Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - O.F. Nelson

Mau movement - O.F. Nelson

Samoans of mixed parentage, facing discrimination from both cultures but with the advantage of cross-cultural knowledge, would play a key role in the new movement.

Olaf Frederick Nelson, one of the leaders of the new Mau movement, was a successful merchant of mixed Swedish and Samoan heritage. Wealthy and well-travelled, Nelson was frustrated by the colonial administration's exclusion of native and part-Samoans from governance. Notably, he was one of many who had lost a child to the influenza epidemic of 1919.

In 1926, Nelson visited Wellington to lobby the New Zealand government on the issue of increased self-rule. During his visit, the Minister for External Affairs, William Nosworthy, promised to visit Samoa to investigate. When Nosworthy postponed his trip, Nelson organised two public meetings in Apia, which were attended by hundreds, and The Samoan League, or O le Mau, was formed.

O le Mau published a newspaper, the Samoa Guardian, as a mouthpiece for the movement. To demonstrate the extent of popular support for the Mau Nelson organised a sports meeting for movement members on the King's Birthday, in parallel with the official event, and held a well attended ball at his home on the same night. Movement members had also begun to engage in acts of noncooperation, neglecting the compulsory weekly search for the rhinosaurus beetle, enemy of the coconut palm, thereby threatening the lucrative copra industry.

In 1927, alarmed at the growing strength of the Mau, George Richardson, the administrator of Samoa, changed the law to allow the deportation of Europeans or part-Europeans charged with fomenting unrest. This action was presumably taken on the assumption that the growing movement was merely a product of self-interested Europeans agitating the native Samoans.

In reality, however, the Mau was built upon the traditional forms of Samoan political organisation. In each village that joined the movement, a committee was formed, consisting of the chiefs and "talking men". These committees formed the basic element of an alternative system of governance, and the tendency of Samoans to unite under traditional leadership meant that by the mid to late 1920s, around eight-five per cent of the Samoan population was involved in open resistance.

Following another visit to New Zealand to petition the Government, Nelson was exiled from Samoa along with two other part-European Mau leaders. The petition, which lead to the formation of a joint select committee to investigate the situation in Samoa, quoted an ancient Samoan proverb: "We are moved by love, but never driven by intimidation."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "O.F. Nelson", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki