Every weekday morning, Leroy “Big Budah” Teʻo greets thousands of listeners across the state of Utah in the Samoan language: “Tālofa, Utah!” Teʻo hosts a popular morning radio show with “Cousin” Pela Freeman, adding to the growing roster of Samoan American media personalities from Utah—including industry pioneers Alema Harrington and Tamara Vaifanua—who are known locally as television and radio broadcasters with decades of experience. While Samoan Americans are perhaps most widely recognized in mainstream American sports and entertainment sectors, Utahns of Samoan ancestry are now present in virtually every vocational sector and professional field in the state.This article briefly explores the early decades of the 130-year story of how Utah's diverse Samoan communities built upon the foundations of ill-fated visitors and daring immigrants to emerge as the state's largest Pacific Islander group.The Pacific Ocean spans over 63 million square miles across more than 30 percent of the earth's surface. Around three thousand years ago, the adventurous ancestors of today's Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NH/PI) embarked on epic voyages of discovery and settlement of hundreds of new lands, centuries before the Vikings or Columbus set sail from Europe. Linguistic, genetic, and botanical evidence asserts that prehistoric Polynesians sailed to continental America, where they interacted with Indigenous Native American people, languages, and cultures.1The Pacific region today—also called Oceania, Pasifika, Moana, and many other endonyms—is home to over 26 million people who speak more than four hundred languages across over twenty-five thousand islands within more than twenty-six nations and territories.Two-way voyaging and interisland exchange were common in many regions of Oceania, and early European visitors to the Pacific noted how well suited the natives were to life on the sea (Sāmoa was formerly known to the Western world as the “Navigator Islands”). Islanders were eagerly recruited (as well as involuntarily conscripted) as laborers and crew on whaling ships, exploring expeditions, and trading vessels, giving Pacific Islander sailors firsthand experience of global travel and colonial commerce.As early as 1785, Native Hawaiians were employed in fur trapping, logging, and mining enterprises in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the wilderness of Canada and the United States from the Columbia River to Lake Superior.2 The legacy of these eighteenth-century Native Hawaiian adventurers in the Great Basin was recorded in the form of place names like the town of Owyhee and the Owyhee River—both located within the eventual Territory of Utah and later Nevada—decades before the arrival of “Mormon pioneer” immigrants in 1847.3 Another Hawaiʻi-Utah connection is reflected in the name of the town Loa in Wayne County, which was named by an LDS missionary in memory of Mauna Loa peak on the island of Hawaiʻi.Unlike the Native Hawaiian laborers who came to the Pacific Northwest in the 1780s, the first Pacific Islanders to settle in Utah were two Native Hawaiian youths who traveled to Utah in 1873 with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) who were returning home from proselytizing missions in the Hawaiian Kingdom.4 Native Hawaiian converts and small family groups continued to arrive, and by 1889, the Native Hawaiian population in Salt Lake City had grown to seventy-five people. The needs of the growing population, racial prejudice, and logistic considerations prompted the community to relocate to unceded Goshute land in Skull Valley, Tooele County, where Pacific Islanders began building the township of Iosepa.5The turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries was a tumultuous time of volatile international geopolitics in Oceania. American and European imperialism drew borders, disrupted Indigenous governments, and ignited military conflicts throughout the Pacific. By 1887, Western colonial governments had claimed all of the major island groups except for the kingdoms of Hawaiʻi, Tonga, and Sāmoa. As a last-ditch effort to preserve sovereignty, King Kalākaua of Hawaiʻi initiated a confederacy of solidarity with the remaining independent Polynesian nations in 1887. A treaty of friendship between Hawaiʻi and Sāmoa was confirmed by King Malietoa Laupepa and ratified by the Ta‘imua and Faipule, the Samoan bicameral legislative assemblies. The formal association of the Native Hawaiian and Samoan kingdoms was seen as a renewal of “old friendships . . . among a kindred people,” as the Hawaiian envoy asserted that Native Hawaiians and Samoans were “closely allied” by “blood, by language, and by similar traditions.”6 These commonalities as Polynesian peoples would later factor into the decision for Samoans to join Native Hawaiians at the Iosepa township.In 1889—the year Iosepa was established in Utah—the Treaty of Berlin was signed between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, establishing a joint protectorate over Sāmoa. This arrangement ultimately failed, prompting the 1899 Tripartite Convention that divided the Samoan Islands between the United States and Germany. The period was marred with almost constant civil conflicts as Samoans resisted