The Samoan Islands were first settled some 3,500 years ago as part of the Austronesian expansion.

European exploration first reached the islands in the early 18th century. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville named them Navigator Islands in 1768. The United States Exploring Expedition (1838–42) under Charles Wilkes reached Samoa in 1839. In 1855 J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn expanded its trading business into the archipelago. The Samoan Civil War of 1886–1894 devolved into the Samoan crisis between colonial powers, followed by the Second Samoan Civil War of 1898/9, which was resolved by partition of the islands in the Tripartite Convention, between the United States, Great Britain and Germany.

After World War I, German Samoa became a Trust Territory and eventually became independent as Samoa in 1962. American Samoa remains an unincorporated territory of the United States.