1889-1892
With the hurricane, the broken war-ships, and the stranded sailors, I am
at an end of violence, and my tale flows henceforth among carpet
incidents. The blue-jackets on Apia beach were still jealously held
apart by sentries, when the powers at home were already seeking a
peaceable solution. It was agreed, so far as might be, to obliterate two
years of blundering; and to resume in 1889, and at Berlin, those
negotiations which had been so unhappily broken off at Washington in
1887. The example thus offered by Germany is rare in history; in the
career of Prince Bismarck, so far as I am instructed, it should stand
unique. On a review of these two years of blundering, bullying, and
failure in a little isle of the Pacific, he seems magnanimously to have
owned his policy was in the wrong. He left Fangalii unexpiated; suffered
that house of cards, the Tamasese government, to fall by its own frailty
and without remark or lamentation; left the Samoan question openly and
fairly to the conference: and in the meanwhile, to allay the local heats
engendered by Becker and Knappe, he sent to Apia that invaluable public
servant, Dr. Stuebel. I should be a dishonest man if I did not bear
testimony to the loyalty since shown by Germans in Samoa. Their position
was painful; they had talked big in the old days, now they had to sing
small. Even Stuebel returned to the islands under the prejudice of an
unfortunate record. To the minds of the Samoans his name represented the
beginning of their sorrows; and in his first term of office he had
unquestionably driven hard. The greater his merit in the surprising
success of the second. So long as he stayed, the current of affairs
moved smoothly; he left behind him on his departure all men at peace; and
whether by fortune, or for the want of that wise hand of guidance, he was
scarce gone before the clouds began to gather once more on our horizon.
Before the first convention, Germany and the States hauled down their
flags. It was so done again before the second; and Germany, by a still
more emphatic step of retrogression, returned the exile Laupepa to his
native shores. For two years the unfortunate man had trembled and
suffered in the Cameroons, in Germany, in the rainy Marshalls. When he
left (September 1887) Tamasese was king, served by five iron war-ships;
his right to rule (like a dogma of the Church) was placed outside
dispute; the Germans were still, as they were called at that last tearful
interview in the house by the river, "the invincible strangers"; the
thought of resistance, far less the hope of success, had not yet dawned
on the Samoan mind. He returned (November 1889) to a changed world. The
Tupua party was reduced to sue for peace, Brandeis was withdrawn,
Tamasese was dying obscurely of a broken heart; the German flag no longer
waved over the capital; and over all the islands one figure stood
supreme. During Laupepa's absence this man had succeeded him in all his
honours and titles, in tenfold more than all his power and popularity. He
was the idol of the whole nation but the rump of the Tamaseses, and of
these he was already the secret admiration. In his position there was
but one weak point,--that he had even been tacitly excluded by the
Germans. Becker, indeed, once coquetted with the thought of patronising
him; but the project had no sequel, and it stands alone. In every other
juncture of history the German attitude has been the same. Choose whom
you will to be king; when he has failed, choose whom you please to
succeed him; when the second fails also, replace the first: upon the one
condition, that Mataafa be excluded. "_Pourvu qu'il sache signer_!"--an
official is said to have thus summed up the qualifications necessary in a
Samoan king. And it was perhaps feared that Mataafa could do no more and
might not always do so much. But this original diffidence was heightened
by late events to something verging upon animosity. Fangalii was
unavenged: the arms of Mataafa were
_Nondum inexpiatis uncta cruoribus_,
Still soiled with the unexpiated blood
of German sailors; and though the chief was not present in the field, nor
could have heard of the affair till it was over, he had reaped from it
credit with his countrymen and dislike from the Germans.
I may not say that trouble was hoped. I must say--if it were not feared,
the practice of diplomacy must teach a very hopeful view of human nature.
Mataafa and Laupepa, by the sudden repatriation of the last, found
themselves face to face in conditions of exasperating rivalry. The one
returned from the dead of exile to find himself replaced and excelled.
The other, at the end of a long, anxious, and successful struggle, beheld
his only possible competitor resuscitated from the grave. The qualities
of both, in this difficult moment, shone out nobly. I feel I seem always
less than partial to the lovable Laupepa; his virtues are perhaps not
those which chiefly please me, and are certainly not royal; but he found
on his return an opportunity to display the admirable sweetness of his
nature. The two entered into a competition of generosity, for which I
can recall no parallel in history, each waiving the throne for himself,
each pressing it upon his rival; and they embraced at last a compromise
the terms of which seem to have been always obscure and are now disputed.
Laupepa at least resumed his style of King of Samoa; Mataafa retained
much of the conduct of affairs, and continued to receive much of the
attendance and respect befitting royalty; and the two Malietoas, with so
many causes of disunion, dwelt and met together in the same town like
kinsmen. It was so, that I first saw them; so, in a house set about with
sentries--for there was still a haunting fear of Germany,--that I heard
them relate their various experience in the past; heard Laupepa tell with
touching candour of the sorrows of his exile, and Mataafa with mirthful
simplicity of his resources and anxieties in the war. The relation was
perhaps too beautiful to last; it was perhaps impossible but the titular
king should grow at last uneasily conscious of the _maire de palais_ at
his side, or the king-maker be at last offended by some shadow of
distrust or assumption in his creature. I repeat the words king-maker
and creature; it is so that Mataafa himself conceives of their relation:
surely not without justice; for, had he not contended and prevailed, and
been helped by the folly of consuls and the fury of the storm, Laupepa
must have died in exile.
Foreigners in these islands know little of the course of native intrigue.
Partly the Samoans cannot explain, partly they will not tell. Ask how
much a master can follow of the puerile politics in any school; so much
and no more we may understand of the events which surround and menace us
with their results. The missions may perhaps have been to blame.