foreign occupation through various strategies, ranging from guerilla warfare and sabotage to national-scale civil disobedience movements.7As German and American imperialism increased its hold in Sāmoa, so did opportunities for Samoans to travel internationally—although not always voluntarily. During the German occupation of the islands of ʻUpolu, Savaiʻi, Manono, and Apolima between 1900 and 1914, prominent Samoan resistance leaders were regularly exiled by the German colonial administration; some resistance leaders died in exile, while those who returned to Sāmoa brought information back with them from places like Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Germany, and Cameroon.8 Samoans were also becoming increasingly familiar with the USA, where Native sailors had long been part of whaling and commercial shipping lines that routinely called at American ports like San Francisco and Nantucket.As inquisitive navigators, it was only a matter of time before Samoans journeyed beyond the bustling ports of America's coasts and into the interior of the continent. The first known Samoans to visit Utah were members of a performing group recruited from the island of Tutuila in June 1889. Promoted as “the tattooed Samoan warriors,” the “terribly wild” group started their world tour with a cast of eleven performers, who soon began succumbing to the hazards of deplorable living conditions and diseases to which they had no natural immunity.9 The intricate tattooing (tatau) on their bodies were considered such an exotic curiosity by European and American audiences that when Atofau and Letugaifo died from Western diseases, the men were skinned and displayed as taxidermy exhibits instead of being granted the courtesy of a formal burial. Atofau's preserved skin was on display as recently as 2005 at the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium;10 Letugaifo's mounted skin was publicly exhibited in Denver, Colorado, in 1891.11By the date of their scheduled performance at the Wonderland and Bijou Theatorium in Salt Lake City in May 1891, only five of the performing Samoan men were still alive.12 The performance of “the Samoan warriors” in Utah was described by local media as “a very novel and interesting feature” that held “the crowds highly amused” with demonstrations of “peculiar and weird character dancing” and “grotesque antics.”13 A man named Manogi died on the train and was hastily buried in Rawlins, Wyoming. The remaining three survivors passed through Ogden, Utah, in July 1891 on their way back to Sāmoa via San Francisco.14The next group of Samoans known to have visited the Utah Territory arrived by rail from San Francisco in 1893 en route to Chicago, Illinois, for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 (World's Fair), where a staged Samoan village was part of the public exhibition of various races, also including Egyptians and Turks.15 As the overland route of the Transcontinental Railroad was the main thoroughfare at the time, the troupe would have passed through Utah again on their return journey upon the conclusion of the World's Fair in October 1893.16In 1862, two Native Hawaiians—Elder Kimo Pelio (Belio) and Elder Samuela Mānoa—were issued unauthorized calls to establish a mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Samoan Islands.17 Walter Gibson initiated missionary efforts in Sāmoa in 1863 without the church's knowledge or approval. The pair's efforts led to as many as seventy people accepting baptism on the islands of Aunuʻu and Tutuila before discontinuing their ministry after learning of the fraudulent circumstances under which they were called.The LDS Samoan Mission officially opened in 1888 with the arrival of Elder Joseph Dean and family, twenty-five years after Belio and Mānoa first arrived in Sāmoa. American, Native Hawaiian, and Samoan missionaries continued to spread the teachings of the LDS church in earnest, and proselytizing extended to the island of ʻUpolu in 1889 and Savaiʻi in 1890.Latter-day Saint missionaries called to proselytize in the Samoan Islands became central characters in the story of how Utah's Samoan communities first started. Elder Alma Green was called to the Sāmoa Mission in 1890, and Elder Abinadi Olsen of Castle Dale, Utah, arrived in Sāmoa in 1895. A Scottish immigrant named James Mackie Sr. joined the LDS church in Sāmoa and was baptized by Elder Alma Green in June 1893; his Samoan wife Simeafua (a daughter of the Reverend Sataraka of Taputimu, Tutuila) was baptized by Elder C. L. Clayton in January 1897. Olsen befriended the Mackies and was a major facilitator of their immigration to Utah.According to a descendant, the Mackie family was assisted in their preparations to move to Utah with “encouragement from the missionaries” who also emphasized “the very real danger to their well being” if they remained in Sāmoa.18 Beside the promise of Utah as a land of opportunities, the only operational LDS temples during the 1890s were located in the Utah Territory, which meant that Samoan converts who desired to receive temple ordinances were required to travel to “Zion” to fully practice their religion.The first Samoans to reside in Utah were the children of LDS converts who were brought to Utah by returning missionaries. The