CHAPTER 3

History to 1898

From the time of settlement to about the end of the thirteenth century the Hawaiian Islands, divided almost from the first into independent kingdoms, seem on the whole to have been peaceful. From this time on, however, strife became more and more general, and after 1450 a. d. there were continual wars, which had the inevitable effect of lowering standards, materially, as well as intellectually and morally, and also of seriously decreasing the population. Many and barbarous were the battles and, as no quarter was given the conquered, whole districts were devastated and depopulated. One chief after another, arrogant and rapacious, led his brutal army from district to district, from island to island. Sometimes a chief gained control of a large part of the group, only to lose what he had conquered through successful rebellion during his own lifetime; surely, so far as the establishment of a dynasty was concerned, to lose it when, after his death, quarrels broke out as to redistribution of land among the competing nobles. In November, 1736, during one of these ferocious and unnecessary civil wars, Kamehameha I was born, but before his work of uniting the country under one sovereign was begun, the Islands were discovered by Captain Cook.

From old maps it is clear that the Spaniards had known as early as the sixteenth century that there was land somewhere in the vicinity of the Islands, but the world had no information as to its exact position and extent until Captain Cook, on a voyage of discovery to the northwest coast of America, sighted the Island of Oahu on January 18th, 1778. He saw soon afterwards the Islands of Niihau and Kauai, and landed at Waimea Bay on the latter island on the 20th. He then sailed to Niihau, where he spent a week taking on provisions and water, and trading. The general impression among the natives seems to have been that Captain Cook was a reincarnation of the god Lono, and that his crew were supernatural beings. Runners, who sailed in the swiftest canoes, and ran from end to end of the successive islands, were sent to carry to the different chiefs the news of these strange arrivals. This is a translation of their message: "The men are white; their skin is loose and folding; their heads are angular; fire and smoke issue from their mouths; they have openings in the sides of their bodies into which they thrust their hands and draw out iron, beads, nails, and other treasures, and their speech is unintelligible. This is the way they speak: ‘a hikapalale, hika palale, hioluai, oalaki, walawalaki, waiki poha.’" Apocryphal as this account may conceivably be, it differs from similar accounts in history and fiction of the effect produced on the savage mind by the first sight of civilised white men, in the extraordinary and probably authentic exposition of the English language as it sounded to the astonished ears of the Hawaiians. It will be noted that no letters are used which are unknown in the native tongue.

In the following November Captain Cook returned, and, after cruising about among the Islands, in January set up winter quarters for purposes of trade and for making observations, at Kealakekua Bay, on the southwest coast of Hawaii. The priests constituted themselves his bodyguard, offered sacrifices to him in the temple, and made the people worship him as a god. Large quantities of provisions were supplied and there was no more question of payment than there would have been for offerings made to any other god. But in this case the offerings were in large quantities and were continuous, so that, after the novelty had worn off, the heavy tax began to make the people restless. The outrageous conduct of the crew, also, over whom there seems to have been no control, disgusted them, and only their terror of the priests kept them in subordination. The departure of the strangers, therefore, after about three weeks, was a time of great rejoicing among the natives—a joy unfortunately short lived, as the ships ran into a severe storm and were compelled to return for repairs. The reception this time was very different. The priests were still faithful, so provisions were grudgingly supplied, but the people were convinced that the white men were not gods, treated them with contempt, and finally became so bold as to steal a ship's boat. In the fighting which ensued Captain Cook was killed by being stabbed in the back with an iron dagger. His body was held by the natives and was that night given formal funeral rites. His bones were deified. There is no doubt that in this last affray the natives were the aggressors. There is also no doubt that, had the sailors been kept in check and the people been treated with decent consideration, the final tragedy would not have occurred. Stories, believed at the time and by many believed to this day, that Captain Cook's body was eaten, are absolutely groundless. The Hawaiians were never at any time in their history cannibals.

Captain Cook named this new land the Sandwich Islands, in honour of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich, but it was a name never adopted officially and is gradually falling out of use the world over. The discovery of the Islands was the inauguration of a new era in Hawaiian affairs. Their isolation was over. New forces were henceforth to control their destiny, but it is sad that the first gift of the white men was disease and that the feeling for them left in the minds of the natives was one of fear mingled with contempt.

The history of the next thirty years is the story of the gradual conquest of the Islands by Kamehameha. Left, on the death of the old King, as second in power on the Island of Hawaii, he was soon involved in one of the endless civil wars, and after many reverses succeeded in making himself the most powerful chief in the island, not even excepting the King, to whom he was nominally subject. In 1790 a great eruption of Kilauea, which destroyed a large part of his rival's army that was actually marching against him, convinced Kamehameha that the goddess Pele was on his side. It was, however, not a brilliantly successful battle, but an act of gross treachery, culminating in the murder of the King of Hawaii, which gave him the sovereignty of the island. In 1795 dissensions in the leeward islands made Kamehameha believe that the time had come to carry his conquests across the water. Tradition reports the strength of his army as 16,000 men. Maui he took with comparative ease, and Oahu after a fierce struggle in Nuuanu Valley, where the survivors of the opposing army were driven over the precipice at the head of the valley. The invasion of Kauai was prevented once by a storm which destroyed many of the canoes which had already set sail, once by a pestilence which carried off half of Kamehameha's army. The island was finally, in 1810, voluntarily ceded by its king, who was, however, given permission to hold it in fief during his lifetime on condition that he make Liholiho, Kamehameha's heir, his successor. The conquest of the Islands was greatly facilitated by the facts that Kamehameha was superior to other chiefs in the number of his firearms and that he had in his service two or three intelligent white men.

Ascending Pali road six miles N. E. of Honolulu

After the death of Captain Cook the Islands were visited by successive expeditions, among them those of the well-known navigators. Portlock and Dixon, and La Perouse, both in 1786. Captain Mears in 1787 took a high chief, Kaiana, a friend of Kamehameha, on a visit to China. On the whole, explorers were friendly, but when the captains of ships visiting the Islands did not treat the natives fairly reprisals were often severe. Thus, for example, in 1789, a sloop, the Fair American, was captured and the crew killed. The sloop was for years used by Kamehameha. Firearms were obtained by barter and sometimes by theft. One explorer. Captain George Vancouver, who had been sent out by the British Government, made three visits to Hawaii and has always been considered a benefactor of the Hawaiian people. He refused to sell firearms; he gave much good and sadly needed advice; he tried to act as mediator between warring factions; and landed cattle, which had been hitherto unknown, but which now increased rapidly and were of great benefit to the people. He it was, also, who superintended the construction of the first vessel built in the Islands, the Britannia^ which formed an important addition to Kamehameha's little navy. At his instigation a council of the chiefs was held in 1794, at which it was determined to place the Islands under the protection of Great Britain, and in February of the same year the British flag was hoisted. If England had ratified this voluntary cession the subsequent history of the group would have been very different.

After the conquest of Oahu in 1795 Kamehameha's chief work consisted in consolidating the government. All the power he centralised in his own hands. He broke up the dangerous influence of ambitious chiefs by apportioning to them land in small scattered parcels instead of assigning whole districts, as had been the custom, and by keeping the more turbulent at the court as his personal attendants. He promoted agriculture by every means in his power, and so sternly reproved and punished crime that serious offences became very rare. He made intelligent and successful efforts to win the approval and co-operation of foreigners. He supported rigorously the whole, complex mass of the ancient tabu system, which was probably wise, since there was nothing as yet to replace the old religion, and the tabus were of great service to him in upbuilding and perfecting the power of his own personal rule. He was eminently judicious in the choice of his counsellors and in his appointments. He left to his successor a consistent, efficient governmental system, so thoroughly centralised, its power so impressed on the minds of the people, that even a weak king and the sweeping changes of the next few years did not affect its stability. For his power as a warrior, still more for his sagacity as a ruler, Kamehameha I is rightly considered the greatest of the Hawaiians, and under similar conditions would have been a great man in any country.

