Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Anthony Lee Ahlo

Anthony Lee Ahlo was born in 1876, in Honolulu (he was “Pake hapa-Hawaiʻi.”)  His father Lee Ahlo (April 23, 1841- July 3, 1906) was born in Chong Lok near Canton, China, and came to Hawaiʻi in 1865.

His mother Lahela Kauhi Kehuokalani (April 22, 1852 – December 16, 1911) is reported to be a descendent of Kamehameha.  (Anthony is also identified as Li Fang Ahlo and Lee Fong Ahlo, at various places and times.)

His father worked for seven years as a cook for Mr Lewers of Lewers & Cooke. He and Lahela were married June 22, 1872. In 1873, he started a small grocery at the corner of Maunakea and King Streets, in 1876 it moved to corner of Nuʻuanu and Chaplain Lane; he later expanded into rice planting/processing and general merchandising.  (Krauss)

“(The mill) belonged to a man by the name of Lee Ahlo … (it) was near the Waikalua River, and there was a ditch and flume higher up the river that brought water from the river to the rice mill to make the water wheel go around, and that is where the rice mill got its power to clean the rice. The mill hulled the rice and it came out white. When it was still in the hull we called it paddy rice.”

“The river was near the rice mill and sometimes ulua and other large fish came up the river, following the water at high tide. They came into the ditches leading into the rice fields. Workmen netted them.”  (Ching, History of Kāneʻohe)

His father died a very prominent merchant and had many friends. His estate was valued at $50,000 (about $1,500,000, today;) the inventory list includes $17,500 real property in Honolulu, $17,500 in Kāneʻohe, $3,000 in Waialua, $2,000 in personal property in Honolulu and $10,000 in Kāneʻohe.  (Krauss)

Anthony Lee Ahlo graduated from Oʻahu College (Punahou) in 1897.  He then was admitted at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University in 1898 and earned his BA in 1901 and MA 1911.

In 1901, Anthony married Gladys Fitzgerald.  A reception, with over five hundred guests, being all the prominent society people of the city, was given by Mr. and Mrs. Lee Ahlo, in honor of their son and his young English wife, at their magnificent new residence off Liliha street, it “was a most brilliant and delightful affair.”  (Honolulu Republican, October 20, 1901)  Young Ahlo and his bride moved to Shanghai, China.

An article in the Maui news noted, “The Chinese government by imperial edict has requested Chinese residing in foreign countries to interest themselves in the matter of developing the mineral resources of China, and has pledged itself to grant the necessary rights, privileges and protection to those who desire to invest.”

It further noted, “China Waking Up. Mr. Anthony L Ahlo, an intelligent young Chinese, and by the way, a graduate of Cambridge, England is on Maui this week, and while here, is submitting an Investment for the purpose of developing the vast coal, copper and tin mines of the Chong Lock District in the province of Kwangtung (his father’s home town”.)

“Mr. Ahlo will proceed to China and secure the desired concessions. There is no question but what Chong Lock is a rich mineral district, and with the energy, ability and integrity of Mr. Ahlo back of the enterprise, there is no question but what the enterprise will prove successful and lay the foundation for vast fortunes for its promoters.”  (Maui News, June 20, 1903)

Anthony was well-connected with the revolutionary movement that was underway in China.  From 1894 to 1911, Sun Yat Sen traveled around the globe advocating revolution and soliciting funds for the cause. At first, he concentrated on China, but his continued need for money forced him elsewhere. Southeast Asia, Japan, Hawaii, Canada, the United States, and Europe all became familiar during his endless quest.  (Damon)

However, movement by Chinese to and through the US was restricted.  Sun needed a certificate to enter the United States at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would have otherwise blocked him.  Although born in China, to allow movement through the States, Sun sought a birth certificate from Hawaiʻi.

