Economy | Page 184 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 21, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1910s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1910s – Duke Kahanamoku is Hawai‘i’s first Olympic Champion, Outdoor Circle formed, Hawai‘i National Park is formed and Lili‘uokalani dies. 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.)

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March 20, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Partners in Change

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was organized under Calvinist ecumenical auspices at Bradford, Massachusetts by the General Association of Massachusetts, on the June 29, 1810.

ABCFM had its origin in the desire of several young men in the Andover Theological Seminary to preach the gospel in the heathen world. (The term ‘heathen’ (without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and God) was a term in use at the time (200-years ago.))

The Missionaries to Hawai‘i were sent out in ‘Companies,’ the first leaving Boston on the ‘Thaddeus’ on October 23, 1819. The Missionaries included ordained ministers of the Gospel, physicians, teachers, secular agents, printers, a bookbinder and a farmer.

Most of them were young people, still in their twenties, full of life and enthusiasm. All were pious and accustomed to ‘lead meetings.’ Some were scholars able, when the native language had been mastered, to put into Hawaiian the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek.

All were pioneers and versatile as pioneers are forced to be. The ministers had to carpenter, the doctors had to plow, the printers had to preach.

The women of the mission taught school or rather classes of native adults and later of children, in all manner of subjects, besides managing their own households, entertaining guests, taking care of their children, and ministering to the sick.

First known as ‘Portraits of American Protestant Missionaries to Hawaii’ (1901), then, ‘Missionary Album Sesquicentennial Edition’ (1969), these earlier books were listings of the respective Companies of Missionaries that came to Hawai‘i, illustrations and images of each, and brief biographical information.

As part of the preparation for the bicentennial of the arrival of the Pioneer Company of American protestant missionaries, another update and re-visioning will be published (the present working title is ‘Partners in Change: A Biography of ABCFM Missionaries to Hawai‘i’).

‘Partners’ will contain an introduction that stresses the collaboration and positive working relationship between missionaries and ali‘i. The body will consist of approximately 190 individual biographies averaging about two pages each, which is much longer than the two to four paragraphs, or sometimes three sentences given for each in the prior volumes.

The biographies will include information about the individual missionary: some background history about the individual, their reasons for becoming a missionary, times of service, stations served, specific contributions, if they stayed or returned, if and when they became citizens of Hawai‘i, and what they did after they returned or stayed.

The present ‘Partners’ draft also consists of about 150 pages that focus on the Hawaiians and Tahitians significantly involved with the mission’s work (which are left out of the prior publications).

The book will be a scholarly book with complete citations, but written for a popular audience; it will help illustrate the collaboration between Hawaiians, Tahitians and New England missionaries.

Hawaiian Mission Houses recognizes the Hawaiians and Tahitians as major players in the achieving the goals of the mission.

Click HERE to view/download Background Information on Partners in Change

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Portraits-Album

March 16, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pā‘ani Pepa

Kalākaua’s penchant for “dances, picnics, suppers and other types of amusement” is legendary.

“Above all, he liked to play poker, and he usually lost. Then one day having four kings in his hand he was certain of winning the game.”

“Unluckily enough, his opponent had four aces. Kalākaua, not to be outdone, quickly hit upon the idea of including himself in his hand and said, ‘I have five kings-four in my hand and myself.’” (Ka Leo O Hawaii)

Pā‘ani pepa (card games) seem to have been introduced in Hawai‘i by foreign seamen in the 1790s or early 1800s. Gavan Daws notes that Islanders were enthusiastic gamblers and took up card games with avidity, soon becoming quite skillful.

“(T)he only card game the people and chiefs had known before was ‘Nu‘uanu.’” (Kamakau) It seems the game had already filtered into the society, from ali‘i to makaʻāinana, by the early 19th century when ‘I‘i served Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and the high chiefs in the royal court.” (Chiba)

“Card playing was especially popular among members of royalty. Agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company, visiting Kamehameha and his son Liholiho in 1816, taught the future king how to play whist, then new to Hawai‘i.” (Schmitt) (Whist is a trick-taking card game involving trump cards.)

Missionaries note the regular card playing by ali‘i. “Part of the morning was spent in calling upon the queen (Ka‘ahumanu,) chiefesses, and I took with me one garment which we had completed for Kamamaloo.”

“I did not find her as when we called last Saturday. She was engaged, with a party, under a small booth, by the king’s door at a game of whist.” (Sybil Bingham, March 14, 1822)

(The game of whist is substantially the product of English soil, and its gradual development during more than two centuries, until it has all but arrived at maturity, is mainly due to British talent.”)

(“From England it was carried about a hundred and sixty years ago into the centres of Parisian life, and the diplomatists and financiers from other countries who resorted to that capital became subject to its influence, and introduced it into the cities of their own lands.”) (English Whist, 1894)

Back to Ka‘ahumanu … “Money was spread upon the mats upon which the company were seated. Cards engrossed their attention, while the nod of cold civility was all they could bestow upon us.”

“My long walk in the sun had caused some fatigue; but too many attendants surrounded to admit our having a seat under cover. Seeing that little prospect but that of standing as idle spectators of a vain amusement, we, without any formality, took our leave.”

“As I stood and looked upon the sable group of ignorant, unconcerned, yet precious immortals, thought of their indifference to the message of eternal mercy, and their entire devotions, not only to vain feat to sensual delights, my spirit seemed to faint within me.” (Sybil Bingham, March 14, 1822)

Sybil’s husband, Hiram Bingham, noted of Kaʻahumanu, “sometimes, a full length portrait of her dignity might have presented her stretched out prostrate on the same floor on which a large, black, pet hog was allowed, unmolested, to walk or lie and grunt, for the annoyance or amusement of the inmates.”

“She would amuse herself for hours at cards … Mrs B and myself called at her habitation, in the centre of Honolulu. She and several women of rank were stretched upon the mats, playing at cards, which were introduced before letters.”

“It was not uncommon for such groups to sit like tailors, or to lie full length with the face to the ground, the head a little elevated, the breast resting on a cylindrical pillow, the hands grasping and moving the cards, while their naked feet and toes extended in diverging lines towards the different sides or extremities of the room.”

“Being invited to enter the house, we took our seats without the accommodation of chairs, and waited till the game of cards was disposed of, when the wish was expressed to have us seated by her.”

“We gave her ladyship one of the little books, and drew her attention to the alphabet, neatly printed, in large and small Roman characters.” (Bingham)

Thus, Western card games such as whist, poker games, or so appear to have been already imported into Hawai‘i with other Western materials and goods probably by sailors by early 1800s just after the 1778 British landfall or Cook’s arrival, which was the Hawai’i’s first step into the evolving capitalistic economy. (Chiba)

“Pe-pa-ha-kau: Cards.—Foreign playing-cards are used. Poker is a favorite game. Five cards are dealt around and the highest hand wins. A player not getting a pair is out of the game. Pe-pa, ‘cards,’ is the English ‘paper.’ Ha-kau means ‘fighting.’” (Culin, 1899)

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Wall Nichols Card Set ca 1901

March 14, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1900s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1900s – Young Brothers formed, Moana Hotel opens, Dole organizes Hawaiian Pineapple Company and UH starts. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

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March 13, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

John Harbottle

Harbottle is a village and a township in Holystone chapelry, Northumberland, England. Harbottle Castle crowns a lofty, isolated, green mound, above the river Coquet. Harbottle, in the English Saxons’ tongue Herbottle, is “whence the familie of the Harbottels descended”. (Vision of Britain)

The castle, built in 1155-89, now of shattered and leaning walls, had formerly an outer moat crossed by a drawbridge. (Vision of Britain) The building’s most famous hour came in October 1515, when his Lordship played host there to the pregnant Queen Margaret of Scots and her (second) husband, the Earl of Angus.

At Harbottle, the lady gave birth to a daughter, also Margaret, the future mother of Lord Darnley (husband of Mary, Queen of Scots and father of James VI). (Britannia)

In the Pacific, Captain Brown’s three vessel trading squadron collecting furs, hides, and whale oil in the American Northwest and trading with China included the ‘Butterworth’ (under Captain Brown,) ‘Prince Lee Boo’ (under Captain Sharp) and the ‘Jackal’ (under the command of Captain Alexander Stewart.) John Harbottle served as mate on the Jackal.

They were “one of that numerous group of commercial adventurers who flocked into the north Pacific Ocean in the wake of Cook, drawn thither by the chance discovery, as one result of the last expedition led by that great navigator, of the possibilities of wealth in the fur trade between China and the coast of America.” (Kuykendall)

The Jackal “had English colors and shew a teir of ports fore and aft the greatest part of which were false or only painted yet they made a good appearance at a distance that for some time we concluded she was a Kings Cutter or tender to some of the men of war on the coast.” (Ingraham; Kuykendall)

The squadron spent the trading season of 1793 on the northwest coast and at the end of the season all of them went to the Hawaiian Islands for the usual refreshments. During this visit to the islands Captain Brown was given an opportunity of performing a useful service for his friend Kahekili, and later Kalanikūpule.

