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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: I'm feeling really fabulous. How are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm feeling really good, in part because listeners, I know you're keenly interested in knowing this, but today, I just open a fresh bag of Cuban roast coffee beans. The coffee this morning is particularly yummy.
N. Rodgers: Awesome.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: The smell in the house.
J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, my goodness. It's probably wafting down the street.
N. Rodgers: People are like, what does that smell?
J. Aughenbaugh: For listeners, if you haven't picked up on this, my coffee is so strong that it wakes up my neighbors.
J. Aughenbaugh: My daughter has said that some mornings I don't even have to awake her. She just one, listens to the grinder, grind the beans, and then she goes to the smell of coffee, it just permeates the entire house. She goes, I feel as though my clothes probably reek of the smell of coffee as I go to school.
N. Rodgers: She probably gets a secondary caffeine high all from the smell.
J. Aughenbaugh: But anyways, listeners, today's episode is not about my coffee affection. One could say addiction. Instead, we are continuing our series of US territories. Now, previous episodes Nia, we covered the Northern Marianas.
N. Rodgers: In order, we covered Guam.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: In Puerto Rico.
J. Aughenbaugh: America's Day starts, yes.
N. Rodgers: Yes, and then Puerto Rico where you can get excellent mixed drinks, in addition to other stuff. Then the Northern Marianas, and now we are covering American Samoa.
J. Aughenbaugh: American Samoa. Yes. By the way, there's a reason why you identify which Samoa because today there are, if you will, two Samoas. On one side of the?
N. Rodgers: Archipelago.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, there you go. Is the American Samoas. On the other side is controlled by?
N. Rodgers: Is it the German or is it still German Samoas?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, it is. It's still Germany. I refer to the American Samoas and we'll explain why as we progress through the episode as a modern day American colony. The reason why is, unlike the other territories we've already covered. The United States Congress has not passed an organic statute to give American Samoa official recognition to even participate in the US federal government.
N. Rodgers: The other territories that we've mentioned, send people to Congress, and those people can serve in committee. They just can't vote on the floor.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Of the House.
J. Aughenbaugh: They're non-voting delegates, yeah.
N. Rodgers: But they can complain in committee meeting.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and they can give speeches on the floor of Congress.
N. Rodgers: They just can't vote.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, they just can't vote.
N. Rodgers: But the last American Samoa, and for now, we're just going to call it Samoa.
J. Aughenbaugh: Samoa. Yes.
N. Rodgers: Samoa does not send anybody to the federal legislature. Does not send anybody to the House.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct. Or the Senate.
N. Rodgers: Right.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Anyways, so Nia, where is Samoa located?
N. Rodgers: Samoa is somewhere in the Pacific, about 856,000 miles south of anything else that we know about.
J. Aughenbaugh: Not that far south, but it is the southernmost territory of the United States.
N. Rodgers: Not, really. How far south of Hawaii is it?
J. Aughenbaugh: Two thousand two hundred miles south.
N. Rodgers: Oh, sorry. If you're wondering in terms of the 50 states, Hawaii is the most southern I believe. I think it's more southern than Florida.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and Texas.
N. Rodgers: Then this is more southern than that by 2,000 miles. Which side note tells you how big the Pacific is. We've discussed this before, but if you want to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney, that's a 19 hour flight, 20 hour flight. That is a long flight because the Pacific, she is big, very, very big.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, it is a very big pond. No, I'm just kidding. It's an ocean. The Samoa is one of two US territories south of the equator. The other one is the uninhabited Jarvis Island.
N. Rodgers: Uninhabited until I moved there.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, that is true because once you make your riches, Nia, working at VCU then you can go ahead and buy some ton of fish.
N. Rodgers: Set sail for Jarvis Island. That's what happens. We are going to talk, by the way, about the uninhabited territories at the end of this series.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Because it's not the only one.
J. Aughenbaugh: Samoa, in terms of land mass is quite small. It is about 77 square miles, which is only slightly larger than Washington, DC. However, if you cover, but if you include the territorial waters.
N. Rodgers: Which by the way, is 200 miles from the physical coast of any country.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It's total area is 117 over, 117,500 square miles.
N. Rodgers: One hundred and seventeen thousand, five hundred.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Because once you add in that 200 mile and the islands are spread apart pretty soon, it covers an enormous amount of square miles.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's about the size of New Zealand. Yes.
