1899 treaty ending the Second Samoan Civil War
Convention between the United States, the German Empire, and Great Britain Governments in Respect to Samoa
|
---|
German, British, and American warships in
Apia
harbour, 1899
|
Signed
| 2 December 1899
(
1899-12-02
)
|
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Location
| Washington
|
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Effective
| 16 February 1900
|
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Signatories
|
|
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Citations
| 31
Stat.
1878
;
TS
314; 1
Bevans
276
|
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Abrogated
the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce Between the United States and the Government of the Samoan Islands of 17 February 1878 (20
Stat.
704
;
TS
312; 1
Bevans
437
).
Abrogated
the
Treaty of Berlin
of 14 June 1889 (26
Stat.
1497
;
TS
313; 1
Bevans
116).
|
The
Tripartite Convention of 1899
concluded the
Second Samoan Civil War
, resulting in the formal partition of the
Samoan archipelago
into a
German colony
and a
United States territory
.
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.
Politics prior to the convention
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By the 1870s, modern economic conditions were well established and accepted by the Samoans, who had just enough of a government that could be manipulated at will by the foreign business interests in
Samoa
. After the United States concluded a friendship treaty with Samoa in 1878, Germany negotiated her own Favorite Nation Treaty in 1879 with the same Samoan faction as the U.S., while later in 1879 the Anglo-Samoan treaty was completed with a rival faction. Contentions among the whites in Samoa, plus native factional strife led to side-choosing that became deadly warring with the introduction of modern weapons.
Washington conference of 1887
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To attempt to resolve some of the problems, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom agreed to a conference in Washington in June 1887. After the surfacing of serious disagreements among the parties, the conference adjourned without results. Fighting by nationals of the three powers with their factional local allies led to a conflict that was only tempered by the
Apia hurricane of 1889
that wrecked warships on the verge of hostilities.
Treaty of Berlin of 1889
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]
The seriousness of the situation was finally recognized and German foreign minister Count
Herbert von Bismarck
(chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
's son) proposed to reconvene the adjourned Washington conference of 1887.
[1]
He invited U.S. and British representatives to Berlin in April 1889.
[2]
Bismarck's pragmatic approach proposed protection for life, property, and commerce of the treaty participants and relegated native government and their unstable "kings" to the Samoans, with which the British concurred. The United States insisted on a three-powers authority while preserving native rights. In the Treaty of Berlin of 1889 thus a joint protectorate or
condominium
was declared, with a European/American chief justice, a municipal council for Apia, and with the "free right of the natives to elect their Chief or King" as the signatory to the act, thus the treaty professed to recognize a Samoan independent government.
[3]
No sooner was the native royal figurehead appointed (and, after disturbances, restored), than the other chiefs rebelled, and
civil war
ensued. By the end of the 19th century, the failure of the arrangement was freely admitted by the governments of the three powers, since the principal protagonists in Samoa acted directly for their own respective interests, frequently overruling the officials of the condominium.
The Tripartite Convention of 1899
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]
The German government "had never made a secret of their belief that international control of Samoa was visionary and impractical ... and they began a series of diplomatic moves intended to eliminate it altogether."
[4]
In April the British government agreed to the formation of a joint commission of Germany, the US and the UK on the matter. The Joint Commission on Samoa was given authority to supersede local authorities and settle matters. Their arrival in May effectively ended hostilities. By July the commission had decided that the islands must be partitioned, as continued joint rule was infeasible. The American commissioner
Bartlett Tripp
endorsed the view of President McKinley and others that the United States should retain
Tutuila
and its harbor of
Pago Pago
.
[5]
With partitioning of Samoa by then the prevailing understanding, the United States expressed no objections to Britain and Germany coming to a preliminary agreement. The United Kingdom was then embroiled in the
Second Boer War
and therefore viewed as in a weakened bargaining position;
[6]
however, the German desire to rapidly conclude the negotiations and bring the western Samoan islands into their colonial empire had a balancing effect that was clearly evidenced in the agreement as signed.
Kaiser
Wilhelm II
had accepted an invitation to visit England in November 1899 and his government insisted that an agreement on Samoa should be concluded before his departure for Britain.
[7]
A settlement was reached at London by 9 November and signed on 14 November.
[8]
It was therefore this Anglo-German agreement on Samoa in tandem with the informal understanding with the United States that partitioned Samoa. It only remained for the three powers to negotiate a tripartite convention in order to secure the approval of the United States to the whole agreement.
[9]
The Tripartite Convention of 1899 was duly constituted and documents were signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 by the U.S. Secretary of State
John Hay
, Baron
Theodor von Holleben
, German ambassador to the United States, and Sir
Julian Pauncefote
, British ambassador to the United States, with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900.
[10]
Positions resulting from the Tripartite Convention of 1899
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United States
:
- President
William McKinley
signed an executive order on 19 February 1900, reading: "The Island of Tutuila, of the Samoan Group, and all other islands of the group east of longitude 171 degrees west of Greenwich, are hereby placed under the control of the Department of the Navy for a naval station. The Secretary of the Navy shall take such steps as are necessary to establish the authority of the United States and to give to the islands the necessary protection." On the same day
John D. Long
, Secretary of the Navy, stated further that these islands "... are hereby established into a naval station, to be known as the naval station, Tutuila, and to be under the command of a commandant."
Rose Island
, an uninhabited coral atoll, and the island of
Aunu'u
were included. The cession of deeds of the islands of the
Manua Group
(
Ta'u
and
Ofu-Olosega
) did not take place until 1904, although the respective chiefs had previously accepted the sovereignty of the United States.
[11]
The term "
American Samoa
" entered into conscious usage in 1905 with a first assembly, or
fono
, of the Samoan chiefs on all ceded islands within the naval station.
[12]
[13]
[14]
German Empire
:
- The Samoan islands of
Upolu
and
Savaii
and the small islands of
Apolima
and
Manono
, west of 171 degrees west longitude, were declared a protectorate of the
German Empire
, and became known as
German Samoa
, with a flag raising on 1 March 1900, and appointment of
Wilhelm Solf
as governor. This "happy acquisition" was viewed in Germany as a "splendid achievement in colonial policy, which is at the same time a genuinely popular one."
[10]
United Kingdom
:
[15]
- By surrendering all rights in Samoa, the United Kingdom "obtained extensive compensation from Germany elsewhere",
[16]
in effect,
- "transfer of all of the German rights in the
Tonga
group including"
- "the shifting of the line of demarcation between German and British islands in the
Solomon
group so as to give to Great Britain all the German islands to the east and southeast of the island of
Bougainville
;"
- "the division of the so-called neutral zone in
West Africa
by a definite boundary line between British and German possessions;"
- "the promise of Germany to take into consideration, as much and as far as possible, the wishes which the Government of Great Britain may express with regard to the development of reciprocal tariffs in the territories of"
- "the renouncing by Germany of her rights of extraterritoriality in
Zanzibar
."
[9]
These treaty arrangements of the Tripartite Convention of 1899 stayed in place until the outbreak of
World War I
in 1914.
- ^
Gray,
Amerika Samoa
, p. 86
- ^
Ryden,
The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa
, p. 455; in deference to the American delegation who had few German or French speakers (French was then the language of international diplomacy), Count Bismarck agreed to conduct the proceedings in English
- ^
Gilson,
Samoa 1830-1900
, p. 396
- ^
Gray, p. 100
- ^
Pacific Strife, Kees van Dijk, Amsterdam University Press, 2015, p. 405-6
- ^
Coates,
Western Pacific Islands
, p. 230
- ^
Gilson, p. 432
- ^
The United States Department of State was informed on 9 November 1899 through the U.S. embassy at Berlin that foreign minister Count
Bernhard von Bulow
expressed the hope to the U.S. charge d?affaires that the Anglo-German "agreement would meet with the satisfaction of the United States," since according to the agreement, "... not only Tutuila would become the property of the United States, but also the smaller islands" of the Manua group [Ryden, p. 571].
- ^
a
b
Ryden, p. 572
- ^
a
b
Ryden, p. 574
- ^
Ryden, p. 575-576
- ^
Gray, p. 160
- ^
Beginning with the American-Samoan Friendship treaty of 1878, and continuing through the Washington Conference of 1887, the Berlin Conference (in 1889), and to the Tripartite Convention of 1899, the United States held a consistent position ((not always publicly), to acquire the coaling station at Pago Pago Bay. It was the probability of building a canal in Central America (eventually to be controlled by the U.S. and realized as the
Panama Canal
) that defined this American perspective.
- ^
Swains Island
, a privately-owned atoll in the
Tokelau
group, became officially part of American Samoa by annexation on 4 March 1925.
- ^
Referred to as, 'Britain' or 'Great Britain', when mentioned in
direct quotes
- ^
Ryden, p. 571
Bibliography and references
[
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]
- Coates, Austin.
Western Pacific Islands
. London: H.M. Stationery Office. 1970.
- Gilson, R. P.
Samoa 1830-1900, The Politics of a Multi-Cultural Community
. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1970.
- Gray, J. A. C.
Amerika Samoa, A History of American Samoa and its United States Naval Administration
. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute. 1960.
- Ryden, George Herbert.
The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa
. New York: Octagon Books. 1975. (Reprinted by special arrangement with Yale University Press. Originally published at New Haven: Yale University Press. 1928.)
- Townsend, Mary Evelyn.
Origins of Modern German Colonialism, 1871-1885
. New York: Vol. IX of Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. 1921.
See also
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External links
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