Marianas history being compiled of Samoa chiefs on Saipan

Transcript

A Northern Marianas historian is working to compile a complete history of a group of Samoan chiefs who formed a community on Saipan 100 years ago.

The 10 chiefs were part of an independence movement in what was then German Samoa, and in 1909, the German governor exiled them to Saipan, which was also under German control.

Scott Russell, from the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, told Jamie Tahana that little is known about the Samoan community on Saipan, and he's working to change that.

SCOTT RUSSELL: It involved 10 chiefs from what is now independent Samoa and they had been involved in a movement to get some chiefly prerogatives reinstated that had been banned by the German administration, and as a result of this movement, the German government decided they needed to be put in chiefly exile, and because Saipan was also a German colony at the time, that was the island that was selected for exile.

JAMIE TAHANA: So they were exiled there for how long?

SR: I'm not sure exactly how long it would have lasted but World War I intervened and of course German Samoa became New Zealand territory and the Northern Marianas was taken over by the Japanese, and so when the Japanese navy came in, they were petitioned by senior chief Lauaki to be repatriated home, and finally I think in August of 1915, arrangements were made to repatriate the surviving chiefs.  They were here from 1909 until 1915, so about six years, slightly over six years.

JT:  What did they do while on Saipan?

SR:  They lived a pretty typical life, they were given land just north of the main settlement along the beach, and they built 10 Samoan style houses and they also had another one for their pastor, so they had their own church, and there were 72 people altogether, it was the 10 chiefs plus their immediate family and a few servants.

JT:  And so you have embarked on a project to conserve the memory of this Saipan exile, just take us through what this involves?

SR:  It's a bit of history that people know just barely, if you look through our history books, there are a few references to the fact that there were a group of exile Samoan chiefs here but pretty much that was all the information that anybody had, and maybe about 15 years ago, maybe more than that maybe 17 - 18 years ago I was doing some research in papers of an American naval officer and I came across a type script which was a translated account of the youngest chief who was exiled here, and he, rather then being sent back, he decided he wanted to go back to Guam and so he made his own arrangements and took off in a Samoan style paddling canoe one day and he paddled his way to Guam, he had spent his time on Saipan learning to speak German with the idea that he could get a job with the German colonial government when he reached back to Samoa but then when the war intervened he realised that his time learning German had been a waste, and he decided he was going to learn English and he was given a job in the navy printing office and he was there from 1915 to 1919 after which he felt he knew English well enough to guess I deal with New Zealand.

JT:  Is there much other information?

SR:  We have been collecting it probably but of the off spin of this project is to put together a booklet that combines historical accounts with the remembered oral historical information, so we are working on that now with some colleagues in independent Samoa.

JT:  How long is that likely to take to compile?

SR:  Well we are hoping to have something maybe within a year because we pretty much gotten the German colonial records of the exiles, we are now looking into the British and Japanese side of things.

JT:  On Saipan itself, is there much of a legacy of this?

SR:  Unfortunately they were just north of an area that became a naval sea plane base for the Japanese and by the US military,  so any traces of their village were long since eradicated.