N. Rodgers: It's big.
J. Aughenbaugh: We've gone from DC to New Zealand in two senses.
N. Rodgers: But maritime law provides that 200 mile barrier in part to protect people's trade. To protect country's trade or in this instance, the territories.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. Because of its location, big shock, Nia, it has a very tropical climate.
N. Rodgers: Yeah, no kidding. It's right there by the equator.
J. Aughenbaugh: You're right. About 90% of its land mass is covered by rainforest.
N. Rodgers: Pretty.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It's population quite small. It has about 47,000 residents.
N. Rodgers: It's only slightly larger than VCU.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Because if you include VCUs student population plus employees, you're looking at slightly over 45,000.
N. Rodgers: Pick us up and move us to a tropical rainforest. Wouldn't that be nice?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Nia, most of the population is concentrated on what, if you will, piece of land?
N. Rodgers: Tutuila, which is their main island, isn't it?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It has the capital, which is?
N. Rodgers: Pago Pago.
J. Aughenbaugh: Pago Pago.
N. Rodgers: Which is the best thing to say ever or Pago Pago, I suppose it depends on where you're from.
J. Aughenbaugh: I've heard it pronounced both ways and when I looked it up, it actually says.
N. Rodgers: Can be pronounced either way.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Because I'm assuming that actually when it's pronounced in Samoan, it's probably pronounced differently.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: Samoan is a language, by the way. In case anybody was wondering, the Samoans have their own indigenous language similar to the Native American tribes in the United States having their own individual languages.
J. Aughenbaugh: Language, that's right.
N. Rodgers: But there are other official languages, English, isn't it? Because of being owned by America.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Those are the most Samoans. I think the statistics I saw was nearly three-quarters of all Samoans are fluent in both English and Samoan.
N. Rodgers: Well, that makes sense because probably the market for jobs is hugely within American, the naval base there, the American companies there that do business. I'm imagining that if you wanted to work there, you would probably have to speak English.
J. Aughenbaugh: We're going to get to, if you will, the major jobs in employment there. But as Nia points out, the United States military has a huge presence and it is the largest, if you will, nonagricultural, nonfishing employer on Samoa.
N. Rodgers: Which makes sense. Given the size of the population and the size of a military base in general, it would be probably the employer of standard. Because if you think about how military bases are run, folks, just as a side note, there's huge civilian population involved in running a military base in the general workings of a base. One of the reasons that senators and congressmen like to have a base in their district is because it's a big employer of civilians, as well as the military.
J. Aughenbaugh: There are support functions for any military base that go beyond personnel in uniform. Listeners, we record in Richmond, Virginia. The State of Virginia has a number of military bases and anytime the Base Relocation Committee suggests for closure, both US senators and depending on which House of Representative district the base is located, they go to work.
N. Rodgers: Don't take the base away from here.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because it's not just the military personnel who, of course, all earn paychecks. They all buy houses, rent apartments.
N. Rodgers: But it's restaurants, it's hotels, it's car dealerships, but it's everything that supports the base in terms of people's living.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because people who work on a base people.
N. Rodgers: Are still people.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, they're people, they still have downtime. They want to go to ball games, they want to go ahead and have nice meals, they need cars, they need hospitals. Yes, you can go ahead and get medical care on the base, but you may want to get other healthcare. You need schools.
N. Rodgers: Bases have schools, but not every military person wants to send their kid to a military school. Variety is the spice of life.
J. Aughenbaugh: I was going to segue to the history.
N. Rodgers: That's what I was going to ask you is, but haven't Polynesians been on all of the islands in the Pacific for gazillions of years? Hasn't that been pretty much the standard is, hey, let's get in this boat and go that way and see what we find?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. The history of Samoa is a very long and complicated one, listeners. The traditional, if you will, oral literature of Samoa talks rather specifically what you just mentioned, Nia. There was a widespread Polynesian network or confederacy that was prehistorically ruled by successive, and Samoans, please forgive me, I'm going to mispronounce this I'm afraid, the Tui Manu'a dynasties.
