Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii

by James L. Haley

  9 The falls are located on Nu‘uanu Stream, just east now of the Mauna ‘Ala royal cemetery. It was a favorite bathing spot of Queen Lili‘uokalani, who bequeathed it to the country, and it is now part of the Lili‘uokalani Botanical Garden.

  10 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 49–51; Papa ‘I‘i, Fragments, 81–83.

  11 The stole remains on display in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

  12 Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, 194–96, outlines the complex etiquette of master and servant class. See also La Croix and Roumasset, “The Evolution of Private Property,” 832.

  13 During the voyage of the Thaddeus, Lucy Thurston asked the captain whether he thought the natives would kill the missionary company, and he replied no, unless by poison. Thurston, Life and Times, 24.

  14 That Kaumuali‘i was using Schäffer to reestablish his independence from Kamehameha at least as much as Schäffer was using him was a point of view expounded in Mills, “A New View of Kaua‘i,” 91–102.

  15 Johnson, “Wily Savage,” 17–18.

  16 Birkett, “Hawai‘i in 1819,” 76, 89.

  17 See Okihiro, Island World, 147.

  18 Bryant & Sturgis to Captain James Hale, August 31, 1818, quoted in Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 88.

  19 Kuykendall and Day, Hawaii: A History, 37.

  3. The Suicide of Kapu

  1 Sources differ as to the year of the Kanawai Mamalahoe. Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 34, offering 1783, is probably one of the best informed.

  2 Dwight, Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, 4–5.

  3 Ibid., 10–12.

  4 Hopu, Memoirs, 42–43. There seems to have been a third Hawaiian on board, whom Hopu identifies as a son of Kamehameha whom the king sent abroad to see what the world was like. Memoirs, 44. Dwight, Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, 13, mentions the presence of a third Hawaiian but does not identify him, but both agree that after the Triumph returned from North America with furs, the third one remained behind on O‘ahu, Hopu writing that it was because the king changed his mind. This interesting vignette seems not to have been picked up by later chroniclers.

  5 Dwight, Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, 13.

  6 Ibid., 18–19. It was Dwight who edited and pieced together the memoir of Opukaha‘ia, with his own observations interjected among those of his principal.

  7 Ibid., 22.

  8 All these developments are described in greater detail in Lyons, “Obookiah Memoir,” 4–6.

  9 Dwight, Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, 41.

  10 Ibid., 41–46.

  11 Ibid., 51.

  12 Ibid., 60.

  13 Bell, “Owhyhee’s Prodigal,” 27. For a more recent and complete biographical treatment see Warne, “Story Behind the Headstone,” HJH 43 (2009).

  14 Bell, “Owhyhee’s Prodigal,” 26.

  15 Quoted in Kikukawa, Ka Mea Ko‘Ala, 64.

  16 “Extract from a Sermon, Preached at the Funeral of Obookiah, Feb. 18, 1818, by Lyman Beecher, D.D.,” in Dwight, Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, 120.

  17 Clement, “From Cook to the 1840 Constitution,” 53–54.

  18 A mu‘umu‘u that belonged to Ka‘ahumanu is preserved in the guest room where she often stayed at the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu. While unsized, it reveals her to have been a very large woman indeed.

  19 See Wichman, Kaua‘i: Ancient Place-Names and Their Stories, 94.

  20 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 73.

  21 Alexander, “Overthrow of the Ancient Tabu System,” 41.

  22 Holt, Monarchy in Hawaii, 7.

  23 There is a variety of political and sociological aspects attending the end of kapu that do not bear directly on the story of Hawai‘i’s Americanization. For more detail, see Seaton, “Hawaiian Kapu Abolition of 1819,” 193–206.

  24 Papa ‘I‘i, Fragments, 99.

  25 Mookini, “Keopuolani,” 3.

  26 Seaton, “Hawaiian ‘kapu’ Abolition of 1819,” 201.

  27 Mookini, “Keopuolani,” 4.

  28 Ibid., 17.

  29 Very likely Kamehameha would have chosen a daughter by his favorite, Ka‘ahumanu, but the two were childless together, and her sister, Kalakua Kaheiheimalie, was the next-closest relative.

  30 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 164.

