Categories

February 6, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … The French Connection

France had long been enemies of their neighbors across the English Channel. While the two had competed in the Hundred-Years War (ca. 1337-1453) for territorial sovereignty in continental France, one could say Britain and France then partook in a second Hundred-Years War (ca. 1689-1815) for global commercial and military power.

Each empire was wary of the other gaining too much wealth, land or naval prowess, and engaged in at least eight major conflicts against each other during this period. (LOC) Their interests crossed the Atlantic and tensions developed in North America.

In 1749 the French were becoming concerned with the Pennsylvania and Virginia traders in the Ohio River Valley. That summer they sent an expedition of 247 men under the command of Captain Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville down the Ohio River. Céloron buried lead plates in the ground stating the French claim to the land.

When he returned to Canada he had a bleak report. The Ohio River Valley Indians “are very badly disposed towards the French.” In order to keep the valley he recommended that the French build a fortified military route through the area.

In 1752, the Marquis Duquesne was named Governor of Canada. His instructions were “to make every possible effort to drive the English from our lands … and to prevent their coming there to trade.”

The next year he began building a series of forts along the waterways in the Ohio River Valley. The first two forts were at Presque Isle, on the south shore of Lake Erie, and Fort LeBoeuf on French Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.

Meanwhile, Robert Dinwiddie, the Governor of Virginia, was granting land in the Ohio River Valley to citizens of his colony. In 1753, he received instructions from the King of England “for erecting forts within the king’s own territory.”

Dinwiddie was very upset about all the French activity in the Ohio River Valley. He sent a young volunteer, George Washington, to deliver a letter to the French demanding that they leave the region.

Later, in 1754, George Washington (a British officer) was sent to the Ohio River Valley with the Virginia militia. He and his troops were told to take the “Lands on the Ohio; & the Waters thereof.”

While at Will’s Creek (what is today Cumberland, Maryland), Washington learned that the French were in control of the Forks of the Ohio and the fort the British had built there. Washington proceeded forward with the construction of a road across the mountains.

On the night of May 27, 1754, Washington and 40 soldiers began a dark and wet overnight march. It was morning before they arrived at the Half King’s camp. Together they decided to surround the French.

Then, the shot was fired. This skirmish invited retaliation from the French and their American Indian allies. Although officially not at war, both France and Britain supported the fighting by sending troops and supplies.

What became known as the French and Indian war in North America and Seven Years War elsewhere settled into a stalemate for the next several years, while in Europe the French scored an important naval victory and captured the British possession of Minorca in the Mediterranean in 1756.

However, after 1757 the war began to turn in favor of Great Britain. British forces defeated French forces in India, and in 1759 British armies invaded and conquered Canada.

Facing defeat in North America and a tenuous position in Europe, the French Government attempted to engage the British in peace negotiations. After these negotiations failed, Spanish King Charles III offered to come to the aid of his cousin, French King Louis XV, and their representatives signed an alliance known as the Family Compact on August 15, 1761.

By 1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains in North America, including all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.

The ink was barely dry on the Treaty of Paris in 1763 before the French foreign ministry began planning and preparing for the “next” war with Great Britain.

As a nation France was determined to avenge its humiliating defeat during the French and Indian War/ Seven Years War, which had forced it to give up Canada and had upset the balance of power in Europe.

As early as 1767 France began following the growing conflict between Great Britain and its North American colonies with great interest, even sending agents to America to discover how serious the colonists were in their resistance to British attempts to tax them without their consent. (Jamestown)

Then, as colonial North Americans escalated their rebellion against Britain and declared independence from the British Empire in July of 1776, top American leaders and diplomats recognized France’s potential as an ally and arsenal. The new United States desperately needed money, weapons and outfitting since they did not possess large manufacturing depots for these.

As a result, in late-1776, Benjamin Franklin travelled to Paris to try to negotiate economic and military aid. Besides Franklin, Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, William Lee and John Adams played important roles as well in persuading France to send economic and military support to the United States. (LOC)

On the French side of negotiations, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs (1774-87), Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, served as the primary diplomat.

While initially wary to engage in another costly conflict, Vergennes agreed to provide initial clandestine aid to the United States from 1776 to 1778.

The French also provided war material and clothing to the Americans through the neutral Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius, which was probably the single largest source of gunpowder for North American revolutionaries.

In addition, individual French officers and soldiers decided to join the Continental Army’s ranks, most famously the Marquis de Lafayette but also military engineers like Louis Duportail, François Fleury and Maudit du Plessis.

King Louis XVI and Vergennes, however, hesitated to formally join the American cause, waiting for the young United States to prove that they could succeed militarily against the British and would not abandon the cause to form a separate peace.

Such a sign came in the U.S. victory over British General John Burgoyne by American Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold at Saratoga, New York in the fall of 1777.

Vergennes and the American commissioners came to terms very quickly, signing two treaties on February 6, 1778.

It committed the United States and France to a joint military and no separate peace should Britain declare war (which they soon did). Vergennes dispatched Conrad Alexandre Gérard as the first French minister to the United States to facilitate this alliance.

France’s economic support was essential in bolstering U.S. finances, supplying and outfitting the American army and replacing the colonies’ lost trade in leaving the British commercial network. France’s actions further legitimized the rebellion, helping to convince other rivals of Great Britain, such as the Spanish and the Dutch, to support the U.S. cause. (LOC)

Roughly 12,000 French soldiers served the rebellion, along with some 22,000 naval personnel aboard 63 warships. Lafayette was the one of the earliest and most prominent officers to join. (Jamestown)

The French national debt incurred during the war contributed to the fiscal crisis France experienced in the late 1780s, and that was one factor that brought on the French Revolution. In the end the French people paid a high price for helping America gain its independence. (Jamestown)

Marquis de Lafayette

Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier Lafayette (Marquis de Lafayette – also spelled La Fayette) was a French aristocrat who fought in the Continental Army with the American colonists against the British in the American Revolution.

He joined the circle of young courtiers at the court of King Louis XVI but soon aspired to win glory as a soldier.

He traveled at his own expense to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia in July 1777, 27-months after the outbreak of the American Revolution.

With no combat experience and not yet 20 years old, Lafayette was nonetheless appointed a major general in the Continental Army, and he quickly struck up a lasting friendship with the American commander in chief, George Washington.

The childless general and the orphaned aristocrat seemed an unlikely pair, but they soon developed a surrogate father-son relationship.

The more Washington saw of the young Frenchman, the more impressed he was and the closer the two became. (Britannica)

Lafayette served on Washington’s staff for six weeks, and, after fighting with distinction at the Battle of the Brandywine, near Philadelphia, on September 11, 1777, he was given command of his own division. He conducted a masterly retreat from Barren Hill on May 28, 1778.

Returning to France in February 1779, he worked with American emissaries Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to help persuade the government of Louis XVI to send additional troops and supplies to aid the colonists.

Lafayette arrived back in America in April 1780 with the news that 6,000 infantry under the command of the comte de Rochambeau, as well as six ships of the line, would soon arrive from France.

He was given command of an army in Virginia, and in 1781 he conducted hit-and-run operations against forces under the command of Benedict Arnold. Reinforced by Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne and militia troops under Steuben, Lafayette harried British commander Lord Charles Cornwallis across Virginia, trapping him at Yorktown in late July.

A French fleet and several additional American armies joined the siege, and on October 19 Cornwallis surrendered. The British cause was lost.

Lafayette was hailed as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” and on returning to France in 1782 he was promoted to maréchal de camp (brigadier general). He became an honorary citizen of several states on a visit to the United States in 1784. (Britannica)

Later, as a leading advocate for constitutional monarchy, he became one of the most powerful men in France during the first few years of the French Revolution and during the July Revolution of 1830.

Click the following link to a general summary about the French Connection:

Click to access French-Connection.pdf

February 5, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Teeth

Dental care in pre-contact was simple. For cleaning, Hawaiians rubbed wood ash or charcoal on and between the teeth and then rinsed their mouths.

