Yield to invincible strangers

Invincible Strangers 4 - Chapter 1.1

Increasing the pressure on Sāmoa was American commerce, looking for coaling stations for trans-Pacific shipping services. A survey reported Pago Pago on Tutuila island in Sāmoa’s east was ‘the most perfectly land-locked harbour in the Pacific.’ The US Bureau of Navigation disagreed, saying the anchorage was unhealthy. Still, it was a harbour and US Navy’s Commander Richard W Meade was sent to ‘frustrate foreign influence which is at present very active in this matter, seeking to secure the harbour….’ In 1899, US lawyer and diplomat Bartlett Tripp described Pago Pago as resembling a Swiss lake; ‘I can not impress upon my government too strongly the necessity of its undivided possession of this harbor. It is the only one worthy of the name in the islands…. In short, the whole island must be had; and it would, in my judgment, be a wise policy to give our allies and the world to be informed that our interests in Samoa center most closely about Pango Pango (sic) and the island of Tutuila, and that we should not look with favor upon any effort on the part of any nation to interfere with our rights or make them less available for future requirements of the nation by curtailment of our interests in the harbor or in the island itself.’