“It is no small thing to say of the Missionaries of the American Board, that in less than forty years they have taught this whole people to read and to write, to cipher and to sew.”
“They have given them an alphabet, grammar, and dictionary; preserved their language from extinction; given it a literature, and translated into it the Bible and works of devotion, science and entertainment, etc., etc.”
“They have established schools, reared up native teachers, and so pressed their work that now the proportion of inhabitants who can read and write is greater than in New England …”
“… and whereas they found these islanders a nation of half-naked savages, living in the surf and on the sand, eating raw fish fighting among themselves, tyrannized over by feudal chiefs, and abandoned to sensuality …”
“… they now see them decently clothed, recognizing the law of marriage, knowing something of accounts, going to school and public worship with more regularity than the people do at home …”
“… and the more elevated of them taking part in conducting the affairs of the constitutional monarchy under which they live, holding seats on the judicial bench. and in the legislative chambers, and filling posts in the local magistracies.”
“”It is often objected against missionaries, that a people must be civilized before it can be Christianized; or at least that the two processes must go on together, and that the mere preacher, with his book under his arm, among a barbarous people, is an unprofitable laborer.”
“But the missionaries to the Sandwich Islands went out in families, and planted themselves in households, carrying with them, and exhibiting to the natives, the customs, manners, comforts, discipline, and order of civilized society.”
“Each house was a centre and source of civilizing influences; and the natives generally yielded to the superiority of our civilization, and copied its ways …”
“… for, unlike the Asiatics, they had no civilization of their own, and, unlike the North American Indians, they were capable of civilization.”
“Each missionary was obliged to qualify himself, to some extent, as a physician and surgeon, before leaving home; and each mission-house had its medicine-chest, and was the place of resort by the natives for medicines and medical advice and care.”
“Each missionary was a school-teacher to the natives in their own language; and the women of the missions, who were no less missionaries than their husbands, taught schools for women and children …”
“… instructing them not only in books, but in sewing, knitting, and ironing, in singing by note, and in the discipline of children.”
“These mission families, too, were planted as garrisons would have been planted by a military conqueror in places where there were no inducements of trade to carry families; …”
“…so that no large region, however difficult of access, or undesirable as a residence, is without its head-quarters of religion and civilization.”
“The women of the mission, too, can approach the native women and children in many ways not open to men – as in their sickness, and by the peculiar sympathies of sex – and thus exert the tenderest, which are often the most decisive, influences. …”
” The educational system of the Islands is the work of the missionaries and their supporters among the foreign residents, and one formerly of the mission is now Minister of Education.”
“In every district are free schools for natives. In these they are taught reading, writing, singing by note, arithmetic, grammar, and geography, by native teachers.”
“At Lahainaluna is the Normal School for natives, where the best scholars from the district schools are received and carried to an advanced stage of education, and those who desire it are fitted for the duties of teachers. This was originally a mission school, but is now partly a government institution.”
“Several of the missionaries, in small and remote stations, have schools for advanced studies, among which I visited several times that of Mr. Lyman, at Hilo, where there are nearly one hundred native lads; and all the under teachers are natives.
“
“These lads had an orchestra of ten or twelve flutes, which made very creditable music. At Honolulu there is a royal school for natives, and another middle school for whites and half-castes; for it has been found expedient generally to separate the races in education. Both these schools are in excellent condition.”
“But the special pride of the missionary efforts for education is the High School or College of Punahou. This was established for the education of the children of the mission families, and has been enlarged to receive the children of other foreign residents, and is now an incorporated college with some seventy scholars. …”
“Among the traders, shipmasters, and travellers who have visited these Islands, some have made disparaging statements, respecting the missionaries; and a good deal of imperfect information is carried home by persons who have visited only the half-Europeanized ports, where the worst view of the condition of the natives is presented.”
“I visited among all classes – the foreign merchants, traders, and shipmasters, foreign and native officials, and with the natives, from the king and several of the chiefs to the humblest poor, whom I saw without constraint in a tour I made alone over Hawaii, throwing myself upon their hospitality in their huts.”
“I sought information from all, foreign and native, friendly and unfriendly; and the conclusion to which I came is, that the best men, and those who are best acquainted with the history of things here, hold in high esteem the labors and conduct of the missionaries.”
“The mere seekers of pleasure, power, or gain, do not like their influence; and those persons who sympathized with that officer of the American navy who compelled the authorities to allow women to go off to his ship by opening his ports and threatening to bombard the town, naturally are hostile to the missions.”
