Samoa is a group of about 20 islands in the South Pacific Ocean, totaling slightly over 1,100 square miles, about a fifth the size of Hawai’i. The ancestors of the Samoans arrived there many centuries ago. Archaeological artifacts suggest Polynesians arrived perhaps three thousand years before the present, or perhaps even earlier (O’Connor, 2017).

Samoans remained part of an isolated Pacific Ocean region for a very long time, with trade and social links with the people of the Fiji and Tonga islands. That inter-island world was not “discovered” by European explorers until 1722, when a Dutch ship, captained by Joseph Roggeveen, visited. The next European view of the Samoan islands was in 1778 by a French expedition, commanded by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. A later French expedition under La Perouse found the islands far from congenial; a fight erupted and the French lost 12 men (O’Connor, 2017).

The pace of contact with the outside world quickened by the end of the 1700s. Explorers visited, naval expeditions checked out Samoa and other islands, a few European beachcombers arrived, and so did missionaries. Samoa, like many other Pacific Island groups, attracted outside interest for several reasons. Missionaries found souls to save. Whaling ships found places to resupply themselves with food, water, sometimes crew, and for rest and recreation. As navies converted to steam, islands became useful as coaling stations, and as the Industrial Revolution spread, islands offered raw materials and goods for potential profit. The Pacific Islands also became pawns in what is best described as a global imperial competition.

Samoa eventually proved to have one product that interested the rest of the world: copra, which is dried coconut that can be pressed to produce palm oil. That oil had multiple uses, including soap, personal products, and industrial materials. German merchants began to develop the copra trade in the 1850s, well before the consolidation of the German Empire under Prussian leadership in 1871. There was some American interest in the trade, but the principal American interest proved to be the harbor at Pago Pago on Tutuila Island.

Native Samoan politics were based on competition between royal families and the accumulation of several traditional titles by a leader. There was no king of all the islands as such, although historical accounts usually use the term “king” to describe the most powerful chief. Samoa might be described as ruled by tradition, interpreted by several important chiefs who were sometimes rivals and who sometimes cooperated. The Germans and Americans tended to back different candidates, with the British as interested observers, often siding with the Americans. There were confrontations between the Samoan sides, and an actual civil war resulted.

Both the Germans and the Americans relied on gunboat diplomacy in Samoa for decades, with consuls frequently requesting warships to come visit. The gunboats usually had some marines on board, so the range of violent options included bombarding villages, armed landing parties, arming supporters, and the burning of villages.

In early 1889, it was more than gunboats that came at the consuls’ requests: three German and three American warships faced each other in the crowded Apia Harbor. German backing of their candidate for principal chief resulted in considerable violence, and Americans backed their candidate. A British warship was also in the harbor.

How these remote islands became important on the world stage and how they resulted in an angry naval confrontation in 1889 between Imperial Germany and the United States that came very close to war is a complicated but fascinating story.