Ta'isi Olaf Frederick Nelson (24 February 1883 – 28 February 1944) was a Samoan businessman and politician. He was one of the founding leaders of the anti-colonial

Mau movement The Mau was a nonviolence, non-violent movement for Samoan independence from colony, colonial rule during the first half of the 20th century. ''Mau'' means 'resolute' or 'resolved' in the sense of 'opinion', 'unwavering', 'to be decided', o ...

Biography

Nelson was born on 24 February 1883 in Safune on the island of Savai'i to Swedish trader August Nelson and his Samoan wife, Sina Tugaga, whose family had links to the Sa Tupua, a prominent chiefly family. His name Ta'isi is a '' matai'' chief title from his mother's family from the Savai'i village of Asau. Nelson grew up in the family's home village of Faleolo until the age of eight, when he was sent to the

Marist Brothers The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic Church, Catholic religious institute of Religious brother, brothers. In 1817, Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from Fr ...

School in

Apia Apia () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Samoa. It is located on the central north coast of Upolu, Samoa's second-largest island. Apia falls within the political district (''itūmālō'') of Tuamasaga. The Apia Urban A ...

. He left the school at the age of thirteen and became an apprentice at the DH & PG firm. He worked at DH & PH for four years, during which time he founded Samoa's first brass band. After leaving DH & PG, Nelson returned to Savai'i and took over his father's business, which had started on 1895 under the name - Nelson and Robertson Limited. He expanded his father's copra trading business throughout the islands, and by the time he was thirty-five, Nelson was one of the wealthiest members of the Apia community. He was influential in both the Samoan and European communities. Under German rule, the colonial administrators treated Nelson as an equal, but after

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

seized control in 1914, Nelson was excluded and alienated by the new government. Despite being elected to the

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

in 1924, he could do little as he and the other elected members were constantly overruled by the more numerous government appointees. This treatment turned Nelson into one of the major forces in the Samoan independence movement, known as the Mau. In May 1927 Nelson founded a newspaper, the ''Samoa Guardian'', to support its claims. In response to his growing public dissent, the New Zealand administration tried to brand Nelson as unscrupulous and a trouble maker. The colonial administration's desperation to silence Nelson led them to exile him in January 1928, along with two other part-European members of the Mau. During his five years of exile, Nelson took his protests as far as the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

in Geneva. He returned to Samoa in May 1933, and continued his advocacy. General Hart, the New Zealand administrator, demanded that Nelson be excluded from any meeting (fono) swith the leadership of the Mau. The Mau insistence that Nelson should be one of its delegates. General Hart ordered police raids on the Mau’s headquarters at Vaimoso and Nelson’s residence at Tuaefu, which occurred on 15 November 1933. Eight Samoan chiefs, leaders of the Mau, who were members of a conference of 100 assembled at Tuatuanu’u were arrested on charges of collecting monies for unlawful purposes and engaging in Mau activities. A week later a further 7 chiefs were arrested at Savaii. Six months after his return to Samoa, Nelson was convicted of 3 charges of being connected to the Mau, for which he was sentenced to ten additional years in exile as well as eight months imprisonment in New Zealand. His appeal to the Full Court of the New Zealand Supreme Court quashed the sentence of imprisonment but upheld the ten years of exile. The Privy Council in London rejected his appeal. However, his exile was cut short in 1936, after Labour won the New Zealand general election in 1935. He returned to Samoa on 22 July 1936, and helped in the signing of the co-operation agreement between Samoan leaders and the New Zealand administration. He was subsequently elected to the Legislative Council in

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

, and re-elected in

1941 The Correlates of War project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 3.49 million. However, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that the subsequent year, 1942, wa ...

. Nelson died in 1944, and it was not until 1962 that his dream of Samoan independence was realised.

Legacy

Ta'isi had six daughters. Viopapa Lucy, Irene Gustave Noue, Olive Nelson (Malienafau), Joyce Rosabel Piliopo, Sina Hope and Calmar Josephine Taufau, and one son, Ta'isi who died as a result of the influenza epidemic in 1919 aged 4.See O'Brien, Tautai Malienafau was the first Pacific Island graduate of the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

, graduating with a law degree in 1936. Ta'isi's daughter Noue went on to marry Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole, who became Joint Head of State when Samoa attained Independence in 1962. They sired Olf "Efi" Nelson who went on to become Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Tupuola Ta'isi Efi, the third

Prime Minister of Samoa The prime minister of the Independent State of Samoa () is the head of government of Independent State of Samoa, Samoa. The prime minister is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Samoa, Legislative Assembly, and is appointed by the O le Ao o ...

and from 2007 to 2017, the Head of State of Samoa. His other grandson Misa Telefoni Retzlaff (Hermann Theodor Retzlaff) was in parliament from 1988 to 2011, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa from 2001 to 2011. Retzlaff's son is Lemalu Herman Retzlaff (Taisi's great-grandson), who was appointed Attorney General of Samoa in 2016. Ta-isi's grand-daughter is Dr Viopapa Annandale–Atherton. In 1964, she was the first Samoan woman to graduate in medicine from the University of Otago and has committed her career to improving the health and welfare of women and children in the Pacific Islands. The Nelson Memorial Public Library was donated to the Samoan people by the Nelson Family in Ta'isi's memory.

References

Sources

* O'Brien, Patricia. Tautai: Sāmoa, World History and the Life of Ta'isi O. F. Nelson (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2017) * O'Brien, Patricia
"Ta'isi O. F. Nelson and Sir Maui Pomare: Samoans and Maori Reunited", Journal of Pacific History, 49:1 2014
* Laracy, Hugh. 'Nelson, Olaf Frederick 1883 - 1944'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 7 April 200
Hugh Laracy profile
''Dictionary of New Zealand Biography'']. Accessed 26 March 2024. * Wendt, Albert
''Guardians and Wards'' (A study of the origins, causes, and the first two years of the Mau in Western Samoa.)
New Zealand Electronic Text Centre. Accessed 26 March 2024. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Olaf Frederick 20th-century Samoan businesspeople Samoan chiefs Samoan exiles 1883 births 1944 deaths 20th-century planters Western Samoa Trust Territory people Prisoners and detainees of New Zealand Samoan prisoners and detainees Samoan people of Swedish descent Members of the Legislative Council of Samoa 1910s in Samoa 1920s in Western Samoa Trust Territory 1930s in Western Samoa Trust Territory 1940s in Western Samoa Trust Territory Samoan independence activists 20th-century farmers 20th-century landowners