  31 Charles S. Stewart (1823 memoir), quoted in Ariyoshi, National Geographic Traveler, 52.

  32 Thurston, Life and Times, 20.

  33 Holman, Journal of Lucia Ruggles Holman, 15–17.

  4. Abhorring a Vacuum

  1 Zwieck, “Sending the Children Home,” 40, 65n4.

  2 “I witnessed a sight to-day that I never did before,” wrote a newcomer to the islands some years later. “It was the killing Cooking of a dog.” Dogs were killed in the same way as most sacrifices, by strangling them with cords, then they were scalded and baked in an imu. “We ate some and found it very good, if I had not known what it was I should have called it Pig. But knowing it was a dog I did not Eat but a little, I think not enough to make me bark.” Quoted in Martin, “Maui during the Whaling Boom,” 61. It took years of incremental American disapproval, and eventually a haole-backed tax on dog ownership that priced them out of the kanakas’ hands, for dogs to fall from favor in the Hawaiian diet.

  3 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 126.

  4 Geschwender et al., “Portuguese and Haoles,” 516.

  5 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 131.

  6 Ibid., 207–8.

  7 Thrum, Hawaiian Almanac for 1923, 44–45.

  8 Judd, Honolulu Sketches, 79. This was in January 1841. What an ironic end that would have made for one who had heard so much preaching about fire and brimstone.

  9 Alexander, “The ‘Hale o Keawe’ at Honaunau, Hawaii,” 159–61.

  10 Morris, “Kapiolani,” 41.

  11 Judd, Honolulu Sketches, 76–77.

  12 Byron, Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde, 111.

  13 MacAllen, “Richard Charlton: A Reassessment,” 56.

  14 Byron, Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde, 117.

  15 Goodrich to American Board, Nov. 11, 1825, in Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 272.

  16 The Congregationalist missionaries left a shelf heavy with memoirs, which taken together provide an induplicable look at mid-nineteenth-century Hawai‘i. See for instance Bingham, Sandwich Islands, Ellis, Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii, Stewart, Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands, and Laura Judd, Honolulu, Sketches of Life in the Hawaiian Islands.

  17 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 78. Textual commentary on Ka‘ahumanu’s usage of the missionaries to enhance her own position is not very common, but see Karpiel, “Mystic Ties of Brotherhood,” 364.

  18 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 74–75.

  19 Stauder, “George, Prince of Hawaii,” 42. Alexander, “Funeral Rites of Prince Keali‘iahonui,” 26, quoted Reverend Stewart’s muttering that the queen regent’s marriage bonds were, in this instance, “not altogether silken.” No fool, she.

  20 Stewart, Journal of a Residence, 313–14.

  21 Judd, Honolulu Sketches, 5, 9. These passages have become often quoted. See for instance Grimshaw, “Cult of True Womanhood,” 72; H. A. P. Carter, Kaahumanu, 26.

  22 Holman, Journal, 19–20, 31.

  23 Stewart, Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands, 133. Kalaniopu‘u also had been of lesser bulk than the average ali‘i. Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, 52, maintained that “the chiefs and the common people … were the same; they were all of one race; alike in features and physique.” However, he based this on their mythological common descent from Wakea and Papa, a sort of native Adam and Eve, which might not hold up to genetic scrutiny. The editor’s note to that passage at p. 62 echoes the notion of ali‘i descending from different ethnic stock as “flattery and bosh,” and attributes their looming bulk to better “feeding and grooming.” Still, one looks back to the first Marquesan settlers’ conquest by Tahitian warriors, and the centuries of kapu against marrying into the lower class, and wonders whether ali‘i and kanaka descended from different ethnicity—politically incorrect
speculation against which this author has been gently warned.

  24 Daws, Shoal of Time, 66.

  25 Schmitt, “Population Policy in Hawai‘i,” 91, 106.

  26 Ellis, Tour, 298.

  27 Stewart, Journal of a Residence, 251.

  28 Quoted in Dye, “A Memorial of What the People Were,” 53.

  29 Ariyoshi, Traveler Hawaii, 110; Dorrance, O‘ahu’s Hidden History, 131. O‘ahu’s Waimea Valley is not to be confused with the mighty canyon on Kaua‘i. Waimea (“reddish water”) is a common place-name in Hawai‘i; there is a third Waimea in the highlands of the Big Island.

  30 Lili‘uokalani, Hawaii’s Story, 3.

  31 Stewart, Journal of a Residence, 152.

  5. The New Morality

  1 Hackler, “The Voice of Commerce,” 42.

  2 For a biography see Gast, Contentious Consul: A Biography of John Coffin Jones.

  3 Dye, “Memorial of What the People Were,” 60. A more detailed treatment of ministry to sailors in Hawai‘i is Martin and Jackson, “The Honolulu Sailor’s Home,” 105–21.

