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Tui Manuʻa Elisala

politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ7851720 ↗
Source-derived summary

Tui Manuʻa Elisara (died 2 July 1909) was the last Tui Manu'a titleholder in Manu'a, which is now part of the U.S. Territory of American Samoa. Elisala was the son of Tui Manuʻa Alalamua whose genealogy descended from the Sa Tagaloa.

Biography

Tui Manu'a Elisara was born on the island of Ta'u as the second son of Tui Manu'a Alaalamua and Sofe, a daughter of Matiu of Ta'u island. Tui Manu'a Alalamua (of one of the female branches of the larger Anoalo clan called the Avaloa clan in the Tui Manu'a family) was the successor of Tui Manu'a Tauveve, also from the Falesoā clan. Shortly after the death of Tui Manu'a Alalamua a vigorous debate ensued among potential heirs.

From the three main branches of the Tui Manu'a family, three candidates emerged from each clan as each endorsed by their own branches of the Tui Manu'a family and their political allies: Alaalamua's own son, Elisara (from the Avaloa clan) was named as an obvious contender although Elisara himself refused the title in lieu of his religious calling. The other two claimants were Taofi (Also from the female branch of the larger Anoalo clan called the Falesoā clan of the Tui Manu'a family) and a young woman named Matelita (a descendant of Tui Manu'a Taliutafa Tupolo, son of Tui Manu'a Moaatoa of the Lalopu'a clan of the larger Anoalo clan).

With Elisara temporarily out of the succession, Taofi remained as one of the lesser direct heir and his party named him Tui Manu'a. Matelita's party, however, was able to amass even more support for her campaign (mainly through her male-side lineage of the Lalopu'a clan of the Tui Manu'a family and Eastern and Western Samoan relatives of her half-caste father Arthur Stephen "Pa'u" Young); Makerita capitulated to her sovereignty and she held the title until her death in 1895 which is shrouded in suspicion. After Tui Manuʻa Makeritas death, the Faletolu requested that Elisara Alaalamua take the title, in 1899 chiefly assembly of the Faletolu and Anoalo appointed the title to one of the female branches the Avaloa clan from Alaalamua's line by persuading Elisara to take the throne.

Editorial summary

“Tui Manuʻa Elisala” enters the record as politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Manuʻa, Elisala and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1909, 1895, 1899—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Manuʻa, Elisala and politician.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Tui Manuʻa Elisala” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Manuʻa, Elisala and politician provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7851720. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1895 and 1899.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tui Manuʻa Elisala”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tui Manuʻa Elisala primary sources, Tui Manuʻa Elisala archive and Manuʻa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tui Manuʻa Elisala” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.