The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii

by James L. Haley

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  BLIVEN WAS AWAKE early, attempting to draught a report of the disastrous situation on the islands, how and whether to include the possibility that he might have to fire on an American ship, or deliver up an American citizen to some sanguine native justice—notwithstanding that it was to save the lives of the missionaries. Even balancing the one worthless life against the twenty worthy ones he would save, the whole incident would easily spell the end of his naval career. There would be no shortage of superiors, and the superior acting, who would say that he should have turned his guns upon the town and the queen to compel the return of the missionaries, even if it caused the deaths of some or many. To write for instructions was useless, for no reply would come within a year.

  Stymied, he set that aside and turned to the parcel of letters that Bingham had given him in Honoruru.

  GALVESTON

  PROVINCE OF TEXAS

  EMPIRE OF MEXICO

  25TH MAY, 1822

  Captain Putnam, my Friend,

  You are no doubt in wonder at the heading of my letter, and entertaining your first thought that I am on board a ship, and have resumed my former life as a trader. It would be a likely guess, but a wrong one.

  I confess I am in confusion, how to relate to you the calamities that have befallen me since our last letters. I shall tell you the worst of it first, that you may share my despair. My dearly loved wife and sharer of my life, Rebecca, is no more. As affairs on our plantation became ever more hopeless, she labored heroically, ever with optimism and determination, to turn things around. It wore her down, and when the yellow jack spread through the country last August it took her as one of its first victims.

  And now for the rest. To add disaster to calamity, the damn’d banker who so confidently persuaded me to mortgage my holdings in order to buy more land, who so solemnly avowed that the only way to gain wealth was to fund it with debt (I have written you of him before), showed up at my door with a writ of foreclosure. In my most utter and profound shock I made protest that his promise had been, to renew the note as long as I met the interest, and paid something on the principal. His excuse was that those who had lent him the money to lend, had placed him in straits, and though he regretted it, he must pass on these strictures. I persuaded him to serve me the writ in thirty days, that I would endeavor to raise the money (for I knew he would rather have the money than my land) and then I made inquiry of a lawyer in Charleston. He said that though I had justice on my side, justice and the law are clean different things, that equity must ever kneel before the terms of a contract, and that I must prepare myself to lose all.

  All was not lost, however, for I saw a hand bill soliciting colonists to remove to the Spanish province of Texas. The government there is seeking to build up the country, and is giving—I say, giving—land to Americans who will settle there and make the wilderness productive. Such is the excitement to remove to Texas that I could not even say, whether the news spreads faster by fliers and news papers, or by word of mouth.

  Since my purpose in Charleston was to raise money, I had with me the jewelry of my late mother and my dear wife. It was not a great fortune, but considerable gold, with some small diamonds, rubies, &c., given across generations. These I sold, and it was enough to buy a sad small schooner then in harbor, which my servant and I, with our horses, sailed to Savannah. I left him with the ship, and rode home, to begin dissolving my household.

  Oh, Bliven, you cannot imagine the grief. I had the space of two wagons, in which to decide what to take, and what must be left behind for the vultures. First was to empty the corn crib, smoke house, and pantry, so there would be food. Then sufficient clothes, bedding, and sundries, implements and seed to make a new planting. Most painful was to choose which of my people to bring with me, and who must be left behind, either to be sold or to stay working the place for new owners. In the end, I brought my two best field hands. Dicey is also with me to cook and keep house, although in honesty, since Rebecca’s death her tenderness and sympathies to me have made her not just dear, but indispensable. I resolved to leave behind all my parents’ fine furnishings, the bulk of the equipment, and some two dozen slaves, enough to repay most of the debt, and awaited my fate.

  When after thirty days the banker arrived with his writ to have either the full amount of the note, or take possession of my land, I made him a fair exchange: I gave him his life, and signed to him the deed to my lands, and he gave me the money he had on his person, which happily amounted to some few hundreds of dollars. The law would find me guilty of a robbery, but I say, I am not the only victim of his dealings. If the man were found murdered in a ditch there would be twenty under suspicion.

  I bound him securely, and left instructions for my people to “find” him in a day or so. I allowed myself to be seen traveling down the road to Charleston, but then took the cut-off to the Savannah Road, stopping to rest only as the horses needed rest, and reached there safely. We loaded all and everyone onto my little ship, hoisted sails and stood out for whatever new life is in store for us.

  As I have heard it is the custom, throughout the South as it proceeds to ruin, I painted the letters GTT on my front door. This is more or less universally understood to mean, Gone to Texas, a vast new land of unbounded opportunity. It is beyond the reach of American law, or debtors prisons, but it is attained only at the cost of forsaking one’s American citizenship and swearing allegiance to a different nation. This were an unthinkable cost, in the pleasant fiction of the patriotism in which we were raised. I greatly fear, however, that the America they told us of is not, in fact, the one that exists. I am assured that I am not alone in this sentiment. Indeed, I do not feel that I stand out in my present company, for nearly all of us now in Texas were ruined in some way or other back home. We are people of good character who arrived at the end of one road, and now are compelled to take another.

