Samoa Guardian
To mark Samoan Language week, we are featuring a great
Samoan resource in our heritage collections whose existence was alerted to me
by a sleuth-like colleague.
We have a carbon copy typescript of the Samoa guardian from 26 May 1927 to 6 June 1929. Though this
transcript finishes in June it provides a particularly valuable historical
record of the two years leading up to the disastrous events of Black Saturday.
The Samoa guardian came
into Auckland Libraries collection through a donation from the estate of the
Rev. Albert Bygrave Chappell on 25 January 1951 along with some of his
other papers which are now part of our Manuscripts collection. The mystery
in the provenance is how this ended up in the possession of Rev. Chappell in
the first place and why did he have a carbon copy typescript? It is also
curious to note that this came into the library’s possession in 1951, but Rev.
Chappell passed away in 1942.
Although the Samoa guardian
was published in English, it is still an important resource as it was
essentially the voice of the opposition to New Zealand rule in Samoa. Indeed
going on this report
in the Herald it looks as though a Samoan language version of this
publication was outlawed by the administration.
According to Allan Kirk in Samoa’s fight for freedom the Samoa
Guardian was set up by three prominent residents of Western Samoa, as it was
known then: Olaf Nelson, Edwin Gurr and George Westbrook. "Knowing the value of
information, Nelson, Edwin Gurr – a Western Samoan resident – and George
Westbrook – another resident and trader – launched the ‘Samoa Guardian’, an
opposition newspaper. It was printed in purple ink to match the colour of the lavalavas worn by members of the Mau. Before long nearly all Western
Samoans wore purple lavalavas (p.16)."
A note on
our record says that articles in the newspaper by “Claymore” have been
identified as being by Thomas Benjamin Slipper (1879-1940) who was a solicitor
and counsel for the Mau..
Slipper pops up again and again during his time in Samoa
defending locals, criticising the administration and working for justice.
Slipper seems to have immediately attracted the attention of the officials in
Samoa as Field notes here during July 1927, ”Richardson was pressing for urgent
deportation of the six white members of the committee, as well as a recently
arrived lawyer from Wanganui, Thomas Slipper, who was siding with the Mau (Field,
1991, p.100).” Just a few months later, in September, Slipper is found
representing the Mau when the royal commission arrived in Samoa. Chaired by New
Zealand Chief Justice Sir
Charles Skerret with Native Land Court Judge Charles McCormick, the
commission’s terms of reference were reasonably loose. It was to inquire
whether there was any “just and reasonable cause” for complaints about the
Administration, whether officials had failed or exceeded in their duties and
whether it would be “prudent and safe” to abolish banishment (Field, 1991,
p.101)."
The New Zealand Government ship Maui Pomare (which seems to have had a chequered
past) bought a serious influenza outbreak to Samoa, which the
administration in Samoa tried to cover up. Slipper again intervenes:
On 25 May Stephen
Shepherd Allen, the colonial administrator of Samoa, stopped a telegram the
lawyer Slipper wanted to send to Nelson in which he said since the visit of Maui Pomare seventy-two people had died
on the northern ‘Upolu coast and 1820 people were ill due to influenza. So
Slipper had the message sent from Pago Pago. In addition to Slipper posting
news to Nelson, who was exiled at this time, “in July the New Zealand Samoa Guardian published the names of 68 people who had
died in ‘Upolu since Maui Pomare’s
visit. Allen continued to hold that no epidemic existed. The Mau claimed that
the death toll eventually reached 1000 (Field, 2006, p.129)."
Slipper seems to have again been in the thick of things when
the police opened fire on striking Chinese plantation workers. Akui Ah Quoi was
blamed by the administration for inciting the labour strike and then deported.
Slipper lodged a writ of habeas corpus demanding his release but the court
refused to grant it (Field, 2006, p.134).
Slipper represented the relatives of the victims of Black
Saturday. After that trial when the police were searching villages for other
members of the Mau, Molia a sixteen year old boy was shot and fatally wounded
by a police officer. At the instigation of Slipper, Luxford took a dying deposition
from the boy who described how he was shot whilst unarmed.
After this the Women’s Mau hired Slipper to make written
representations to Blake and Allen concerning village searches after they had
seen Allen personally and failed to get satisfactory assurances on the conduct
of the troops.
Writing this letter was to be Slipper’s last work for the
Mau. Below are excerpts from it, taken from Michael Field’s 1991 book titled Mau:
“These leading ladies departed from your presence…with the
full conviction that no protection against terrorisation of women and children
could be granted by Your Excellency, and that Your Excellency’s attitude was
such that terrorisation must be expected.”
“I am instructed that it appears to the ladies of Samoa that
their representations to Your Excellency as to the safety of themselves and
their children are regarded as of no consequence."
"It is regrettable that death and bloodshed appear to be of
small consequence to Your Excellency as compared with the desire, evident and
expressed, of absolutism.”
For writing this letter Slipper was prosecuted by Allen for
defamatory libel, Luxford found Slipper guilty and sent him to jail for three
months and fined him £105. Slipper unsuccessfully appealed and at the end of
his prison term was deported from Samoa (Field, 1991, pp.178/9).
A decade after being deported from Samoa, the
papers in New Zealand reported
that Slipper committed suicide by poison in an Auckland boarding house.
If anyone can shed further light on the provenance of this
typescript please do get in touch, it would much appreciated. With some more
digging around there could even be a book here!
Further reading:
The NZETC has a digitised copy of Samoa
under the sailing Gods available, containing an appendix
of Slipper being critical of General
Richardson.
The National Library blogged about the recent
digitisation of four of Samoa’s newspapers and their availability on
Paperspast which will provide a great resource for people interested in Samoa’s
history.
References:
You can read our previous blog posts on Heritage
et AL about Samoa and have a look at our Samoa Historypin
collection.
Author: Andrew Henry
I'm not surprised Rev. A.B. Chappell had copies made of the NZ Samoa Guardian. He was the Government's fiercest supporter in the fight against Nelson and the Mau, and wrote tirelessly in the press in favour of the Government's policy. See A.B. Chappell, The Stir in Samoa: An Independent Review (1928).
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting to know, thank you. I'll certainly have a look at that book.
Delete- Andrew