Toothache and periodontal disease were treated with the root of the pua kala (poppy,) bitten into and held between the teeth. Teeth were extracted by pulling them out with an olona cord. (Schmitt)

Some extraction was done as part of mourning – prolonged weeping and sorrowful wailing marked the death of a loved one, distress upon the death of a respected leader was demonstrated by knocking out one’s teeth, cutting one’s flesh, tattooing one’s tongue, or cutting a section of one’s hair. (NPS)

It was found that the custom of knocking out the incisor teeth as a sign of grief for the departed was not prevalent, just over 17-per cent (more often resorted to by men than by women, and more prevalent on the island of Hawai‘i than on the other islands. The lower incisors were removed more often than the upper. (Chappel)

When Kalola died (grandmother of Keōpūolani (future wife of Kamehameha,)) Kamehameha and his chiefs entered into mourning for her. Her chiefs and others were full of grief and Kamehameha knocked out a front tooth (as did other chiefs.) (Desha) When Kamehameha died in 1819, Boki knocked out four of his front teeth. (Daws)

Western dentistry apparently started in the Islands with the coming of the missionaries. “Mr B has almost daily calls to extract teeth, let blood, administrate medicine, etc. If the mission should have perfect health, a physician might still be exceedingly useful at this, or any other station on the islands.” (Sybil Bingham Journal, February 14, 1822) (Bingham was a missionary, not a doctor or dentist.)

Just before, Sybil was a patient, “Feb. 5th. I have some confidence in the skill of my dear husband, or I could hardly have been prevailed on to sit down, as I did yesterday, to the extraction of a badly decayed tooth, given up as hopeless, a long time since.” (Sybil Bingham Journal, February 5, 1822)

Shortly thereafter, “Feb. 8th. Much distressed again, night before last, with the tooth ache. The seat of the pain was a large black tooth, so much decayed that I thought I never should have resolution to have it extracted.”

“But encouraged by the good success of Monday, I closed school last night and sat down as before, to the operation. Much to my surprise, like the other, it came safely out. I had taken an opiate–now went to bed–slept and was refreshed, and, today, find myself well and free from pain.” (Sybil Bingham Journal, February 8, 1822)

Hawai‘i’s first professional dentist of record was Dr MB Stevens, who appeared in December 1847 and advertised his services over a twelve-week period, and then dropped out of sight.

Dr. Stevens was followed by George Colburn, who arrived in Honolulu on September 20, 1849 and ran an advertisement in the paper; however, like his predecessor, apparently moved on. (Schmitt)

Hawai‘i’s third dentist, and the first to settle permanently in Hawai‘i, was John Mott Smith. Dr. Smith (who eventually acquired a hyphen between his middle and last names, becoming John Mott-Smith) was a New Yorker who studied dentistry by himself, using the textbooks of a friend who was then attending dental college.

After passing the State dental examinations, he located in Albany and practiced there for three years. He moved to California in 1849 and late in 1850 sailed to Hawai‘i. He arrived early in 1851 and remained an Island resident until his death 44 years later, after a distinguished career as a dentist, editor, and government official. (Schmitt)

Intimate friend of both King Kalākaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani, Dr Mott-Smith was an ardent champion of the monarchy and gave freely of his services to the kingdom

Here is a short video about Dr Mott-Smith, portrayed by Adam LeFebvre at a ‘Cemetery Pupu Theatre, sponsored by Hawaiian Mission Houses:
https://youtu.be/5eC0al64nGU

In 1866 Mott-Smith gave up his dental practice to John Morgan Whitney, the first in Hawai‘i to actually graduate from a dental school. Whitney, MD, DDS, was for more than fifty years regarded as Honolulu’s leading dentist.

“When I first came to my practice in Honolulu it was the custom for the physicians to give instructions to the dentist what to do. This I resented with considerable spirit …”

“… for as I said to them, ‘I have spent as many years in preparing for my specialty as you did for your general practice and under as severe discipline, and it is but commonsense that I should know more about it that you do who did not probably give it an hour of time in your full course.’”

“I had so much of this to contend with that I resolved to see for myself the foundation upon which they built their sense of such superior knowledge.” (Whitney; Pacific Dental Gazette)

Notwithstanding the growth in sophistication regarding dental care, standards for dentists remained low or nonexistent through most of this period. Licensing had been instituted for foreign physicians in 1859 and all physicians in 1865, for example, but until the last decade of the century no restrictions were imposed on the practice of dentistry.

‘An Act to Regulate the Practice of Dentistry in the Hawaiian Kingdom’ was approved on December 19, 1892; a three-member Board of Dental Examiners (one physician and two dentists) was created, and standards for licensing were established.

A new, much stricter ‘Act to Regulate the Practice of Dentistry in the Territory of Hawai‘i’ was approved on April 25, 1903. The new law established a Board of Dental Examiners, consisting of three practicing dentists, to be appointed by the Governor upon the recommendation of the Dental Society of Hawai‘i (formed 3-months earlier.)

February 4, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waimea

Hole Waimea i ka ihe a ka makani
Hao mai nā‘ale a ke Kīpu‘upu‘u
He lā‘au kala‘ihi ‘ia na ke anu
I ‘ō‘ō i ka nahele o Mahiki
Kū aku i ka pahu
Kū a ka ‘awa‘awa
Hanane‘e ke kīkala o kō Hilo kini
Ho‘i lu‘ulu‘u i ke one o Hanakahi
Kū aku la ‘oe i ka Malanai
A ke Kīpu‘upu‘u
Holu ka maka o ka ‘ōhāwai a Uli
Niniau ‘eha ka pua o ke koai‘e
Ua ‘eha i ka nahele o Waikā

Waimea strips the spears of the wind
Waves tossed in violence by the Kīpu‘upu‘u rains
Trees brittle in the cold
Are made into spears in Mahiki forest
Hit by the thrusts
Hit by the cold
The hips of Hilo’s throngs sag
Weary, they return to the sands of Hanakahi
Pelted and bruised by
The Kīpu‘upu‘u rains
The petals of Uli sway
The flower of koai‘e droops
Stung by frost, the herbage of Waikā

This is a mele inoa (name chant) for Kamehameha I, that was inherited by his son, Liholiho. This is a tale of the Kîpuʻupuʻu, a band of runners whose name is taken from the cold wind of Maunakea that blows at Waimea on the big island of Hawaiʻi.

They were trained in spear fighting and went to the woods of Mahiki, a woodland in Waimea haunted by demons and spooks, and Waikā to strip the bark of saplings to make spears. Hole means to handle roughly, strip or caress passionately.

In the forest they sang of love, not of work or war. Hanakahi is the district on the Hamakua side of Hilo, named for a chief whose name means profound peace.

Malanai is the name of gentle wind. Pua o Koaiʻe is the blossom of the Koaiʻe tree that grows in the wild, a euphemism for delicate parts. Parts of this old chant, full of double entendre or kaona, was set to music by John Spencer and entitled Waikā. (Hualapa)

Waimea (which literally means reddish water, as it was thought to be tinted as it was drained through the hāpu‘u tree fern forests or through the red soil) has been poetically characterized as being “like a spear rubbed by the wind, as the cold spray is blown by the kipu‘upu‘u rain…” (Cultural Surveys)

Many elders familiar with the area attribute the red tint not to the red soil, but to the natural color added as the water seeps through the hāpu‘u forest on the slopes of the Kohala Mountains.

The fern plants there are a natural source of red dye, and so they say the reddish tint comes from that vegetation. Perhaps the red tint comes from both the soil and the hāpu‘u. (Cultural Surveys)

The population of Waimea became the most significant in density, scattered among fields adjacent to streams that provided year-round water for consumption, cleaning and irrigation. The availability of dependable irrigation systems gave Waimea a unique advantage whereby both dryland and irrigated kalo (taro) could be grown. (Bergin)

The early Waimea inhabitants resided typically within a pā hale (fenced house lot) with a sleeping house and adjacent protected cooking facility. The pā pōhaku (stone wall) surrounded the pā hale, and likely included within was a kīhāpai (garden).

The farming plot (‘apana) of the householder was located elsewhere within the agricultural zone of the respective ahupua’a. These prehistoric farmed areas have become known as the Waimea Field System. (Bergin)

Dry taro used to be planted along the lower slopes of the Kohala Mountains on the Waimea side, up the gulches and in the lower forest zones. Dry taro was planted also along the slopes toward Honoka’a, and is said to have been grown on the plains south and west of Kamuela. (Handy)

Archibald Menzies, noted in 1793, “A little higher up, however, than I had time to penetrate, I saw in the verge of the woods several fine plantations, and my guides took great pains to inform me that the inland country was very fertile and numerously inhabited.”

“Indeed, I could readily believe the truth of these assertions, from the number of people I met loaded with the produce of their plantations and bringing it down to the water side to market”. (Menzies)

Kamehameha started marketing sandalwood, a multitude of people from Waimea had been ordered to harvest sandalwood trees from the Kohala Mountains. It was arduous labor that required the men to carry these huge harvested trees to the coastline for shipping. (Cultural Surveys)

“(W)e were roused by vast multitudes of people passing through the district from Waimea with sandal wood, which had been cut in the adjacent mountains for Karaimoku, by the people of Waimea, and which the people of Kohala, as far as the north point, had been ordered to bring down to his storehouse on the beach, for the purpose of its being shipped to Oahu.”

“There were between two and three thousand men, carrying each from one to six pieces of sandal wood, according to their size and weight.”

“It was generally tied on their backs by bands made of ti leaves, passed over the shoulders and under the arms, and fastened across their breast. When they had deposited the wood at the storehouse, they departed to their respective homes.” (Ellis)

Other activities had altered the landscape. Captain George Vancouver brought gifts of cattle, goats, and sheep for Kamehameha. A kapu (prohibition) was instituted and the animals multiplied across Waimea and the rest of the lands of north Hawai‘i Island.

Many walls and enclosures had to be built to protect the people’s cultivated crops from destruction from the animals. In 1803, the horse was also introduced to the island. (Bergin)

With the lifting of the kapu in 1830, Kamehameha appointed the first authorized cattle hunter, John Palmer Parker. Three years later, Parker married Keli‘i Kipikane Kaolohaka, a great-granddaughter of Kamehameha. The hunting of animals, and especially the salting and corning of beef and the procurement of hides and tallow, became a booming industry. (Bergin)

The salted beef, hide, and tallow export industry grew to become a major component of commerce. Forty to fifty-nine whaling ships annually called at Kawaihae in the mid-1850s.

They provisioned taking aboard 1,500 barrels of salt beef, 5,000 barrels of sweet potatoes, 1,200 bullock hides, and 35,000 pounds of tallow on an average. Between Waimea and Kawaihae, South Kohala became the center of the cattle industry. (Bergin)

In 1832, the first of numerous Mexican cowboys arrived on Hawai‘i Island to lend their experience and skills in handling cattle. While the vaqueros were busy teaching their cowboy skills to Hawaiians in the 1800s, Parker became a leader in the industry.

In 1847, he established the Parker Ranch, an enterprise which would later become one of the greatest ranches under the American flag. (Bergin)

Overlapping with the arrivals of foreign sailors, whalers, and cowboys to the islands was the equally significant arrival of Christian missionaries. One of the most famous early missionaries was Lorenzo Lyons, who arrived in the islands in 1832. He established a Mission Station in Waimea.

The Territory, officially through the US Board of Geographic Names, in 1914, agreed to name the community “Waimea” (and further noted it as a “village.”) Later, in 1954, they revised the name to simply Waimea (and dropped the village reference.)

February 3, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kiribati

Kiribati is an independent republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, located in the central Pacific Ocean. It is part of the division of the Pacific islands that is known as Micronesia. It is located along the equator and International Date Line about halfway between Hawaii and Australia (about 2,500 mi southwest of Hawai‘i).

