Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Fifteen Days in the Islands

In January, 1778, Captain Cook was travelling from Christmas Island (“As we kept our Christmas here, I called this discovery Christmas Island” (Cook,)) heading across the north Pacific to the Oregon coast of North America. He wasn’t looking for Hawai‘I, but saw it and landed on Kauai.

Then, “after spending more time about these islands than was necessary to have answered all our purposes, we were obliged to leave them before we had completed our water and got from them such a quantity of refreshments as their inhabitants were both able and willing to have supplied us with.” The Discovery and Resolution left Hawai‘i on February 2, 1778.

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Timeline Tuesday … 1000 – 1780s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us from the approximately 600 AD (when some estimate the first settlement of the Islands took place) to the rise of Kamehameha, Contact and death of Captain Cook. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.) (Click to the full post to see the Comparative Timeline.)

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Palea and the Pinnace

Captain Cook anchored in Kealakekua Bay January 17, 1779 – Palea and Kanaʻina kept order among the people. Some of Palea’s retainers stole a pair of tongs and a chisel, leaped into their canoe. Several muskets were fired after them in vain, and a boat was sent in chase. Palea, who was on board, offered to recover the stolen articles, and followed in another canoe. The thieves reached the shore first, beached their canoe, and fled inland.

A scuffle ensued and a sailor knocked Palea down by a heavy blow to the head. Palea, however, soon recovered from the blow, dispersed the mob, called back the sailors, and restored the missing articles as far as he could. “This was the same Palea who from the first had been the constant, kind, and obliging friend of Captain Cook and all the foreigners”. Then, during the night of February 13, the cutter of the ‘Discovery’ was stolen. On February 14, 1779, Cook was killed.

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Broken Mast

In the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands. Leaving, and after cruising the West Coast, Alaska and Bering Strait, on October 24, 1778, he headed back to the islands.

Then, shortly after leaving Hawaiʻi Island, the foremast of the Resolution broke. “On the 8th (of February 1779) at day-break, we found, that the foremast had again given way … and the parts so very defective, as to make it absolutely necessary to replace them, and, of course, to (remove) the mast.” He returned to Kealakekua. On February 14, 1779, Cook was killed.

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A Connecticut Yankee in Captain Cook’s Crew

John Ledyard, the son of a ship captain, was born in Groton Connecticut in 1751. He grew up in thriving New London County, where the West Indian trade made fortunes for enterprising merchants and captains. When he was 11, his father and an uncle died at sea. He went to live with his grandfather, then […]