Vailele

Vailele is a village situated on the central north coast of Upolu island in Samoa.

Vailele is in the electoral constituency (faipule district) of Vaimauga East in the larger political district of Tuamasaga.

The village is less than ten minutes east of the country's capital, Apia. The settlement is north facing and situated in Vailele Bay.

Historical

In the 1800s, the large Vailele Plantation inland was owned by the German company, Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft (DHPG) which employed workers from the Melanesian islands. DHPG was a major plantation owner in Samoa. It had formerly traded in the Pacific as Godeffroys but changed its name and expanded operations in Samoa when the family's parent company in Hamburg became bankrupt. Much of the village land lost during colonialism is now owned by the government operated Western Samoa Trust Estate Corporation (WSTEC). Financial difficulties by WSTEC in the late 1970s and early 1980s resulted in the sale of land in Vailele. However, the government returned some of the land to villagers in Vailele and neighbouring villages Lauli'i and Letogo.