N. Rodgers: Manu'a, Tui Manu'a. I don't know how it's said either. Sorry, we apologize for not speaking Samoan. Neither one of us speaks Samoan.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm pretty sure about that, the Manu'an genealogies and religious oral histories suggests that Tui Manu'a had long been one of the most prestigious and powerful kings and governed a huge confederacy of islands, which included Tutuila. The network was so well developed that you had commercial and trade routes between Western Polynesian societies in regards to obtaining control and manufacturing of goods beyond the Samoan Island.
N. Rodgers: Up into Fiji and [inaudible] .
J. Aughenbaugh: This particular dynasty had that control.
N. Rodgers: Which is pretty impressive when you consider the distance between those islands and it's pretty dang impressive when you consider Polynesian folks getting into what are basically really nice canoes.
J. Aughenbaugh: Canoes, you're talking about wood and craft.
N. Rodgers: Going across the Pacific Ocean by physical force. They rowed themselves with oars. That's pretty impressive.
J. Aughenbaugh: For any of our listeners who are history buffs of ancient civilizations and empires, it's one thing to go ahead and have a far flung empire that is on land.
N. Rodgers: Connected by road or land or whatever. The Romans, it's huge, but in part, it's huge because of the road.
J. Aughenbaugh: But when you add in water and the difficulty of navigating a huge body of water.
N. Rodgers: At sea, at night because you have to keep going in the same direction the whole time. You can't take a break. It's amazing to me how seafarers managed to do that stuff back in the day when there was no such thing as navigation compasses and anything like that. They didn't just flip on their GPS and figure out where the next island was.
J. Aughenbaugh: They didn't get a voice in their ear saying.
N. Rodgers: Turn left.
J. Aughenbaugh: Turn left.
N. Rodgers: U turn when appropriate. Anyway, and the Europeans come along and ruin everything. The end.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is the short version of a long complicated history. Contact with the Europeans began in the 1700s.
N. Rodgers: When you get the explorers, the European explorers who are off looking around.
J. Aughenbaugh: But it wasn't just explorers, also missions. In particular, the British, the London Missionary Society arrived in the 1830s.
N. Rodgers: About 100 years on from people like Cook and Raleigh and Drake, and those guys finding stuff and saying, there's people here, and they go home and they say, there's people here and the churches say, we have to christianize them because they're clearly savages.
J. Aughenbaugh: We can convert them.
N. Rodgers: Sorry, they are not savages. By the way, do not hear me saying that I believe they are savages, but at the time, that is how they were perceived by the European religious folks.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, and also the European governments.
N. Rodgers: They actually thought they were doing people a favor.
J. Aughenbaugh: A favor. We're going to save them.
N. Rodgers: The people there were like, we're pretty good. We don't need savors. But it doesn't work that way.
J. Aughenbaugh: Wait, it doesn't work that way.
N. Rodgers: Because the missionaries show up with guns and disease. Between those two things, they bring people into line. But anyway.
J. Aughenbaugh: By the late 19th century, not only the British, you had French, German, and American ships that routinely stopped at Samoa because, in particular, they value the Pago Pago Harbor
N. Rodgers: Isn't it, one of the best naturally protected harbors, so when the weather is horrific if you can get in there, you can usually survive. You can ride out the storm.
J. Aughenbaugh: Storm right there. By March of 1889, the Imperial German Navy entered a village in Samoa and destroyed some of the American property.
N. Rodgers: America's not going to have that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Three American warships then entered the what is it? The Appia Harbor and prepared to engage three German warships. I really went down a rabbit hole here, Nia, I started reading about this, and I was like, I can't stop. This is fascinating. Before any shots were fired, however, a typhoon wrecked both the American and German ships, and that actually led to an armistice because there weren't any more warships to fight the battle between Germany and America.
N. Rodgers: If I had a boat, I would kick your butt. Since nobody's got any boats, we're all just going to stand around being crabby.
J. Aughenbaugh: In 1899, there was a tripartite convention in which Germany and the United States basically partitioned the Samoan Islands into two.
N. Rodgers: This is when we get American small and German small.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. The Eastern Island group became part of the territory of the United States.
N. Rodgers: Wait, the Eastern or the Western Islands.
J. Aughenbaugh: The Eastern became a territory of the United States.
N. Rodgers: Oh, I see, and Western, Germany.
J. Aughenbaugh: German. That's right. By the way, you might be wondering, since it was a tripartite convention, what's the third?
N. Rodgers: Who is the other?
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, the Brits gave up all claims to Samoa. In exchange, what they received was the termination of German rights in Tonga in certain areas on the Solomon Islands in Western Africa. Yes. All very colonial.
N. Rodgers: I'll trade you these people for these people, and people involved are like, we don't want to be traded.
J. Aughenbaugh: We don't want to be traded.
N. Rodgers: We don't want to be owned by any of you. We would like you to leave us alone, please.
J. Aughenbaugh: We don't want to be the infamous player to be named later in a trade.
N. Rodgers: But that does seem to be a thing that happens on a not irregular basis for that time period. Is the big countries beat up on the less developed countries? We say, you belong to us now.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners in the episode dealing with Guam, for instance. Even Puerto Rico, the United States get those after the Spanish American War. Again, did the residents of Guam or Puerto Rico, were they all warm and fuzzy, when one colonial empire was replaced by another?
N. Rodgers: I'm betting not.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. This is a sad, if you will, example of how colonial regimes have acted historically.
N. Rodgers: Because I assume on the Western Islands, their two languages are German and Samoan.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Shortly thereafter, the United States Navy took possession of Eastern Samoa. In particular, Nia, as you pointed out, the US Navy immediately set up a coaling station, an energy station at Pago Pago Bay, and it was expanded into a full naval station, which still exists today.
N. Rodgers: In Aughie's notes, and I'm going to poach his notes for a second and say, and it's one of the highest recruiting stations in the United States Navy. A lot of the population of Samoa join the US Navy.
J. Aughenbaugh: The recruitment effort on Samoa for the Navy in particular, but even a little bit with the Army and the Marines. The recruiting station on Samoa is the most effective. It always reaches its numerical recruitment goals. You may be wondering, why is that? Well, it is the primary employer outside of farming and fishing.
N. Rodgers: I was going to say the tuna industry, I think, is the other big industry. But also, it's a great way. I'm not trying to be ugly here. It's a great way to leave Samoa. If you're a young person and you don't think that you have much of a future, in the physical land that has occupied Samoa. If you join the Navy, one, you see the world. That's one of the things about the Navy as you go off sailing and see the world. But also, you have the opportunity to emigrate to the Continental United States.
J. Aughenbaugh: United States. That's right.
N. Rodgers: Although, I'm going to leap around with Aughie's notes, and he's going to scrunch his face at me, sorry. Which is the one thing that I think in your notes that really stood out to me the most was that people who were born in American Samoa are not automatically citizens of the United States.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
N. Rodgers: Which is different than Guam, Northern Marianas and Puerto Rico.
J. Aughenbaugh: Puerto Rico, yes.
N. Rodgers: All of those folks are born citizens of the United States, citizen birthright. Folks in American Samoa are not.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
N. Rodgers: If you wanted to become an American citizen, joining the Navy is a good way to do that, I would think.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Nia, what you're talking about is and this is still a significant issue in Samoa citizenship. Part of the reason why the government of Samoa is not enthusiastic about Samoans being granted US citizenship is that it would lead to the erosion of their traditional culture and ways of living.
N. Rodgers: Which is probably true. Don't they have a lot of oral tradition?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, they have a really rich oral tradition, and a lot of it is handed down through religion and passed down through elders, and they don't want to necessarily give that up because they're acutely aware that on other US territories, a lot of that gets lost when you become more officially tied to the United States. But Nia, you already pointed out, the military does have a significant presence, and tuna products are the main exports. The Continental United States is the largest trading partner with Samoa. Tourism is slowly developing.
N. Rodgers: Don't you think that has to do with it being so far-flung?
J. Aughenbaugh: It is far-flung.
N. Rodgers: It's really hard to get there, isn't it?
J. Aughenbaugh: It's very difficult to get there. But also, too, Samoa has a high rate of poverty and emigration. This is one of the things in terms of using tourism for economic development purposes. You need to have a population that, one, has a base level of education so that they can go ahead and provide goods and services to the tourists. Samoa doesn't necessarily have that. Those who do seek out education, Nia, as you point out, many of them leave Samoa. They don't have the infrastructure. They're not all that keen on outsiders anyways, coming to Samoa. They put up with the US military, but they don't embrace, if you will, modernization and making their economy more diverse.
N. Rodgers: Okay.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yep. As Nia already pointed out, listeners, residents of Samoa are politically disenfranchised because they have no voting representation in the Congress.
N. Rodgers: I'll fix that when I'm president.
J. Aughenbaugh: I know you will. You'll have me as your attorney general walk that through the United States Congress. Am I the attorney general now in your cabinet or am I your vice president?
N. Rodgers: You're my vice president.
J. Aughenbaugh: Got you.
N. Rodgers: Although there's no reason you can't be both.
J. Aughenbaugh: Actually, there is.
J. Aughenbaugh: Constitutionally, I could not be both. You would have to pick.
N. Rodgers: Well, then I want you as vice president.
J. Aughenbaugh: American Samoa is the only permanently inhabited territory of the United States where citizenship is not granted at birth.
N. Rodgers: That's crabby. But if people there resist it in part because they don't want to lose their culture then you shouldn't force it on people if they don't want it.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: I would imagine that you would want to take a vote on that on a fairly regular basis and see if the people had changed their minds or not. Maybe they have good reason to not want to be birthright American citizens.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, Native Samoans have a kind of love hate relationship with the United States, and part of this is historical because it was the governor of Samoa appointed by The Navy, John Martin Poyer, who actually saved US Samoa from the great flu epidemic in 1918.
N. Rodgers: Wait, did he close the island? Don't come here with your disgusting flu and kill us all?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. When he heard of the flu epidemic, he quarantined ships from the US mainland.
N. Rodgers: Don't be coming over here coughing on us.
J. Aughenbaugh: He earned a Navy cross from the Navy, but Samoans regarded him as a hero because he basically protected America Samoa, from the disease.
N. Rodgers: That's pretty good.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Moreover, during World War 2, US Marines stationed on Samoa, not only did they outnumber the local population, but they basically meant that the Samoan Islands territory was never officially taken over by the Japanese. Yes.
N. Rodgers: That's another saving in the sense that the Japanese were unkind to native populations on the various islands that they occupied.
J. Aughenbaugh: They were brutal.
N. Rodgers: Yeah. I was trying to be politically correct. You did not want to be occupied by the Japanese.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Again, listeners, let's be very clear. Nia and I are very, shall we say, realistic, that America having territories without giving the citizenry full voting participation in the American form of democracy is a bad thing. We would like to get rid of it. At the same time, if you compared regime treatment of the natives of many of these territories, historically, but particularly during World War 2, the Japanese were much worse than their treatment.
N. Rodgers: If the Japanese supply lines got thin, the local population starved because they were not going to not feed their soldiers.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: That kind of thing. There was a lot of brutalization between soldiers and female populations.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. In 1949, the United States Congress considered legislation to make Samoa an official US territory, granting Samoans citizenship rights. Interestingly enough, the major opposition was through the Samoan chiefs and the United States Congress never adopted an organic statute that would have made Samoa, much like Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Marianas, etc.
N. Rodgers: What kind of government do they have then? If they're not American citizens, do they have some other funky kind of government? Sorry. Not that other governments besides American governments are funky, and we are not funky because we are funky, too, but I was just wondering, did they follow the America? The other territories have legislature, judiciary, and an executive. It's very similar to the United States.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, the structure of the local Samoan government is much like the United States. You have separation of powers. You have a national legislature. They have a House, they have a Senate. They have a governor of Samoa, and they have a lieutenant governor. In many ways, it's like a state.
N. Rodgers: I was going to say, it sounds like a state.
J. Aughenbaugh: They also have a judicial system. The Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior oversees the government there. In fact, listeners, if you go back to our previous episode where we looked at the Department of the Interior, they actually have a specific deputy secretary for Samoa.
N. Rodgers: I wonder how often that person visits.
J. Aughenbaugh: I don't know.
N. Rodgers: If I had that job, I'd be visiting a lot.
J. Aughenbaugh: I would be like, you need to give me either a housing allowance or create a house for me.
N. Rodgers: Because I'm going to be there a lot.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because I cannot effectively govern.
N. Rodgers: That's what I would say, but I would mostly just be hanging around in the rainforest.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It is modeled on, if you will, the American Separation of Powers setup. Again, it operates like a state.
