| A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa | |
| Author: | Robert Louis Stevenson |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Samoan Civil War |
| Publisher: | Cassell |
| Pub Date: | 1892 |
| Media Type: | book |
| Pages: | 322 |
| Isbn: | 0-8248-1857-1 |
| Oclc: | 227258432 |
A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa is an 1892 historical non-fiction work by Scottish-born author Robert Louis Stevenson describing the contemporary Samoan Civil War.[1]
Robert Louis Stevenson arrived in Samoa in 1889 and built a house at Vailima. He quickly became passionately interested, and involved, in the attendant political machinations. These involved the three great powers battling for influence in Samoa – the United States, Germany and Britain – and the political machinations of the various Samoan factions within their indigenous political system. The book covers the period from 1882 to 1892.[2]
The book served as such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson for a time feared that it would result in his own deportation. When things had finally blown over he wrote to Sidney Colvin, who came from a family of distinguished colonial administrators, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!"[3]
A contemporary review of the book noted: