The Samoan Mau Party in parade and Mau police force
In the island nation of Western Samoa on December 28th a few days after Christmas the first instance of New Zealand Military retreat was recorded and investigated. An affray had occurred between the Mau Samoan Police and the New Zealand Military Police, both approved by the Faipule Samoan Government. The NZ Affray of 1929 is also known in New Zealand as "Black Saturday".
During a Samoan Socialist Mau festival welcoming allies a Mr. Smyth (friend to Olaf Nelson) and a Mr. Hall Skelton (The Mau Lawyer in Auckland), two NZ Sergeants working for the British trespassed on the parade and attempted to arrest a member of the band, spotted by the Mau Police who intervened. The two British-NZ Sergeants who intruded were then arrested by the Mau Police, one a Sergeant Mr. Fell, was hit twice on the head and knocked out by the Samoan Police for resisting arrest. The second British-NZ Sergeant a Mr. Waterson, resisted and was held in arm by two Samoan Mau officers, then Waterson struggled to Mr. Fell's side.
At the edge of the Beach street, a Colonel Lance Downes had under his command a unit, which on his whistle hurried to the arrest and there the band stopped in its playing. The Mau Policemen and youth then surrounded the New Zealand military force, beating them overwhelmingly, with some NZ militants instantly fleeing who then began to be stoned by the Samoans parade.
Witness statement by Corporal Cahill 1929 "While we were being forced down the lane, I saw Constable Abraham behind a post in the lane. I was trying to dodge a stone. As I looked at him I saw him crumple up. His back was towards me but I was under the impression he was firing his revolver. There were a number of Samoans in front of him, they were throwing stones in the lane. I stopped when Constable Abraham fell. I could not go back because the Samoans were too strong. I retreated with the others. I did not see Constable Abraham again."
The NZ military unit ran for their lives, firing un-targeted shots with revolvers, several NZ militants were caught and flung down, beaten, uncounted and considered injured or dead, who were pushed into an alleyway of the beach business stores.
A Constable Abraham became part of the record of who was lost that day, left behind by his fellow unit in the full retreat, believed to have died in the alley. The rest -man for man-, sprinted to a Western Samoan Police station. The day became well known in New Zealand History more so than in Samoan History who focused more on the loss of a beloved Samoan political leader. There have also been cover-up versions of the event by the NZ-side of history.
Historian "It's possible a revision of history was to diffuse the situation, but it's 85 years later. The Wikipedia version seems to want people to think that Western Samoa was a colony (No mention of APIA allied Samoans), and says a single NZ unit, with one single machine gun took over an entire nation. The new wiki version is quite the fairy tale. The Samoans had resources to foreign imported Arms since the 1800s.
The Mau commanded their own private Police Force, member network with headquarters and uniforms, and had strong political backing. That was one of the problems then, that part of the Samoan Government had approved the NZ presence, and another part had supported The Socialist Mau. Not only did the Mau create a Police force, but they deputized an overwhelming amount (A single village possibly with 200 hired), and legally they were all Policemen and untouchable."
The worst part is the incompetence of the NZ military at that time. Not only did they start the fight by interfering, but then they lost, got beaten-up by a Samoan parade and some Mau Samoan police, then fled in retreat to a Samoan police station, where they then finally fought. Did they win a straight honorable fight and gain some dignity back? Oh no....no..they then actually fired on the wrong people. That's how incompetent they were. In almost every NZ-brit-version of this affray that happened, not one version mentions that the NZ Military was beaten up to the point of death and ran for their lives in a panic-state before standing ground."
The NZ militants who made it to the Samoan police station locked down and men went to the roof for a fighting stance. However in the NZ panic, the NZ militants fired frantically into the crowd, one using a mounted police machine-gun already at the station and the NZ militants hit their own Samoan friendlies, ones who were at the scene were neutral trying to stop the maul on the station.
Historian "According to court Findings, Sergeant Waterson who fired the Lewis Machine Gun, did not kill a single person, but fired 2 warning shots, and 2 over head bursts. Witness statements say no more than four bursts were fired, and that it was Rifle fire from two panicked officers in the back who shot wrongly"
The most famous Samoan-friendly shot that day was Tupua Tamasese III, a man whose last words that day became apart of his political legend asking Samoa to be at peace and to not take revenge for his death. Ten years earlier in 1918 a New Zealand trade-ship docked in their Samoan British allied port at Apia and with it's landing then spread Influenza. The 1918 event along with 1929 fueled a growing Socialist Mau Samoan Movement which organized into Auckland New Zealand. Asia Pacific and Polynesian Socialism began to invade New Zealand politics that year in 1929 connecting with the NZ Colonial Socialists, Australian Socialists, and Maori Labour Party Socialists.
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Posted in: Samoa Pacific Islander Studies
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