German Samoa
Substate | Defunct
1900 CE to 1919 CE
German Samoa (German: Deutsch-Samoa) is a German protectorate from 1900 to 1919, consisting of the islands of Upolu, Savai'i, Apolima, and Manono, now wholly within the independent state of Samoa, formerly Western Samoa.
Samoa is the last German colonial acquisition in the Pacific basin, received following the Tripartite Convention signed at Washington on December 2, 1899 with ratifications exchanged on February 16, 1900.
It is the only German colony in the Pacific, aside from the Kiautschou Bay concession in China, that is administered separately from German New Guinea.
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Albert Fuller Ellis identifies phosphate deposits on the Pacific Islands of Nauru and Banaba Island (Ocean Island), and manages their development.
The Pacific Phosphate Company begins to exploit the reserves in 1906 under an arrangement with the German administrators of the island, exporting its first shipment in 1907.
Ellis was born in Roma, Queensland; his family moved to Waikato in New Zealand, where he attended the Cambridge District High School.
At the age of eighteen, Ellis joined his brothers James and George in working for John T. Arundel and Co.; their father George C. Ellis, a chemist, and later a farmer in New Zealand, was a director of the company.
John T. Arundel and Co. was engaged in Pacific trading of phosphates, copra, and pearl shell.
While working in the company's Sydney office in 1899 Ellis determined that a large rock from Nauru being used as a doorstop was rich in phosphate.
Following the discovery Ellis traveled to Ocean Island and Nauru and confirmed the discovery.
Operations on Ocean Island commenced three months after the discovery.
Samoa's eastern island-group, ceded by local chiefs, becomes a territory of the United States (the Tutuila Islands in 1900 and officially Manu'a in 1904) and is known as American Samoa.
The western islands, by far the greater landmass, become German Samoa.
The United Kingdom has vacated all claims in Samoa and in return received (1) termination of German rights in Tonga, (2) all of the Solomon Islands south of Bougainville, and (3) territorial alignments in West Africa.
The U.S. Senate accepts the British-German Treaty of 1899, in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the American Samoa portion of the Samoan Islands, on January 5, 1900.