N. Rodgers: Now, their Constitution comes into play in 1967. The reason it caught my eye is because that's the year we were born.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, both of us were born, yes.
N. Rodgers: It's not a very old constitution.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
N. Rodgers: Relatively speaking.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, it is a young constitution. But Nia, as you pointed out earlier, one of the distinctive features of Samoa is traditional village politics still play a significant role. Even though they have a formal government structure, village politics.
N. Rodgers: Well, if you've got 47,000 people, it's a similar discussion that we have with the Northern Marianas. If you have a relatively small population, they're going to be related to each other. They're going to know each other. There's going to be personal animus that's going to drive some of their relationships. We don't like you because your grandfather stole our goat or whatever. I'm just using that as an example. I don't know if they have goats on Samoa. But that kind of thing really affects politics in a group that small. When you think about the politics at VCU, and how things work at this university, which is similar size to this population, there are sometimes factions because there are sometimes political disputes or social disputes that the outside world, one, does not care about, or two, does not have an opinion about because they're not invested in the same way. I think acting like these people aren't truly invested in their local politics would probably be silly.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. The other thing to take note of is because of its location, in many ways, it's been able to go ahead and mitigate the influence of outsiders. Yes, there is the US military presence, but over the years, detente has existed, where the US military quite obviously has its role in place, but because of the location and because the population has not grown dramatically over the decades, local politics is frequently driven by history and either agreements or disagreements that have existed for decades, and in the case of Samoa, centuries.
N. Rodgers: Sort of social contracts in the sense of our family always grazes their crop here, our family always looks for Tuna here in this bay or whatever, and when you cross into our spot, we're going to be like, no, we've been doing this for 3,000 years. Leave us alone.
J. Aughenbaugh: Informal laws don't necessarily impact that, if you will, shared knowledge and experience.
N. Rodgers: Well, and there's also this idea in many indigenous societies, thank you, of councils of the local elders get together and they talk out something. It's always, by the way, elders. No young people need apply because it's people who've been around a long time and people who know everybody and who know the situations, and they can make decisions. In some ways, they replace the legal system at the local level, or maybe they augment, that would be a better word to say. They augment the legal system in the local level by settling some disputes.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's a rival, because for indigenous personnel or individuals or persons in a particular jurisdiction, this idea that law would settle disputes is historically a rather young concept.
N. Rodgers: What's this law thing you speak of because we have traditions about how do I did that?
J. Aughenbaugh: This idea that you would go to court where you would have a neutral arbitrator.
N. Rodgers: And two lawyers arguing. No.
J. Aughenbaugh: That just doesn't make any sense.
N. Rodgers: The council of elders gather together, and both of you come in there and you tell your story, and they.
J. Aughenbaugh: Make a decision.
N. Rodgers: Make a decision and their decision stands.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, it's final.
N. Rodgers: It's just that's how the respect for the elders works.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. It's not on paper, you don't record it.
N. Rodgers: There's no precedent.
J. Aughenbaugh: You don't record it in a register or anything like that. No, that's just handed down. It is in many ways, a very fascinating place to be. Because it does have this rich, if you will, combination of historical practice, while at the same time, being an obviously important military base for the United States federal government. You cannot underestimate the importance of Samoa in regards to the United States strategic national security.
N. Rodgers: Its location is invaluable.
J. Aughenbaugh: Is invaluable.
N. Rodgers: The thing about it comes back to size. If you have to go all the way across the ocean without any place to stop and refuel and get food and all the other stuff, if you can't do that, then you have to carry it all with you. Which slows you down considerably. Even with modern ships, it slows you down considerably, which is why ships modernly dock at certain places to pick up food, fuel, whatever is because otherwise, carrying that stuff with you, it's burden. But I also think what's interesting is that the elders in one of these situations where they're going to be basically hearing cases, settling disputes. Maybe it would be a better way to put that. In old times, you would have gotten to that council probably by ending the life of someone else. In modern times, because murder is frowned upon, you're basically elected to those councils. Now, I think that's an interesting changeover that they've adapted, but I'd be willing to bet that it's still elders and not young people. I would be willing to bet that if for instance, and I'm not saying you're old, but you are old comparatively to your students. If you ran against one of your students, the chances are good you would win because you would have built a respected reputation and all this other stuff. You know what I mean? Like older traditions from generation to generation.
