Leoleo and Fitafita. Native Police as an Instrument and Challenge for Colonial Rule in German Samoa

Abstract

In German colonialism, the rule of colonial difference aimed to establish a racial distinction between the colonizers and the colonized, thereby legitimizing and stabilizing colonial rule. Previous research has predominantly examined this phenomenon in the context of mixed marriages. However, this paper explores a different perspective by analyzing how the native police in German-Samoa collided with the rule of colonial difference and contemporary notions of what has been described in the literature as “salvage colonialism.” As a key component of the exploitation system in the racially segregated colony, the somewhat autonomous native law enforcement system was inevitably bound to interact with racial conflicts. This paper argues that this rather unique institution within German colonialism operated as an instrument of colonial rule and simultaneously posed a threat to the racial hierarchization within and beyond the Pacific colony. Discussing the Samoan police as a specific challenge for the rule of colonial difference can therefore serve as an analytical probe to flesh out the internal, practical, and ideological contradictions within German colonialism.