Visit American Samoa

Visit American Samoa

American Samoa (əˈmɛrɨkən səˈmoʊ.ə/; Samoan: Amerika Sāmoa, [aˈmɛɾika ˈsaːmʊa]; also Amelika Sāmoa or Sāmoa Amelika) is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa.

American Samoa consists of five main islands and two coral atolls. The largest and most populous island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa 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.

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The 2010 census showed a total population of 55,519 people. The total land area is 199 square kilometers (76.8 sq mi), slightly more than Washington, D.C. American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the U.S. and one of two U.S. territories (with the uninhabited Jarvis Island) south of the Equator. Tuna products are the main exports, and the main trading partner is the United States.

During the 1918 flu pandemic, the 12th governor of American Samoa John Martin Poyer quarantined the territory. Because of his actions, American Samoa was one of the few places in the world where no flu-related deaths occurred.

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American Samoa is noted for having the highest rate of military enlistment of any U.S. state or territory. As of September 9, 2014, the local U.S. Army Recruiting Station in Pago Pago was ranked first in production out of the 885 Army recruiting stations and centers under the United States Army Recruiting Command (USAREC), which includes the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Korea, Japan, and Europe.

Most American Samoans are bilingual and can speak English and Samoan fluently. This is the same language spoken in independent Samoa.
Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century. Jacob Roggeveen (1659–1729), a Dutchman, was the first known European to sight the Samoan Islands in 1722. This visit was followed by the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768. Contact was limited before the 1830s which is when English missionaries and traders began arriving.

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. The site of this battle is called Massacre Bay. Mission work in the Samoas had begun in late 1830 when John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived from the Cook Islands and Tahiti. By that time, the Samoans had gained a reputation for being savage and warlike, as violent altercations had occurred between natives and European visitors. Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century, French, British, German, and American vessels routinely stopped at Samoa, as they valued Pago Pago Harbor as a refueling station for coal-fired shipping and whaling.

In March 1889, a German naval force invaded a village on Samoa, and by doing so destroyed some American property. Three American warships then entered the Apia harbor and prepared to engage 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. Visit American Samoa
At the turn of the twentieth century, international rivalries in the latter half of the century were settled by the 1899 Tripartite Convention in which Germany and the United States partitioned the Samoan Islands into two parts: the eastern island group became a territory of the United States (the Tutuila Islands in 1900 and officially Manu'a in 1904) and is today known as American Samoa; the western islands, by far the greater landmass, became known as German Samoa after Britain vacated all claims to Samoa and accepted termination of German rights in Tonga and certain areas in the Solomon Islands and West Africa. Forerunners to the Tripartite Convention of 1899 were the Washington Conference of 1887, the Treaty of Berlin of 1889 and the Anglo-German Agreement on Samoa of 1899. Visit American Samoa
On December 10, 1787, French navigator Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse landed two exploration parties on Tutuila's north shore: one from the ship La Boussole ("The Compass") at Fagasa, and the other from L' Astrolabe ("The Quadrant") at A'asu. One of the cooks, David, died of "scorbutic dropsy". On December 11, 1787, twelve members of Jean-François de La Pérouse's crew (including First Officer Paul-Antoine Fleuriot de Langle and 39 Samoans) were killed by angry Samoans at A'asu Bay, Tutuila, thereafter known as "Massacre Bay," which La Pérouse described as "this den, more fearful from its treacherous situation and the cruelty of its inhabitants than the lair of a lion or a tiger." This incident gave Samoa a reputation for savagery, and kept Europeans away until the arrival of the first Christian missionaries four decades later. On December 12, 1787, at A'asu Bay, Tutuila, French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse ordered his gunners to fire one cannonball in the midst of the attackers who had killed twelve of his men the day before, and were now returning to launch another attack. He later wrote in his journal "I could have destroyed or sunk a hundred canoes, with more than 500 people in them: but I was afraid of striking the wrong victims; the call of my conscience saved their lives."  Visit American Samoa

On March 25, 1891, Robert Louis Stevenson paid a rare visit to Pago Pago.

On December 15, 1916, English writer William Somerset Maugham arrived in Pago Pago, allegedly accompanied by a missionary and Miss Sadie Thompson. His visit inspired his short story "Rain", which later became plays and three major Motion Pictures. The building Maugham stayed during his visit still stands and has been for decades renamed Sadie Thompson Building today it is a prominent restaurant and Inn.

On November 3, 1920, American Samoa's 12th naval governor Commander Warren Jay Terhune, committed suicide with a pistol in the bathroom of the Government mansion, overlooking the entrance to Pago Pago Harbor. His body was discovered by Government House's cook, SDI First Class Felisiano Debid Ahchica, USN. (His ghost is rumored to walk about the grounds at night).

On August 11, 1925, Margaret Mead arrived in American Samoa aboard SS Sonoma to begin fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation in anthropology at Columbia University, where she was a student of Professor Franz Boas. Her work Coming of Age in Samoa was published in 1928 at the time becoming the most widely read book in the field of anthropology. The book however has sparked years of ongoing and intense debate and controversy. The traditionalist conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute listed Coming of Age in Samoa as #1 as the "50 Worst Books of the Twentieth Century". Mead returned to American Samoa one last time in 1971 for the dedication of the Jean P. Haydon Museum.

On November 24, 1939, American Samoa's last execution was carried out. Imoa, who was convicted of stabbing Sema to death, was hanged in the Customs House. The popular Samoan song "Fa'afofoga Samoa" said to be the final words of Imoa are based on these events.

On January 11, 1942, at 2:26 a.m., "a Japanese submarine surfaced about 10,000 yards off the north coast of Tutuila between Southworth Point and Fagasa Bay," and fired about fifteen projectiles from its 5.5-inch deck gun at the U.S. Naval Station Tutuila over a period of approximately ten minutes. The first shell struck the rear of the store of Frank Shimasaki, one of Tutuila's few Japanese residents. The store was closed at the time, as Mr. Shimasaki was interned because of his "foreign background." The next one inflicted slight damage on the naval dispensary, the third landed on the lawn behind the naval quarters known as "Centipede Row," while the fourth hit the stone seawall outside the customs house. The others fell harmlessly into the harbor. "The fire was not returned, notwithstanding the eagerness of the Samoan Marines to test their skill against the enemy....No American or Samoan Marines were wounded." Commander Edwin B. Robinson, who was bicycling behind Centipede Row, was wounded in the knee by a piece of shrapnel and "a member of the colorful native Fita Fita Guard" received minor injuries; they were the only casualties. This was the only time that the Japanese attacked Tutuila during World War II, but "Japanese submarines did patrol the waters around Samoa prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and were active in the area throughout the war."

On August 24, 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited American Samoa and inspected the Fita Fita Guard and Band and the First Samoan Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, at the U.S. Naval Station American Samoa.

On October 18, 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson and First Lady Lady Bird Johnson visited American Samoa. Mrs. Johnson dedicated the "Manulele Tausala" ("Lady Bird") Elementary School in Nu'uuli, which was named after her. Lyndon Johnson was the only U.S. President to visit American Samoa. Mrs. Johnson was the second First Lady to visit the Territory. The first was Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943. The territory's only hospital was renamed in honor of President Johnson. Visit American Samoa

In the late 1960s and early 1970s American Samoa played a pivotal role in five of the Apollo Program missions. Astronauts returned to Earth just a few hundred miles from Pago and were transported to the islands en route home to the mainland. Three moon rocks gifted to the American Samoan Government by President Nixon are on display in the Jean P. Haydon museum along with a flag carried to the moon by one of the astronauts. Visit American Samoa

On November 1970 Pope Paul VI visited American Samoa in a brief but lavish greeting.

On January 30, 1974, Pan Am Flight 806, arriving on Wednesday night from Auckland, New Zealand with 91 passengers aboard, crashed at Pago Pago International Airport at 10:41 p.m. 86 people were killed, including Captain Leroy A. Petersen and the entire flight crew. Five passengers were injured: four seriously, and one minor. The plane was demolished by impact and fire. The crash was variously attributed to poor visibility, pilot error or wind shear. A violent storm was raging when the plane crashed. In January 2014 filmmaker Paul Crompton visited the territory to interview local residents for a documentary film about the 1974 crash. Visit American Samoa

On April 17, 1980, during Flag Day celebrations in American Samoa, a U.S. Navy patrol plane, carrying six skydivers from the U.S. Army's Hawaii-based Tropic Lightning Parachute Club, had its vertical stabilizer shorn off by the Solo Ridge—Mount Alava aerial tramway cable, which stretches across Pago Pago Harbor. The plane crashed, demolishing a wing of the Rainmaker Hotel and killing seven people (all six crew members and one civilian). All six skydivers were reported in good condition. A memorial monument is erected on Mt. Mauga O Ali'i to honor their memory. Visit American Samoa

On July 22, 2010, Det. Lt. Lusila Brown was fatally shot outside the temporary High Court building in Fagatogo. The murder sent shock and panic waves throughout an island normally unscathed by gun violence. It was the first time in more than 15 years that a police officer was killed in the line of duty. The last was Sa Fuimaono, who drowned after saving a teenager from rough seas.

On November 7, 2010, Secretary of state and former First Lady Hillary Clinton made a refueling stopover at the Pago Pago International Airport. She was greeted by government dignitaries and presented with gifts and a traditional ava ceremony. Visit American Samoa

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