J. Aughenbaugh: There's an assumption in that culture that a younger person would not have the breath of experience.
N. Rodgers: The wisdom. That age would lend wisdom. That age would also lend you a calming force over the year. You wouldn't be as likely to get emotionally engaged as you would when you're young. That you can see in protests. Because young people are running and yelling and we older people who are going at a protest are like, I'm just going to walk behind you. We're not really doing the shouty thing. We're not really doing it. We're just walking with our signs.
J. Aughenbaugh: We might do it for a block, and then we're like, let's pull.
N. Rodgers: I'm going to sit down for a second.
J. Aughenbaugh: Let's pull off to the side. Let me take a sip of water.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. I don't have to rush down to the White House to yell at people. They can hear me yelling from here.
J. Aughenbaugh: There's a reason why I have a booming voice.
N. Rodgers: But I do think in terms of one of your last notes on here, I do think it's interesting that there are still people in Samoa who are calling for Samoa to be autonomous. They're like, we shouldn't be a territory anymore. We don't want to be a territory. Leave us alone or more importantly, treat us as an equal. We'll let you stay here, but you're going to have to pay. Which could solve some of their financial problems.
J. Aughenbaugh: As recently as 2012, the governor on Samoa called for a move towards autonomy, but it received a mixed response. In part, from what I was able to gather in my research is that many young Samoans have aspirations that you mentioned earlier in the podcast, Nia, which is for many young Samoans, they don't necessarily view the United States as the enemy, but possibly a pathway to something different. They may want to get off of Samoa. They may want to see the world, and being independent doesn't necessarily make sense to them if their primary method for getting off Samoa is perhaps the United States military or the Department of the Interior.
N. Rodgers: It's complicated.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, it is complicated.
N. Rodgers: It's just complicated for every territory. We haven't really brought that up with the other territories, but it's true of all of them, I think. I there's this tension between do we want independence? Do we want to be our own country? But that going it alone can be really expensive. It's hard to start a country. Ask the founders. It's hard to do that or do we want to stay where we are with this semi independence where we get to keep our culture, but we are under the United States umbrella. I don't know, it's a tough thing.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, it is.
N. Rodgers: It's a tough thing to decide.
J. Aughenbaugh: They're generational differences. We see this even today in American politics. The wants and desires of the younger population are different than the older. Those are oftentimes difficult to reconcile.
N. Rodgers: Because this sides want different stuff.
J. Aughenbaugh: But, thank you, Nia. I learned a lot again.
N. Rodgers: I'm excited to go to Samoa, we should put that on our pocket list. We should go visit all the territories. This podcast should podcast from all the territories.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, when you become president, you could be one of the first American presidents to ever go to American Samoa.
N. Rodgers: Oh, really? There's not been much in the way of presidential visit.
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: Oh, see, I would want to visit all the territories. Pretty much all the states and just get what's going on on the ground? What do people think? I think it's really easy when you're in the White House to become isolated from the day to day workings of the American populace.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, and then other international events force you to go ahead and say I got to meet with the G12 over in Brussels or I got to go ahead and meet with NATO.
N. Rodgers: But some of that can be done by Zoom. I'm just saying.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, that's why you have a vice president or a Secretary of State.
N. Rodgers: That's true. I send you to those boring meetings, and I get to go to all the territories. That's it, that's what we're doing. You're no longer waiting for people to die. You're going to boring meetings as well as waiting for people to die.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm the one who mentioned this. But as this played out, I want to take it back.
N. Rodgers: No, because you were thinking you'd be the one to go to the territory, so I'd be the one to go to those boring meetings. Oh heck, no. No, that's not how this presidency is going to work. You need to rethink before you say this things Aughie. Aughie is like, wait, I got to go to the NATO meeting in Germany in the winter, and you're going to Samoa.
J. Aughenbaugh: You're going to go ahead and take a tour of Guam, the Northern Marianas in Samoa in February. I'm like, really?
N. Rodgers: Whose idea was that again?
J. Aughenbaugh: Wait a minute.
N. Rodgers: That'd your idea, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Thanks, Nia.
N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm going to go back and rethink. Talk to you later.
N. Rodgers: People say, I'm not Machiavelli.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, right.
N. Rodgers: Thanks.
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