The islands in Kiribati are divided among three island groups: the Gilbert Islands in the West (named after British Captain Thomas Gilbert who on June 20, 1788 first sighted Tarawa – Adam von Krusenstern named the group of islands the Gilbert Islands in the 1820s (Macdonald)) …

… the Phoenix Islands Protected Area or PIPA (formerly known as the Phoenix Islands Group – reportedly named by Captain John Palmer on the whaling ship ‘Phoenix’ on Feb 23, 1824) in the center, and the Line Islands (a chain/alignment of islands) in the East.

The name Kiribati is the local rendition of ‘Gilberts’ in the Gilbertese (it is pronounced as kee·ree·bas; in the Gilbertese language the letters ‘-ti’ together make an ‘-s’ sound).

Of the 33 islands of Kiribati, 21 are inhabited. Most of the population is concentrated in the Gilbert Islands and only one of the islands in Phoenix Group (Kanton Island) is inhabited and three of the Line Islands are permanently inhabited. The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Bairiki, an islet of Tarawa, serves as an administrative center. (Kiribati Tourism)

The atoll Kiritimati (kee-ris-mahs – a rather straightforward respelling of the English word “Christmas” in the Kiribati language) is the largest coral atoll in the world; it has a land area of 150 square miles – its lagoon is roughly the same size.

The atoll is about 93 mi in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 30 mi. Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati. This is where Captain Cook spent Christmas.

Cook’s third (and final) voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

After a year among the islands of the South Pacific, many of which Cook was the first European to make contact, on December 8, 1777, they were in Bora-Bora (northwest of Tahiti).

Proceeding north, they discovered the Pacific’s largest atoll, Kiritimati (what Cook called Christmas Island (where they celebrated Christmas)) and Cook observed an eclipse of the sun. After stocking up on over a ton of green turtles, the ships departed on January 2, 1778. (Smithsonian)

“On the 2d of January, at day-break, we weighed anchor (at Christmas Island,) and resumed our course to the north; having fine weather, and a gentle breeze at east, and east-south-east …”

“We continued to see birds every day … sometimes in greater numbers than others; and between the latitude of 10° and 11% we saw several turtle. All these are looked upon us signs of the vicinity of land.”

“However, we discovered none till day-break, in the morning of the 18th, when an island made its appearance, bearing northeast by east; and, soon after, we saw more land bearing north, and entirely detached from the former.” (Cook’s Journal)

On January 18, 1778, Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

In another Hawai‘i connection, Hiram Bingham II, son of Pioneer missionary Hiram Bingham, was born on O‘ahu born on August 16, 1831. He was ordained a Congregationalist minister in New Haven, Connecticut on November 9, 1856, and married Clara Brewster nine days later.

Like his father, he set sail less than two weeks later to begin his missionary career. He left Boston on December 2, 1856, on the brig Morning Star, arrived in Honolulu on April 24, 1857, then he went on to the Gilbert Islands in November 1857.

Hiram II spent seven years in the Gilbert Islands (he settled at Abaiang, just north of Tarawa), struggling against disease, hunger and hostile merchants. During that time, he made few converts, about fifty in all, but learned the language and began translating the Bible into Gilbertese.

Due to ill health, he was forced to return to Honolulu in 1864. Except for occasional visits to the US and another short stay in the Gilberts (1873-75,) Hiram II spent the remainder of his life in Hawaiʻi where he translated of the entire Bible into Gilbertese.

Bairiki, on Tarawa Atoll, serves as the head of Kiribati government and administrative center. During WWII, Tarawa was a Japanese stronghold.

RADM Shibasaki, the Japanese commander there, proclaimed, “a million men cannot take Tarawa in a hundred years.” The US Marines attacked; 9,000 marines took only four days (November 20 to November 23, 1943) to take it – but not without a staggering 37% casualties.

The Marines would reconstitute at Camp Tarawa at Waimea, on the Island of Hawaiʻi; it became the largest Marine training facility in the Pacific following the battle of Tarawa.

Over 50,000 servicemen trained there between 1942 and 1945. On Maui, Marines trained in Upcountry, as well as Ma‘alaea. One of the training scenarios was to take Japan’s Iwo Jima.

