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Feb. 8, 2005 British Captain James Cook made the European discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. Hawaiians had been there for perhaps as long as 1500 years, probably arriving in large outrigger canoes from other Polynesian Islands, such as Samoa, Tahiti or Tonga. That the place of their origin must be so is self-evident from the similarity of the Polynesian languages. "Hawai'i" means "homeland". At the time of Cook's arrival, there was not a united Hawaiian kingdom. Rather there were several petty kingdoms, one or more on each of several islands. The eight major islands are called Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Kahoolawe, Lanai, and Hawaii. The largest island geographically is Hawaii, which is usually called the Big Island, to avoid confusion with the name of the state. Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii, is situated on Oahu Island. Cook was killed in a fray in 1779. Before the arrival of Europeans, Hawaiians had no written language, no wheeled conveyances, no metal, no bows and arrows and no large animals for riding or work. Their roads were footpaths. They had invented weaving and learnt to build fires. In 1795, Kamehameha completed the unification of the various small kingdoms of the islands, and in 1810 he founded the Kingdom of Hawaii. By the time of the beginnings of the kingdom, however, horses, cattle, wagons, Western medicine, metal, glass, firearms, alcohol and other conveniences had been introduced. So the Hawaiian Kingdom was a modern realm from the outset, despite the popular notion of a king in a grass skirt with a staff in his hand. Kamehaha, originally a nickname meaning "Lonely", became the title used by the first five Hawaiian kings. The whole list follows. Note that Lili'uolani, the last one on the list, was a queen. She composed the song "Aloha O'e", among her other accomplishments: 1.) Kamehameha I (1795-1819) 2.) Kamehameha II (1819-1824) 3.) Kamehameha III (1825-1854) 4.) Kamehameha IV (1854-1863) 5.) Kamehameha V (1863-1872) 6.) Lunalilo (1873-1874) 7.) Kalakaua (1874-1891) 8.) Lili'uokalani (1891-1893) King Charles Kalakaua had a friend named Claus Spreckels, a German-born California capitalist and the founder of Spreckels Sugar Co., with whom he engaged in a number of ventures in the 1870's and 1880's. One of the ventures was the development of sugar plantations and attendant irrigation systems in Hawaii. The US and the Kingdom of Hawaii signed a reciprocity treaty in 1874, granting Hawaii favorite nation status and allowing Hawaii to export duty-free sugar to the US. This enabled Hawaii to compete favorably with Texas, where sugar cane was also cultivated at the time. In exchange, Kalakaua agreed to let the US Navy lease Pearl Harbor. Negotations and ratifications went on until the 80's, when everything was finalized. What lay behind the Pearl Harbor deal was rivalry among the US, France, England and Russia for supremacy in the Pacific. It was widely believed that whoever controlled Pearl Harbor controlled the Pacific. So it was that the US-Hawaii alliance, intertwining their affairs, began. The sugar plantations also explain the Chinese and Japanese populations of Hawaii, where they served originally as contract laborers. King Kalakaua was a handsome, intelligent, educated, well-traveled man, but some say that he was impractical and something of a dreamer. He envisioned an empire of the Pacific and formed an alliance with Samoa, but he was inclined to leave the practical affairs of his kingdom to his ministers and advisors, mostly Caucasian lawyers of US birth or ancestry. In 1887, the cabal of US lawyers forced Kalakaua, at bayonet point, to promulgate a new constitution, depriving most native Hawaiians of the right to vote while franchising unnaturalized Americans. They justified the takeover on the basis of their objections to Kalakaua's plans to legalize opium and institute a national lottery, considered immoral in those days. Kalakaua, who died in 1891, was succeeded by his sister, Queen Lili'uokalani, who tried to overturn the Bayonet Constitution, but the cabal deposed her in 1893, with the US Marines and the US Navy nearby, on the alert, though there was little or no actual bloodshed. The Republic of Hawaii, with Sanford Dole, of the pineapple empire, as president, was founded in 1893, but President Grover Cleveland would not recognize it, feeling that Hawaii should revert to the Hawaiians. However, in 1898, when William McKinley was in office, Hawaii was annexed by the US. Hawaii became a territory in 1900 and a state in 1959. In 1896, the Hawaiian language was outlawed and is today extinct. Many native Hawaiians feel that their country and their language have been stolen from them, and that haoles are interlopers. They sometimes display antipathy and resentment, very understandably if you ask me. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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