  4 Keali‘iahonui remarried, lived a creditable life, and became one of the first members of the house of nobles after creation of the constitution. Alexander, “Funeral Rites of Prince Keali‘iahonui,” 26–28.

  5 The incident did not damage the career of Kuakini. Known to Westerners as “John Adams” Kuakini, he served as royal governor of Hawai‘i Island from 1820 until his death in 1844.

  6 For a summary of Boki’s baleful history see Daws, Shoal of Time, 82–86.

  7 “No Ka Moe Kolohe,” Sept. 21, 1829, broadside, Hawai‘i Judiciary History Center.

  8 Their mother, Keopuolani, already wielded the prostration kapu, and was herself the daughter of a half-sibling marriage and granddaughter on her mother’s [?] side of a full-sibling marriage. Distillation of royal mana into a fifth generation would have been virtually unprecedented.

  9 Judd, Honolulu Sketches, 41–42.

  10 The marriage was also opposed on the same grounds by Kalama’s own hanai mother, Kekauluohi, herself later kuhina nui. Kalama adopted Albert, but his illegitimacy removed this last grandson of the Conquerer from the line of succession.

  11 Stewart, Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands, 154.

  12 Ibid., 156.

  13 Martin, “Maui during the Whaling Boom,” 59. For a complete discourse on this pest, see Haas et al., “The Flea in Early Hawaii,” 59–74.

  14 Daws, Shoal of Time, 61–65, introduces the missionaries in a vein that is particularly sarcastic.

  15 Quoted in Dye, “Memorial of What People Were,” 54.

  16 Grimshaw, “Cult of True Womanhood,” 83.

  17 First-generation scholar Davida Malo’s annotator explained it delicately: “Aikane, now used to mean an honest and laudable friendship between two males, originally meant the vice of that burnt-up city.” Hawaiian Antiquities, 67n5.

  18 See for instance Robert J. Morris, “Translators, Traitors, and Traducers: Perjuring Hawaiian Same-Sex Texts through Deliberate Mistranslation,” Journal of Homosexuality 51, no. 3 (2006): 225–47.

  19 Ledyard, Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage, 132. Ledyard did remark that this custom was limited to the chiefly class; it was not observed among the maka‘ainana. See also various quotes throughout Bettinger, “Historically Speaking: A Quick Look at Homosexuality and Gender-Roles in Pre-Contact Hawai‘i.”

  20 Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, 65.

  21 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 128; Del Piano, “Kalanimoku,” 5.

  22 Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, 56. See also Robert J. Morris, “Aikane: Accounts of Hawaiian Same-Sex Relationships in the Journals of Captain Cook’s Third Voyage (1776–80), Journal of Homosexuality 19, no. 3 (1990); Curt Sanburn, “Men of the First Consequence: The Aikane Tradition: Homosexuality in Old Hawaii,” Honolulu Weekly, May 12, 1993.

  23 Boyd Bond, interview, Kohala, October 17, 2010.

  24 Daws, Shoal of Time, 78.

  25 Bartholomew, Maui Remembers, 11.

  26 Quoted in Busch, “Whalemen, Missionaries, and the Practice of Christianity,” 97.

  27 Daws, Shoal of Time, 80–81.

  28 Quoted in Martin, “Maui during the Whaling Boom,” 63.

  29 Missionary Herald 39, no. 1 (January 1833): 20–21.

  30 Dye, “Memorial of What People Were,” 59.

  31 Gutmanis, “The Law … Shall Punish All Men Who Commit Crime,” 143–45.

  32 Davida Malo to Kina‘u, August 18, 1837, quoted in Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 153.

  6. Becoming Little Americans

  1 Kamakau, Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii, 298 (1992 ed.)

  2 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 104. This theme has come to be reiterated often in the scholarly literature. See for example Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education,” 214–15. For Hawai‘i, though, the latter’s assertion that the purpose of the Chiefs’ Children’s School was to put the “civilized” (her quotes) ali‘i “in a position to perpetuate the work of the Sandwich Islands Mission” carries disapproval beyond accuracy. Once the king and chiefs were converted, it became their show, with the goal of raising up a Christian nobility to guide the kingdom. True, they might still support, even warmly support, the mission, but the missionaries’ own misgivings about providing a special education for noble children undercut at least some of the modern cynicism.

  3 One recent scholar questions how much of the work was really Mahune’s, and how much by William Richards. See Osorio, Dismembering Lahui.

  4 See Morse, “Lahainaluna Money Forgeries,” 95–101.

  5 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 111–12.

