The First World War ended in 1918 with no bloodshed occurring in Sāmoa.  But death did come to Samoa in the form of the worldwide pneumonic influenza epidemic.

The S.S. Sonoma from San Francisco arrived in Pago Pago harbour 8 days before Armistice day. There had been one death and fourteen cases of flu on her voyage. On arrival, American Samoa’s naval governor, Lt. Commander John Poyer, placed the two people who were still sick in the naval dispensary, and the Pago Pago inhabitants returning home were placed under house arrest and their possessions fumigated.

Not one person died of influenza in American Samoa

Only after several days of observation and temperature readings were they allowed to leave. Poyer quarantined all ships arriving in Pago Pago Harbour, and kept passengers under house arrest for five days either on Goat Island out in the bay, or in the hospital. How a pandemic was kept away

On the other hand, ships from Auckland infected Fiji, Tonga and Nauru, killing 5% of the Fijian, 6% of the Tongan, and 16% of the Nauruan populations. Then four days before the Armistice, the S.S. Talune docked in Apia harbor from Auckland carrying passengers with flu. Despite one Samoan passenger shouting out to those on shore that there was a fatal sickness on board, the NZ administrator, Lt. Colonel Robert Logan allowed all passengers ashore and free to go anywhere they wished.

The disease rapidly spread all through Western Samoa. The New Zealand Army had lost many good officers in Turkey and France, and consequently Logan had risen to the level of his incompetence. So he was posted to sleepy Samoa to get him out of the way. And when a disaster struck, he was unable to cope with the magnitude of it, and the death toll rose with terrifying speed.

Grieving families had no time to carry out traditional funeral ceremonies for their loved ones. Bodies were wrapped in mats, carried to the roadside and collected by trucks for burial in mass graves. Approximately 8500 Western Samoans died in little more than a month; 22% of the country’s 39,000.

The elite experienced a higher percentage of casualties than the general public: within the government,

24 of the 30 Fono a Faipule members died, and in local government 48% of Matai and 46% of LMS church pastors died.

                  Western Samoa lost 48% of its Matai

The leadership of families devolved to young and inexperienced men, and the government witnessed a new breed of leaders forced to take control of family, government and church responsibilities without the traditional training that had prepared men for these roles.

By way of contrast, Lt Cmdr Poyer had quarantined all of American Samoa. He repeatedly offered medical assistance to Samoa’s NZ administrator, Robert Logan (right), but Logan ordered his radio operator to break off all radio communications with American Sāmoa.

After the epidemic passed, a group of surviving Faipule approached Logan and demanded an official inquiry into the epidemic. By arrogantly dismissing them, he only embittered rather than silenced them. Not long after, he departed for New Zealand, where he was judged mentally unbalanced and replaced by Colonel Robert Tate after he told his superiors

Logan's arrogance, incompetence and dishonesty caused New Zealand to lose the respect of all Sāmoans, and the new young leaders soon began agitating for more independence. This was opposed by a conservative NZ government that was supported by NZ businessmen who were now profiting from the copra industry established by the previous German administration.

The Samoans who played a key role in the new movement were of mixed parentage; "flying foxes" who faced discrimination from both cultures but with the advantage of cross-cultural knowledge. In 1926, Olaf Nelson visited Wellington to lobby the New Zealand government on the issue of increased self-rule. When he was ignored, he organised public meetings in Apia that were attended by hundreds, and The Samoan League, O le Mau, was formed.

                Our thanks to Brian T. Alofaituli for his Indigenous Protest in Samoa (2017)