At the time that the internal affairs of the Islands were being put on a stable basis their opportunities of contact with the outer world became more frequent and their foreign relations more important. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century there grew up a large trade in sandal-wood, which was bought at a preposterously low figure, while at the same time foreign articles were sold in Honolulu at exorbitant prices. The sandal-wood trade was so At the time that the internal affairs of the Islands were being put on a stable basis their opportunities of contact with the outer world became more frequent and their foreign relations more important. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century there grew up a large trade in sandal-wood, which was bought at a preposterously low figure, while at the same time foreign articles were sold in Honolulu at exorbitant prices. The sandal-wood trade was so

Immediately after the death of Kamehameha I the whole tabu system fell to pieces and with it went the ancient religion, in which the majority of the people had long since ceased to believe. There were, as might have been expected, some few who at first refused to give up their gods, but it is probable that even these were actuated largely by political ambition, not by any real faith; there was fighting in several places, but the new King and the Queen Regent soon put down this incipient insurrection. In general the fervour of renunciation was such that the chief priests themselves set the example of burning the idols, and so complete was the holocaust that but very few were saved. Even the museums have found it difficult to obtain fair specimens of ancient Hawaiian idols. Outwardly the destruction of the old religion was complete, but certain superstitions were too deeply rooted in the national character to be quickly eradicated and have for generations influenced the lives of the people, even affecting their understanding of the dogmas of Christianity. It is, however, fair to say that in 1819 Hawaii was a land absolutely without a religion. The destruction of the idols came about through realisation of their impotence, as manifested in the freedom from punishment of foreigners who made mock of the tabus and who desecrated the temples. This voluntary abolition of the old religion made much easier the task of the American missionaries who arrived a year later.

The coming of the missionaries was the real beginning of civilisation in the Islands. Up to 1820 the outside world had given the Hawaiians little beside trinkets, firearms, rum, and more expert methods of deceit. Now it was to give to them their part in the civilisation of Western nations, to teach them that this involved the acceptance of new and higher ideals of conduct, of a religion to replace their outworn superstitions; that it meant a life regulated according to civilised law. The missionaries undoubtedly went to Hawaii fired with the desire to save souls in danger of eternal damnation. They seem very quickly to have realised that wholesale baptism, misunderstood, was less important than a general quickening of spirit, a training in the decencies of life. They never neglected the religious side of their teaching, but they also never neglected the secular side. They learned the Hawaiian language; they reduced it to writing and imported printing presses; they did their best as doctors and taught the elementary rules of health. At first only permitted to land on sufferance, they soon became of prime importance to the chiefs, and were their advisers on almost all questions. It is fair to them to say that if this function seemed an undue extension of their religious duties—and their severest critics never accuse them of anything else—they were the only foreigners in the Islands who would advise the chiefs impartially, and the only ones, moreover, who would have advised in such fashion as to save the dwindling remnants of the Hawaiian race. They were pioneers seeking results in better men, not in riches for themselves; they were trying to give the people their own standards of decency and honour. This soon resulted in bitter opposition from the foreign riffraff who infested the Islands, and especially from the ships that called more and more frequently.

It was the fixed belief of ship captains in those distant days that no laws, whether of God or man, were in force west of Cape Horn. The call at Hawaii for water and provisions was most of all an opportunity for debauchery and unchecked crime. Hawaiian women were often captured and carried off on cruises to the North. When a whaler appeared off the coast many of the native women fled to the mountains as their only sure protection. It is easy to understand, therefore, that when the King promulgated laws against immorality, laws evidently intended to be enforced, the whaling crews considered themselves cheated out of their rights and turned with rage against the missionaries, whom they correctly held to be responsible. In more than one instance brutal attacks were made on missionaries in isolated stations, who were saved only by the devoted natives. It is sad to think that the commander of a United States frigate was among the most insolent in the demand for the repeal of these laws against vice, and that he permitted his men to attack both the house of a chief and the mission premises in Honolulu for the purpose of frightening the Government into submission. Drink was carrying off the Hawaiians by hundreds, and when, in recognition of the danger, a heavy duty was laid on spirits, it was the commander of a French frigate who gave the King a few hours to decide whether he would abolish the duty or undertake a war with France. These outrages and many others of a similar kind directed against efforts really to uplift the country were seconded by a party in Honolulu, a party,, unfortunately, headed by the British consul who was for years allowed to retain his post in spite of repeated protests and requests for his removal on the part of the Hawaiian Government.

