Sāmoa and Traditional Land Tenure

Kruse describes the symbiosis between the Sāmoan land tenure system, fa’amātai, and fa’asāmoa, keystones of Sāmoan culture. Kruse describes Sāmoan society prior to the coming of the papālagi, elucidates the centrality of communal land tenure under the traditional political structure to support the chiefly system and its distribution of resources and communal lands. Kruse conducts original quantitative collection of archival data to examine the mātai registration system in comparison to the land tenure holdings in American Sāmoa. The chapter studies the legal and political history of American Sāmoa, situating the economic and geopolitical significance of Pago Pago’s harbor.