1899 United States: President William McKinley signed an executive order on 19 February 1900, reading: "The Island of Tutuila, of the Samoan Group, and all other islands of the group east of longitude 171 degrees west of Greenwich, are hereby placed under the control of the Department of the Navy for a naval station. The Secretary of the Navy shall take such steps as are necessary to establish the authority of the United States and to give to the islands the necessary protection." On the same day John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, stated further that these islands "... are hereby established into a naval station, to be known as the naval station, Tutuila, and to be under the command of a commandant." Rose Island, an uninhabited coral atoll, and the island of Aunu'u were included. The cession of deeds of the islands of the Manua Group (Ta'u and Ofu-Olosega) did not take place until 1904, although the respective chiefs had previously accepted the sovereignty of the United States. The term "American Samoa" entered into conscious usage in 1905 with a first assembly, or fono, of the Samoan chiefs on all ceded islands within the naval station. German Empire: The Samoan islands of Upolu and Savaii and the small islands of Apolima and Manono, west of 171 degrees west longitude, were declared a protectorate of the German Empire, and became known as German Samoa, with a flag-raising on 1 March 1900, and appointment of Wilhelm Solf as governor. This "happy acquisition" was viewed in Germany as a "splendid achievement in colonial policy, which is at the same time a genuinely popular one." United Kingdom: By surrendering all rights in Samoa, the United Kingdom "obtained extensive compensation from Germany elsewhere", in effect, "transfer of all of the German rights in the Tonga group including” “that of establishing a naval and coaling station,” “and the right of extraterritoriality;” “the shifting of the line of demarcation between German and British islands in the Solomon group so as to give to Great Britain all the German islands to the east and southeast of the island of Bougainville;” “the division of the so-called neutral zone in West Africa by a definite boundary line between British and German possessions;” “the promise of Germany to take into consideration, as much and as far as possible, the wishes which the Government of Great Britain may express with