  6 Modern writers have focused on the depopulation as the result of foreign-introduced diseases, which was accurate among the maka‘ainana. Rare among academics who consider the possibility that the infertility among the ali‘i might have been a result of five centuries of incest are Langlas and Lyon, “Davida Malo’s Unpublished Account of Keopuolani,” 41.

  7 Ruth and Bernice were both granddaughters of Pauli Ka‘oleioku, the Conqueror’s son by a minor wife. Ruth was Ka‘oleioku’s granddaughter by his first wife, Keouawahine, and Bernice by his second wife, Luahine. “Royal Lineages of Hawaii,” Bishop Museum.

  8 Gerrit Judd to R. Anderson, draft of October 8, 1835, quoted in Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 112.

  9 Stewart, Journal of a Residence, 138.

  10 Papa ‘I‘i, Fragments, 166–67.

  11 Ibid., 168.

  12 Juliette Cooke to Martha Montague, May 5, 1840, quoted in Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education, 226.

  13 Brown to My Dear Wife & Children, 14 November 1843, Brown Papers, Honolulu Historical Society. Brown’s estimate of twenty children included the Cookes’ own, who by then attended alongside the nobility.

  14 Judd, Royal Palaces and Forts of Hawaii, 66–67.

  15 Papa ‘I‘i, Fragments of Hawaiian History, 167–68. There was probably another level of humor here, in knowing that Victoria Kamamalu, if she did not inherit the throne, would herself one day serve as kuhina nui.

  16 Lunalilo School Notebook, Honolulu Historical Society.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Quoted in Taylor et al., From Land and Sea, 31.

  19 Ibid.

  20 Abigail and Jane were descended from Kame‘eiamoku on their father’s side, and from King Kahekili II of Maui on their mother’s side, whether by blood or hanai is uncertain.

  21 No more than other women of her station, Abigail Maheha did not suffer in silence for long. She petitioned for divorce in 1855 on the grounds that her forced husband could not and could never support her in the manner fitting to her. Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education, 235.

  22 Brown to My Dear Wife & Children, 14 November 1843, Brown Papers, Honolulu Historical Society.

  23 Bishop, Memoirs of Hon. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, 28–29. Lieutenant Wilkes’s equating of light-skinned people with good behavior and motive, and dark-skinned with the
problematical was a recurrent motif of American observation. See Lt. Lucien Young’s account of Lili‘uokalani’s prorogation of the legislature in ch. 17, infra.

  24 Cooke to Rufus Anderson, November 7, 1847, quoted in Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education,” 233.

  25 The missionaries, in one scholar’s estimation, had no appreciation that the native society they encountered “was characterized by a highly developed social system, a complicated land-use organization, and a sophisticated division of labor … a society in which religion, government, social structure and cultural practices were inextricably intertwined.” Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education,” 216–17. Possible inequities of that native society, such as infanticide, human sacrifice, and rule by terror are not considered suitable subjects for outside judgment.

  26 Quoted in Zwiep, “Sending the Children Home,” 47.

  27 All quoted in ibid.

  28 Grimshaw, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” 71. See also Kashay, “Missionaries, Gender, and Language,” 41–58.

  29 The land had been taken by Kamehameha I at the conquest of O‘ahu; he gave it to his loyal chief, Kame‘eiamoku (the one who had been whipped by Simon Metcalfe); he gave it to his son, Hoapili (last husband of Keopuolani), who gave it to Liliha, who was his daughter. It is probable that Ka‘ahumanu was the one who shook it loose from Liliha to give to Bingham. For a history of its early years, see Alexander, Dodge, and Castle, Punahou, 1841–1941.

  30 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 366.

  7. A Sweet Taste

  1 Nagata, “Early Plant Introductions,” 35–36.

  2 Papa ‘I‘i, Fragments, 94; see generally Cushing, “Begnnings of Sugar Production,” 17–20.

  3 Taylor et al., From Land and Sea, 72, identify Wilkinson as an Australian.

  4 Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 172–73.

  5 www.laddfamily.com/Files/Koloa%20Plantation/Hawaii.htm.

  6 Burlin, Imperial Maine and Hawai‘i, 29.

  7 Kuykendall and Day, Hawaii: A History, 93.

  8 Bingham, Sandwich Islands, 493–96.

  9 Quoted in Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1: 177–78.

  10 Frost, “The Spinning Wheel and Loom,” 116–17.

  11 Duensing, “Hawai‘i’s Forgotten Crop,” 161.