The First of April this year marks the 125th anniversary of a violent affray in which dozens, perhaps hundreds of local people were killed, but which today passes completely unhonoured and mostly forgotten at the battle’s scene, Sāmoa. It's even worse than that; in Sāmoa and the United States there are monuments mourning British and American soldiers and sailors who were killed, but nothing anywhere honours Matā’afa Iosefo and the unknown numbers of his men and women lost in the fight.
On 1 April 1899 - Easter Saturday - Britain and the United States, for the first time in history, combined to fight what came to be called the ‘savage foe’ in the Second Battle of Vailele, on the eastern side of Āpia. Their enemy was Matā’afa who was leading the resistance to the colonisation of Sāmoa by one or more of the imperial western powers.
The first Battle of Vailele had occurred on 18 December 1888, pretty much at the same place. There Matā’afa had comprehensively defeated Imperial German forces. It made little difference to the colonial ambitions of London, Berlin and Washington. Something of a climax occurred on 15 March 1889 when a cyclone sank German and US gunboats in Āpia harbour. Nature prevented world war, for the moment. The colonists tried a classic ploy by finding and backing chiefs and remodelling them as king of Sāmoa. As the struggle continued, a young Malietoa Tanumafili was the British and American candidate for king. Matā’afa was not keen on the western kingship idea, but by the end of the 19th Century, he was seen as a German supporter and aided by Berlin.
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