Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, April 17, 2000 marked the 100th anniversary of the first raising of the U.S. flag in the territory that has since become known as American Samoa. As best we can determine, it was some 3,000 years ago that my ancestors first set foot on the Samoan Islands. As you know, Polynesian navigators did not use satellite navigation, or even sextants to guide them. They found their way across the vast Pacific by following the stars, the winds, and the seas. In 1768, the French explorer by the name of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the second European to sight the Samoan Islands, became so impressed with the sailing skills of the Samoans that he named the islands L'Archipel des Navigateurs. For generations thereafter, the entire Samoan Island group was known to the Western world as the 'Navigator Islands.' Captain Cook once made the remark that he had never been more impressed with the fact that from as far North as the Hawaiian Islands, and as far south as Aotearoa, New Zealand, and as far East as Rapa Nui or the Easter Islands that the settlements were made by Polynesians. I might also note, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, Columbus got lost trying to find the new world and mistakenly named the native inhabitants of the Islands of the Caribbeans as Indians, because he thought he landed in India.”