Internal affairs, in the meantime, had been ably managed by the Queen Regent, Kaahumanu, who was a wife of Kamehameha I. The King, Liholiho, or Kamehameha II, was weak and dissipated and finally died while on a trip to England. The Queen Regent held the power until her death, and then appointed Kinau, a daughter of Kamehameha I, who, although an able woman, was not as forceful as Kaahumanu, to succeed her during the minority of the young King. It seems to have been a well established custom to have a woman hold, with the King, the regal power. Kamehameha III also was inclined to be of weak moral fibre, and every effort was made by the lower class of foreigners to destroy his health and to subvert his vaguely good intentions by leading him into every form of dissipation. He was, however, protected, as his predecessor had not been, and his long reign (1824-1854) was, on the whole, a time of prosperity and of rapid progress. Education became general, laws were fixed, the troubles concerning the Roman Catholic religion were brought to a satisfactory conclusion by an edict of general toleration. These troubles, which at one time threatened to produce international complications, the King refusing to permit Catholic missionaries to land, were occasioned largely by the fact that Hawaiians had been accustomed for centuries to look on religion as an integral part of the Government and, therefore, to consider a man who professed a different creed from that of the King as necessarily a rebel. To Kamehameha III also is due the credit of giving to the kingdom a liberal constitution, which allowed it to be ranked in the company of civilised nations.

It was during this reign that a great impetus was given to the development of property by the enactment of laws concerning private ownership of land, which laws finally did away with the ancient theory that the title of all lands rested in the chief. A land commission decided that one third of all the land was the property of the King, one-third the property of the chiefs, and the final third of the common people. The King, a few days after this decision, turned over half of his share to be forever used as Government land, his own portion being called the Crown land. As many of the chiefs followed his generous example, the Government came into possession of nearly a third of the land of the Islands. The land commission also undertook the arduous task of proving claims and issuing titles. It being now possible to hold real property in fee simple, to buy it and to sell it, men who were at last owners instead of merely tenants were willing to make extensive improvements. Foreigners also were able to acquire land and were no longer considered as sojourners at the will of the King.

Another important achievement was the success of the King's commissioners in obtaining definite recognition of Hawaiian independence by England, France, and the United States, Daniel Webster stating on behalf of the United States that " the government of the Sandwich Islands ought to be respected; that no power ought to take possession of the Islands, either as a conquest or for the purpose of colonisation; and that no power ought to seek for any undue control over the existing government, or any exclusive privileges or preferences in matters of commerce." News of this foreign recognition was not received, however, before Lord George Paulet, commanding H. M. S. Carysfort, had provisionally annexed the Islands to Great Britain. He acted arbitrarily on the instigation of the deputy of that indefatigable troublemaker, the British consul, who, after this episode, was finally removed. The alleged reason for the annexation given by Lord Paulet was the unwillingness of the Hawaiian Government to settle certain disputes in favour of British subjects. The King, refusing to accede to any further demands, said, " I will not die piecemeal; they may cut off my head at once." The lowering of the Hawaiian flag and the hoisting of the British flag in its place occurred on February 18th, 1844, and for five months the Islands were governed by a British commission. In July Admiral Thomas, in command of Her Majesty's forces in the Pacific, arrived in Honolulu, and with all possible ceremony promptly restored the Hawaiian flag. The open space east of the town, where the restoration was made, was set aside as a public park and is called Thomas Square. It is interesting to note also that in a speech at a great meeting of thanksgiving and rejoicing in the afternoon the King used the words which were afterwards adopted as the national motto: "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono," meaning "The strength of the land is perpetuated by righteousness." Except for an absurd and meaningless occupation by France for a few days in 1849, the autonomy of the Islands was never again questioned.

At this time the different departments of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, were created in substantially the form that they held ably from the Orient, about 1850, and was spreading among Hawaiians in an alarming manner. The Islands were made more accessible by the starting of a line of steamers between San Francisco and Australia which made Honolulu a port of call.

With the death of Kamehameha V, after a short reign, the old royal line came to an end. The King had not exercised his right of appointing a successor and, therefore, a general election was held, in which Prince William C. Lunalilo, who was considered the chief of highest rank in the Islands, was elected as sovereign. He died a year later, not neglecting to appoint his successor, but declaring that the King ought to be elected by the people.