Ahlo provided sworn testimony supporting Sun Yat Sen’s ʻEwa birthplace (signed by A. Ahlo on March 22, 1904.)  In part, he swore, “I have lived in Hawaii for 41 years. Have known Dr Sen a Chinese person, and knew his parents – since about 1870.  I owned a rice plantation at Waipahu at that time and went there after to give it my attention.  The father and mother of Dr Sen lived at Wamano and I often stopped at their house – sometimes overnight.”

On March 14, 1904, while residing in Kula, Maui, Sun Yat-sen obtained a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth, issued by the Territory of Hawaiʻi, stating that “he was born in the Hawaiian Islands on the 24th day of November, A.D. 1870.”

A May 26, 1908 article in the Chinese Public Opinion, an English paper of Peking, noted, “We are pleased to note the appointment of Mr. AL Ahlo to a position as justice in the Supreme Court in Peking. This gentleman is one of the new generation and was educated at the University of Cambridge, England where he passed his degree with honors.”

“He has been for some time acting as legal adviser to the High Court of Justice and has been doing good work in this department. It is a noteworthy fact that he is the returned student who has been appointed to a position of any importance in the Judiciary of China.” (Hawaiian Gazette, June 26, 1908)

In a speech he noted, “The world has become accustomed to seeing China plodding contentedly in rough conservatism and has not noted the size of reawakened China. Everywhere in the empire there are abundant evidences of material progress, and educational, industrial and scientific institutions tell the tale of life and activity.”

“The old-time superstitions and customs which stood in the path of its development are now being rudely brushed aside, and today behold China, a nation throbbing with the thrill of a new era, an era of advancement in the cause of humanity!”   (Congress of American Prison Association, 1910)

The revolutionary movement in China grew stronger and stronger. Revolution members staged many armed uprisings, culminating in the October 10, 1911 Wuhan (Wuchang) Uprising which succeeded in overthrowing the Manchu dynasty and established the Republic of China.

That date is now celebrated annually as the Republic of China’s national day, also known as the “Double Ten Day”. On December 29, 1911, Sun Yat-Sen was elected president and on January 1, 1912, he was officially inaugurated.  After Sun’s death in March 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT.)

The Republic of China governed mainland China; during the Chinese Civil War, the communists captured Beijing and later Nanjing. The communist party led People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949.

Ahlo’s provided further support and participation in the new China did not end there.  Ahlo drafted the constitution of the Chinese republic which was submitted to the national assembly.  It follows partially the federal law of America and part of that of France. It provides for a national assembly to consist of two houses, called the council of the people and the council of the provinces.  (San Francisco Call, May 19, 1912)

In the early-1920s he was Chinese consul in Samoa and then Borneo, before being a secretary of foreign affairs at Peking, and then subsequently an assistant commissioner of foreign affairs in Canton.

“Dr. Ahlo’s 12-months sojourn in Samoa has enabled him to study the Pacific. He sees it as the meeting ground of England, Japan, and America, all striving to gain supremacy.”

“The enormous trade possibilities of this romantic region, with peoples of diverse races, numbering 800,000,000, waiting to be exploited as factors in trade and ideas, call the colonizers and traders of the Great Powers, and right through the Pacific the fight for this supremacy is going quietly on.”

“Tariffs and other things are playing their part, but the suspicions and antagonisms engendered by this competition are reflected in the naval importance given to the Pacific. It is now talked of as the scene of the next great war.”

“’The spending of millions on armaments will inevitably result in bankruptcy,’ said the doctor, and, on account of the enormous cost.”  (The Advocate, Tasmania, August 4, 1921)  The image shows Lee Fong Aholo.

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Bahá’í

“If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure.” (Bahá’u’lláh)

Bahá’í’s believe God has sent to humanity a series of divine Educators – known as Manifestations of God – whose teachings have provided the basis for the advancement of civilization.

These Manifestations have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad.

The Bahá’í Faith is an independent religion founded in Persia by Mirzá Husayn Alí (1817‐1892,) known as Bahá’u’lláh. It has its own sacred literature, religious and social tenets, as well as practices.