first of these was five-year old Florence Kenison, a daughter of Mele Taoa Magele (of Savaiʻi, Sāmoa) and Frederick Kenison (who was born in Sāmoa to parents of English and Scottish ancestry). Florence (also known as Flossie) was brought to Heber Valley in 1896—the same year that Utah gained statehood—by her adoptive father, Elder Joseph A. Rasband, at the conclusion of his missionary service in Sāmoa. She was raised in Heber and later married Walter R. Kintzley in California, where she died in 1930.19Abinadi Olsen returned to his family in Castle Dale in June 1898 with James Mackie Jr., the oldest son of James Mackie Sr. and Simeafua Sataraka. Olsen recorded the following in his May 18, 1898, journal entry: Bro. James Mackie is now bidding his little son farewell and to for his and for his almost to her little son her the little James was to his little to to with the with the Olsen family in for three years when the of the Mackie family journeyed to Utah to join the of Abinadi the Mackie family in Utah, for a year before to Salt Lake article in the Salt Lake on January 18, little over a year arrived in Salt Lake and with the . . . Mackie was the first Samoan to to and her children are in the public where they are being the of and the family was living in Green where the family their son to a born in to Simeafua and James Mackie Sr. in was the first Samoan to born in the Utah opportunities and the for missionaries to return to Sāmoa to their were the that prompted missionaries to Samoan children to Elder that and were by missionaries to with to for three or four in to them to that the missionaries would for Samoan to was from Sāmoa by at the conclusion of his mission in July was to and brought to Utah with Elder following his from missionary service in a Samoan during the in the Salt Lake in October and had to present LDS church with a as a from the children of the first Samoan to as in July and as in October of that was brought to Utah by LDS missionary Elder in when she was years Sāmoa, an English in memory of his or She with the family of while between and where she in a under the name She to Iosepa in where she married and had four children to the of the daughter of and was brought to Utah in 1900 by Elder who her the name The first Samoan in Utah, was the in her at for three she was called to an LDS mission in her Sāmoa in A and she was noted in the Salt Lake as “a very Samoan who had a in American Sāmoa) came to Utah with Elder and at in October returned to Sāmoa following his and continued to with missionary was brought to Utah by Elder of and the name A daughter of and she traveled from to San Francisco on the with daughter of and of who married Kenison Sr. in Castle Dale later that same to family for her to in the return the to her or with her family, as she died of within a year of in Utah and was buried in first known Samoan to buried in the Utah of of Sāmoa, and on the and arrived in Utah in May is the first known of Samoan ancestry in Utah, a in from in was the of The and from to and was an and was the first Samoan and in died in and is buried in of and Sāmoa in with a group of returning LDS missionaries including Elder Heber Elder and Elder and from in died in a in in and is buried in of and arrived in Utah to and at in where she was known as or A and she from LDS of in becoming the first known Samoan in and not long before her to the daughter of and James these the with her in Utah and her with and in her and a firsthand into some of the and racial that early Samoan immigrants in a new she it was not them would the from the in in was by the of by his his the of the a and of by of his part in for the of and almost not the of her by a and are called upon to through and first was when are other on with constant that to the and on was the most and experience had in all such such and and on was on with at the to for in Salt Lake City in and to Hawaiʻi, where she was buried at in Samoan and began to the little of efforts to or a community among the first Samoan who were spread across Utah in like Castle Dale, and Salt Lake at the was by in and Samoan in that The were and by the LDS missionary and were described by the as an and for missionaries who in the Pacific as well as of the Pacific Samoan at in including who the and who first place in and the first place in the by LDS missionaries in and including Samoan Mission to a called Samoan was more of a for missionaries who had in Sāmoa, than a for Samoan people living in 1899 and Iosepa was the of Utah's Samoan While the population as and in and of the the of Samoans as living in Iosepa for of time was at (also known as and have been the first Samoan to at as early as she sailed from to San Francisco on the same as the Mackie family, it not that she the Mackies to Castle The Mackie family from Salt Lake City to Iosepa in and their daughter was the first Samoan born at in a turn of Simeafua Mackie and her daughter died in within a of other and were the first Samoans to in the Iosepa the Samoans who had at most were at of were born in Sāmoa and more than of were born in of the Samoan who at Iosepa were born in Sāmoa, including and three all of the Samoan in Utah were of racial with Samoan and European or Native Hawaiian that among the