Village councils of the Tutuila unit

Background

Each village has a council, which NPS calls the fono, made up of the matai of the village’s families, and NPS describes it as the body that makes decisions on matters of importance to the village. Below the fono sits a pulenu’u, who handles day-to-day management. The 1993 lease that created the National Park of American Samoa was signed with seven villages. NPS now lists nine. The Department of the Interior records that the matai of Tutuila ceded the island to the United States in 1900.

Parks on its homelands

National Park of American Samoa

The lease that created the park names the four Tutuila villages, Afono, Vatia, Pago Pago and Fagasa, as the landowners who signed it, and counts about 2,533 acres on the island inside the 8,003 acres leased in total. The term runs fifty years, with the park holding an option on another fifty years if the lessor agrees. Source

Sources

• https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/american-samoa
• https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/historyculture/people.htm
• https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/news/fact-sheet.htm
• https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/management/index.htm
• https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/news/25th-anniversary.htm

Checked September 2026.

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