From there Captain Brown sent the Butterworth on her way toward England, by way of Cape Horn, ‘with directions to fish for whales and seals in passing through the Pacific Ocean, and at Staten Land, where Mr. Brown had formed a temporary establishment.’ Captain Brown himself with the Jackal and Prince Lee Boo sailed to Canton.

Returning to the Islands, in November of 1794 the harbor of Honolulu, known to early Hawaiians as Ke Awa o Kou, (The harbor of Kou) was discovered by Captain Brown, of the British ship Butterworth, and called by him “Fairhaven.” Honolulu was first entered by the schooner Jackal, her tender. (Thrum; Maly)

Brown died in 1795 and Harbottle later sailed as Second Officer with Captain Bishop on the Nautilus. They sailed from Canton in June 1797, only to meet a series of devastating storms. (Journal/Letters of Captain Charles Bishop)

“That it was not until Thursday 29 June (1797) we had crossed the China Sea and reached the South point of the Island Formosa where we anchored in a Sandy bay for the purpose of fitting up the Empty water Casks …”

“… and the boat was dispatched with an Empty Cask to a Proper place, which they did about one and a half miles from the Ship. there being however a considerable Surf the boat was Anchored just within it and about 50 yards from the Shore, the People were not enabled to carry any Arms on Shore dry, and not seeing any Native, took only the Cask with Bucketts to fill it …”

“… they had began on their business when they were Suddenly attacked by a Party of Indians, who fired many Musketts and persued the people into the water – Captain Bishop being near the boat soon got on board her, and with the boat-keeper fired on the Natives and covered the retreat of the boats Crew, who all reached the boat …”

“… but Mr John Harbottle second mate was wounded … two Indians more daring then the rest, rushed into the water to catch hold of Mr Harbottle who was the hindmost of our people, being wounded by an arrow in the back and his thigh bone broken by a Gun shott, happily however he got within reach of one of the oars and we Saved him by timly wounding his assailants”. (Bishop, Memoranda on the Ship Nautilus)

Next, the Nautilus sheltered at Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka. Russian Commander Schmaleff, “readily offered us every assistance, the settlement could afford. The artificers and People were ordered to do any thing for us we requested and …”

“… our wounded officer (Harbottle) was placed by his directions in the house of the 2d in Command whose Wife and daughters were his kind nurses and Attendants”. (Journal/Letters of Captain Charles Bishop)

“The Nautilus then sailed south into further tempests, which did not even allow a return to Kamchatka. Instead Bishop made again for the Sandwich Islands”. There, Harbottle stayed and “joined Kamehameha’s ring of European aides; Harbottle’s was indeed a happy progress from that grim day at Formosa.” (Journal/Letters of Captain Charles Bishop)

Harbottle was one of the first foreign residents in Hawai‘i (arriving around 1799) and became Kamehameha I’s port pilot. He was called Keaka Habatala. He married High Chiefess Pāpapa‘upu (also called Hanepu,) the hānai granddaughter of Kamehameha I. (Quigg)

Reportedly, he fathered 13 children: William Hepala Harbottle; Sarah Ulukaihonua Harbottle; Mary Ilikealii Harbottle; Charlotte Oili Harbottle; George Nahalelaau Harbottle; John Waihinepio H. Harbottle; Edwin Edward Ailueni, Harbottle; Isaac Kewalo Harbottle; Edwin Harbottle; Issac Kewalo Harbottle; Edward Ailueni Harbottle; William He Pala Harbottle and Winship Reynolds.

In 1809, Harbottle, generally acted as Honolulu harbor pilot. (Greer) Under his direction, hawsers would be run from the ship to rows of canoes, and paddlers would warp the ship into harbor. (Daws)

Likewise, Harbottle was made captain of the Lelia Bird and was involved in the sandalwood trade to China, making two or three voyages and finally ending her days by sinking at Whampoa. (Thrum)

For his service, Harbottle was given land by Kamehameha, including the ahupua‘a named ‘Waipi‘o’ at Hāmākualoa on Maui, “he resided peacefully there until his death.” (Land Commission Testimony) He died June 26, 1830.

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Honolulu_Harbor-Choris-1822

Harbottle Castle Ruins