Tripartite Convention The Tripartite Convention of 1899 resulted in the act that formally partitioned the Samoan archipelago into a German colony and a United States colony and was the culmination of years of civil war among Samoan factions and of rivalry between the United States , Germany and the United Kingdom at the brink of war . Forerunners to the Tripartite Convention of 1899 were the Washington Conference of 1887 , the Treaty of Berlin of 1889 and the Anglo - German Agreement on Samoa of 1899 . For the Samoans the convention meant that their immediate future was decided in the light of Western interests , as they now lost an independence that had been nominal at best . Politics prior to the convention . By the 1870s modern economic conditions were well established and accepted by the Samoans , who had just enough of a government that could be manipulated at will by the foreign business interests in Samoa . After the United States concluded a friendship treaty with Samoa in 1878 , Germany negotiated her own Favorite Nation Treaty in 1879 with the same Samoan faction as the U . S . , while later in 1879 the Anglo - Samoan treaty was completed with a rival faction . Contentions among the whites in Samoa , plus native factional strife led to side - choosing that became deadly warring with the introduction of modern weapons . Washington conference of 1887 To attempt to resolve some of the problems , the United States , Germany and the United Kingdom agreed to a conference at Washington in June 1887 . After the surfacing of serious disagreements among the parties , the conference adjourned without results . Fighting by nationals of the three powers with their factional local allies led to a conflict that was only tempered by the Apia hurricane of 1889 that wrecked warships on the verge of hostilities . Treaty of Berlin of 1889 The seriousness of the situation was finally recognized and German foreign minister Count Herbert von Bismarck ( chancellor Otto von Bismarck ’ s son ) proposed to reconvene the adjourned Washington conference of 1887 . He invited U . S . and British representatives to Berlin in April 1889 . Bismarck ’ s pragmatic approach proposed protection for life , property and commerce of the treaty participants and relegated native government and their unstable " kings " to the Samoans , with which the British concurred . The United States insisted on a three powers authority while preserving native rights . In the Treaty of Berlin of 1889 thus a joint protectorate or condominium was declared , with a European / American chief justice , a municipal council for Apia , and with the " free right of the natives to elect their Chief or King " as the signatory to the act , thus the treaty professed to recognize a Samoan independent government . No sooner was the native royal figurehead appointed , and after disturbances restored , the other chiefs went into rebellion and civil war ensued . By the end of the 19th century , the failure of the arrangement was freely admitted by the governments of the three powers since the principal protagonists in Samoa acted directly for their own interests , frequently overruling the officials of the condominium . A dissolution of the condominium created by the “ entangling alliance ” was now in play . The Tripartite Convention of 1899 . The German government " had never made a secret of their belief that international control of Samoa was visionary and impractical . . . and they began a series of diplomatic moves intended to eliminate it altogether . " German diplomats in Washington had ascertained during the summer of 1899 that the United States administration was satisfied with obtaining the island of Tutuila with its key asset , the existing coaling station at Pago Pago . With " partitioning of Samoa " by then the prevailing understanding , the United States expressed no objections to Britain and Germany " coming to a preliminary agreement . " Kaiser Wilhelm II had accepted an invitation to visit England in November 1899 and his government insisted that an agreement on Samoa should be concluded before his departure for Britain . A settlement was reached at London by 9 November and signed on 14 November . It was therefore this Anglo - German agreement on Samoa in tandem with the informal understanding with the United States that partitioned Samoa . It only remained for the three powers to negotiate a tripartite convention in order to secure the approval of the United States to the whole agreement . The Tripartite Convention of 1899 was duly constituted and documents were signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 by the U . S . Secretary of State John Hay , Baron Theodor von Holleben , German ambassador to the United States , and Sir Julian Pauncefote , British ambassador to the United States , with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900 . Positions as a result of the Tripartite Convention of 1899 . United States : Germany : United Kingdom : These treaty arrangements of the Tripartite Convention of 1899 stayed in place until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 .