Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1899 — BLOODSHED IN SAMOA. [ARTICLE]

BLOODSHED IN SAMOA.

FORCE OF AMERICANS AND BRIT. IBH AMBUSHED. Seven Are Killed and Their Bodies Decapitated by the Savage Matsu* fans—Forty Natives Meet DeathCauses Anxiety in Washington. Press dispatches Wednesday from Apia, via Auckland. N. Z., stated that a party of 105 American and British sailors were forced to retreat to the beach, after having been caught in ambush by 800 Mataafans on a German plantation. The expedition was led by Lieut. A. H. Freeman of the British third-class cruiser Tauranga. Three officers were killed. Two British and two American sailors also were killed. Ensign Monaghan remained to assist Lieut. Lansdale and was shot in retiring. The natives engaged were some of Mataafa’s warriors. They severed the heads of the British and American officers .killed. Priests of the French mission afterward brought the heads into Apia. The manager of the German plantation was arrested and detained on board the Tauranga on affidavits declaring that he was seen urging the rebels to tight. In a previous engagement twenty-seven of Mataafa’s warriors were killed, and there were no casualties among the European forces. The news from Samoa of the ambuscading and massacre of American and British sailors stirred the authorities in Washington as they have not been since the excitement of the Spanish-American war. The most serious phase of the affair is not the aggression of the Samoan natives, but the suspicion that they were incited to the deed by the German residents of the island. There was a refusal on the part of the higher officials to discuss the sad event. The secretary of the German embassy called early upon Secretary Hay. Neither of the officials would disclose anything as to the nature of the exchange that took place. The arrest and detention by the British naval officials of a German subject is one of the most dangerous features of the controversy. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Davis, was one of the earliest callers at the White House. His brother-in-law, Bartlett Tripp, has just been appointed American member of the Samoan commission. After a call on the President he visited the State Department. The Senator expressed grave fear as to th? complications that might ensue with Germany on account of the massacre.