‘To Bring the Blessings of Peace and Order’: Preservationist Paternalism in American Samoa, 1872–1907

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, U.S. Navy officials in American Samoa pursued a policy of preservationist paternalism whose central aim was the protection of Samoans from the corrupting influences of Euro-American civilization. For U.S. officials, the preservation of Samoans depended on the regulation of their cultural practices, economic opportunities, and physical mobility. Accordingly, they used paternalistic rhetoric to justify the coercive reality of ongoing military occupation and colonial rule. Based on an analysis of government regulations, this article argues that U.S. officials managed both land and people in American Samoa by prohibiting the sale of Samoan lands to outlanders and by legally defining Samoans and other territorial residents in increasingly racial terms. In the 1920s, Samoans organized a resistance movement to hold the U.S. Navy to account and defend their political autonomy. Overall, the U.S. civilizing mission in eastern Samoa revealed the ambiguities of colonial rule as military paternalism clashed with islander aspirations.