Race and Realpolitik

German colonisation in Samoa from 1900 to 1914 was characterised by the interplay of conflicting definitions of race. The central question this study asks is to what extent, and in which ways, ideologies of race shaped German colonial policy in Samoa. It analyses the administration’s paternalist development policies, debates over white settlement, the introduction and treatment of indentured labourers, and the legal classification of mixed marriages and half-castes. The author argues that rather than uniting the in a racist mission of domination, racial thought amplified the fissures in German Samoa’s population and supported the administration’s Realpolitik.

The Author: Evelyn Wareham has an M.A. in History and a BA (Honours) in German and has worked as a freelance historical researcher and tutor at Victoria University of Wellington. She is a Senior Archives Analyst with the Statutory Regulatory Group at Archives New Zealand. In Fiji in August 1999, Wareham was elected Secretary General of the Pacific Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (PARBICA). She has published and presented widely on German colonisation in Samoa, as well as on New Zealand and Pacific archival issues.

: Rethinking Race in Pacific History – The Colonising Mission: Developing Samoan Difference – «Going Troppo»: White Degeneration and White Settlement – Economies of Race: Classifying the Indentured Labour Force – Legislating Division: Sex, Citizenship and Empire – Race and Imperial Tensions.