Historedia
Episode 2 of 3

U.S. Control of American Samoa

When
19 February 1900
Where
American Samoa
Part of
Tripartite Convention partitions Samoa

The U.S. placed Tutuila and islands east of 171 degrees west longitude under Navy control via executive order in February 1900.

President William McKinley signed an executive order on 19 February 1900, placing Tutuila and other islands east of 171 degrees west longitude under the Department of the Navy for a naval station. The eastern island group became known as American Samoa, with Tutuila ceded in 1900.

Sources

  1. Tripartite Convention Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
  2. Samoa Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-02
  3. American Samoa Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-10

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.