In 1839, the visit of an American naval vessel marked the first official United States contact with this area. In 1872, the need for a coaling station brought about an agreement between the commander of the U.S. naval vessel Narragansett and the chief of Pago Pago; although the agreement was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, it prevented other nations from making claims on Pago Pago Harbor as international competition for bases in the South Pacific increased.
On December 2, 1899, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany signed a convention wherein the United States retained Eastern Samoa but gave up claims to the islands that now constitute the independent nation of Western Samoa; the convention was ratified by Congress on February 16, 1900. Three days later, President William McKinley, seeking a suitable harbor and fueling station for American vessels in the South Pacific, directed the U.S. Navy to establish United States authority over the area. This was followed by negotiation of a series of deeds of cession with the chiefs of Tutuila (concluded on April 17, 1900) and the chief of the Manu’a group (in July 1904). Swains Island, a coral atoll, was settled by an American in 1856, and his citizenship tied it to the United States; the island officially became part of American Samoa in 1925.
The U.S. Navy governed American Samoa until June 29, 1951, when an Executive Order transferred the administration of the territory to the Department of the Interior. In 1960, American Samoa adopted a constitution. Since 1981, American Samoa has been represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by a nonvoting delegate. (The 103rd Congress gave the delegates from those Outlying Areas represented in the House of Representatives the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole, but not on matters before the entire House.) The Samoan language is spoken commonly in the territory.
