page_title: Mau movement
section_title: Influenza epidemic
hierarchical_section_title: Mau movement / History / Influenza epidemic
caption_attribution_description: English: SS Talune in Port Chalmers, New Zealand graving dock, c 1890s.
context_page_description: The Mau was a non-violent movement for Samoan independence from colonial rule during the first half of the 20th century. Mau means ‘resolute’ or ‘resolved’ in the sense of ‘opinion’, ‘unwavering’, ‘to be decided’, or ‘testimony’; also denoting ‘firm strength’ in Samoan. The motto for the Mau were the words Samoa mo Samoa. Similarly in Hawai'ian Mau means to strive or persevere, and is often linked with Hawai'ian poetry relating to independence and sovereignty struggles.
  The movement had its beginnings on the island of Savai'i with the Mau a Pule resistance in the early 1900s with widespread support throughout the country by the late 1920s. As the movement grew, leadership came under the country's chiefly elite, the customary matai leaders entrenched in Samoan tradition and fa'a Samoa. The Mau included women who supported the national organisation through leadership and organisation as well as taking part in marches. Supporters wore a Mau uniform of a navy blue lavalava with a white stripe which was later banned by the colonial administration.
context_section_description: 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 7,500 Samoans, around 22 per cent of the population, died during an influenza epidemic. It was already known that Samoans were most susceptible to minor European diseases, as they had never encountered them before. When the ship SS Talune arrived in Apia with its crew and passengers obviously sick with influenza, they were allowed to dock by the New Zealanders.
  Two days later the first deaths were reported. No attempt was made by the New Zealand administrators to quell or contain the spread, and after one week it had spread through the whole of Samoa. Whole families were killed, with such alarming speed that corpses lay around for weeks without being buried. They were either thrown in mass graves or left in houses which were torched. However, in American Samoa, where quarantine precaution measures had been adequately taken, there were no deaths. Upon learning of the situation in Western Samoa, the American Governor offered help to Colonel Robert Logan who was in charge; Logan was British born and hated Americans. He destroyed the telegram and cut off any other contact to American Samoa. The Americans had a large medical team who could have saved many lives.
  This catastrophic event was to lay a new foundation for discontent with an administration already perceived as incompetent and dishonest by many Samoans. The clumsy handling of Samoa's governance, the slow and deliberate erosion of traditional Samoan social structures by successive administrators, and a general failure to understand and respect Samoan culture also sowed the seeds for a revitalised resistance to colonial rule. Logan was replaced by Colonel Robert Tate.
caption: SS Talune in Port Chalmers graving dock in New Zealand c. 1890s
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