Western Polynesia

Tuvalu’s nine islands are low coral islands, most of them atolls: rings of coral reef around a lagoon, with narrow strips of land made of coral rock and sand. An atoll grows over a very long time as coral keeps building upward while the volcano beneath it slowly sinks. The highest point anywhere in Tuvalu is only about 15 feet above sea level, about as tall as a giraffe, and only the Maldives has a lower highest point. Coral rock is full of tiny holes, like a sponge, so at the highest tides, called king tides, seawater pushes up through the ground and floods low areas from below. Sea level around Tuvalu’s main atoll is also rising about twice as fast as the global average.

The Samoan islands are the peaks of huge volcanoes that rise from the ocean floor, with most of each volcano hidden underwater. Savaiʻi, the westernmost island, is where the last eruption on land in Samoa happened. From 1905 to 1911, Mount Matavanu erupted, sending lava toward the north coast and burying the villages of Toapaipai, Salago and Saleaula. By 1906 the lava covered about 35 square miles, an area larger than Manhattan, and volcanic fumes destroyed crops and caused famine. The people of Saleaula and other villages moved across the strait to Upolu, and hardened lava still covers the area where their villages once stood.

Tonga lies beside a deep trench in the seafloor where one giant plate of the Earth’s crust, the Pacific Plate, is sliding beneath another. The sinking plate melts rock, which rises to feed a chain of volcanoes, many of them underwater. In January 2022 one of them, Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, erupted with a blast heard in Alaska, about 5,800 miles away, and sent an ash plume about 35 miles into the sky, far higher than the 7 miles at which airliners fly. A tsunami struck Tonga’s west coast and killed at least three people, and the eruption broke Tonga’s only undersea internet cable, which took about five weeks to repair.

Tokelau is made up of three atolls, Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo, and each is a ring of small coral islands around a lagoon. Together they have only about 4 square miles of land, and the highest point is only 16 feet above the sea. There are no rivers or streams, so families catch rain from their roofs in tanks. In 2011, after about six months with very little rain, the tanks ran dry, and the islands ran out of fresh water until Samoa, New Zealand and the United States shipped in water.

About 3,000 years ago, a seafaring people known as the Lapita sailed from islands near New Guinea to Tonga and then Samoa. We know their route because they left distinctive decorated pottery at each island they settled, and the oldest pottery is found nearly 2,500 miles west of Tonga. Their descendants stayed in these islands for about 1,000 years, and during that time their language and customs became what we now call Polynesian. Later, their descendants sailed east to settle Tahiti and the Marquesas and, eventually, Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa New Zealand, which is why Samoan, Tongan, Hawaiian and Māori are related languages.

People have lived on Wallis (Uvea) and Futuna for about 2,800 years, and by the 1880s the islands were divided into three kingdoms: Uvea on Wallis, and Sigave and Alo on Futuna. In 1887 and 1888 their rulers signed treaties placing them under French protection, France annexed them in 1917, and it still governs them today as an overseas territory with about 11,000 people. The kingdoms never ended, though: their three kings still sit on the territory’s council and settle civil disputes under customary law.

The National Park of American Samoa protects rainforest and coral reef on three islands, Tutuila, Taʻū and Ofu, and it was created in 1988 largely to protect the habitat of the Samoa flying fox, a giant fruit bat. It is the only American national park south of the equator. Unlike most national parks, the U.S. government does not own the land, because the park service could not buy land held communally by Samoan families and villages. Instead, in 1993 the park service signed a 50-year lease with the village councils, so Samoans still own the land.

For Samoan men, the traditional tattoo is the peʻa, which covers the body from the waist to the knees. A master tattooist makes the black patterns by tapping a comb of bone and tortoiseshell into the skin with a mallet, a very painful process that can take anywhere from days to years. A man who finishes it is respected for his courage, and one who leaves it unfinished carries a mark of shame. Missionaries from England tried to ban tattooing in the 1830s, but Samoans kept it alive in secret. The English word “tattoo” itself comes from the Polynesian word tatau.

Tuvalu has only about 10 square miles of land, but it has exclusive rights to the fish in roughly 350,000 square miles of ocean, an area more than 30,000 times larger than its land. Under international law, every coastal country owns the fish and other resources within 200 nautical miles (about 230 miles) of its shores, and Tuvalu’s nine islands are scattered so widely that those zones add up to a huge area. Foreign fishing boats must therefore pay Tuvalu for a license to fish there, and the licenses are worth buying because these waters are part of one of the world’s richest tuna fisheries. These fees are a major source of money for the government.

More people of Tongan descent live overseas than in Tonga itself: at least 150,000 abroad, mostly in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, compared with about 100,000 in the islands. Tonga’s small economy offers few jobs and lower pay than abroad, so since the 1970s many Tongans have moved overseas to work and study, and they send money back to their families. These payments, called remittances, equal about 40% of Tonga’s entire economy, one of the highest shares in the world.

Polynesian voyagers settled Tokelau’s three atolls about 1,000 years ago, and each village was run by a council of elders. In 1889 Britain claimed the atolls but did little more than that, leaving Tokelauans to govern themselves. In 1926 Britain passed their administration to New Zealand, which still administers them today. Tokelauans are New Zealand citizens, but they make their own laws: their parliament, the General Fono, passes laws and sets taxes, and New Zealand’s laws apply only if they are specifically extended to Tokelau, which has not happened without Tokelau’s consent.

Polynesian voyagers settled the Samoan islands about 3,000 years ago, and their descendants built a society of extended families led by chiefs called matai that still governs village life today. In the late 1800s the United States, Germany and Britain each backed rival Samoan leaders, which pulled Samoans into civil war. In 1899 the United States and Germany ended it by dividing the islands between themselves in a treaty Samoans did not sign, and the chiefs of the eastern islands then signed agreements in 1900 and 1904 placing them under U.S. control. American Samoans are U.S. “nationals” rather than citizens: they carry U.S. passports and can live and work anywhere in the country, but cannot vote in U.S. elections. The question divides American Samoans, and some fear that citizenship could weaken protections on their family-owned land.