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Samoa (; (サモア語:Sāmoa), ), officially the Independent State of Samoa ((サモア語:Malo Sa'oloto Tuto'atasi o Sāmoa)), formerly known as Western Samoa, is a sovereign state in Polynesia, encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and Savai'i, one of the biggest islands in Polynesia. The capital city, Apia, and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu. Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976. The entire island group, which includes American Samoa, was called "Navigator Islands" by European explorers before the 20th century because of the Samoans' seafaring skills. Official languages are English, and Samoan (Gagana Fa'asāmoa) which is also spoken in American Samoa. ==History== (詳細はscientists to a likely true age of circa 3,000 years ago from a Lapita site at Mulifanua during the 1970s. The origins of the Samoans are closely studied in modern research about Polynesia in various scientific disciplines such as genetics, linguistics and anthropology. Scientific research is ongoing although a number of different theories exist; including one proposing that the Samoans originated from Austronesian predecessors during the terminal eastward Lapita expansion period from Southeast Asia and Melanesia between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE.〔The Political Economy of Ancient Samoa: Basalt Adze Production and Linkages to Social Status” (Winterhoff 2007)〕 The Samoan origins are currently being reassessed due to new scientific evidence and carbon dating findings from 2003 and onwards. Intimate sociocultural and genetic ties were maintained between the eastern Lapita colonies and the archaeological record supports oral tradition and native genealogies that indicate inter-island voyaging and intermarriage between prehistoric Samoans, Fijians, and Tongans. Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century. Jacob Roggeveen (1659–1729), a Dutchman, was the first known European to sight the Samoan islands in 1722. This visit was followed by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), who named them the ''Navigator Islands'' in 1768. Contact was limited before the 1830s which is when English missionaries and traders began arriving. Mission work in Samoa had begun in late 1830 by John Williams, of the London Missionary Society arriving in Sapapali'i from The Cook Islands and Tahiti. According to Barbara A. West, "The Samoans were also known to engage in 'headhunting,' a ritual of war in which a warrior took the head of his slain opponent to give to his leader, thus proving his bravery."〔West, Barbara A. (2008). ''(Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania )''. Infobase Publishing. p. 704. ISBN 0-8160-7109-8〕 However, Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in Samoa from 1889 until his death in 1894, wrote in ''A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa'', "… the Samoans are gentle people."〔Stevenson, Robert Louis (1892). ''(A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa )'' at Gutenberg. ISBN 978-1847187598〕 The Germans in particular began to show great commercial interest in the Samoan Islands, especially on the island of 'Upolu where German firms monopolised copra and cocoa bean processing. The United States laid its own claim and formed alliances with local native chieftains, most conspicuously on the islands of Tutuila and Manu'a. Britain also sent troops to protect British business enterprise, harbour rights, and consulate office. This was followed by an eight-year civil war, during which each of the three powers supplied arms, training and in some cases combat troops to the warring Samoan parties. The Samoan crisis came to a critical juncture in March 1889 when all three colonial contenders sent warships into Apia harbour, and a larger-scale war seemed imminent. A massive storm on 15 March 1889 damaged or destroyed the warships, ending the military conflict. The Second Samoan Civil War reached a head in 1898 when Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States were locked in dispute over who should control the Samoa Islands. The Siege of Apia occurred in March 1899. Samoan forces loyal to Prince Tanu were besieged by a larger force of Samoan rebels loyal to Mata'afa Iosefo. Supporting Prince Tanu were landing parties from four British and American warships. After several days of fighting, the Samoan rebels were finally defeated.〔Mains, P. John; McCarty, Louis Philippe (1906). The Statistician and Economist: Volume 23. p. 249〕 American and British warships shelled Apia on 15 March 1899, including the USS ''Philadelphia''. Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States quickly resolved to end the hostilities and divided the island chain at the Tripartite Convention of 1899, signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900.〔Ryden, George Herbert. ''The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa''. New York: Octagon Books, 1975. (Reprint by special arrangement with Yale University Press. Originally published at New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. 574〕 The eastern island-group became a territory of the United States (the Tutuila Islands in 1900 and officially Manu'a in 1904) and was known as American Samoa. The western islands, by far the greater landmass, became German Samoa. The United Kingdom had vacated all claims in Samoa and in return received (1) termination of German rights in Tonga, (2) all of the Solomon Islands south of Bougainville, and (3) territorial alignments in West Africa.〔Ryden, p. 571〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Samoa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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