January 24, 1879, a treaty was concluded between Germany and Samoa, by which the latter conceded to the former the Treaties with Ger- right to establish a naval station in the harbor of many and Great Saluafata, and engaged not to grant a similar right in that harbor to any other nation.

Britain.

On August 28, in the same year, a treaty was concluded between Samoa and Great Britain, by the eighth article of which a right was granted to the latter to establish "a naval station and coaling depot" on the shores of a Samoan harbor thereafter to be designated by her Britainic Majesty, there being excepted from this right the harbors of Apia and Saluafata, and “that part of the harbor of Pagopago" which might thereafter be "selected by the Government of the United States as a station." a

President Hayes stated in his third annual message, 1879, that a naval vessel had been sent to the Samoan Islands to

in Pagopago.

American rights make surveys and take possession of the privileges conceded to the United States by Samoa in the harbor of Pagopago, and that a coaling station was to be established there which would be convenient and useful to United States vessels. In his fourth annual message, 1880, he recommended that the jurisdiction of the United States consul at Apia be "increased in extent and importance so as to guard American interests in the surrounding and outlying islands of Oceanica.”

Native disturbances in Samoa.

For a number of years before the treaties with foreign powers were made, the situation in the islands was exceedingly unsatisfactory. The natives, unaccustomed to a centralized government, were restive under the exercise of authority, and their discontent was ministered to and aggravated by the intrigues and rivalries of foreign interests. This condition of things gave rise from time to time to grave disturbances, and not infrequently to open hostilities, between the native factions. Early in 1885 a crisis occurred in the affairs of the islands.

Reprisals by
Germany.

On November 10, 1884, a treaty was signed at the German consulate at Apia by Malietoa, King of Samoa, and Dr. Steubel, acting Imperial German consul, by which a GermanSamoan council of state was to be formed, a German adviser was to be appointed to the King, and a special police force was to be appointed and to be under the control of the German member of the Samoan Government. The English and American residents objected

@See Mr. Foster, Sec. of State, to Mr. White, chargé at London, Nov. 21, 1892, For. Rel. 1892, 243. See, also, Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Thompson, Sec. of Navy, April 8, 1880, 132 MS. Dom. Let. 434.

See, also, Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. von Thielmann, June 15, 1877, MS. Notes to Germany, IX. 326; Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welsh, May 15, 1879, MS. Inst. Great Britain, XXV. 405.

CH. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 5.

Action of the United States.

to the convention, and Malietoa, when advised of its full meaning, refused to carry it out. On December 31, 1885, the German consul, as an act of reprisal, attached the sovereign rights of Malietoa in the municipality of Apia, and an armed force from the German man-of-war Albatross hauled down the Samoan flag from the Government House." Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, when advised of these events, instructed the American minister at Berlin: "You will temperately but decidedly, in oral conference, notify the German minister for foreign affairs that we expect nothing will be done to impair the rights of the United States under the existing treaty with Samoa, and anticipate fulfilment of solemn assurances heretofore and recently given that Germany seeks no exclusive control in Samoa." The German Government replied that it intended to maintain the condition which had previously existed, and that if any wrong had been done it should be righted. Affairs remained in this state till May 13, 1886, when the United States consul, Greenebaum, in compliance with the request of Malietoa, issued a proclamation declaring the islands to be under the protection of the United States, and raised the Samoan flag on the Government House with the American flag over it."

June 1, 1886, the ministers of the United States at London and Berlin were instructed to say that the claim of an American protectorate over Samoa by the United States consul at Apia was wholly unauthorized and disapproved, no separate protectorate by any nation being desired; and to suggest that the British and German ministers at Washington be instructed to confer with the Secretary of State with a view to the establishment of order. This suggestion was accepted with the modification that, before the conference was held, each of the three Governments should send an agent to Samoa to investigate and report upon the situation in the islands.

@H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 24. "The latest intelligence from Samoa shows that the native chiefs and the King resenting the action of the German consul in constraining them to sign a treaty giving him greater jurisdictional powers, had sent a special message to Fiji offering the islands to the British Crown. It may be inferred from this that the German consul's action in raising the German flag was taken to prevent annexation to Great Britain. It is doubtful whether expediency or treaty right gives us any ground for intervening to prevent annexation." (Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Miller, M. C., Feb. 27, 1885, 154 MS. Dom. Let. 352.)

¿H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 15, telegram of January 12, 1886. See Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. von Alvensleben, German min., Dec. 9, 1885, and Jan. 11, 1886, MS. Notes to Germany, X. 404, 442.

H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 16. See Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Carter, Hawaiian Min., Nov. 11, 1885, MS. Notes to Hawaii, I. 109.

dH. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 24, 26.

t

← H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 29. See Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Whitney, Sec. of Navy, March 31 and April 1, 1886, 159 MS. Dom. Let. 483, 498.

Washington conference, 1887.

This preliminary having been accomplished, a conference was held at Washington in June and July, 1887, between the Secretary of State and the British and German ministers. It was adjourned on the 26th of July by unanimous consent till the autumn, in order that the members might consult their respective Governments with a view to reconcile certain divergencies of view which the discussions had disclosed. The German Government proposed, in the conference, a plan to commit the practical control of Samoan affairs to a single foreign official, called an adviser to the King, and to be appointed by the power having the preponderence of commercial interests. The plan proposed by the United States was to commit the administration of the laws to an executive council to be composed of the Samoan King and vice-king and three foreigners, one of whom should be designated by each of the treaty powers, but who should hold their commissions and receive their compensation from the native Government so as to be independent of the influence and control of the powers designating them. It was also proposed by the United States that any arrangement that might be devised should be embodied by the powers in identic, but several and independent, treaties with Samoa. Germany objected to the plan of the United States on the ground that it did not promise a solution of existing difficulties, which were largely due to rival foreign interests. The British minister supported the German minister, and, incidentally, the German plan." It was the understanding of the United States, based upon the diplomatic correspondence and the course of the negotiations, that the status quo in the islands should be preserved pending the settlement by the three powers.' Immediately after the suspension of the conference, however, the a For. Rel. 1894, App. I. 508. The protocols of the conference are printed in S. Ex. Doc. 102, 50 Cong. 2 sess., and are reprinted in For. Rel. 1889, 204–236. These protocols were prepared by the editor of the present work, who was present at the conference.

Rupture of the status quo.

Light is thrown on the course of the British minister in the conference by a dispatch of the British ambassador at Berlin to his Government January 24, 1885, narrating a conversation with Prince Bismarck in relation to the "political estrangement" between the two countries. During the interview Prince Bismarck read to the British ambassador an instruction which he had sent during the previous year to the German ambassador at London. This instruction, said the British ambassador, "was a very remarkable one. It stated the great importance which the Prince attached to the colonial question, and also the friendship of Germany and England. It pointed out that in the commencement of German colonial enterprise England might render signal service to Germany, and said that for such services Germany would use her best endeavors in England's behalf in questions affecting her interests nearer home." It also intimated that, if an understanding could not be reached with England, Germany would seek assistance from France. To give point to this intimation, Prince Bismarck also read to the ambassador a draft of another instruction which he was just then sending to London, in which the Egyptian question was mentioned. (H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 61-63; German Staatsarchiv, XLIV. 252.) bH. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 114-116.

a

German Government, without previous notice to the other powers, instructed its representative in Samoa to make a demand on Malietoa for reparation for certain wrongs alleged to have been committed by him and his people long before the assembling of the conference, and if he should be unwilling or unable to afford satisfaction to declare war upon him "personally." War was declared, Malietoa was dethroned and deported, and Tamasese, who had some time previously been viceking, but had lately been in arms against the government, was installed as King, with a German named Brandeis, who had long been connected with German commercial interests in Samoa, as adviser. In September, 1888, however, many of the natives revolted against the government of Tamasese, and chose Mataafa as King. Hostilities ensued and some German marines, who had been sent ashore, were ambushed by Mataafa's forces, and some of them were killed. Martial law was proclaimed by the German consul at Apia.

66

Had the Government of the United States entertained any designs of territorial aggrandizement or of political control in Attitude of the Samoa, they could have been accomplished, it is United States. believed, with much satisfaction to a majority of the natives and with little opposition from any of them, long prior to the date of either the British or the German treaty. But another and widely different policy has guided the action of the United States in respect to the native communities in the southern Pacific, and it is not, I apprehend, claiming too much credit for this Government to express the opinion that the example it exhibited of treating with Samoa as an independent state led to a similar course and a similar acknowledgment of native independence in that island group by Germany and Great Britain. . . .

"Should the opinion which has been expressed as to the part taken by the United States in seeking to preserve the independence of the Samoan Islands seem in any degree extravagant, it will no longer appear to be so when what has taken place in the last three years in regard to other island groups in the Pacific is considered.

"Prior to that period Spain was holding the Ladrone or Marianne and the Philippine Islands, and had also laid the basis of a claim of title to the Caroline Islands, although she did not maintain an active government there.

"Between the years 1842 and 1847 France established a protectorate over the Marquesas, Society, and Paumota groups, and in 1853 occupied New Caledonia. In 1864 she formally assumed control of the Loyalty Islands, and in 1880 added Tahiti to the list of her colonies in the Pacific.

a H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 84, 89.
H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 91-95.

"In addition to the continent of Australia, to which Great Britain holds a comparatively ancient title, that Government had also acquired the Fiji Islands and New Zealand, the sovereignty of the latter being ceded in 1840 and that of the former on the 10th of October, 1874.

"Germany had not then entered upon her present active policy of colonization in the Pacific, although her subjects had carried on a considerable commerce there, and had established places of trade on various islands, including the Samoan.

"Such was the condition of affairs at the beginning of the present decade, nor was there observable at that time any marked evidence of the desire for new territorial acquisitions; but, beginning in 1884, numerous island groups have, in rapid succession, passed in whole or in part under the control of various European powers, until almost the last vestige of native autonomy in the islands of the Pacific has been obliterated.

"The year 1884 witnessed the occupation by Germany of the northern side of New Guinea, from Cape William to Astrolabe Bay, the imperial flag being hoisted at twelve different points. Almost coincidently Great Britain occupied the south coast of the island, and in the months of November and December, in the same year, seized and occupied the Louisade group, Woodlark Island, and Long and Rook Islands.

"In the following year arose the dispute between Germany and Spain over the Carolines, which was terminated by the protocol signed at Rome on the 17th of December, 1885, under which Germany acknowledged the sovereignty of Spain over these islands and the Pelew group, and they have now passed finally under Spanish control.

"But these events were merely the precursors of others, of which the seizure by France in 1886 of the New Hebrides was not the most significant. On the 6th of April of that year a joint declaration was made by Germany and Great Britain, which contemplated the absorption by those two powers of almost all the independent territory in that part of the Pacific Ocean called the West Pacific, lying between the 15th degree of north and the 30th degree of south latitude, and between the 165th degree of longitude west and the 130th degree of longitude east of Greenwich, which had not already been occupied by some foreign power. Through that part of the Pacific included in those bounds of latitude and longitude a line of division was drawn to mark the respective spheres of British and German influence and annexation, and each joint declarant agreed not to make any acquisitions of territory, nor to establish protectorates, nor to oppose the operations of the other in the sphere of action respectively assigned to it."

"Under this declaration and agreement, from which Samoa, Tonga, and Niné Island were excepted, and by the line of division drawn as

@ H. Ex. Doc. 238, 50 Cong. 1 sess. 134.