|
|
Article: Individual Land Tenure in American Samoa.
- Article from:
- The Contemporary Pacific
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 University of Hawaii Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
For American Samoans, as for many Pacific Islanders, traditional land tenure provides stability in a fast-changing world. Yet even in countries where land tenure generally follows traditional practices, land is increasingly held by individual or small family units, rather than by large kinbased groups (see Ward and Kingdon 1995). The shift to individually owned lands in many Polynesian societies began with European settlement and colonial rule during the nineteenth century.(1) Governments frequently imposed land registration and private ownership to secure land for settlers and facilitate development of commercial agriculture. Land registration also protected indigenous ...