German Samoa

Economic development

During the colonial years new companies were formed to greatly expand agricultural activities which in turn increased tax revenues for public works that further stimulated economic growth; "...over all, the period of German rule was the most progressive, economically, that the country has experienced." The major commodity of the island was copra, an industry that was developed on the island mainly by the DHPG (Deutsche Handels und Plantagengesellschaft) and other planters. The DHPG's successor, J. C. Godeffroy, as the leading trading and plantation company on Samoa, maintained communications among its various subdivisions and branches and the home base at Hamburg with its own fleet of ships. Since the Samoan cultural envelope did not include "labor for hire," the importation of Chinese (coolie) laborers (and to a lesser extent Melanesians from New Guinea working for DHPG) was implemented, and "...by 1914 over 2,000 Chinese were in the colony, providing an effective labor force for the [German] plantations."

Major plantation enterprises on Samoa:

• J. C. Godeffroy & Son (superseded as DHPG)
• Deutsche Samoa Gesellschaft
• Safata-Samoa-Gesellschaft
• Samoa Kautschuk Kompagnie

History

Colonial administration

The German colonial period lasted for 14 years and officially began with the raising of the imperial flag on 1 March 1900. Wilhelm Solf became the first governor. In its political relations with the Samoan people, Solf's government showed similar qualities of intelligence and care as in the economic arena. He skillfully grafted Samoan institutions into the new system of colonial government by the acceptance of native customs. Solf himself learned many of the customs and rituals important to the Samoan people, observing cultural etiquette including the ceremonial drinking of kava.

Solf co-opted Samoan chieftains, bestowing empty dignities on them.

Solf restricted cricket-playing, banned gambling, banned land transactions, and banned interracial marriage.

"German rule brought peace and order for the first time. ... Authority, in the person of the governor, became paternal, fair, and absolute. Berlin was far away; there was no cable or radio." The German administrators inherited a system by which some two hundred leading Samoans held various public offices. Over the years, rivalries for these positions, as well as appointments by colonial officials created tensions that dissident matai (chiefs) gathered together into a militant movement to eventually march armed on Apia in 1909. Governor Solf met the Samoans, his resolute personality persuaded them to return home. However, political agitation continued to simmer, several warships arrived and Solf's patience came to an end. He had ten of the leaders, including their wives, children and retainers, in all 72 souls, deported to Saipan in the German Mariana Islands, in effect terminating the revolt.

Energetic efforts by colonial administrators established the first public school system; a hospital was built and staffed and enlarged as needed. Of all colonial possessions of the European powers in the Pacific, German Samoa was by far the best-roaded; all roads up until 1942 had been constructed under German direction. The imperial grants from the Berlin treasury which had marked the first eight years of German rule were no longer needed after 1908. Samoa had become a self-supporting colony. Wilhelm Solf left Samoa in 1910 to be appointed Colonial Secretary at Berlin; he was succeeded as governor by Erich Schultz, the former chief justice in the protectorate. The Germans built the Telefunken Railroad from Apia onto the Mount Vaea for transporting building materials for the 120 m high mast of their Telefunken wireless station, which was inaugurated as planned on 1 August 1914, just a few days after the beginning of World War I.

The German colonial administrator used the former home of writer Robert Louis Stevenson as a residence; the building is now the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum.

Germany did not experience similar levels of violent anti-colonial resistance in Samoa as it did in Southwest Africa, Cameroon, or East Africa. However, there were anti-colonial resistance movements in Samoa, such as the elite-led Oloa and Mau a Pule movements, and youth movements against German colonial rule.

Occupation

Other than native Samoan police, Germany had no armed forces stationed in the islands. The small gunboat SMS Geier and the unarmed survey ship Planet were assigned to the so-called "Australian Station" (encompassing all German South Seas protectorates, not the British dominion Australia), but Geier never reached Samoa.

British-born Herbert Morley, who was in business in Samoa in 1914, sent a letter dated 27 July 1914, where he tells of six German warships docking off Samoa. The letter was publicized in the Keighley News on 17 November 1914.

At the behest of the United Kingdom the colony was invaded unopposed on the morning of 29 August 1914 by troops of the Samoa Expeditionary Force. Vice Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee of the East Asia Squadron gained knowledge of the occupation and hastened to Samoa with the armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, arriving off Apia on 14 September 1914. He determined however that a landing would only be of temporary advantage in an Allied dominated sea and the cruisers departed. New Zealand occupied the German colony through to 1920, then governed the islands until independence in 1962 as a League of Nations Class C Mandate at first and then as a United Nations Trust Territory after 1946.

Planned symbols for German Samoa

In 1914, a series of drafts were made for proposed coats of arms and flags for the German colonies, including German Samoa. However, World War I broke out before the designs were finished, and the symbols were never used. Following its defeat in the war, Germany lost all its colonies, so the coats of arms and flags became unnecessary.