The Mau movement was the name given to the popular nonviolent movement for Samoan independence from colonial rule. Mau means "opinion" or "testimony" in Samoan. The Mau had its origins, in 1908, in a dispute between the German colonial administration and the Maloa o Samoa, or Samoan Council of Chiefs, over the establishment of a copra business owned and controlled by native Samoans. The dispute led to the formation of a resistance movement on the island of Savai'i by Mamoe, one of the chiefs deposed by the ...

Including:

• Mau movement - Influenza epidemic
• Mau movement - O.F. Nelson
• Mau movement - Civil disobedience
• Mau movement - Black Saturday
• Mau movement - Moving towards independence
• Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia - Mau movement

The Samoan independence movement would not gain strength again until after New Zealand forces, unopposed by the German rulers, annexed Western Samoa in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. Military rule continued after the war ended, and in 1919, some 8,500 Samoans – around 22 per cent of the population – died during an influenza epidemic. Many Samoans blamed the New Zealand controlled administration, which had allowed a ship carrying the ...

See also:

Mau movement, Mau movement - Influenza epidemic, Mau movement - O.F. Nelson, Mau movement - Civil disobedience, Mau movement - Black Saturday, Mau movement - Moving towards independence, Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - Influenza epidemic

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 los ...

See also:

Mau movement, Mau movement - Influenza epidemic, Mau movement - O.F. Nelson, Mau movement - Civil disobedience, Mau movement - Black Saturday, Mau movement - Moving towards independence, Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - O.F. Nelson

The Mau movement had not gone unnoticed by the population of New Zealand, and the treatment of Samoans at the hands of the administration had become a contentious issue in some New Zealand electorates during the 1929 election. 1936 marked a turning point for Samoa, with the election of a Labour Government in New Zealand and the subsequent relaxation of repression by the Samoan administration. Under the new Government, there was slow movement towards greater involv ...

See also:

Mau movement, Mau movement - Influenza epidemic, Mau movement - O.F. Nelson, Mau movement - Civil disobedience, Mau movement - Black Saturday, Mau movement - Moving towards independence, Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - Moving towards independence

The new administrator, Stephen Allen, replaced the marines with a special force of New Zealand police, and began to target the leaders of the movement. Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, who had lad the movement following the exile of Nelson, was arrested for non-payment of taxes and imprisoned for six months. On 28 December, 1929 – which would be know thereafter as "Black Saturday" – Tamasese III and ten other Samoan Mau leaders were killed when the police force fired upon a peaceful demonstration which had assembled to welcome home A.G. Smyth, a European movement l ...

See also:

Mau movement, Mau movement - Influenza epidemic, Mau movement - O.F. Nelson, Mau movement - Civil disobedience, Mau movement - Black Saturday, Mau movement - Moving towards independence, Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - Black Saturday

The Mau remained true to this sentiment, and despite the exile of Nelson, continued to use civil disobedience to oppose the New Zealand administration. They boycotted imported products, refused to pay taxes and formed their own "police force", picketing stores in Apia to prevent the payment of customs to the authorities. Village committees established by the administration ceased to meet and government officials were ignored when the went on tour. Births and deaths went unregistered. Coconuts went unha ...

See also:

Mau movement, Mau movement - Influenza epidemic, Mau movement - O.F. Nelson, Mau movement - Civil disobedience, Mau movement - Black Saturday, Mau movement - Moving towards independence, Mau movement - An American Samoa Mau

Read more here: » Mau movement: Encyclopedia II - Mau movement - Civil disobedience