“I do not mean, of course, that there is always unanimity among the best people, or perhaps among the missionaries themselves, on all questions; e. g., as to the toleration of Catholics, and on some minor points of social and police regulation.”
“But on the great question of their moral influence, the truth is that there has always been, and must ever be, in these Islands, a peculiar struggle between the influences for good and the influences for evil.”
“They are places of visit for the ships of all nations, and for the temporary residence of mostly unmarried traders; and at the height of the whaling season the number of transient seamen in the port of Honolulu equals half the population of the town.”
“The temptations arising from such a state of things, too much aided by the inherent weakness of the native character, are met by the ceaseless efforts of the best people, native and foreign, in the use of moral means and by legislative coercion.”
“It is a close struggle, and, in the large seaports, often discouraging and of doubtful issue j but it is a struggle of duty, and has never yet been relaxed. Doubtless the missionaries have largely influenced the legislation of the kingdom, and its police system; it is fortunate that they have done so.”
“Influence of some kind was the law of the native development. Had not the missionaries and their friends among the foreign merchants and professional men been in the ascendant, these Islands would have presented only the usual history of a handful of foreigners exacting everything from a people who denied their right to anything.”
“As it is, in no place in the world that I have visited are the rules which control vice and regulate amusements so strict, yet so reasonable, and so fairly enforced.”
“The government and the best citizens stand as a good genius between the natives and the besieging army.”
“As to the interior, it is well known that a man may travel alone, with money, through the wildest spots, unarmed. Having just come from the mountains of California, I was prepared with the usual and necessary belt and its appendages of that region, but was told that those defences were unheard of in Hawaii.”
“I found no hut without its Bible and hymn-book in the native tongue, and the practice of family prayer and grace before meat, though it be over no more than a calabash of poi and a few dried fish, and whether at home or on journeys, is as common as in New England a century ago.”
“It may be asked whether there is no. offset, no deduction to be made from this high estimate of the American missionaries.”
“As to their fidelity and industry in the worst of times, and their success up to the point they have now reached, I think of none.”
“As to the prospects for their system in the future, and the direction the native mind may take in its further progress, there are some considerations worthy of attention.” (Richard Dana, Boston, 1860)
In 1863, “The state of things at the Islands is peculiar. They have been Christianized. The missionaries have become citizens. In a technical sense they no longer are missionaries, but pastors, and as such on an official parity with the native pastors.” (Rufus Anderson)
Anderson wrote to inform Kamehameha IV of the Hawaiian Evangelical actions and dissolution of the mission in his July 6, 1863 letter noting, in part: “I may perhaps be permitted, in view of my peculiar relations to a very large body of the best friends and benefactors of this nation, not to leave without my most respectful aloha to both your Majesties.”
“The important steps lately taken in this direction are perhaps sufficiently indicated in the printed Address …. I am happy to inform your Majesty that the plan there indicated has since been adopted, and is now going into effect, — with the best influence, as I cannot doubt, upon the religious welfare of your people.”
“My visit to these Islands has impressed me, not only with the strength, but also with the beneficent and paternal character of your government. In no nation in Christendom is there greater security of person and property, or more of civil and religious liberty.”
“As to the progress of the nation in Christian civilization, I am persuaded, and shall confidently affirm on my return home, that the history of the Christian church and of nations affords nothing equal to it.”
“And now the Hawaiian Christian community is so far formed and matured, that the American Board ceases to act any longer as principal, and becomes an auxiliary,— merely affording grants in aid of the several departments of labor in building up the kingdom of Christ in these Islands, and also in the Islands of Micronesia.”
“Praying God to grant long life and prosperity to your Majesties, I am, with profound respect, Your Majesty’s obedient, humble servant, R. Anderson”
Later (October 1863), the ABCFM “Resolved, That, in taking this additional step toward the conclusion of our work in the Sandwich Islands, we record anew our grateful and adoring sense of the marvelous success, which our missionaries there have been enabled to achieve by the blessing of God, to whom be all the glory.”
“Resolved, That while we rejoice, with all our surviving missionaries, ill the results of which we and the world are witnesses, we offer our special congratulations to the two venerable fathers of the mission, the Rev. Hiram Bingham, and the Rev. Asa Thurston …”
“… who, having been consecrated and commended to the grace of God for that work by our predecessors, forty-four years ago, are still among the living, to praise God with us and with all the saints, for this great victory of the gospel, and to say, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servants depart in peace, according to thy word, for our eyes have seen thy salvation.’” (Action of the Board; Proceedings of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association)
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Hiram Bingham I preaching to Queen at Waimea, Kauai, in 1826
