The Samoan Crisis is a standoff between the United States, Germany, and Great Britain from 1887–1889 over control of the Samoan Islands during the Samoan Civil War.

The incident involves three United States Navy warships (the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia, the screw steamer USS Trenton, and the gunboat USS Nipsic) and three German warships (the gunboats SMS Adler and SMS Eber and the corvette SMS Olga), keeping each other at bay over several months in Apia harbor, whichis monitored by the British corvette HMS Calliope.

The standoff ends when a cyclone on 15 and 16 March wrecks all six warships in the harbor.

Calliope is able to escape the harbor and survives the storm.

Robert Louis Stevenson does not witness the storm and its aftermath at Apia but will, after his arrival in Samoa (December 1889) write about the event.

The Samoan Civil War continues, involving Germany, United States and Britain, eventually resulting, via the Tripartite Convention of 1899, in the partition of the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa.