Village councils of the Manu'a units

A Native organization

Pola Island, a tall sea-cliff islet, seen across the Vai'ava Strait from the Mount 'Alava Adventure Trail above Vatia on Tutuila.
Eddy23, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Background

Manu’a is the eastern group of islands in American Samoa. The lease that put the National Park of American Samoa on the ground was signed in 1993 with seven villages, three of them in the Manu’a group: Ta’u, Fitiuta and Faleasao. Congress added Ofu and Olosega in 2002, and NPS now lists nine villages whose land the park leases from the Samoan village councils rather than owning. The Department of the Interior records that the matai of Manu’a ceded the islands to the United States in 1904, four years after the matai of Tutuila ceded that island in 1900.

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Parks on its homelands

Pola Island, a tall sea-cliff islet, seen across the Vai'ava Strait from the Mount 'Alava Adventure Trail above Vatia on Tutuila.National Park of American Samoa

The park's lease names Fitiuta, Taʻu and Faleasao on Taʻu island, and Ofu and Olosega on Ofu island, as the landowners who signed it. The acreage is lopsided: 5,397 of the 8,003 leased acres sit on Taʻu, and 73 on Ofu. Source

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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