In 1874, therefore, David Kalakaua, also a high chief, was elected to succeed him. The triumph of his reign was the securing of a treaty of commercial reciprocity by which Hawaiian sugar and a few other products were admitted free of duty into the United States. In return Hawaii, besides making a general remission of duties, gave to the United States the use of Pearl Harbour, as a coaling or naval station. This treaty assured the prosperity of the Islands and marked the definite establishment of the great industries. Labourers were imported from China, Japan, the Azores, and Madeira. From these Atlantic islands over ten thousand Portuguese migrated to Hawaii, where climatic conditions were similar to what they were accustomed to and where opportunities for remunerative industry were greater. King Kalakaua was, however, unable to read the signs of the times in the rapid decrease of the native population and in the even more rapid increase of the foreign population, and was determined to restore to his government much of the autocratic royal authority that had been voluntarily ceded in the constitution given by Kamehameha III. So strained did popular feeling run that in 1887 there was a bloodless revolution, in consequence of which the King was forced to sign an even more liberal constitution, that made the cabinet responsible only to the legislature, and that prevented the legislators from holding any other office. This reform, which was bitterly opposed by the personal adherents of the King, led two years later to an insurrection, in which the King himself, however, took no direct part, and which was promptly quelled, with the loss of seven ^men among the rebels. Kalakaua was a picturesque figure, personally affable and intelligent. On a trip around the world, ostensibly to look into the question of the importation of labourers, he was everywhere treated with royal honour, was universally liked, and was given the most friendly aid in collecting information for the good of his own kingdom. In a book entitled "Around the World with a King," this tour has been most amusingly treated, although, it must be admitted, with ungenerous sarcasm, by Mr. W. N. Armstrong, who accompanied him as Commissioner of Immigration.

Kalakaua died in San Francisco in January, 1891, and his body was brought to Honolulu in the U. S. S. Charleston. His sister, Liliuokalani, whom he had nominated as his successor, was immediately proclaimed Queen. Even more than her brother had been was she, unfortunately, eager to remove the constitutional restrictions on the power of the Crown, and her wishes were fervently seconded, if not actually induced, by unscrupulous advisers, who saw in any political upheaval opportunities for their own aggrandisement. Political intrigue became the business of certain ambitious foreigners and Hawaiians of mixed blood, whose purely selfish purposes were evident from the fact that when the Queen was not with them they intrigued with unabated ardour against her. It was significant that the best of the Hawaiians, as well as the better element of the white population, stood aloof from the struggles. During the last week of the long legislative sessions of 1892 two obnoxious bills were passed, one licensing the sale of opium, one granting" a franchise to establish a lottery. Public feeling was intense, and when it became known that a new constitution, doing away with all restrictions on the royal authority, limiting the franchise to Hawaiians, and destroying the guarantees of the judiciary, had been drawn up and was about to be promulgated, the leading citizens saw that decisive action had become necessary. On January 16, 1893, a Committee of Safety was appointed and on the next day a Provisional Government, having general legislative authority, was established. Unfortunately, troops were landed from the U. S. S. Boston to protect the lives and property of American citizens, an act that later gave to the royalists the claim which so appealed to President Cleveland, that the royal government had submitted only to the forces of the United States. In view of this landing of troops, the Queen surrendered her authority under protest, pending her appeal to Washington. A commission of the Provisional Government was immediately sent to the United States to negotiate a treaty of annexation. Such a treaty was actually drawn up by the Secretary of State, signed, and submitted to the Senate. It was not acted upon before the end of the session, but in the meantime a Provisional Protectorate of the Islands was proclaimed. President Cleveland, immediately after his inauguration, sent a commissioner to Honolulu to take evidence, declared the protectorate at an end, and later urged the restoration of the Queen. To this, however, the Provisional Government refused to accede, and, as annexation seemed indefinitely postponed, took immediate steps toward the framing of a constitution. On July 3, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed, with Sanford B. Dole, a man who throughout his life had been identified with all that was least partisan and most upright in the Islands, as the first President.

In 1895 there occurred an insurrection, again planned by the disaffected part-Hawaiians rather than by the full-blooded natives. It was put down with the loss of very few lives, but resulted in a trial for treason of the Queen and nearly two hundred others, to all of whom conditional pardons were granted. This ended the internal troubles of the Republic, but complications with Japan concerning immigration grew more and more difficult to cope with, and the only safety seemed to be in annexation to the United States. Negotiations to this end were renewed immediately after the inauguration of President McKinley. Whether these negotiations under ordinary circumstances would have been more successful than were their predecessors is a question, but during the war with Spain the strategical importance of the Islands to the United States becoming evident, a joint resolution of annexation was put through Congress on July 7, 1898. This was accepted by the Government of the Republic of Hawaii and annexation became an accomplished fact on August 12th. Hawaii ceased to exist as an independent nation and became an integral part of the United States.

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