convention: An 1899 agreement among Germany, Britain, and the United States that divided control of the Samoan islands. It formalized the partition that created separate western and eastern political histories.

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History of OceaniaBroader topic: Samoa became the first independent Polynesian state of the twentieth century.