Editing History of Samoa (section)

===The Second Samoan Civil War and the Siege of Apia===
[[File:German, British, American warships in Apia harbour, Samoa 1899.jpg|thumb|right|230px|German, British and American warships in [[Apia]] harbour, 1899 ([[Alfred James Tattersall]])]]
{{see also|Second Samoan Civil War|Siege of Apia}}
The [[Second Samoan Civil War]] reached a head in 1898 when Germany, Great Britain and the United States disputed over who should control the Samoan Islands.

The '''[[Siege of Apia|Battle of Apia]]''' occurred in March 1899. Samoan forces loyal to [[Prince Tanu]] were besieged by a larger force of Samoan rebels loyal to powerful chief [[Mata'afa Iosefo]]. Supporting Prince Tanu were landing parties from four British and American warships. Over several days of fighting, the Samoan rebels were defeated.<ref>Mains, P. John; McCarty, Louis Philippe (1906). The Statistician and Economist: Volume 23. p. 249</ref>

American and British warships shelled [[Apia]] on 15 March 1899; including the [[USS Philadelphia (C-4)|USS ''Philadelphia'']]. Following the initial defeat at Apia, Mata'afa's rebels defeated a combined American, British and Tanu allied force at [[Second Battle of Vailele|Vailele]] on 1 April 1899, with the allies in retreat.<ref name=jp>{{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIzreCGlHxIC&q=mataafa&pg=PT670|title=Dictionary of wars, Third Edition|first=George C.|last=Kohn|pages=479–480|year=1986|publisher=Facts on File Inc, factsonfile.com|isbn=978-0-8160-6577-6}}</ref> According to a war correspondent associated with the Auckland Star newspaper, the aftermath saw Mata'afa's warriors leaving American and British corpses on the field being severed of their heads.<ref>[http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=AS18990412.2.60&l=mi&e=-------10--1----0--] Papers Past (website)</ref> Germany, Britain and the United States quickly resolved to end the hostilities by partitioning the island chain at the [[Tripartite Convention (1899)|Tripartite Convention of 1899]].<ref name="GHR">Ryden, George Herbert. ''The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa''. (Yale University Press, 1928), p. 574; the Tripartite Convention (United States, Germany, Great Britain) was signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900.</ref> With Tanu and his American and British allies' inability to defeat him in war, the Tripartite resulted in Mata'afa being promoted to Ali'i Si'i, the high chief of Samoa.<ref name="jp"/>