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.