During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), the Marines seized Mount Suribachi. The 36-day assault on Iwo Jima cost America more than 26,000 casualties, including 6,800 dead. Of the 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 1,083 survived.

February 2, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Great and Good Friend”

“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families – second families, perhaps I should say.”

“My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year…. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up….” (Abraham Lincoln; White House)

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the US, becoming the first Republican President to win the presidency. It was a time when the country was divided.

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.”

“The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.” (White House)

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president.

When the first shot of the American Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter off the coast of South Carolina on April 12, 1861, nearly six thousand miles away, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was a sovereign nation.

On August 26, 1861, five months after the outbreak of hostilities and four months after the news of Civil War arrived in Honolulu, Kamehameha IV issued a Proclamation that, in part, stated, “hostilities are now unhappily pending between the Government of the United States, and certain States thereof styling themselves ‘The Confederate States of America.’”

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. Later that year, at 5:30 am on the morning of July 1, the first skirmish of the Battle of Gettysburg took place.

After three days of fighting, while both armies were badly impacted (with an estimated 51,112 casualties (23,049 Union and 28,063 Confederate,)) it was considered a decisive victory for the Union. On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered what is now referred to as the Gettysburg Address.

The Civil War continued until the spring of 1865 when the North won the war. Throughout 1864 and 1865, President Lincoln worked to pass the 13th Amendment, which declared that slavery and involuntary servitude were no longer allowed in the US and gave Congress the power to enforce this law.

In the Islands, a little over a week after the Gettysburg Address (November 30, 1863,) Kamehameha IV, after serving approximately 9-years as King, died of chronic asthma in Honolulu at the age of 29. His brother, Lot Kapuāiwa, became King Kamehameha V.

Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha V received a letter from President Abraham Lincoln, addressed to “Great and Good Friend,” expressing his “feelings of profound sorrow” of his brother’s death.

“Not only I, but the whole American People are deeply moved by the intelligence of the event with which God in His infinite wisdom has afflicted your Majesty and the Hawaiian Nation; for whom this Government and people have ever entertained sentiments of almost paternal regard, as well as of sincere friendship and unchanging interest.”

“It is gratifying to know that His Majesty’s place on the Throne and in the hearts of the Hawaiian people is occupied by one who was allied to him by the closest ties of blood, and by a long participation in the affairs of the Kingdom.”

“Your Majesty may ever firmly rely upon my sincere sympathy and cordial support and upon the abiding friendship of the people of the United States in the execution of the lofty mission entrusts to you by Providence.” (Lincoln, February 2, 1864)

Lincoln closed the letter noting, “I remain Your Majesty’s Good Friend.” (Lincoln, February 2, 1864)

Hawaiʻi’s neutrality did not prevent many of its citizens from enlisting in either Union or Confederate forces. One, a Hawaiian from Hilo, was Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman, son of Kinoʻole O Liliha, a Hawaiian high chiefess of Hilo. He enlisted in the Union Army and later died of disease in Richmond, Virginia’s infamous Libby Prison.

A dozen Hawaiians (possibly from captured ships) also served as Confederate sailors aboard the famous raider CSS Shenandoah which circumnavigated the globe and sank or captured nearly forty Union and merchant vessels throughout the Pacific. (Captured sailors could be put in chains below deck, marooned on an island or be given the chance to join the crew of the Southern vessel – many chose the latter.)

About 40 individuals who were born and raised in Hawaiʻi served in the Civil War. As many as 200-immigrants to Hawaiʻi who were living here at the outbreak of the war in 1861 may have served in the conflict.

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs signaled an end to the war. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15, 1865, at the age of 56.

On May 11, 1865, Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (noting the death of Abraham Lincoln) noted “No words of ours can do justice to our grief. … “

“All over the world the friends of liberty and justice, the poor, the oppressed everywhere, will weep for him, the Savior of his country, the Liberator of four million slaves, the People’s friend. … His name will forever be revered … The Nation still lives.”

In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, a group of Union veterans established “Decoration Day” on May 30 as a time to remember and decorate the graves of service members with flowers, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation.