| Convention between the United States, the German Empire, and Great Britain Governments in Respect to Samoa | |
|---|---|
 German, British, and American warships inApia harbour, 1899 | |
| Signed | 2 December 1899 (1899-12-02) |
| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Effective | 16 February 1900 |
| Signatories | |
| Citations | 31 Stat. 1878;TS 314; 1Bevans 276 |
| 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; 1Bevans437).Abrogated theTreaty of Berlin of 14 June 1889 (26 Stat. 1497;TS 313; 1Bevans 116). | |
TheTripartite Convention of 1899 concluded theSecond Samoan Civil War, resulting in the formal partition of theSamoan archipelago into aGerman colony and aUnited States territory.[1]
Forerunners to the Tripartite Convention of 1899 were the Washington Conference of 1887, theTreaty of Berlin of 1889, and the Anglo-German Agreement on Samoa of 1899.
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 inSamoa. 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.
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 in and around the Samoan islands by nationals of the three powers, along with their factional local allies, led to a conflict that was only tempered by theApia hurricane of 1889, a disaster that wrecked warships on the verge of hostilities.
The seriousness of the situation was finally recognized and German foreign minister CountHerbert von Bismarck (chancellorOtto von Bismarck's son) proposed to reconvene the adjourned Washington conference of 1887.[2] He invited U.S. and British representatives to Berlin in April 1889.[3] 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. Thus, in the Treaty of Berlin of 1889, a joint protectorate orcondominium was declared, a form of international colonial control: there would be a European/American chief justice, a municipal council for Apia, and a "free right of the natives to elect their Chief or King". This was therefore the first treaty that professed to recognize, at least at some level, a Samoan independent government.[4]
No sooner was this 'native' royal figurehead appointed (and, after disturbances, restored), than the other chiefs rebelled, andcivil 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 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."[5] In April 1899, 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 on the islands. By July the Commission had decided that the islands must be partitioned, as continued joint rule was unfeasible. The American commissionerBartlett Tripp endorsed the view of President McKinley and others that the United States should retainTutuila and its harbor ofPago Pago.[6] Given 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 by then embroiled in theSecond Boer War and therefore viewed as in a weakened bargaining position;[7] however, the German desire to rapidly conclude negotiations and bring the western Samoan islands into their colonial empire had a balancing effect that was clearly evidenced in the agreement as signed.
KaiserWilhelm 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.[8] A settlement was reached at London by 9 November and signed on 14 November 1899.[9] It was therefore this Anglo-German agreement on Samoa, in tandem with the informal understanding with the United States, that effectively determined the practical partitioning of Samoa. As far as the three powers were concerned, it only remained to negotiate a tripartite convention in order to secure the formal approval of the United States of the whole arrangement.[10] The Tripartite Convention of 1899 was duly constituted and documents were signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 by U.S. Secretary of StateJohn Hay, German ambassador to the United States BaronTheodor von Holleben, and British ambassador to the United States SirJulian Pauncefote. Ratifications were exchanged quickly, on 16 February 1900.[11]
PresidentWilliam McKinley signed an executive order on 19 February 1900, stating: "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 dayJohn 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 ofAunuʻu were included. The cession of deeds of the islands of theManua Group (Taʻū andOfu-Olosega) did not take place until 1904, although the respective chiefs had previously accepted the sovereignty of the United States.[12] The term "American Samoa" entered into conscious usage in 1905 with a first assembly, orfono, of the Samoan chiefs on all ceded islands within the naval station.[13][14][15]
The Samoan islands ofUpolu andSavaii and the small islands ofApolima andManono, west of 171 degrees west longitude, were declared a protectorate of theGerman Empire, and became known asGerman Samoa, with a flag raising on 1 March 1900, and appointment ofWilhelm 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."[11]
By surrendering all rights in Samoa, the United Kingdom[16] "obtained extensive compensation from Germany elsewhere",[17] in effect,
These treaty arrangements of the Tripartite Convention of 1899 stayed in place until the outbreak ofWorld War I in 1914.