Missionaries are perhaps apt to meddle overmuch outside their discipline;
it is a fault which should be judged with mercy; the problem is sometimes
so insidiously presented that even a moderate and able man is betrayed
beyond his own intention; and the missionary in such a land as Samoa is
something else besides a minister of mere religion; he represents
civilisation, he is condemned to be an organ of reform, he could scarce
evade (even if he desired) a certain influence in political affairs. And
it is believed, besides, by those who fancy they know, that the effective
force of division between Mataafa and Laupepa came from the natives
rather than from whites. Before the end of 1890, at least, it began to
be rumoured that there was dispeace between the two Malietoas; and
doubtless this had an unsettling influence throughout the islands. But
there was another ingredient of anxiety. The Berlin convention had long
closed its sittings; the text of the Act had been long in our hands;
commissioners were announced to right the wrongs of the land question,
and two high officials, a chief justice and a president, to guide policy
and administer law in Samoa. Their coming was expected with an
impatience, with a childishness of trust, that can hardly be exaggerated.
Months passed, these angel-deliverers still delayed to arrive, and the
impatience of the natives became changed to an ominous irritation. They
have had much experience of being deceived, and they began to think they
were deceived again. A sudden crop of superstitious stories buzzed about
the islands. Rivers had come down red; unknown fishes had been taken on
the reef and found to be marked with menacing runes; a headless lizard
crawled among chiefs in council; the gods of Upolu and Savaii made war by
night, they swam the straits to battle, and, defaced by dreadful wounds,
they had besieged the house of a medical missionary. Readers will
remember the portents in mediaeval chronicles, or those in _Julius Caesar_
when
"Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds
In ranks and squadrons."
And doubtless such fabrications are, in simple societies, a natural
expression of discontent; and those who forge, and even those who spread
them, work towards a conscious purpose.
Early in January 1891 this period of expectancy was brought to an end by
the arrival of Conrad Cedarcrantz, chief justice of Samoa. The event was
hailed with acclamation, and there was much about the new official to
increase the hopes already entertained. He was seen to be a man of
culture and ability; in public, of an excellent presence--in private, of
a most engaging cordiality. But there was one point, I scarce know
whether to say of his character or policy, which immediately and
disastrously affected public feeling in the islands. He had an aversion,
part judicial, part perhaps constitutional, to haste; and he announced
that, until he should have well satisfied his own mind, he should do
nothing; that he would rather delay all than do aught amiss. It was
impossible to hear this without academical approval; impossible to hear
it without practical alarm. The natives desired to see activity; they
desired to see many fair speeches taken on a body of deeds and works of
benefit. Fired by the event of the war, filled with impossible hopes,
they might have welcomed in that hour a ruler of the stamp of Brandeis,
breathing hurry, perhaps dealing blows. And the chief justice,
unconscious of the fleeting opportunity, ripened his opinions
deliberately in Mulinuu; and had been already the better part of half a
year in the islands before he went through the form of opening his court.
The curtain had risen; there was no play. A reaction, a chill sense of
disappointment, passed about the island; and intrigue, one moment
suspended, was resumed.
In the Berlin Act, the three Powers recognise, on the threshold, "the
independence of the Samoan government, and the free right of the natives
to elect their chief or king and choose their form of government." True,
the text continues that, "in view of the difficulties that surround an
election in the present disordered condition of the government," Malietoa
Laupepa shall be recognised as king, "unless the three Powers shall by
common accord otherwise declare." But perhaps few natives have followed
it so far, and even those who have, were possibly all cast abroad again
by the next clause: "and his successor shall be duly elected according to
the laws and customs of Samoa." The right to elect, freely given in one
sentence, was suspended in the next, and a line or so further on appeared
to be reconveyed by a side-wind. The reason offered for suspension was
ludicrously false; in May 1889, when Sir Edward Malet moved the matter in
the conference, the election of Mataafa was not only certain to have been
peaceful, it could not have been opposed; and behind the English puppet
it was easy to suspect the hand of Germany. No one is more swift to
smell trickery than a Samoan; and the thought, that, under the long,
bland, benevolent sentences of the Berlin Act, some trickery lay lurking,
filled him with the breath of opposition. Laupepa seems never to have
been a popular king. Mataafa, on the other hand, holds an unrivalled
position in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen; he was the hero of the
war, he had lain with them in the bush, he had borne the heat and burthen
of the day; they began to claim that he should enjoy more largely the
fruits of victory; his exclusion was believed to be a stroke of German
vengeance, his elevation to the kingship was looked for as the fitting
crown and copestone of the Samoan triumph; and but a little after the
coming of the chief justice, an ominous cry for Mataafa began to arise in
the islands. It is difficult to see what that official could have done
but what he did. He was loyal, as in duty bound, to the treaty and to
Laupepa; and when the orators of the important and unruly islet of Manono
demanded to his face a change of kings, he had no choice but to refuse
them, and (his reproof being unheeded) to suspend the meeting. Whether
by any neglect of his own or the mere force of circumstance, he failed,
however, to secure the sympathy, failed even to gain the confidence, of
Mataafa. The latter is not without a sense of his own abilities or of
the great service he has rendered to his native land. He felt himself
neglected; at the very moment when the cry for his elevation rang
throughout the group he thought himself made little of on Mulinuu; and he
began to weary of his part. In this humour, he was exposed to a
temptation which I must try to explain, as best I may be able, to
Europeans.
The bestowal of the great name, Malietoa, is in the power of the district
of Malie, some seven miles to the westward of Apia. The most noisy and
conspicuous supporters of that party are the inhabitants of Manono. Hence
in the elaborate, allusive oratory of Samoa, Malie is always referred to
by the name of _Pule_ (authority) as having the power of the name, and
Manono by that of _Ainga_ (clan, sept, or household) as forming the
immediate family of the chief. But these, though so important, are only
small communities; and perhaps the chief numerical force of the Malietoas
inhabits the island of Savaii. Savaii has no royal name to bestow, all
the five being in the gift of different districts of Upolu; but she has
the weight of numbers, and in these latter days has acquired a certain
force by the preponderance in her councils of a single man, the orator
Lauati. The reader will now understand the peculiar significance of a
deputation which should embrace Lauati and the orators of both Malie and
Manono, how it would represent all that is most effective on the Malietoa
side, and all that is most considerable in Samoan politics, except the
opposite feudal party of the Tupua. And in the temptation brought to
bear on Mataafa, even the Tupua was conjoined. Tamasese was dead. His
followers had conceived a not unnatural aversion to all Germans, from
which only the loyal Brandeis is excepted; and a not unnatural admiration
for their late successful adversary. Men of his own blood and clan, men
whom he had fought in the field, whom he had driven from Matautu, who had
smitten him back time and again from before the rustic bulwarks of
Lotoanuu, they approached him hand in hand with their ancestral enemies
and concurred in the same prayer. The treaty (they argued) was not
carried out. The right to elect their king had been granted them; or if
that were denied or suspended, then the right to elect "his successor."
