210 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



deserters from ships, and the nondescript ne'er-do-wells 

 who infested the Pacific islands in the earlier days, drifted 

 in the course of their wanderings to Samoa. They came 

 from time to time, either for gain or adventure, or else to- 

 escape the consequences of crimes committed in more civilized 

 parts of the world. At that early day in the far-away haven 

 of the Central Pacific, retribution followed slowly the mis- 

 deeds of men. Missionaries came and found in Samoa a 

 congenial field. Whalers from New Bedford and Sydney 

 touched at the islands for fresh supplies, and to enjoy a 

 period of revelry. Those are recorded by South Sea chroni- 

 clers as the romantic days of the small trader and the ubiqui- 

 tous " beach-comber," - the days of native simplicity and 

 welcome that preceded the modern period of organized com- 

 mercial enterprise. With German, English, and American 

 trading firms soliciting business upon the islands, Samoa 

 entered upon an era of foreign interference and arrogance, 

 an era of mischievous political plots and counter-plots, 

 . of bitter jealousies and war. The Samoans then discovered 

 that the white men, whom they had revered as superior 

 beings, were morally no better than themselves, if, indeed, 

 they were quite as good. The natives were wholly disen- 

 chanted when they found at last that the white man's 

 anxious solicitude for theirwelfare was a negative charity 

 based^jQn_greed . FfnallyThe Samoans realized that they 

 must accept willy-nilly the invincible white strangers who 

 had settled among them, and whom they could never drive 

 away. 



As early as 1850, England, Germany, and the United States 

 were represented by commercial agents in Apia; and in 1854 

 the great South Sea trading firm of Godefrroy and Company, 

 of Hamburg, a chartered monopoly, established itself upon 

 Upolu. For many years thereafter the history of Samoa was 

 the history of this well-organized trading company. Under 

 the able leadership of its first manager, Theodore Weber, who, 

 it appears, was both chief of the firm and German Consul, the 

 company prospered marvellously. By a mortgage system 

 admitting of skilful manipulation of titles, which was quite 



