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The Tripartite Convention of 1899 resulted in the act that formally partitioned the Samoan archipelago into a German colony and a United States territory 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.〔Gray, ''Amerika Samoa'', p. 86〕 He invited U.S. and British representatives to Berlin in April 1889.〔Ryden, ''The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa'', p. 455; in deference to the American delegation who had few German or French speakers (French was then the language of international diplomacy), Count Bismarck agreed to conduct the proceedings in English〕 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.〔Gilson, ''Samoa 1830-1900'', p. 396〕 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. 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「Tripartite Convention」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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