  This Texas colony is the venture of a young New Orleans man named Austin. His father began the project, and won the approval of the government, but then died just as he began recruiting settlers to remove there. The government renewed the agreement with his son, and the first of we, his Argonauts, are now in Galveston and preparing to remove to the mouth of the Brazos River, to await his pleasure. There has been some uproar, for in his absence there was a revolution in Mexico, which has thrown off the Spanish crown, and he has gone there to make sure that his contract is still good. It seems reasonable to assume that it is, but Mr. Austin is an observer of jots and tittles, and from all accounts is a man in whom confidence may be safely placed.

  How the post will operate after we reach the interior is a mystery, but I am sure it will organize in some way. I will write to you again when I have a permanent address to tell how you may reach me. As you and I both served with some credit in the Navy of the U.S., you can imagine what a pain it gives me to subscribe myself

  Still yr friend,

  Samuel Bandy

  Citizen of Mexico

  BLIVEN PUTNAM, CAPT. USN

  C/O AMERICAN CONSUL

  HONORURU, SANDWICH ISLANDS

  Bliven laid the letter on the table, leaned forward, and rested his head in his hands, whispering, “Oh, my Sam. Perhaps we are both coming to ruin.”

  Karaimoku emerged from his guest berth in Western dress—black suit, white shirt and cravat, and shoes—which drew Bliven’s most surprised notice. “Good morning, Mr. Pitt.”

  “Good morning, Captain Putnam.”

  “Would you like some coffee, or do you prefer tea?”

  “You have coffee?”

  “Most surely.”

  “I will taste it. I have seldom had coffee.”

  “If you do not care for it, you may have tea instead.” Bliven rose and crossed to the sideboard, and poured a cup of coffee, quietly calculating the geometry of not overfilling it, for the ship was heeling to starboard, hauling close w
hile beating against the relentless trade wind, working their way to the leeward side of Maui. Liquids, he had long known, kept their own level regardless of whether the cup was level.

  Karaimoku accepted it with thanks and then added, “Mr. Marín has told us much about coffee. He says that he thinks it will grow well here, and maybe become a valuable crop one day. He has not yet been able to obtain seeds or young plants to try. Where does this come from?”

  “Martinique, which is a French island in the Caribbean. I have a friend who trades for it, and he gives some to my family every year for Christmas.”

  “Yes, we have heard that your people exchange gifts every year upon the birthday of baby Jesus.” Karaimoku drew a chair back from the table and sat down, sipping the coffee and making an approving face. “Well, Captain,” he said at last, “this is a fine kettle of fish.”

  Bliven allowed himself a tiny smile at another British expression that the islanders had acquired.

  “I am your hostage,” said Karaimoku. “Your wife is my brother’s hostage, the missionaries are the queen’s hostages. We are hostages all around.”

  “That is surely one way to see things.”

  “I like your coffee. It is stronger than tea, and has a more bitter flavor, but not so strong or bitter as our awa. How else can you see things?”

  “That everyone may be telling the truth. That the queen did send my wife away with Boki to keep her safe from revenge, and that she has sequestered the missionaries to the chiefs to protect them. That I really do need you to help sort out things on Maui and protect the missionaries there. I do not regard you as a hostage in any way, Mr. Pitt, and I was truthful in saying that I will hunt this outlaw down.”

  Karaimoku nodded slowly. “But you have said you may not fire upon a ship of your own country. And, further, that you would be expected to bring Captain Saeger back to America to stand trial, that you could lose your rank if you turn him over to us.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you going to do, Captain Putnam? What are your intentions?”

  Bliven screwed up his face for lack of answer. “Perhaps, we should have a kettle of fish for our dinner.”

  “Ha! That would be proper.”

  “I am worried about my wife from one aspect: I am far from certain that Boki can be trusted with her. Stealing other men’s wives seems to be a custom among your people, even stealing one from your own brother.”

  Karaimoku sighed and let his head fall to the side. “Ah, yes. I was younger then, and not sure of my position. I was jealous of everyone, I think. When Kameeiamoku stole my wife, I thought I would burn alive, I was so angry.”

  “So you settled for burning Honoruru.”

  “Yes. To me then, being a high chief was about power over people. The great king had not yet conquered the whole country; it was useful for people to fear us. Today, to be a chief is responsibility. It is not easy to balance power and”—he searched for the word—“obligation. The English struggle with it, the French even more. So will you, when your day must come.”

  Bliven measured the substantial justice in those remarks. “Would you like some more coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” The chief stood up. “I’ll get it.” Once he was on his feet, the ship gave a lurching heave to starboard and Karaimoku steadied himself against the table. “Sometimes, the passage between our islands is like this.” Bliven found himself captivated by the thick black matte of hair that fell to the middle of his back. He was just at the point of finding it savage, but then recalled seeing portraits of European gentlemen from a hundred years previous whose voluminous primped wigs were not dissimilar.

  “Yes, so I have heard about the force of your trade winds. I do not know that I would even attempt it in one of your canoes.”