They were dissatisfied with Laupepa, and claimed, "according to the laws
and customs of Samoa," duly to appoint another. The orators of Malie
declared with irritation that their second appointment was alone valid
and Mataafa the sole Malietoa; the whole body of malcontents named him as
their choice for king; and they requested him in consequence to leave
Apia and take up his dwelling in Malie, the name-place of Malietoa; a
step which may be described, to European ears, as placing before the
country his candidacy for the crown.
I do not know when the proposal was first made. Doubtless the
disaffection grew slowly, every trifle adding to its force; doubtless
there lingered for long a willingness to give the new government a trial.
The chief justice at least had been nearly five months in the country,
and the president, Baron Senfft von Pilsach, rather more than a month
before the mine was sprung. On May 31, 1891, the house of Mataafa was
found empty, he and his chiefs had vanished from Apia, and, what was
worse, three prisoners, liberated from the gaol, had accompanied them in
their secession; two being political offenders, and the third (accused of
murder) having been perhaps set free by accident. Although the step had
been discussed in certain quarters, it took all men by surprise. The
inhabitants at large expected instant war. The officials awakened from a
dream to recognise the value of that which they had lost. Mataafa at
Vaiala, where he was the pledge of peace, had perhaps not always been
deemed worthy of particular attention; Mataafa at Malie was seen, twelve
hours too late, to be an altogether different quantity. With excess of
zeal on the other side, the officials trooped to their boats and
proceeded almost in a body to Malie, where they seem to have employed
every artifice of flattery and every resource of eloquence upon the
fugitive high chief. These courtesies, perhaps excessive in themselves,
had the unpardonable fault of being offered when too late. Mataafa
showed himself facile on small issues, inflexible on the main; he
restored the prisoners, he returned with the consuls to Apia on a flying
visit; he gave his word that peace should be preserved--a pledge in which
perhaps no one believed at the moment, but which he has since nobly
redeemed. On the rest he was immovable; he had cast the die, he had
declared his candidacy, he had gone to Malie. Thither, after his visit
to Apia, he returned again; there he has practically since resided.
Thus was created in the islands a situation, strange in the beginning,
and which, as its inner significance is developed, becomes daily stranger
to observe. On the one hand, Mataafa sits in Malie, assumes a regal
state, receives deputations, heads his letters "Government of Samoa,"
tacitly treats the king as a co-ordinate; and yet declares himself, and
in many ways conducts himself, as a law-abiding citizen. On the other,
the white officials in Mulinuu stand contemplating the phenomenon with
eyes of growing stupefaction; now with symptoms of collapse, now with
accesses of violence. For long, even those well versed in island manners
and the island character daily expected war, and heard imaginary drums
beat in the forest. But for now close upon a year, and against every
stress of persuasion and temptation, Mataafa has been the bulwark of our
peace. Apia lay open to be seized, he had the power in his hand, his
followers cried to be led on, his enemies marshalled him the same way by
impotent examples; and he has never faltered. Early in the day, a white
man was sent from the government of Mulinuu to examine and report upon
his actions: I saw the spy on his return; "It was only our rebel that
saved us," he said, with a laugh. There is now no honest man in the
islands but is well aware of it; none but knows that, if we have enjoyed
during the past eleven months the conveniences of peace, it is due to the
forbearance of "our rebel." Nor does this part of his conduct stand
alone. He calls his party at Malie the government,--"our
government,"--but he pays his taxes to the government at Mulinuu. He
takes ground like a king; he has steadily and blandly refused to obey all
orders as to his own movements or behaviour; but upon requisition he
sends offenders to be tried under the chief justice.
We have here a problem of conduct, and what seems an image of
inconsistency, very hard at the first sight to be solved by any European.
Plainly Mataafa does not act at random. Plainly, in the depths of his
Samoan mind, he regards his attitude as regular and constitutional. It
may be unexpected, it may be inauspicious, it may be undesirable; but he
thinks it--and perhaps it is--in full accordance with those "laws and
customs of Samoa" ignorantly invoked by the draughtsmen of the Berlin
Act. The point is worth an effort of comprehension; a man's life may yet
depend upon it. Let us conceive, in the first place, that there are five
separate kingships in Samoa, though not always five different kings; and
that though one man, by holding the five royal names, might become king
in _all parts_ of Samoa, there is perhaps no such matter as a kingship of
all Samoa. He who holds one royal name would be, upon this view, as much
a sovereign person as he who should chance to hold the other four; he
would have less territory and fewer subjects, but the like independence
and an equal royalty. Now Mataafa, even if all debatable points were
decided against him, is still Tuiatua, and as such, on this hypothesis, a
sovereign prince. In the second place, the draughtsmen of the Act,
waxing exceeding bold, employed the word "election," and implicitly
justified all precedented steps towards the kingship according with the
"customs of Samoa." I am not asking what was intended by the gentlemen
who sat and debated very benignly and, on the whole, wisely in Berlin; I
am asking what will be understood by a Samoan studying their literary
work, the Berlin Act; I am asking what is the result of taking a word out
of one state of society, and applying it to another, of which the writers
know less than nothing, and no European knows much. Several interpreters
and several days were employed last September in the fruitless attempt to
convey to the mind of Laupepa the sense of the word "resignation." What
can a Samoan gather from the words, _election_? _election of a king_?
_election of a king according to the laws and customs of Samoa_? What
are the electoral measures, what is the method of canvassing, likely to
be employed by two, three, four, or five, more or less absolute
princelings, eager to evince each other? And who is to distinguish such
a process from the state of war? In such international--or, I should
say, interparochial--differences, the nearest we can come towards
understanding is to appreciate the cloud of ambiguity in which all
parties grope--
"Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying."
Now, in one part of Mataafa's behaviour his purpose is beyond mistake.
Towards the provisions of the Berlin Act, his desire to be formally
obedient is manifest. The Act imposed the tax. He has paid his taxes,
although he thus contributes to the ways and means of his immediate
rival. The Act decreed the supreme court, and he sends his partisans to
be tried at Mulinuu, although he thus places them (as I shall have
occasion to show) in a position far from wholly safe. From this literal
conformity, in matters regulated, to the terms of the Berlin
plenipotentiaries, we may plausibly infer, in regard to the rest, a no
less exact observance of the famous and obscure "laws and customs of
Samoa."
But though it may be possible to attain, in the study, to some such
adumbration of an understanding, it were plainly unfair to expect it of
officials in the hurry of events. Our two white officers have
accordingly been no more perspicacious than was to be looked for, and I
think they have sometimes been less wise. It was not wise in the
president to proclaim Mataafa and his followers rebels and their estates
confiscated. Such words are not respectable till they repose on force;
on the lips of an angry white man, standing alone on a small promontory,
they were both dangerous and absurd; they might have provoked ruin;
thanks to the character of Mataafa, they only raised a smile and damaged
the authority of government. And again it is not wise in the government
of Mulinuu to have twice attempted to precipitate hostilities, once in
Savaii, once here in the Tuamasanga. The fate of the Savaii attempt I
never heard; it seems to have been stillborn. The other passed under my
eyes. A war-party was armed in Apia, and despatched across the island
against Mataafa villages, where it was to seize the women and children.
It was absent for some days, engaged in feasting with those whom it went
out to fight; and returned at last, innocuous and replete. In this
fortunate though undignified ending we may read the fact that the natives
on Laupepa's side are sometimes more wise than their advisers. Indeed,
for our last twelve months of miraculous peace under what seem to be two
rival kings, the credit is due first of all to Mataafa, and second to the
half-heartedness, or the forbearance, or both, of the natives in the
other camp. The voice of the two whites has ever been for war. They
have published at least one incendiary proclamation; they have armed and
sent into the field at least one Samoan war-party; they have continually
besieged captains of war-ships to attack Malie, and the captains of the
war-ships have religiously refused. Thus in the last twelve months our
European rulers have drawn a picture of themselves, as bearded like the
pard, full of strange oaths, and gesticulating like semaphores; while
over against them Mataafa reposes smilingly obstinate, and their own
retainers surround them, frowningly inert. Into the question of motive I
refuse to enter; but if we come to war in these islands, and with no
fresh occasion, it will be a manufactured war, and one that has been
manufactured, against the grain of opinion, by two foreigners.
For the last and worst of the mistakes on the Laupepa side it would be
unfair to blame any but the king himself. Capable both of virtuous
resolutions and of fits of apathetic obstinacy, His Majesty is usually
the whip-top of competitive advisers; and his conduct is so unstable as
to wear at times an appearance of treachery which would surprise himself
if he could see it. Take, for example, the experience of Lieutenant
Ulfsparre, late chief of police, and (so to speak) commander of the
forces. His men were under orders for a certain hour; he found himself
almost alone at the place of muster, and learned the king had sent the
soldiery on errands. He sought an audience, explained that he was here
to implant discipline, that (with this purpose in view) his men could
only receive orders through himself, and if that condition were not
agreed to and faithfully observed, he must send in his papers. The king
was as usual easily persuaded, the interview passed and ended to the
satisfaction of all parties engaged--and the bargain was kept for one
day. On the day after, the troops were again dispersed as post-runners,
and their commander resigned. With such a sovereign, I repeat, it would
be unfair to blame any individual minister for any specific fault. And
yet the policy of our two whites against Mataafa has appeared uniformly
so excessive and implacable, that the blame of the last scandal is laid
generally at their doors. It is yet fresh. Lauati, towards the end of
last year, became deeply concerned about the situation; and by great
personal exertions and the charms of oratory brought Savaii and Manono
into agreement upon certain terms of compromise: Laupepa still to be
king, Mataafa to accept a high executive office comparable to that of our
own prime minister, and the two governments to coalesce. Intractable
Manono was a party. Malie was said to view the proposal with
resignation, if not relief. Peace was thought secure. The night before
the king was to receive Lauati, I met one of his company,--the family
chief, Iina,--and we shook hands over the unexpected issue of our
troubles. What no one dreamed was that Laupepa would refuse. And he
did. He refused undisputed royalty for himself and peace for these
unhappy islands; and the two whites on Mulinuu rightly or wrongly got the
blame of it.
But their policy has another and a more awkward side. About the time of
the secession to Malie, many ugly things were said; I will not repeat
that which I hope and believe the speakers did not wholly mean; let it
suffice that, if rumour carried to Mataafa the language I have heard used
in my own house and before my own native servants, he would be highly
justified in keeping clear of Apia and the whites. One gentleman whose
opinion I respect, and am so bold as to hope I may in some points modify,
will understand the allusion and appreciate my reserve. About the same
time there occurred an incident, upon which I must be more particular.
_A_ was a gentleman who had long been an intimate of Mataafa's, and had
recently (upon account, indeed, of the secession to Malie) more or less
wholly broken off relations. To him came one whom I shall call _B_ with
a dastardly proposition. It may have been _B_'s own, in which case he
were the more unpardonable; but from the closeness of his intercourse
with the chief justice, as well as from the terms used in the interview,
men judged otherwise. It was proposed that _A_ should simulate a renewal
of the friendship, decoy Mataafa to a suitable place, and have him there
arrested. What should follow in those days of violent speech was at the
least disputable; and the proposal was of course refused. "You do not
understand," was the base rejoinder. "_You_ will have no discredit. The
Germans are to take the blame of the arrest." Of course, upon the
testimony of a gentleman so depraved, it were unfair to hang a dog; and
both the Germans and the chief justice must be held innocent. But the
chief justice has shown that he can himself be led, by his animosity
against Mataafa, into questionable acts. Certain natives of Malie were
accused of stealing pigs; the chief justice summoned them through
Mataafa; several were sent, and along with them a written promise that,
if others were required, these also should be forthcoming upon
requisition. Such as came were duly tried and acquitted; and Mataafa's
offer was communicated to the chief justice, who made a formal answer,
and the same day (in pursuance of his constant design to have Malie
attacked by war-ships) reported to one of the consuls that his warrant
would not run in the country and that certain of the accused had been
withheld. At least, this is not fair dealing; and the next instance I
have to give is possibly worse. For one blunder the chief justice is
only so far responsible, in that he was not present where it seems he
should have been, when it was made. He had nothing to do with the silly
proscription of the Mataafas; he has always disliked the measure; and it
occurred to him at last that he might get rid of this dangerous absurdity
and at the same time reap a further advantage. Let Mataafa leave Malie
for any other district in Samoa; it should be construed as an act of
submission and the confiscation and proscription instantly recalled. This
was certainly well devised; the government escaped from their own false
position, and by the same stroke lowered the prestige of their
adversaries. But unhappily the chief justice did not put all his eggs in
one basket. Concurrently with these negotiations he began again to move
the captain of one of the war-ships to shell the rebel village; the
captain, conceiving the extremity wholly unjustified, not only refused
these instances, but more or less publicly complained of their being
made; the matter came to the knowledge of the white resident who was at
that time playing the part of intermediary with Malie; and he, in natural
anger and disgust, withdrew from the negotiation. These duplicities,
always deplorable when discovered, are never more fatal than with men
imperfectly civilised. Almost incapable of truth themselves, they
cherish a particular score of the same fault in whites. And Mataafa is
besides an exceptional native. I would scarce dare say of any Samoan
that he is truthful, though I seem to have encountered the phenomenon;
but I must say of Mataafa that he seems distinctly and consistently
averse to lying.
For the affair of the Manono prisoners, the chief justice is only again
in so far answerable as he was at the moment absent from the seat of his
duties; and the blame falls on Baron Senfft von Pilsach, president of the
municipal council. There were in Manono certain dissidents, loyal to
Laupepa. Being Manono people, I daresay they were very annoying to their
neighbours; the majority, as they belonged to the same island, were the
more impatient; and one fine day fell upon and destroyed the houses and
harvests of the dissidents "according to the laws and customs of Samoa."
The president went down to the unruly island in a war-ship and was landed
alone upon the beach. To one so much a stranger to the mansuetude of
Polynesians, this must have seemed an act of desperation; and the baron's
gallantry met with a deserved success. The six ringleaders, acting in
Mataafa's interest, had been guilty of a delict; with Mataafa's approval,
they delivered themselves over to be tried. On Friday, September 4,
1891, they were convicted before a native magistrate and sentenced to six
months' imprisonment; or, I should rather say, detention; for it was
expressly directed that they were to be used as gentlemen and not as
prisoners, that the door was to stand open, and that all their wishes
should be gratified. This extraordinary sentence fell upon the accused
like a thunderbolt. There is no need to suppose perfidy, where a
careless interpreter suffices to explain all; but the six chiefs claim to
have understood their coming to Apia as an act of submission merely
formal, that they came in fact under an implied indemnity, and that the
president stood pledged to see them scatheless. Already, on their way
from the court-house, they were tumultuously surrounded by friends and
clansmen, who pressed and cried upon them to escape; Lieutenant Ulfsparre
must order his men to load; and with that the momentary effervescence
died away. Next day, Saturday, 5th, the chief justice took his departure
from the islands--a step never yet explained and (in view of the doings
of the day before and the remonstrances of other officials) hard to
justify. The president, an amiable and brave young man of singular
inexperience, was thus left to face the growing difficulty by himself.
The clansmen of the prisoners, to the number of near upon a hundred, lay
in Vaiusu, a village half way between Apia and Malie; there they talked
big, thence sent menacing messages; the gaol should be broken in the
night, they said, and the six martyrs rescued. Allowance is to be made
for the character of the people of Manono, turbulent fellows, boastful of
tongue, but of late days not thought to be answerably bold in person. Yet
the moment was anxious. The government of Mulinuu had gained an
important moral victory by the surrender and condemnation of the chiefs;
and it was needful the victory should be maintained. The guard upon the
gaol was accordingly strengthened; a war-party was sent to watch the
Vaiusu road under Asi; and the chiefs of the Vaimaunga were notified to
arm and assemble their men. It must be supposed the president was
doubtful of the loyalty of these assistants. He turned at least to the
war-ships, where it seems he was rebuffed; thence he fled into the arms
of the wrecker gang, where he was unhappily more successful. The
government of Washington had presented to the Samoan king the wrecks of
the _Trenton_ and the _Vandalia_; an American syndicate had been formed
to break them up; an experienced gang was in consequence settled in Apia
and the report of submarine explosions had long grown familiar in the
ears of residents. From these artificers the president obtained a supply
of dynamite, the needful mechanism, and the loan of a mechanic; the gaol
was mined, and the Manono people in Vaiusu were advertised of the fact in
a letter signed by Laupepa. Partly by the indiscretion of the mechanic,
who had sought to embolden himself (like Lady Macbeth) with liquor for
his somewhat dreadful task, the story leaked immediately out and raised a
very general, or I might say almost universal, reprobation. Some blamed
the proposed deed because it was barbarous and a foul example to set
before a race half barbarous itself; others because it was illegal;
others again because, in the face of so weak an enemy, it appeared
pitifully pusillanimous; almost all because it tended to precipitate and
embitter war. In the midst of the turmoil he had raised, and under the
immediate pressure of certain indignant white residents, the baron fell
back upon a new expedient, certainly less barbarous, perhaps no more
legal; and on Monday afternoon, September 7th, packed his six prisoners
on board the cutter _Lancashire Lass_, and deported them to the
neighbouring low-island group of the Tokelaus. We watched her put to sea
with mingled feelings. Anything were better than dynamite, but this was
not good. The men had been summoned in the name of law; they had
surrendered; the law had uttered its voice; they were under one sentence
duly delivered; and now the president, by no right with which we were
acquainted, had exchanged it for another. It was perhaps no less
fortunate, though it was more pardonable in a stranger, that he had
increased the punishment to that which, in the eyes of Samoans, ranks
next to death,--exile from their native land and friends. And the
_Lancashire Lass_ appeared to carry away with her into the uttermost
parts of the sea the honour of the administration and the prestige of the
supreme court.
The policy of the government towards Mataafa has thus been of a piece
throughout; always would-be violent, it has been almost always defaced
with some appearance of perfidy or unfairness. The policy of Mataafa
(though extremely bewildering to any white) appears everywhere consistent
with itself, and the man's bearing has always been calm. But to
represent the fulness of the contrast, it is necessary that I should give
some description of the two capitals, or the two camps, and the ways and
means of the regular and irregular government.
_Mulinuu_. Mulinuu, the reader may remember, is a narrow finger of land
planted in cocoa-palms, which runs forth into the lagoon perhaps three
quarters of a mile. To the east is the bay of Apia. To the west, there
is, first of all, a mangrove swamp, the mangroves excellently green, the
mud ink-black, and its face crawled upon by countless insects and black
and scarlet crabs. Beyond the swamp is a wide and shallow bay of the
lagoon, bounded to the west by Faleula Point. Faleula is the next
village to Malie; so that from the top of some tall palm in Malie it
should be possible to descry against the eastern heavens the palms of
Mulinuu. The trade wind sweeps over the low peninsula and cleanses it
from the contagion of the swamp. Samoans have a quaint phrase in their
language; when out of health, they seek exposed places on the shore "to
eat the wind," say they; and there can be few better places for such a
diet than the point of Mulinuu.
Two European houses stand conspicuous on the harbour side; in Europe they
would seem poor enough, but they are fine houses for Samoa. One is new;
it was built the other day under the apologetic title of a Government
House, to be the residence of Baron Senfft. The other is historical; it
was built by Brandeis on a mortgage, and is now occupied by the chief
justice on conditions never understood, the rumour going uncontradicted
that he sits rent free. I do not say it is true, I say it goes
uncontradicted; and there is one peculiarity of our officials in a
nutshell,--their remarkable indifference to their own character. From
the one house to the other extends a scattering village for the Faipule
or native parliament men. In the days of Tamasese this was a brave
place, both his own house and those of the Faipule good, and the whole
excellently ordered and approached by a sanded way. It is now like a
neglected bush-town, and speaks of apathy in all concerned. But the
chief scandal of Mulinuu is elsewhere. The house of the president stands
just to seaward of the isthmus, where the watch is set nightly, and armed
men guard the uneasy slumbers of the government. On the landward side
there stands a monument to the poor German lads who fell at Fangalii,
just beyond which the passer-by may chance to observe a little house
standing back-ward from the road. It is such a house as a commoner might
use in a bush village; none could dream that it gave shelter even to a
family chief; yet this is the palace of Malietoa-Natoaitele-Tamasoalii
Laupepa, king of Samoa. As you sit in his company under this humble
shelter, you shall see, between the posts, the new house of the
president. His Majesty himself beholds it daily, and the tenor of his
thoughts may be divined. The fine house of a Samoan chief is his
appropriate attribute; yet, after seventeen months, the government (well
housed themselves) have not yet found--have not yet sought--a roof-tree
for their sovereign. And the lodging is typical. I take up the
president's financial statement of September 8, 1891. I find the king's
allowance to figure at seventy-five dollars a month; and I find that he
is further (though somewhat obscurely) debited with the salaries of
either two or three clerks. Take the outside figure, and the sum
expended on or for His Majesty amounts to ninety-five dollars in the
month. Lieutenant Ulfsparre and Dr. Hagberg (the chief justice's Swedish
friends) drew in the same period one hundred and forty and one hundred
dollars respectively on account of salary alone. And it should be
observed that Dr. Hagberg was employed, or at least paid, from government
funds, in the face of His Majesty's express and reiterated protest. In
another column of the statement, one hundred and seventy-five dollars and
seventy-five cents are debited for the chief justice's travelling
expenses. I am of the opinion that if His Majesty desired (or dared) to
take an outing, he would be asked to bear the charge from his allowance.
But although I think the chief justice had done more nobly to pay for
himself, I am far from denying that his excursions were well meant; he
should indeed be praised for having made them; and I leave the charge out
of consideration in the following statement.
ON THE ONE HAND
Salary of Chief Justice Cedarkrantz $500
Salary of President Baron Senfft von Pilsach (about) 415
Salary of Lieutenant Ulfsparre, Chief of Police 140
Salary of Dr. Hagberg, Private Secretary to the Chief Justice 100
Total monthly salary to four whites, one of them paid against His
Majesty's protest $1155
ON THE OTHER HAND
Total monthly payments to and for His Majesty the King, including
allowance and hire of three clerks, one of these placed under the
rubric of extraordinary expenses $95
This looks strange enough and mean enough already. But we have ground of
comparison in the practice of Brandeis.
Brandeis, white prime minister $200
Tamasese (about) 160
White Chief of Police 100
Under Brandeis, in other words, the king received the second highest
allowance on the sheet; and it was a good second, and the third was a bad
third. And it must be borne in mind that Tamasese himself was pointed
and laughed at among natives. Judge, then, what is muttered of Laupepa,
housed in his shanty before the president's doors like Lazarus before the
doors of Dives; receiving not so much of his own taxes as the private
secretary of the law officer; and (in actual salary) little more than
half as much as his own chief of police. It is known besides that he has
protested in vain against the charge for Dr. Hagberg; it is known that he
has himself applied for an advance and been refused. Money is certainly
a grave subject on Mulinuu; but respect costs nothing, and thrifty
officials might have judged it wise to make up in extra politeness for
what they curtailed of pomp or comfort. One instance may suffice.
Laupepa appeared last summer on a public occasion; the president was
there and not even the president rose to greet the entrance of the
sovereign. Since about the same period, besides, the monarch must be
described as in a state of sequestration. A white man, an Irishman, the
true type of all that is most gallant, humorous, and reckless in his
country, chose to visit His Majesty and give him some excellent advice
(to make up his difference with Mataafa) couched unhappily in vivid and
figurative language. The adviser now sleeps in the Pacific, but the evil
that he chanced to do lives after him. His Majesty was greatly (and I
must say justly) offended by the freedom of the expressions used; he
appealed to his white advisers; and these, whether from want of thought
or by design, issued an ignominious proclamation. Intending visitors to
the palace must appear before their consuls and justify their business.
The majesty of buried Samoa was henceforth only to be viewed (like a
private collection) under special permit; and was thus at once cut off
from the company and opinions of the self respecting. To retain any
dignity in such an abject state would require a man of very different
virtues from those claimed by the not unvirtuous Laupepa. He is not
designed to ride the whirlwind or direct the storm, rather to be the
ornament of private life. He is kind, gentle, patient as Job,
conspicuously well-intentioned, of charming manners; and when he pleases,
he has one accomplishment in which he now begins to be alone--I mean that
he can pronounce correctly his own beautiful language.
The government of Brandeis accomplished a good deal and was continually
and heroically attempting more. The government of our two whites has
confined itself almost wholly to paying and receiving salaries. They
have built, indeed, a house for the president; they are believed (if that
be a merit) to have bought the local newspaper with government funds; and
their rule has been enlivened by a number of scandals, into which I feel
with relief that it is unnecessary I should enter. Even if the three
Powers do not remove these gentlemen, their absurd and disastrous
government must perish by itself of inanition. Native taxes (except
perhaps from Mataafa, true to his own private policy) have long been
beyond hope. And only the other day (May 6th, 1892), on the expressed
ground that there was no guarantee as to how the funds would be expended,
and that the president consistently refused to allow the verification of
his cash balances, the municipal council has negatived the proposal to
call up further taxes from the whites. All is well that ends even ill,
so that it end; and we believe that with the last dollar we shall see the
last of the last functionary. Now when it is so nearly over, we can
afford to smile at this extraordinary passage, though we must still sigh
over the occasion lost.
* * * * *
_Malie_. The way to Malie lies round the shores of Faleula bay and
through a succession of pleasant groves and villages. The road, one of
the works of Brandeis, is now cut up by pig fences. Eight times you must
leap a barrier of cocoa posts; the take-off and the landing both in a
patch of mire planted with big stones, and the stones sometimes reddened
with the blood of horses that have gone before. To make these obstacles
more annoying, you have sometimes to wait while a black boar clambers
sedately over the so-called pig fence. Nothing can more thoroughly
depict the worst side of the Samoan character than these useless barriers
which deface their only road. It was one of the first orders issued by
the government of Mulinuu after the coming of the chief justice, to have
the passage cleared. It is the disgrace of Mataafa that the thing is not
yet done.
The village of Malie is the scene of prosperity and peace. In a very
good account of a visit there, published in the _Australasian_, the
writer describes it to be fortified; she must have been deceived by the
appearance of some pig walls on the shore. There is no fortification, no
parade of war. I understand that from one to five hundred fighting men
are always within reach; but I have never seen more than five together
under arms, and these were the king's guard of honour. A Sabbath quiet
broods over the well-weeded green, the picketed horses, the troops of
pigs, the round or oval native dwellings. Of these there are a
surprising number, very fine of their sort: yet more are in the building;
and in the midst a tall house of assembly, by far the greatest Samoan
structure now in these islands, stands about half finished and already
makes a figure in the landscape. No bustle is to be observed, but the
work accomplished testifies to a still activity.
The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself,
Malietoa-Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king--or not king--or king-claimant--of
Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Native deputations bring
him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers, to their
indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from his path by
his armed guards. He summons his dancers by the note of a bugle. He
sits nightly at home before a semicircle of talking-men from many
quarters of the islands, delivering and hearing those ornate and elegant
orations in which the Samoan heart delights. About himself and all his
surroundings there breathes a striking sense of order, tranquillity, and
native plenty. He is of a tall and powerful person, sixty years of age,
white-haired and with a white moustache; his eyes bright and quiet; his
jaw perceptibly underhung, which gives him something of the expression of
a benevolent mastiff; his manners dignified and a thought insinuating,
with an air of a Catholic prelate. He was never married, and a natural
daughter attends upon his guests. Long since he made a vow of
chastity,--"to live as our Lord lived on this earth" and Polynesians
report with bated breath that he has kept it. On all such points, true
to his Catholic training, he is inclined to be even rigid. Lauati, the
pivot of Savaii, has recently repudiated his wife and taken a fairer; and
when I was last in Malie, Mataafa (with a strange superiority to his own
interests) had but just despatched a reprimand. In his immediate circle,
in spite of the smoothness of his ways, he is said to be more respected
than beloved; and his influence is the child rather of authority than
popularity. No Samoan grandee now living need have attempted that which
he has accomplished during the last twelve months with unimpaired
prestige, not only to withhold his followers from war, but to send them
to be judged in the camp of their enemies on Mulinuu. And it is a matter
of debate whether such a triumph of authority were ever possible before.
Speaking for myself, I have visited and dwelt in almost every seat of the
Polynesian race, and have met but one man who gave me a stronger
impression of character and parts.
About the situation, Mataafa expresses himself with unshaken peace. To
the chief justice he refers with some bitterness; to Laupepa, with a
smile, as "my poor brother." For himself, he stands upon the treaty, and
expects sooner or later an election in which he shall be raised to the
chief power. In the meanwhile, or for an alternative, he would willingly
embrace a compromise with Laupepa; to which he would probably add one
condition, that the joint government should remain seated at Malie, a
sensible but not inconvenient distance from white intrigues and white
officials. One circumstance in my last interview particularly pleased
me. The king's chief scribe, Esela, is an old employe under Tamasese,
and the talk ran some while upon the character of Brandeis. Loyalty in
this world is after all not thrown away; Brandeis was guilty, in Samoan
eyes, of many irritating errors, but he stood true to Tamasese; in the
course of time a sense of this virtue and of his general uprightness has
obliterated the memory of his mistakes; and it would have done his heart
good if he could have heard his old scribe and his old adversary join in
praising him. "Yes," concluded Mataafa, "I wish we had Planteisa back
again." _A quelque chose malheur est bon_. So strong is the impression
produced by the defects of Cedarcrantz and Baron Senfft, that I believe
Mataafa far from singular in this opinion, and that the return of the
upright Brandeis might be even welcome to many.
I must add a last touch to the picture of Malie and the pretender's life.
About four in the morning, the visitor in his house will be awakened by
the note of a pipe, blown without, very softly and to a soothing melody.
This is Mataafa's private luxury to lead on pleasant dreams. We have a
bird here in Samoa that about the same hour of darkness sings in the
bush. The father of Mataafa, while he lived, was a great friend and
protector to all living creatures, and passed under the by-name of _the
King of Birds_. It may be it was among the woodland clients of the sire
that the son acquired his fancy for this morning music.
* * * * *
I have now sought to render without extenuation the impressions received:
of dignity, plenty, and peace at Malie, of bankruptcy and distraction at
Mulinuu. And I wish I might here bring to an end ungrateful labours. But
I am sensible that there remain two points on which it would be improper
to be silent. I should be blamed if I did not indicate a practical
conclusion; and I should blame myself if I did not do a little justice to
that tried company of the Land Commissioners.
The Land Commission has been in many senses unfortunate. The original
German member, a gentleman of the name of Eggert, fell early into
precarious health; his work was from the first interrupted, he was at
last (to the regret of all that knew him) invalided home; and his
successor had but just arrived. In like manner, the first American
commissioner, Henry C. Ide, a man of character and intelligence, was
recalled (I believe by private affairs) when he was but just settling
into the spirit of the work; and though his place was promptly filled by
ex-Governor Ormsbee, a worthy successor, distinguished by strong and
vivacious common sense, the break was again sensible. The English
commissioner, my friend Bazett Michael Haggard, is thus the only one who
has continued at his post since the beginning. And yet, in spite of
these unusual changes, the Commission has a record perhaps unrivalled
among international commissions. It has been unanimous practically from
the first until the last; and out of some four hundred cases disposed of,
there is but one on which the members were divided. It was the more
unfortunate they should have early fallen in a difficulty with the chief
justice. The original ground of this is supposed to be a difference of
opinion as to the import of the Berlin Act, on which, as a layman, it
would be unbecoming if I were to offer an opinion. But it must always
seem as if the chief justice had suffered himself to be irritated beyond
the bounds of discretion. It must always seem as if his original attempt
to deprive the commissioners of the services of a secretary and the use
of a safe were even senseless; and his step in printing and posting a
proclamation denying their jurisdiction were equally impolitic and
undignified. The dispute had a secondary result worse than itself. The
gentleman appointed to be Natives' Advocate shared the chief justice's
opinion, was his close intimate, advised with him almost daily, and
drifted at last into an attitude of opposition to his colleagues. He
suffered himself besides (being a layman in law) to embrace the interest
of his clients with something of the warmth of a partisan. Disagreeable
scenes occurred in court; the advocate was more than once reproved, he
was warned that his consultations with the judge of appeal tended to
damage his own character and to lower the credit of the appellate court.
Having lost some cases on which he set importance, it should seem that he
spoke unwisely among natives. A sudden cry of colour prejudice went up;
and Samoans were heard to assure each other that it was useless to appear
before the Land Commission, which was sworn to support the whites.
This deplorable state of affairs was brought to an end by the departure
from Samoa of the Natives' Advocate. He was succeeded _pro tempore_ by a
young New Zealander, E. W. Gurr, not much more versed in law than
himself, and very much less so in Samoan. Whether by more skill or
better fortune, Gurr has been able in the course of a few weeks to
recover for the natives several important tracts of land; and the
prejudice against the Commission seems to be abating as fast as it arose.
I should not omit to say that, in the eagerness of the original advocate,
there was much that was amiable; nor must I fail to point out how much
there was of blindness. Fired by the ardour of pursuit, he seems to have
regarded his immediate clients as the only natives extant and the epitome
and emblem of the Samoan race. Thus, in the case that was the most
exclaimed against as "an injustice to natives," his client, Puaauli, was
certainly nonsuited. But in that intricate affair who lost the money?
The German firm. And who got the land? Other natives. To twist such a
decision into evidence, either of a prejudice against Samoans or a
partiality to whites, is to keep one eye shut and have the other
bandaged.
And lastly, one word as to the future. Laupepa and Mataafa stand over
against each other, rivals with no third competitor. They may be said to
hold the great name of Malietoa in commission; each has borne the style,
each exercised the authority, of a Samoan king; one is secure of the
small but compact and fervent following of the Catholics, the other has
the sympathies of a large part of the Protestant majority, and upon any
sign of Catholic aggression would have more. With men so nearly
balanced, it may be asked whether a prolonged successful exercise of
power be possible for either. In the case of the feeble Laupepa, it is
certainly not; we have the proof before us. Nor do I think we should
judge, from what we see to-day, that it would be possible, or would
continue to be possible, even for the kingly Mataafa. It is always the
easier game to be in opposition. The tale of David and Saul would
infallibly be re-enacted; once more we shall have two kings in the
land,--the latent and the patent; and the house of the first will become
once more the resort of "every one that is in distress, and every one
that is in debt, and every one that is discontented." Against such odds
it is my fear that Mataafa might contend in vain; it is beyond the bounds
of my imagination that Laupepa should contend at all. Foreign ships and
bayonets is the cure proposed in Mulinuu. And certainly, if people at
home desire that money should be thrown away and blood shed in Samoa, an
effect of a kind, and for the time, may be produced. Its nature and
prospective durability I will ask readers of this volume to forecast for
themselves. There is one way to peace and unity: that Laupepa and
Mataafa should be again conjoined on the best terms procurable. There
may be other ways, although I cannot see them; but not even malevolence,
not even stupidity, can deny that this is one. It seems, indeed, so
obvious, and sure, and easy, that men look about with amazement and
suspicion, seeking some hidden motive why it should not be adopted.
To Laupepa's opposition, as shown in the case of the Lauati scheme, no
dweller in Samoa will give weight, for they know him to be as putty in
the hands of his advisers. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we are
many of us driven to the conclusion that the stumbling-block is Fangalii,
and that the memorial of that affair shadows appropriately the house of a
king who reigns in right of it. If this be all, it should not trouble us
long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remains for her only
to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded prejudice, and allow to
him, who was sole king before the plenipotentiaries assembled, and who
would be sole king to-morrow if the Berlin Act could be rescinded, a
fitting share of rule. The future of Samoa should lie thus in the hands
of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are already fixed. Great
concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group, in his view, is but as
a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns has bled on too many
august scenes of victory to remember for ever a blundering skirmish in
the plantation of Vailele. It is to him--to the sovereign of the wise
Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,--that I make my appeal.
_May_ 25, 1892.
FOOTNOTES
{1} Brother and successor of Theodor.