Preparing the South Pacific for U.S. Influence: The uss Narragansett in Samoa, 1872

Abstract

This article explores the diplomatic negotiations that U.S. Navy Commander Richard W. Meade conducted in Samoa in 1872. The resulting agreement that came to be known as “the Meade Treaty” was the first the United States negotiated with Samoa, but scholars usually have not explored the details of it and the process that produced it because the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty. Meade’s motivations and actions in Samoa provide a case study in how the interactions of naval officers, business leaders, islanders, and diplomats converged to produce early U.S. diplomacy in the Pacific. The article sketches the situation in Samoa in 1872 when Commander Meade and his ship, the uss Narragansett, arrived. The role of the United States in the Pacific was changing in the last third of the 19th Century, and Commander Meade’s motivations, influences, and actions illustrate the new wave of U.S. Pacific expansion during the years after the American Civil War.