  “Our canoes have their merits, Captain. See, your sails are wrong for this duty. You have big square sails that nearly lay you over when the wind comes across. In the rough seas we have outriggers to stop us turning over, and our sails are shaped like the crab’s claw and can catch the wind in any direction.”

  “Yes. Around the world I have seen many different ways of sailing.”

  Karaimoku returned with the pot and filled Bliven’s cup as well, nearly spilling some coffee when he accidentally stuck the table with his foot, which made him frown. “One question, Captain, if I may?”

  Bliven looked up expectantly.

  “How in hell do you walk around with these damned leather boxes on your feet?”

  Bliven threw his head back and laughed. “Well, where I come from it is often very cold. I suppose that once we covered our feet to keep them warm, they did not become as tough and hardy as your feet.”

  “Hm!”

  “Although I have seen some of your lava flows. Not even you would attempt to walk across them in your bare feet.”

  Karaimoku resumed his seat. “No, but we have sandals woven from grass that serve very well for that case.”

  “Shall we go up on deck?” They walked down the gun deck, their uprightness forming an acute angle with the deck, and then up the ladder and aft, where Rippel was at the wheel. They exchanged greetings and both Bliven and Karaimoku laid a hand on the binnacle, not because they needed it every second, but for sudden gripping when they were slammed with a swell.

  “Tell me, Mr. Pitt, how long did it take Ta-meha-meha to conquer all the islands?”

  “From the beginning?” He shrugged. “Thirty years, maybe. And still, some go a little of their own way. Tauai, which lies far to the northwest and where the missionaries’ friend Tamoree is prince, is not completely subject to us to this day. And here and there are pockets and valleys where people do as they please.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Oh, yes. Look at my brother’s valley of Pupukea on the north shore of Oahu. It is still quite wild up there; even the old religion is still practiced. Years ago, Captain Vancouver of the English sent a watering party ashore, and the kahunas captured and sacrificed them for daring to steal water from a sacred stream. Our own chiefs learned to either respect them or leave them alone.”

  Bliven gasped. “And this is where he took my wife?”

  “Do not be alarmed. When news was received of the killing at Hana, the queen was in a great rage against the white people. This pleased my brother greatly, and he encouraged her to be more cautious in her welcoming them and giving them so much influence over the country people. For now, at least, she and Boki are allies, and working together to restore order. I think that your wife is, to be sure, his hostage, but she will be well protected.”

  14

  Pupukea

  After the fraught encounter within the audience hall, Clarity left, under guard but not bound, with Boki and Liliha. With so many servants in their wake to pack and follow, there was little delay in mounting to ride. Clarity would have preferred horseback, but carrying the baby induced her to accept the offer of a closed sedan chair borne by six of their kanakas, as Liliha arranged herself in another.

  They traveled west for a very few miles before turning up a path to follow a stream that poured out of a valley that ascended up and up. Even through her distraction Clarity noticed the land becoming greener, more lush. They passed the household of Kaukaulele, the chief to whom the valley belonged. He maintained a house near the city from which to oversee his share of business, but preferred to live in the verdant cool of the valley, away from the stink and noise of a town, and Honoruru was quickly growing into a sizable town. Their ascent was gradual but became steeper as they approached a jagged lava wall that reared up in front of them, broken by a single gap for which the path seemed bound.

  When they reached its summit, Boki turned his horse back and dismounted. “We can rest here,” he told Clarity, and to her surprise offered his hand to help her out of the sedan chair. She walked a short distance, with Ben in her arms, to a grassy parapet, an
d what she saw took her breath away. The gigantic furrowed wall of a mountain stretched to the west, falling two thousand feet from the clouds down and down to a coastal jungle between the cliff and the ocean that lay in the distance, partly in sun and partly between the moving shadows of the clouds. Never had she imagined standing at such a height over a prospect, and sat down from dizziness. Even as a hostage she was glad to have seen it.

  Boki joined her, her first perspective of looking up at him, and she realized that although he was tall and strong, he was not corpulent in the way of the other nobles, and his face lacked the low brow ridge and thick lips of his class. Clearly there was another influence in his ancestry. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you. What place is this?”

  “This is the pali of the Nuuanu Valley.”

  “Are we going down there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the path safe?”

  “Yes. People use it every day.”

  “Will you object if I walk until we reach the bottom? I am afraid sitting in the chair will make me dizzy.”

  He smiled for just a second. “You would not be the first. Yes, you may walk.” She had not expected civility, but then remembered what Marín had said, that he was not as forbidding as his reputation, and that his opposition to Kahumanu and her society-altering program led her faction to paint him in perhaps too-dark colors.

  The path down was steep, with switchbacks, but she let herself be diverted by the cliff wall that was covered in vines and flowers of species she had not yet seen, and the flashing colors of birds taking flight before them. Once at the foot of the cliff, they followed a well-worn path, perhaps the beginning of a road westward; when it began to rain, Liliha offered a large kihei for Clarity to wrap herself in, but she seated herself again in the covered sedan. One sight did begin to unnerve her. She was uncertain at first whether she saw the white of a bone lying within the dense green undergrowth, but as they continued it became undeniable, for she made out leg bones and the occasional rib cage.