of men who were of Iosepa were men who had married Samoan the of and of Utah's Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in the Pacific via and some of the of Native Hawaiians and Samoans at As as the the of Samoans in Iosepa very little from their Native Hawaiian children the community while were employed in the of the Iosepa and and other of that were in the to Utah between and at Samoan began with in the of the time, these of Utah's on remained on state in all of these were Native Hawaiian and Pacific at the time, between Samoans and Americans also place in Utah, as in the of of and who had to the United States in and married a in Salt Lake City in and of early Polynesian Utahns are when within the of the of the by of some of the first Polynesian Utahns various of and at Samoans and Native including of in of or and The of these of and with of and a on the of the of Polynesians living in Utah at the turn of the the of Samoans and Native Hawaiians and in it is not that Samoans and Native Hawaiians of would from within their Samoans and Native Hawaiians languages and had they had a and common as Polynesians that it to than among the Samoan had visited Utah, the of Hawaiʻi had in with the of Sāmoa, by the treaty of extended by King Kalākaua in 1887. The of that treaty to and of the Samoan and Hawaiian By 1889, a of Samoans were in the of While Hawaiʻi Hawaiian and English were the languages by Iosepa the and of Samoans living in the township opportunities for Samoan of the town to with other in their as some of and was at as in the Samoan were part of community and church The Samoan of Iosepa is firsthand by Pacific Islander of Iosepa are and an of the Samoan population is to to and As the of the early twentieth in and people of known Samoan ancestry are as Hawaiian, and the is as not ancestry or to the some children from the same family are as a from in the family, or the on is from the in or such Samoan only established through and perhaps a on the the town of Iosepa was in been that the Iosepa and had an and was no a LDS temple had been in Hawaiʻi, and Islanders would no to in Utah in to in The Latter-day Saint Joseph Iosepa that they not or by the Utah population after his while have of the and they A of all of these is to the is known is that the of to new and return to their new in Utah, or move to state those or so Samoans born at the town was the only home they had those who had Sāmoa in the the of returning to their islands was by the of the Tripartite of which the islands of ʻUpolu, Savaiʻi, Manono, and Apolima under German colonial and established American over and the their Native Hawaiian independent was by American in Samoan of Iosepa were to return to the same they had as their home islands were now German and American than independent Samoan most Samoans who at Iosepa were their children were which to have many to in the continental United these “the born and display and is not to that of those Hawaiian or Samoan a for Utah, or its of Samoan the township before it was such as (who returned to Sāmoa after where she her for three the children of the Simeafua Mackie (who with their to Utah, in and (who also Iosepa to at Iosepa to Hawaiʻi, if they were married to a Native Hawaiian of and with her family three to Hawaiʻi, where her to Hawaiʻi, with her and their three children who were born in including with were the Samoan children to born in Iosepa to its a son of Kenison in Sāmoa) and on the that Iosepa in their were to place was the was on the the from to to family to have returned to Sāmoa after and Kenison were born in which would later part of American they married in and their is recorded as being born in American Sāmoa, in The family returned to Utah his and father, Kenison, all died within a of other in A joint service was for the who were all buried in the Salt Lake City and in Jr., of the of the was a of daughter of Simeafua and James and her remained in Utah and raised their children of were born at in Utah, including who was a prominent and of and Samoans continued to of opportunities in Utah, with becoming the first known Samoan to from LDS of in and Sāmoa in and in with the family of Elder while at some Utah their back to some of the Samoans who in Utah the turn of the twentieth most of Utah's Samoan population from that have The period of most was the when Utah's Samoan population Utah the percent population of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the with over Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders the state The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NH/PI) population in Utah by percent between and than the the of Samoans in Utah during the same time period was Samoans the largest Pacific Islander group in Utah, for percent of the population in the and Utah the home of the Samoan population in the fully all the diverse that prompted the first Samoans to to Utah, the they the of thousands of Samoan Americans who Utah home are the voyaging legacy of the ancestors who came before are still the of family and in the and of are by the and of and of many of the including Jr., Rasband, and are to Church History of Utah and History for their throughout Sāmoa
Fitisemanu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.