The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii
Page 39
Yours, sir, with great respect,
Bliven Putnam, Capt. USN
Commanding Sloop Rappahannock
ISAAC HULL, COMMODORE
CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD
* * *
* * *
IT WAS LATE when Bliven blew out the lamp in his study and clicked open the door to his compartment. Even with the widened berth, he was almost atop Clarity when he crept beneath the covers, and she awakened. “Did you finish your letter to Hull?”
“Yes.” He kissed her.
“Were you able to finesse your . . . well, liberties, with the facts?”
“I had to borrow some of your creative imagination, I’m afraid.”
“Well.” She buried her face in his nightshirt. “What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em.”
GAZETTEER
The Hawaiian language was not standardized for purposes of writing for nearly a decade after the arrival of the first missionaries. When the language was simplified, for instance, R became L; T became K, and so on. Personal and place names were known differently before then, at the time of our story. To keep within its time frame we have chosen to use the terminology as it was used in 1820. Also, while Hawaiian names are now properly rendered with the appropriate spelling and diacritics, the first Americans in Hawai’i, in the absence of a written language, spoke and wrote in phonetic approximations. Again in faith to the story’s times, we use the names as known in the time. We have made one exception to this. So many people are now accustomed to the name Hawaii that to call it by the name it was usually called in 1820, Owhyhee, would do more to confuse people than illuminate the language.
NAME IN 1820
NAME AFTER STANDARDIZATION
Karaimoku
Kalanimoku, chief aide to Kamehameha I, who transferred his loyalty to Ka’ahumanu when she became kuhina nui
Honoruru
Honolulu, chief settlement on Oahu
Kahumanu
Ka’ahumanu, widow of Kamehameha I, who shared power with his dissolute son Kamehameha II as kuhina nui
Kairua
Kailua, royal capital of the Kona district on the west shore of the Big Island (a second Kailua lies on the north shore of Oahu.)
Kamamalu
Half sister, wife, and queen of Kamehameha II
Kepurani
Keopuolani, queen and near goddess, mother of Kamehameha II
kuhina nui
Principal advisor to the king, a combination of prime minister and coruler
Henry Obookiah
Opukaha’ia, Hawaiian refugee to America from the Kamehameha conquest, who was the first to conceive the missionary effort
Prince George Tamoree
Kaumuali’i, son of the king of Kaua’i, sent to America to learn Western ways
Reho-Reho
Liholiho, given name of Kamehameha II (ruled 1819–25, sharing power with Ka’ahumanu)
Ta-meha-meha
Kamehameha, dynastic name of the first five kings of Hawai’i; also Kamehameha I, who was the first high chief to conquer the islands into a unified country (ruled 1810–19)
Tauai
Kaua’i, northernmost of the principal Hawaiian Islands
Other Hawaiian names, such as Hopu and Boki, did not change.
FURTHER READING
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. A Narrative of Five Youths from the Sandwich Islands, Now Receiving an Education in This Country. New York: J. Seymour, 1816.
Bingham, Hiram. A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands, etc. 3rd rev. ed. Canandaigua, NY: H. D. Goodwin, 1855.
Dwight, Edwin Wells. Memoirs of Henry Obookiah. Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1830.
Haley, James L. Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014.
Holman, Lucia Ruggles. The Journal of Lucia Ruggles Holman. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1931.
I’i, John Papa (Mary Kawena Pukui, trans.; Dorothy B. Barrère, ed.). Fragments of Hawaiian History, as Recorded by John Papa I’i. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1959.
Jarves, James Jackson. History of the Hawaiian Islands, Embracing Their Antiquities, Mythology, Legends, Discovery, etc. Honolulu: Charles Edwin Hitchcock, 1847.
Judd, Laura Fish. Honolulu: Sketches of Life in the Hawaiian Islands. Reprint ed. Honolulu: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1928.
Kuykendall, Ralph S. The Hawaiian Kingdom. 3 vols. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1938‒1967.
Ledyard, John. A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc. Hartford: Nathaniel Patten, 1783.
Malo, David (Dr. Nathaniel B. Emerson, trans). Hawaiian Antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii). Reprint ed. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1991.
Matson, Cathy, ed. The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives & New Directions. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Porter, Capt. David. Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean in the United States Frigate Essex, in the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814, etc. 2 vols. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley & Halsted, 1822.
Rothbard, Murray N. The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Stewart, Charles. Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands by C. S. Stewart, During the Years 1823, 1824, and 1825. 3rd ed. facsimile. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press for Friends of the Library of Hawaii, 1970.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For matters concerning the history of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, I thank my friend Mike Smola, curator of the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu, with continuing thanks to my St. Martin’s Press editor, Charles Spicer, for the chance to research Hawaii history.
For indispensable help in getting through writing another novel, I thank my friends and readers Greg Walden, Greg Ciotti, Evan Yeakel, Steve Clodfelter, Bill Young, and my oldest friend and most faithful reader, Craig Eiland of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who missed by three weeks seeing the final product.
Upon the book’s editor, Gabriella Mongelli, enough praise cannot be heaped. I knew from her edit of the first five chapters, when she made strategic suggestions and relied on me to provide tactical solutions, that working with her would be a joy—as much as with my previous Putnam editors, Nita Taublib, Christine Pepe, and Alexis Sattler, each of whom left her impress on these books. Highest thanks is reserved for Ivan Held, the godfather of the series. I revere you all . . .
. . . almost as much as I revere my agent, Jim Hornfischer, who brought the original idea to me and brokered a chain of books that has been the light of my career.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James L. Haley is the award-winning author of The Shores of Tripoli and A Darker Sea, as well as numerous books on Native American, Texas, and Western history, and historical and contemporary fiction. His two biographies, Sam Houston (2002) and Wolf: The Lives of Jack London (2010), each won the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas (2006) won the Fehrenbach Award of the Texas Historical Commission. His most recent nonfiction is Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii (2014).
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James L. Haley, The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii