Flag of American Samoa on Our Flagpole

American Samoa

Introduction:

American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa.  Its location is centered around 14.2710° S, 170.1322° W.  It is on the eastern border of the International Date Line, while independent Samoa is west of it.

American Samoa on the Globe
American Samoa on the Globe

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.  All islands except for Swains Island are part of the Samoan Islands, located west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 300 miles south of Tokelau.  To the west are the islands of the Wallis and Futuna group.

Map of the Samoas
Map of the Samoas

The current population of American Samoa is approximately 55,689 people.  Most of them are “nationals but not citizens of the United States at birth.”  Most American Samoans are bilingual and can speak English and Samoan fluently. Samoan is the same language spoken in neighboring independent Samoa.

The total land area is 199 square kilometers, slightly more than Washington, D.C.  American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the United States and one of two U.S. territories south of the Equator, along with the uninhabited Jarvis IslandTuna products are the main exports, and the main trading partner is the United States.

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

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.

History:

18th Century: First Western Contact:

Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century.  Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen was the first known European to sight the Samoan Islands in 1722, calling them the “Baumann Islands” after one of his captains.

Jacob Roggeveen
Jacob Roggeveen

This visit was followed by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville who named them the “Isles des Navigateurs” in 1768.  British explorer James Cook recorded the island names in 1773, but never visited.

The 1789 visit by La Perouse ended in an attack and resulted in the death of his second in command Capt. de Langle and several of his crew on a Tutuila water collection expedition.  La Perouse named the island “Massacre Island”, and the bay near Aasu is still called “Massacre Bay”.

H.M.S. Pandora, under the command of Edwards, visited the island in 1791 during its search for the H.M.S. Bounty mutineers. Von Kotzebue visited in 1824.

19th Century:

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.

Scroll to Top