100,000 Samoans
p. 133 · Read in the full issue
There Are Over 100,000 Samoans
The annual report of the New Zealand Government on the Trustee Territory of Western Samoa shows the estimated population on December 31, 1957, as 100,455.
This, probably, is the most remark able recovery of an indigenous popu lation in the South Pacific Islands, most of which suffered grievously under impact with Europeans.
In 1839, Samoa’s population was esti mated at 46,600. The first census taken by the Germans, in 1906, showed 33,478. Many thousands had been killed by a measles epidemic in the ’9o’s.
The black ’flu in 1918 killed 7,000 Samoans. When New Zealand took over in 1921, there were only 33,000.
By 1930, the population was 40,000.
Natural increase in the last 27 years has been steady and rapid.
The 100.000 includes some 650 pure Europeans. and about 7,000 part- Europeans, most of whom have status of Europeans.
Apart from the Maoris of NZ, the Western Samoans are the largest Poly nesian community. There are also some 15,000 Samoans in American Samoa.
This is the largest one-race community in Polynesia or Micronesia—all other Territories have large communities of other races. The Chinese community was removed from Samoa over 20 years ago.