THE SAMOAN MAU MOVEMENT: NEW ZEALAND CONTROL EXTENDED - THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS MANDATE

1. 13
THE SAMOAN
MAU MOVEMENT
NZ CONTROL EXTENDED:
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS MANDATE

2. NZ CONTROL EXTENDED BY THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
•The League of Nations was a peace
organisation created after World War
1 by the Treaty of Versailles.
•It was meant to be a League that it
will maintain the peace and will
eventually solve all potential
belligerent (war) problems between
countries.

3. THE FORMER GERMAN SAMOA BECAME A MANDATE
•Mandates were regarded as little more than colonies.
•The League of Nations put the former German colony of Samoa under
the control of New Zealand as a mandated territory.
•The League of Nations was established in 1919, and its conception was
the merit of the American president Woodrow Wilson.
•The League’s goal was to maintain world peace and security.

4. GERMANY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
•Following its defeat by the victorious Allied powers in the First World
War, Germany was stripped of its colonial possessions in Africa and the
Pacific, which included German (Western) Samoa.
•Each former colony was known as a mandated territory.
•Mandates were divided into three groups based on their geographical
location and their level of political and economic development.
•Former German territories in the Pacific became “Class C Mandates”
and the most in need of direct rule.

5. WESTERN SAMOA TRUST TERRITORY
•This was the name of the mandate, a name that would remain until the
independence in 1962.

6. SAMOAN PERSPECTIVE
•The 1921 Samoa Act, which provided the foundations of New Zealand
governance in Samoa until Western Samoa’s independence in 1962, was
resented (they hate it, didn’t like it) by Samoans.

7. CLASS WORK AND HOMEWORK
Analyse the following document.
1. Note down the WHERE and WHO is the author of this
primary document.
2. What is the League of Nations?
3. Why did Germany have to renounce its claim over
German Samoa?
4. Which nation accepted the mandate on behalf of the
“Dominion of New Zealand”?
5. Summarise each of the three articles of the mandate in
your own words.