Tusitala — The Life & Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa
Not many people know that I am half Samoan. I often hear people tell me I look tanned in the middle of winter, and I’m never quite sure how to respond — because I am, in fact, a brown person.
Aside from being right next to the international dateline (and the first country in the world to see a new day), Samoa is a stone's throw away from the equator. To rattle off the embarrassingly little I know: Samoans speak Samoan, laugh loudly and often, are fantastic dancers (obviously it's genetic!) and they love to eat. Their food blends Asian, German, and Pacific influences. It’s rich, flavourful, polysaturated, and fresh. I remember trying taro (a root vegetable) for the first time and going back for seconds. I can still hear my mother warning me, “Don’t eat too much — it’s a natural steroid. You’ll start looking like the Hulk.”
Despite my roots, I’ve never felt a strong personal connection to my Samoan heritage. I’ve been curious about it, but only in the same way I’m curious about Algeria or Argentina. Lately, though, I find myself asking questions, and somehow, a few answers have led me back to this small island I’ve never been to — a speck in the vast blue of the Pacific that’s quietly playing a part in a story I didn’t know I belonged to.
American Samoa sits of one side of the international dateline and Samoa sits on the other
One night, deep into a 3 a.m. scroll through videos about colonial history in the Pacific, I stumbled on a documentary about Samoa’s third colonisation — this time by New Zealand. In the middle of it, a word caught my attention:
Tusitala.
In Samoan, Tusitala means “teller of tales” — and it’s the name affectionately given to a Scottish writer who arrived in Samoa in 1890, searching for a place where the tropical air might soothe his chronic lung disease. That man was Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and other literary classics.
But in Samoa, he became something more.
Why do I, a travel writer, want to bring attention to Robert Louis Stevenson?
Because Stevenson wasn’t just passing through. He stayed. He listened. He used his outside knowledge and presence to support — not influence nor speak over — the people around him. In a time when travel often meant conquest, Stevenson became something else entirely: a bridge between the European world and an island caught in the crosshairs of another colonial takeover.
His life in Samoa reflects the kind of travel I believe in — not as an escape, but as a form of exchange. If you think about it, modern travel mostly involves taking: taking photos, taking memories, taking up space, taking resources, taking houses.
Where Stevenson arrived as a visitor to write and enjoy the tropical air, he left as:
- A friend to chiefs and villagers alike
- A defender of Samoan sovereignty during colonial disputes
- A voice of fairness, writing essays critical of European interference in the islands
- A man who treated Samoans with dignity and humanity
Many admired him not because he was famous but because he listened, helped, and walked beside them during a time of immense change. His story reminds us that outsiders inevitably shift the stories they step into — gently, unconsciously, and sometimes imperfectly — but they also have the chance to reflect those stories back to the storytellers, to become bridges between cultures, and to carry forward ideas that take the best bits of both countries.
Samoa For Samoans - a non-violent movement for Samoan independence from colonial rule.
Travels to Scotland
For a wee while on my travels through Scotland, I would wake up, staring at the ceiling of a frosty bothy on a small Scottish farm at the gate of the Highlands. It was run by a man with tales as long as the Lochs, with just as many mysteries and missing details.
On his farm, he showed me a small clearing in the trees beside a stone wall and a bank that dropped down into a stream. In the middle was a large stack of wood, waiting to be set alight. Around the stack were six large, flat rocks positioned in a circle.
“In the evenings, I bring the kids down here, and we tell stories around the fire. Kids have the wildest imaginations.”
He laughs and tells me his father did the same with him. Those were his fondest memories growing up. I sat on one of the rocks, looked down at my mud-filled nails and let my mind drift away as he launched into another story.
What story would I tell when it was time to light the fire?
The Storyteller as a Bridge
They say that when a storyteller dies, it’s like an entire library has burned down. In many First Nations cultures where knowledge is lived, spoken and remembered, it can leave a gaping hole where unwritten history, sacred knowledge and the worldview of a people is left unfilled.
Today, Samoan artists, writers, and performers still carry Tusitala’s spirit — but they do it on their own terms. They tell stories of migration, identity, climate change, decolonisation, and resilience.
Where Stevenson opened a door, the people he inspired walked through it, with their own voices leading the way.
What We Carry Forward
Stevenson’s Treasure Island is a story about treasure, but it was never truly about gold.
Travel can be the same. Not just a search for newness, but a chance to discover what kind of person we’re becoming in the process. What we do with the stories we inherit — and how we weave them into our own — become the blueprint for the kind of storytellers we become.
I want to leave you with the words inscribed on Stevenson’s tomb, taken from his poem Requiem. It is beautiful description of returning ‘home’, and for myself (and I am sure other travellers as well) home doesn’t always mean where you were born, but could be a place that allows us the opportunity to bring out the best in others and they, in turn, bring out the best in us.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.