American Samoa: A Short Spot On The Flag And Nation
The Flag of American Samoa has been in use since 1960, before then it was the old star spangled banner and before that they used no flag at all. The flag shows a bald eagle holding a war club and a fly whisk (one of those brush type things that you swat away flies with). Back in the 1800’s the war like Samoan’s territory was disputed by the UK, US and Germany, so they split it three ways and American Samoa was turned over to the Americans to look after.
There’s only around 55,000 people living in the area and it’s the most southerly territory of the US of A, stuck out in the South Pacific Ocean.
The bald eagle doesn’t live in Samoa but is a symbol of the American’s guardianship over the island state. The club symbolises power and the fly whisk represents the wisdom of Samoa’s traditional leaders. It looks pretty nice there:
