10 Tala - Tanumafili II Theodore Roosevelt

Tanumafili II, who served as Samoa's head of state from 1962 until his death in 2007, was the world's last remaining head of state to have been born a subject of Queen Victoria — a biographical detail that made him a natural pairing for commemorative issues linking the Pacific to broader imperial and colonial-era history. Roosevelt's connection to Samoa was administrative rather than personal: the Tripartite Convention of 1899 partitioned the Samoan islands, with the United States taking the eastern portion and Germany the western, under an agreement negotiated during his political ascent.