New Zealand governed Western Samoa under a League of Nations mandate from 1920, after a period in which its failure to quarantine a ship had allowed an influenza epidemic to kill about a fifth of the population. Samoan opposition coalesced in the Mau, a movement for self-government that organised boycotts, refused taxes and maintained its own police; the administration responded by banning it, deporting its leaders and, on 28 December 1929, firing on a Mau parade in Apia, killing the paramount chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III and eight others along with one New Zealand policeman. In January 1930 the administrator declared the Mau seditious, and about 1,500 supporters withdrew into the bush pursued by marines and military police; arrests of men were followed by demonstrations organised by Samoan women. The movement was recognised and the bans lifted after the New Zealand Labour government took office in 1935-36, and Samoa became independent in 1962. In 2002 the New Zealand Prime Minister formally apologised in Apia for the actions of the colonial administration, including Black Saturday and the deportation of Samoan leaders.
The New Zealand administration of the mandated territory of Western Samoa banned the Mau movement, deported its leaders and shot into a crowd in Apia
The 1921 census counted 36,422 people in Western Samoa, a figure still depressed by the 1918 influenza epidemic, which the New Zealand administration had allowed ashore and which killed roughly a fifth of the population; by the late 1920s the territory held about 40,000-45,000.
Contemporary and later New Zealand accounts record eight or ten Samoans and one New Zealand policeman killed on 28 December 1929, with Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III dying of his wounds the next day; the small variation reflects whether those who died later of injuries are included.
New Zealand administration records, later official histories and the 2002 apology document the shooting of Mau demonstrators and the arrest and deportation of the movement's leaders.
Samoa, New Zealand