Obituary

Peter Tali Coleman (1919-1997) Peter Tali Coleman, the 78-year-old former governor of American Samoa, died at his home in Honolulu of liver cancer on April 28.

Coleman was the son of a US Navy enlisted man and a native Samoan mother.

He was the first native Samoan to receive a law degree from a US university and the first person of Samoan ancestry to serve as a public defender and the island’s attorney general. Selected in 1956 by the Eisenhower administration as the federally appointed governor, he was the first and only native-born Samoan to hold that posi

tion. In that role, he chaired the territorial convention which created Samoa’s first constitution in 1960.

During the 1960 s and 70s, he was administrator for the Republic of the Marshall Islands and later deputy high commissioner of what was then called the Trust Territory of the Pacific. He was the first US citizen to receive an honorary Marshall Islands citizenship by special act of their parliament.

Returning to American Samoa in 1977, he became the first poularly elected gover nor of the island, holding that office from 1978 to 1985 and from 1989 to 1993. This made Coleman the first and only individu al in American history to serve as a gover nor in each of five decades.

Lauded as a “giant of the islands” by officials in the US Interior Department where he began his career, Coleman is remembered as someone who “helped

bring democracy and self-government to

many island jurisdictions, not just American Samoa”.

He played a vital role as Washington loosened its ties, and as the islanders took on the burdens and opportunities of partic

ipatory democracy”.