The origins of Samoa are shrouded in an ambiguity that is pure Samoa. The most popular theory is that Samoans, like other Polynesians, originated from the East Indies, the Malay Peninsula or the Philippines, but Samoans tell a different story. Other Polynesians, they say, might have come from Asia but Samoans come from Samoa. They believe themselves to be the cradle of Polynesian culture, a race of people created by the god Tagaloa while he was cooking up the world. In fact the Samoan legend of the beginning of the world is startlingly similar to that told in Genesis.

Despite its reputation as an exotic far-away land Samoa was in fact as busy as a shopping mall from the mid-1770s when trading ships, sailing along the spice route and looking for the Great Southern Land, popped in and out with monotonous regularity. Much of the early contact and bloody encounters between Samoans and Europeans took place in the islands that are now part of American Samoa but the islands of independent Samoa suffered the same diseases and acts of violence that came with the European ships. By the time the British arrived, looking for the troublesome Christian Fletcher and his band of merry mutineers, the Samoans were hardly in a welcoming mood. In the resulting head-to-head between the British and the Samoans, lives were lost on both sides and gave rise to the unwarranted reputation that Samoans were hostile and aggressive.

Given this violent history it's a miracle that the missionaries arriving in the early 19th century, brandishing their Bibles and threats of everlasting damnation, weren't killed immediately. Instead there were wholesale conversions, a phenomenon that might be explained by the fact that Christianity and old Samoan beliefs were not dissimilar and that the Samoan god Nafanua had predicted the coming of a new religion which would be more powerful and stronger than the old gods. The fire power and wealth of the Palagi (Europeans), or 'Sky Bursters', was obvious and the enthusiastic embracing of Christianity may have had more to do with religious pragmatism than blind faith. These early soul-scouting expeditions were brief affairs, long on brio but short on planning. This changed in 1836 when John Williams and Charles Barff became the first two men to take up missionary positions in Samoa. Williams converted a large number of Samoans before ending up as main course at a traditional Melanesian feast. The untimely demise of Reverend Williams did not stop the onward Christian soldiers and the influence of these early missionaries was so profound that even today Samoa is known as the bible belt of the Pacific.

By the late 19th century Britain, America, and Germany all had their hackles raised and were tugging on Samoa in a three-way tug-of-war, which had a lot to do with commerce and the flexing of military muscles and not much to do with 'protecting' Samoa. Tensions escalated and more ships were called in until there were no fewer than seven warships bristling and snarling inside the small confines of the Apia harbor. The whole shebang started to look like a bad joke ('The British, the Americans and the Germans were in a Mexican standoff in Samoa...'), when the punch line was delivered. So busy were they watching each other that they failed to notice the falling barometer and before they knew it a cyclone of epic proportions had hit. After the dust had settled six of the ships had either sunk or been scuttled. The only surviving ship was the British ship Calliope. The cyclone knocked a bit of sense into the Europeans and they went to the table to negotiate but the result for the Samoan islands wasn't much better. Samoa was carved up piecemeal with Western Samoa being handed to the Germans, Eastern Samoa going to the Americans, and the British going home empty-handed.

Germany made the classic colonialist's error of disregarding local customs and kings and before long the indigenous inhabitants were chafing under autocratic foreign rule. The Western Samoans formed a resistance force, the Mau Movement, dedicated to the preservation of their culture and the establishment of independence. The outbreak of war in 1914 changed the Euro-Pacific arena and Germany had a few other problems on its hands apart from a rebellious Samoan resistance movement. As part of the war effort Britain asked New Zealand if they wouldn't mind, old chap, taking over the radio station in Western Samoa which they duly did in an operation that was more Dad's Army than the Dardenelles. Hoisting a white serviette (no-one could find a white flag or hanky), they were received by one or two minor officials from the German government who apologized for not being able to authorize the surrender of Western Samoa and then promptly went AWOL. New Zealand heroically 'captured' the radio station by fossicking around in the bushes for the parts of the radio station thrown away by the defeated army and then 'liberated' Westeren Samoa.

A change in rulers meant little to the Mau Movement or the majority of Western Samoans who continued to agitate for independence. New Zealand continued to govern the islands, introducing rugby and possibly even jandals into the cultural mix. Finally in 1961 a proposal was put before the United Nations and independence was granted in January 1962. Unfortunately it was not all smooth sailing. Labor disputes and increasing dependence on foreign aid meant reality fell short of the dream, but things really got black when the country was ripped apart by back-to-back cyclones and their main export crop, taro, was decimated by a fungal blight. The country, which changed its name in 1995 to the Independent State of Samoa, fell into an economic hole from which it has never fully recovered, although tourism is now easing the pressure.

NOTES:

• Samoa is a group of islands (formed about 7 million years ago) in the Pacific Ocean, roughly 15 degrees south of the equator and some 8 degrees east of the International Dateline, that is about 1700 miles north east of New Zealand. It is made up of nine islands. The two largest Savai'i and Upolu, account for most of population with only two others, Manono and Apolima, being inhabited. The other five are called Fanuatapu, Namu'a, Nuutele, Nuulua, Nuusafee.
• The islands were settled as part of the general settlement of the Pacific by the Polynesian culture. Briefly, at the end of the last century they played a significant part in the colonization of the Pacific by the western powers.
• The islands were originally settled about 1000 BC a date arrived at by the dating of shards of Lapida pottery found at Mulifanua.
• By 200 BC Samoa was the center of a flourishing Polynesian community with trade taking place between Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.
• In about 1300 AD a group of settlers from Samoa colonized the Tokelau islands, explaining the similarity between the two languages.
• Dutchman, Jacob Roggeveen, was the first European to sight the islands, in 1722.
• Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer, named the islands the Navigator Islands in 1768, after encountering Samoans in ocean-going canoes.
• In 1787, the French ship La Perouse landed on Tutuila and a shore crew were attacked, leading to the death of 12 people. This event was captured by the French artist Nicholas Ozanne.
• John Williams and Charles Barf, two missionaries from the London Missionary Society, arrived at Samoa in 1830 and were responsible for the introduction of Christianity and desctruction of the traditional Samoan religion.
• In 1857 J.C. Godeffroy and Son (taken over by German Trading and Plantation Company when their business failed) a German company founded their depot in Apia, a move which lead to Samoa becoming the most popular trading post in the Pacific at that time.
• The Treaty of Berlin was signed in 1889, which guaranteed that Samoa would retain political independance under the control of it's own king, who would be advised by the American, British and German consuls.
• December 3 1894, Robert Louis Stephenson, author of such books as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde died at his home in Vailima.
• On December 2 1899 the Tripartite Treaty replaced, Treaty of Berlin and Western Samoa passed into the hands of Germany, whilst America gained what is now called American Samoa.
• In 1914 at the outset of the First World War, New Zealand took control of Western Samoa, replacing Germany as it's colonial master's, and retained it when the war ended under a mandate from the League of Nations
• A major change in government was made in 1947 when the Samoan Legislative body was altered such that it was composed of a Samoan majority and granted substantial powers.
• Western Samoa was the first Polynesian state to gain, indepedance obtaining it from New Zealand in 1962.
• In 1970 it became a member of the Commonwealth.
• In July 1997 Western Samoa formally adopted the name "Samoa".