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Years of administering that model colony bred a certain smugness in the good Governor Richardson; and smugness is always dangerous in handling native affairs. Early in 1927 he went to the New Hebrides on a Royal Commission with Governor Sir Eyre Hutson of Fiji. Richardson was on the crest of the wave, feeling his oats in every pore. When the party got back to Fiji I wanted to return his Samoan hospitality, but Richardson’s mind harbored a single thought: go up to Government House again and tell Sir Eyre how to run Fiji. Hutson was one of the smoothest products of the colonial school, and he had learned enough about the treatment of native races to have made Fiji a model for all students of island administration. However, Richardson got to Government House and told Hutson; and Hutson smiled rosily, suavely agreeing that he ought to study Samoa and get some tips on how to run Fiji.
When Richardson finished telling Hutson and returned to Apia, the Mau Rebellion broke right in his face.
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As a doctor I cannot diagnose Samoa’s illness without looking further into the causes that led up to it. The status of the half-caste in Polynesia was at the root of the disturbance. While in dark-skinned Melanesia a touch of white is often a stigma, it is a matter of pride to the peach-tan Maoris, Cook Islanders and Samoans. The European may turn his shoulder on the half-caste, but the Polynesian forgets his insular pride in an eager mating with Europeans; every child with a trace of Northern blood is looked upon as something which approaches the racial ideal. The Samoan highly respects the child of a mixed union—provided the native mother has not been deserted by her husband or mate. There is the case of one distinguished British scientist who experimented with going native, chose a Samoan woman, wore a lavalava around his belly and a hibiscus flower over his ear. Called back to London to account for himself, he left the girl where he found her—and the baby. It was no disgrace that she had to do washing; needy aristocrats often do that. Nor was she ashamed that she couldn’t show a marriage license. She hung her head because Johnson (I’ll call him) had deserted her, and before the baby was born. Johnson wandered to Chicago, where he died; but his beach-widow carefully guards her beautiful son for fear that some of his father’s relatives may come along and claim him.
I heard two half-caste boys quarreling. One howled, “Jonisoni!” and the other yelled, “Anisoni!” They were not accusing one another of bastardy, but raising the accusation that their mothers had been deserted by Johnson and Anderson.
When Germany ruled Samoa every man whose father was registered as a European could himself register as a European. Some so classified were less than one thirty-second white, and many of them could not speak a word of English. When New Zealand took over she had to accept the Made-in-Germany rule. The mental and moral worth of these mixed bloods depended, of course, on the quality of their parents. The product varies; but the more I travel the more I see the brilliant results when two superior beings of opposing races are bred together. After a while I’m going to tell about a few New Zealanders who are legally classed as Maoris.
The fuse that led up to the Mau explosion carried one very dangerous combustible—half-caste jealousy of European social prestige. The jealousy was mutual, I think, for the European wife grew watchful of the lovely half-caste girl with her soft, long-lashed eyes and velvet skin. This girl was getting an education and her parents were grumbling because she could not step into the social sphere which her mind, her manners and her beauty demanded, in all fairness.
Insurgency centered in O. F. Nelson, a half-caste who possessed genius both for business and for political leadership. The chain of Nelson trading stores had bulked him about $1,500,000, an unthinkable fortune to be gathered out of Samoa. Like Nelson, the discontented half-castes had educated their daughters in colleges and upper schools, yet had gained no status for them in European society. The full-blooded Samoan looked up to Nelson, one derived from their own race and so powerful that the Government had to come to him for favors. When he rode out in his handsome car he displayed a coat of arms as large and gaudy as the Governor’s own, and his A.D.C. was in uniform. The native majority was under his control.
Mau means “Stand Fast,” and the stand was against real and fancied wrongs. Trouble brewed when Western Samoan traders howled because American Samoa was outbuying them in the copra market. The quarrel became a crazy patchwork, with Richardson trying to patch the patches. Half-castes were clamoring to be counted as Europeans, even though the change would have endangered their rights. Then Prohibition, that indomitable mischief-maker, raised its old silk hat. Because the Customs House, through an error, got more than its share of liquor on one consignment, the League of Nations, which controlled the Mandate’s thirst, ordained that Western Samoa’s Europeans should have liquor for medical purposes only. Up to then strong drink had been wisely forbidden the natives. Under Prohibition, indignant Europeans taught Samoans to make a vile intoxicant called “bush beer,” and to help themselves to a share of it. All this added native drunkenness to the pattern of revolt.