On 7 November 1918, the passenger and cargo ship Talune docked in Apia, Samoa, which was under New Zealand occupation following the outbreak of the first world war. On board were people suffering from “Spanish flu”, a highly infectious disease already responsible for the deaths of millions of people across the world. The acting port officer at Apia was unaware that the pandemic was ripping through Auckland and, as a result, he permitted passengers ashore – including six who were seriously ill with influenza. Within a week the disease had made its way throughout the main islands of Samoa. Approximately 8,500 people – more than one-fifth of the population – contracted the virus and died.
That moment of administrative incompetence is part of a series of New Zealand blunders in the Pacific. In 1929 New Zealand forces, who eventually had their occupation of Samoa legitimised in the League of Nations, opened fire on independence protesters, killing up to eight people. Later in the 20th century, Samoans and other Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand were targeted as part of the infamous “dawn raids” where so-called overstayers had their homes invaded before being deported. In 1982 the privy council ruled that all Western Samoans born between 1924 and 1948 were British subjects, and that in 1949 they and their descendants had become New Zealand citizens. In the wake of the ruling the New Zealand parliament legislated to strip citizenship from those Samoans.
