Read more
This book is a researched study of land issues in American Samoa that analyzes the impact of U.S. colonialism and empire building in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Carefully tracing changes in land laws up to the present, this volume also draws on a careful examination of legal traditions, administrative decisions, court cases and rising tensions between indigenous customary land tenure practices in American Samoa and Western notions of individual private ownership. It also highlights how unusual the status of American Samoa is in its relationship with the U.S., namely as the only "unincorporated" and "unorganized" overseas territory, and aims to expand the U.S. empire-building scholarship to include and recognize American Samoa into the vernacular of Americanization projects.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Samoa and Traditional Land Tenure.- 3. American International Expansion.- 4. US Naval Administration of American Samoa.- 5. Ex Proprio Vigore and the Insular Cases.- 6. American Samoan Legal History: 1900-1941.- 7. Individually Owned Lands and Communal Land Tenure.- 8. Retention of Communal Lands.- 9. Legal and Political Futures for American Samoa.- 10. Conclusion.
About the author
Line-Noue Memea Kruse is Assistant Professor of Pacific History at University of Hawai'i at Hilo, US.
Summary
This book is a researched study of land issues in American Sāmoa that analyzes the impact of U.S. colonialism and empire building in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Carefully tracing changes in land laws up to the present, this volume also draws on a careful examination of legal traditions, administrative decisions, court cases and rising tensions between indigenous customary land tenure practices in American Sāmoa and Western notions of individual private ownership. It also highlights how unusual the status of American Sāmoa is in its relationship with the U.S., namely as the only “unincorporated” and “unorganized” overseas territory, and aims to expand the U.S. empire-building scholarship to include and recognize American Sāmoa into the vernacular of Americanization projects.
