Looks back at the American involvement in the islands, historical events, cultural artifacts, and the people and topography of the islands.

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.

A History of America Samoa is a high school level textbook initiated and completed by the Amerika Samoa Humanities Council. The content detailed in the book ranges from the migration, discovery, and inhabitation of the western Pacific and specifically Samoa, today known as a territory just over a hundred years old. This textbook is written from the perspective of both oral and written accounts of Samoan history. It covers the geographical formation, historical inhabitation, and development of American Samoa through legends, geography, and timelines that help span a time period beginning with the earliest signs of human integration to today's modern setting. This text weaves together the historical account of a little known island with its people spread throughout the globe, through local myth, legend, and authentic biographical information in this comprehensive history of American Samoa.

First published in 1928, "Coming of Age in Samoa" is Margaret Mead's classic sociological examination of adolescence during the first part of the 20th century in American Samoa. Sent by the Social Science Research Council to study the youths of a so-called "primitive" culture, Margaret Mead would spend nine months attempting to ascertain if the problems of adolescences in western society were merely a function of youth or a result of cultural and social differences. "Coming of Age in Samoa" is her report of those findings, in which the author details various aspects of Samoan life including, education, social and household structure, and sexuality. The book drew great public interest when it was first published and also criticism from those who did not like the perceived message that the carefree sexuality of Samoan girls might be the reason for their lack of neuroses. "Coming of Age in Samoa" has also been criticized for the veracity of Mead's account, though current public opinion seems to fall on the side of her work being largely a factual one, if not one of great anthropological rigor. At the very least "Coming of Age in Samoa" remains an interesting historical account of tribal Samoan life during the first part of the 20th century. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Balancing the Tides highlights the influence of marine practices and policies in the unincorporated territory of American Sāmoa on the local indigenous group, the American fishing industry, international seafood consumption, U.S. environmental programs, as well as global ecological and native concerns. Poblete explains how U.S. federal fishing programs in the post–World War II period encouraged labor based out of American Sāmoa to catch and can one-third of all tuna for United States consumption until 2009. Labeled "Made in the USA," this commodity was sometimes caught by non-U.S. regulated ships, produced under labor standards far below continental U.S. minimum wage and maximum work hours, and entered U.S. jurisdiction tax free. The second half of the book explores the tensions between indigenous and U.S. federal government environmental goals and ecology programs. Whether creating the largest National Marine Sanctuary under U.S. jurisdiction or collecting basic data on local fishing, initiatives that balanced western-based and native expectations for respectful community relationships and appropriate government programs fared better than those that did not acknowledge the positionality of all groups involved. Despite being under the direct authority of the United States, American Sāmoans have maintained a degree of local autonomy due to the Deeds of Cession signed with the U.S. Navy at the turn of the twentieth century that created shared indigenous and federal governance in the region. Balancing the Tides demonstrates how western-style economics, policy-making, and knowledge building imposed by the U.S. federal government have been infused into the daily lives of American Sāmoans. American colonial efforts to protect natural resources based on western approaches intersect with indigenous insistence on adhering to customary principles of respect, reciprocity, and native rights in complicated ways. Experiences and lessons learned from these case studies provide insight into other tensions between colonial governments and indigenous peoples engaging in environmental and marine-based policy-making across the Pacific and the globe. This study connects the U.S.-American Sāmoa colonial relationship to global overfishing, world consumption patterns, the for-profit fishing industry, international environmental movements and studies, as well as native experiences and indigenous rights. Open Access publication of this book was made possible by the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, an initiative sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.