“I have often wondered why there were no more children here than there appear to be, upon asking a white man who has resided here many years …”
“… the reason he replied that many infants are strangled to death by their mothers, especially if they are not able to support them and many die for want of care when young. We have seen a number of latter case.” (Daniel Chamberlain. July 20, 1820; Tobin)
“A man and his wife, tenants of Mr (John) Young … had one child, a fine little boy. A quarrel arose between them on one occasion respecting this child. The Wife refusing to accede to the wishes of the husband, he, in revenge, caught up the child by the head and the feet, broke its back across his knee, and then threw it down in expiring agonies before her.”
“Struck with the atrocity of the act, Mr. Young seized the man, led him before the king, Tamehameha, … and requested that he might be punished.”
“The king inquired, ‘To whom did the child he has murdered belong?’ Mr. Young answered, that it was his own son. ‘Then,’ said the king, ‘neither you nor I have any right to interfere; I cannot say any thing to him.’” (Ellis, 1826)
“We have long known that the Sandwich Islanders practised infanticide, but had no idea of the extent to which it prevailed, until we had made various inquiries daring our present tour, and had conversed with Karaimoku Kapiolani, the governor, and several other chiefs, who, though formerly unwilling to converse on the subject, have, since their reception of Christianity, become more communicative.”
“It prevails throughout all the islands, and, with the exception of the higher class of chiefs, is, as far as we could learn, practised by all ranks of the people.”
“However numerous the children among the lower orders, parents seldom rear more than two or three, and many spare only one; all the others are destroyed sometimes shortly after birth, generally during the first year of their age.” (Ellis, 1826)
“Several mothers presented their offspring, with the pride of old Roman matrons. We counted the number of those who had living children, and then requested those who had none to rise.”
“The scene that followed I can never forget.”
“Why are you childless? we inquired. Very few had lost children by a natural death. One woman replied in tears, holding out her hands.”
“’These must answer the question: I have been the mother of eight children, but with these hands I buried them alive, one after another, that I might follow my pleasures, and avoid growing old.’”
“’Oh, if I had but one of them back again to comfort me now! If tears and penitence could restore the dead!’”
“She was followed by others, making the same sad confessions of burying alive, of strangling, of smothering, until sobs and tears filled the house.” (Laura Fish Judd, 1880)
“There can be no doubt but that infanticide was prevalent among them and that a very large percent of the children born were disposed of in various ways by their parents, soon after their birth.”
“Generally speaking, it appears that in Hawaiʻi, as throughout Polynesia, the struggle for existence and life’s necessities, was largely evaded by restricting the natural increase in population in this way.” (Bryan, 1915)
“But as we are told that parents were fond of their children and parental discipline was not rigorous, and as children were left largely to their own devices, their care could hardly be regarded as a serious burden …”
“… moreover, more girl children were destroyed than boys, indicating that the former reason was the more economic and, therefore, the more human and logical one.” (Bryan, 1915)
“The extreme skewing of the sex ratio among Hawaiians in the nineteenth century is open to many explanations … Overwork and general exploitation may well have erased more adult women than men, but the likeliest candidate as the chief killer of females was infanticide, either by direct intention or, as is much more common, indirectly and semi-intentionally.” (Crosby)
“(B)y European contact the Hawaiians were actively practicing several methods of population control, including abortion and infanticide, perhaps in response to pressure on local food supplies and the limitations of agricultural land.” (Kirch)
“Several of the early Christian missionaries in the Hawaiian archipelago were sure that infanticide, especially female infanticide, was widespread despite decrees against the practice and assurances that it had stopped circa 1820.” (Crosby)
“Abortion and infanticide, known to exist in pre-contact times, reached new highs in 1819-1825 and 1832-1836.” (Schmitt)
“Artemas Bishop reported in 1838, ‘the majority of children born in the islands die before they are two years old.’ Indeed, the infant mortality rate was so high that microbiologist OA Bushnell uses the term ‘genocidal decline’ in discussing Hawaiian infants in this period.” (Kanahele)
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