Bahá’u’lláh, the latest of these Messengers, explained that the religions of the world come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God.

Bahá’í’s believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the future of society and of the nature and purpose of life. Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh.

The Bahá’í commemorate May 23, 1844, when the Bab, the herald of the Bahá’í Faith, announced in Shiraz, Persia (now Iran,) that he was the herald of a new messenger of God. It is one of the nine holy days of the year when work is suspended.

Dr. Augur, Disciple of ’Abdu’l-Baha was born in New Haven, Connecticut and educated at Yale University. In 1898 Dr. Augur and his wife Ruth and their son Morris moved to Hawaii. Sometime in 1909 the Augur’s became Bahá’ís.

On December 26, 1901 Agnes Baldwin Alexander, a native of Hawaii, returned to Honolulu from a trip to Rome where she discovered the Bahá’í Revelation, and Hawaiʻi’s first Bahá’í.

She rejoiced that she was continuing work begun by her distinguished grandparents (Rev. Dr Dwight and Charlotte Baldwin and Rev. William Patterson and Mary Ann Alexander) who were in the fourth and fifth companies to bring Christianity to the Hawaiian Islands.

Miss Martha Louise Root, was born in Richwood, Ohio in 1872 encountered the Bahá’í Faith and became confirmed shortly thereafter. For the next twenty years she roamed the globe interviewing the famous and powerful while spreading the teachings of Baha’u’llah.

She was the first to travel and teach in South America. When Martha Root passed away in Honolulu on September 28, 1939, it was noted that, “unnumbered admirers throughout Bahá’í world lament … the earthly extinction of her heroic life.”

Two American Bahá’í, Mr Howard Struven and Mr CM (Charles Mason) Remey, were making a world trip in 1909 proclaiming the Faith; they first stopped in Honolulu. A local paper noted the following invitation for readers to learn about Bahá’í:

“The Bahá’í of Honolulu extend to all a cordial invitation to attend a lecture to be given at the Young Hotel on Monday night, at eight o’clock, by Prof CM Remey of the architectural department of the George Washington University, of Washington DC upon the history, teachings and reforms of the Bahá’í movement.”

“The object of the Bahá’í movement is the unification of all religions. Having had its birth in Persia over half a century ago, its truths have been taught the world over.”

“Mr. Remey and Mr. Struven, the Bahá’í workers, are now spending three weeks here, on a tour of the world which they are making in the interests of the Bahá’í cause.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 28, 1909)

Later (March 1915,) Remey returned to the Islands, with him were George O Latimer, a Portland attorney, and Miss Corrine True of Chicago.

While in the Islands, in addition to community gatherings to discuss the Bahá’í faith, Remey, Latimer and True met with former Queen Liliʻuokalani.

Today the Bahá’í communities can be found in over 200-nations. The voluminous Sacred Scriptures of the Bahá’í Revelation have been translated into more than 800-languages.

The spiritual heart of the American Bahá’í community is the Bahá’í House of Worship for North America, located in Wilmette, IL, just north of Chicago.

The Bahá’ís of Hawaiʻi are found on every inhabited island of the Hawaiian chain. Every race and ethnic group found in the islands is reflected in the Bahá’í community, as Baha’u’llah stated, we are all ‘fruits of one tree’ and ‘flowers of one garden’.

The Hawaiian Bahá’í community is a separate administrative community from the US Bahá’í community in the worldwide Bahá’í Faith. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Hawaiian Islands was established in 1964.

Its administrative association is Australasia and the Mother Temple of the Pacific is in Samoa. All temples are dedicated to humanity and open to all for prayer and meditation. (Rice) (Lots of information here is from Bahá’í and Hawaiʻi Bahá’í.)

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Ka‘anapali Out Station

The American Protestant mission to the Islands had 19 Mission Stations with a mother mission station church (located in a larger population centers); in addition, ‘āpana (out station or branch) churches, each under the missionaries’ mother church.

As an example, by 1846, downtown Honolulu’s Kawaiaha‘o Church had established a series of at least 12 branch churches or ‘āpana, from Kalihi to Waikiki and well up into the valleys …

At Waikiki (sometimes called the Kalawina Church (or Calvinist or Congregational Church) – site was just mauka of the Moana Hotel), Kalihi, ‘A‘ala, Palama, Nuʻuanu, Mānoa (in the vicinity of the Manoa Valley Theatre), Kakaʻako (Puaikalani), Pauoa, Makiki, Pālolo, Kaimuki, and Moʻiliʻili (called Kamo‘ili‘ili, which is now the present site of the Mother Rice Preschool on King Street).

‘Āpana churches and Out Stations were in other areas; in 1841, Ephraim Clark reported, “An out station at Kaanapali has been maintained for 8 or 10 years. Since my residence at Lahainaluna, the principal care of this station has devolved on me. [Ephraim Clark].” (Ephraim Clark, Report of the Out Station at Kaanapali, May 1841)

“Ka‘anapali [also called Pōhaku-Kāʻana-pali and Kāʻanapali-pōhaku – lit. Kāʻana cliff] is the name of an ancient kalana [place name for sections of the island] that was obliterated by the Hawaiian Legislature in 1859 by combining its lands in a new Lahaina district.” [In 1859, Lāhaina and Kā‘anapali were merged to form the current Lahaina district. (Hawaiian Place Names)]

“The [Kā‘anapali] name was preserved by American Factors, Ltd, the developer of the Ka‘anapali resort complex. The outstanding geographical feature in the resort area is Pu’u Keka‘a, “the rumbling hill,” a volcanic cinder and spatter cone. Pu’u Keka‘a is most commonly known to local residents as Black Rock, a reference to the color of the cone.” (Clark)

“A good meeting house has been finished & dedicated during [1837]. It is 78 feet by 30 inside, built of dobies [adobe – mud bricks], with a good ti leaf roof, glass windows, pulpit, &c. The expenses defrayed by the people themselves.” (1837, Annual Report from Lahaina-1832-1847, Dwight Baldwin)

They built “a dobie house for the teacher with a room for the temporary accommodations of the missionary who supplies the pulpit. These have all been built by the people with the exception of the doors & windows of the dwelling house.”  (Ephraim Clark, Report of the Out Station at Kaanapali, May 1841)

“Preaching has been maintained by Mr. Clark at Kaanapali during the year. He has also conducted a Bible class at the same place. A Sab. school has been taught by a graduate from the High School. The usual congregation has been about 500.”

“There has been no special attention to religion during the year. There are 14 chh [church] members at this station connected with the chh at Lahaina. One chh member has been under discipline with manifest [benefit] to himself & others.”

“A good school of children has been kept here by the graduate from the High School. He has also several other schools under his superintendance. His influence has been highly salutary in various ways. He has recently united with the chh at Lahainaluna.”

Kā’anapali was not the only Lahaina out station, “A native member of the chh has gone once each fortnight, during most of the year, on the Sab., to [Olowalu], 6 miles distant, where a congregation has met of about 200, & where a good meeting house of dobies has been finished & dedicated during the past year.”

“A dobie school house has since been built [at Kaanapali], & a dobie house for the teacher with a room for the temporary accommodations of the missionary who supplies the pulpit. These have all been built by the people with the exception of the doors & windows of the dwelling house.” (Ephraim Clark, Report of the Out Station at Kaanapali, May 1841)

“Until [1841] most of the church members residing at Kaanapali have been connected with the church at Lahaina. During the past year, it has been thought best to form a church in this place … There were also obvious advantages in having a church connected with the station.”

“A church was formed consisting of 16 members, 15 from the Lahaina church & 1 from Lahainaluna.” (Ephraim Clark, Report of the Out Station at Kaanapali, May 1841)

“The people have contributed something on the first [M]onday of the month, principally in work, which has been turned towards the support of the teacher, building dwelling houses &c. Children baptised 42. Marriages, since June 1st, 26.”

“Kaanapali embraces 10 or 12 miles of coast & containing 1341 inhabitants by the last census. In this district, there are 6 schools. These have been examined 3 times during the year. At the last examination there were 274 children present. A few were reported as absent.”

“Some impulse has been given to the schools by the new laws, but there is still much room for improvement. A small grant is needed from the Mission in aid of schools.” (Ephraim Clark, Report of the Out Station at Kaanapali, May 1841)

“This out Station is on the North West part of Maui, about 8 miles from Lahaina. It contains about 1500 inhabitants. The district is not well supplied with water except in the rainy season. Kalo, therefore, is not abundant, & the people are generally poor.”

“A church was organized here [in 1841] of 16 members which has since been increased to 88. Preaching, a Bible class & sabbath schools, church meetings &c have been sustained here during the year. Catholics have as yet made no inroads upon the district.”

“There are six schools in this district, the oversight of which has involved considerable time & care. Most of the children attend school. The schools have been examined three times during the year. “ (Ephraim Clark, report of labors at Kaanapali 1842)

“My labors among that people have been confined almost entirely to the sabbath owing to my duties in this Sem’y [Lahainaluna] during the week. I have, however, occasionally visited the different villages, & during this period have conversed several times with about 300 inquires.”

“During the first 10 months of this period, a theological student of this sem’y labored on Saturday in the different settlements & on the Sabbath preached at Honokohau, the last but one of the largest villages in the district.”

“The schools in the district are not flourishing. The cause is in the want of well qualified teachers. The inadequate pay, & even the failure of that for the portions of the year, have contributed to make even the poor teachers more inefficient & delinquent.”

“On the whole the year has been a prosperous one for the church. The attendance on pubic worship has been good, while the cases of discipline have been few.”

“They have rethatched their meeting house, while the church members at Honolulu have built & furnished a thatched house for my accommodations when I go among them & are now getting timbers for a roof to the stone meeting house whose walls have been up for 4 or 5 yrs past.”

“Perhaps the whole district of Kaanapali numbers 1200 people, stretched along the coast 8 miles in length & 2 or 3 in breadth. … We have reason to bless God & take courage.” (Timothy Hunt to Chamberlain, Sep 9, 1847)

“There are six schools in this district, the oversight of which has involved considerable time & care. Most of the children attend school. The schools have been examined three times during the year.”  (Ephraim Clark, report of labors at Kaanapali 1842)

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Prostitution

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 (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

The next day, “we were in some doubt whether or not the land before us was inhabited; but this doubt was soon cleared up, by seeing some canoes coming off from the shore, toward the ships, I immediately brought-to, to give them time to join us. They had from three to six men each”.

“I tied some brass medals to a rope, and gave them to those in one of the canoes, who, in return, tied some small mackerel to the rope as an equivalent.”

“This was repeated ; and some small nails, or bits of iron, which they valued more than any other article, were given them. For these they exchanged more fish, and a sweet potatoe; a sure sign that they had some notion of bartering; or, at least, of returning one present for another.” (Cook Journal, at time of ‘Contact,’ )

While Cook bartered for provisions, his crew was already familiar with trading iron nails for sex. (Hansen) “Women were also forbidden to be admitted into the ships, except under certain restrictions. But the evil I meant to prevent (venereal disease,) by this regulation, I soon found, had already got amongst them.” (Cook)

Captain Cook, in his log of 1778, noted that native Hawaiian women would swim out to his ships, hoping to engage his crews sexually; thereafter, most randy seamen anticipated arrival at Hawaiian ports-of-call. (Waihona)

Archibald Campbell, an 1809 visitor to Hawai’i, noted the Hawaiians were “very jealous of any improper connexion between natives and their wives; but the case is widely different with respect to their visiters, where connexion of that kind is reckoned the surest proof of friendship, and they are always anxious to strengthen it by that tie.” (Campbell)

Prostitution, as it now would be defined, was nonexistent in pre-Western contact Hawai‘i, because sexual partners were readily available for mutual enjoyment.

After Western contact occurred, the females continued to openly want sex, now with the mana-loaded sailors and traders. The early mediums of exchange were nails or shirts.

These males advocated bartering for sex, and with no religious or social restrictions against prostitution, the natives had no hesitancy about profiting from the newcomers’ desires. (Diamond)

“The seaman, after wandering over the pathless ocean, with only the dark waste of waters in view, might well recognize a paradise in the green hills and shady groves of the islands of the Pacific, and angels in their dusky denizens.”

“It is admitted by all that licentiousness prevails extensively among the people even at present, but to a far less degree than formerly, when promiscuous intercourse was universal.”

“Men were living with several wives, and vice versa. All improvement in this respect is to be ascribed to the labors of Christian missionaries.”

“It was not merely polygamy or excess among a few of the more powerful members of the community, but the ordinary habit among all classes.”

“Chastity, whenever met with, was not a customary part of woman’s life, but only an incident dependent On particular circumstances; in fact, an abnormal condition.” (Sanger)

In the early nineteenth century, makaʻāinana women flocked to the European ships and port towns in large numbers to partake in the lucrative trade in sexual services. This was one of the few ways that makaʻāinana could acquire foreign goods since the aliʻi controlled other forms of trade. (Merry)

Many Hawaiian women boarded the ships coming to port here. They did not think that such associations were wrong … The husbands and parents, not knowing that it would bring trouble, permitted such association for foreign men because of the desire for clothing, mirrors, scissors, knives, iron hoops from which to form fishhooks and nails. (ʻIʻi; Merry)

The first attempt to change the sexual behavior of Hawaiian women was an attack on prostitution with European seamen. This endeavor earned the missionaries the undying hostility of the small but growing mercantile community and the visiting shipping community while failing to eliminate the sex trade. (Merry)

In December, 1827, drafted by Kaʻahumanu and scrutinized for Christian propriety by Hiram Bingham, a set of prohibitions were proscribed (murder, theft, adultery, prostitution, gambling, and the sale of alcoholic spirits.) Folks fought it.

“The leading one of these elements was the combination of lewd and intemperate whites, headed by the British and American consuls, in order to break down the new laws against prostitution and drunkenness.” (Missionary Herald, 1905) Prostitution didn’t stop.

At a time, “Local law enforcement condoned and controlled the activities, under the guise that it was “a public necessity.” “The whole of Iwilei makai of the Oʻahu Prison has been used for the purpose of prostitution for some time past.” (Special Legislative Committee Report, 1905)

These women did not live at Iwilei; they only went there in the evenings, and then returned to their uptown homes at night. Some had homes of their own, others were servants of families; but all went back to town. They were in no sense isolated; Iwilei was not their home; they neither eat nor sleep there. (Special Legislative Committee Report, 1905)

“The High Sheriff of the Territory, through his agents, has ordered all of such women (prostitutes) that are found in different parts of the City, and also in some portions of Iwilei, to move to one particular part as follows: on the makai side of Iwilei rice mill, and on the Ewa side of the Iwilei road.” (Special Legislative Committee Report, 1905)

The Iwilei brothels (or “boogie houses,” as they were also called back then) were later forced to relocate to Hotel Street and a few adjoining parts of Chinatown. By 1916, the Iwilei Stockade was shut down.

Shortly thereafter, there was an unofficial system of regulated prostitution in the Islands, with the also unofficial sanction of the military. Army military police and the Navy shore patrol helped monitor it.

All girls had to live in the houses where they worked; no white girls were allowed on the other side of River Street. The Army, Navy, and civilian police picketed any house violating the rules, and no man could enter it. According to the agreement, the civil police regulated prostitution “with full cooperation by the Army and Navy.” Greer)

“The business of procuring girls to work in the brothels, or “factories”, before the war (WWII,) was usually handled by the same … “procurer.” He handled nothing but the transportation of the girls. … The fee for procuring a girl from the mainland rage(d) from $500 to $1,000 depending on the looks and the capability of the girl.” (O’Hara)

All of the girls have a Territorial tax book and a Territorial license (they were licensed as ‘entertainers,’) which cost each $1 per year. In addition, every month the Vice Squad would collect an unofficial tax of $30 per girl from the brothels.

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Colonialism

Colonization (and the ‘Peopling of the Pacific’) began about 40,000 years ago with movement from Asia; by BC 1250, people were settling in the eastern Pacific. (Kirch) By BC 800, Polynesians settled in Samoa. (PVS)

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, studies suggest it was about 900-1000 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

The motivations of the voyagers varied. Some left to explore the world or to seek adventure. Others departed to find new land or new resources because of growing populations or prolonged droughts and other ecological disasters in their homelands. (PVS)

At some point, Polynesians probably reached the coast of South America, returning with the sweet potato (a plant of undoubted American origins.) By AD 1000, sweet potato was transferred into central Polynesia. (Kirch)

The central Society Islands were colonized between AD 1025 and 1120 and dispersed to New Zealand, Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui and other locations between AD 1190 and 1290. (PVS)

The Pacific settlement took a thousand years. However, after the 14th-century, the archaeological evidence reveals a dramatic expansion of population and food production in Hawai‘i. Perhaps the resources and energies of the Hawaiian people went into developing their land rather than travel. (Kawaharada; PVS)

Over in the Atlantic, Europeans were sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational instruments that would allow them to venture onto the open ocean; however, voyagers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa began to settle islands in an ocean area of over 10-million square miles.

The pioneer in European expansion was Portugal, which, after 1385, was a united kingdom, and, unlike other European countries, was free from internal conflicts. Portugal focused its energies on Africa’s western coast. It was Spain that would stumble upon the New World. (Mintz & McNeil)

In 1492, Columbus was trying to find a new route to the Far East, to India, China, Japan and the Spice Islands. If he could reach these lands, he would be able to bring back rich cargoes of silks and spices.

By the time European explorers entered the Pacific in the 15th-century almost all of the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years and oral traditions told of explorations, migrations and travels across this expanse. (Kawaharada)

The 15th and 16th century voyages of discovery brought Europe, Africa and the Americas into direct contact, producing an exchange of foods, animals and diseases that scholars call the “Columbian Exchange.”

For more than a century, Spain and Portugal were the only European powers with New World colonies. After 1600, however, other European countries began to emulate their example.

By the end of the 16th century, a thousand French ships a year were engaged in the fur trade along the St Lawrence River and the interior, where the French constructed forts, missions and trading posts.

England established its first permanent colonies in North America during the 17th century. Between 1660 and 1760, England sought to centralize control over its New World Empire and began to impose a series of imperial laws upon its American colonies. (Mintz & McNeil) (The associated conflict was later resolved through the Revolutionary War and formation of the United States.)

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18th-century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pāʻao or Mōʻīkeha in the 14th-century. (Kawaharada)

Although New Zealand was originally settled by Polynesian migrants (the ancestors of Maori) around AD 1250–1300, links with Polynesia were lost until European vessels renewed those connections.

With the expansion of European and North American whaling activities in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the protected anchorages of New Zealand’s Bay of Islands became an important base for the provisioning of Pacific-bound vessels, particularly from America. (Te Ara)

Maori agriculture was transformed by servicing whaling ships. Forests were cleared to make way for cultivation of potatoes, wheat and maize, and Polynesians were recruited aboard American ships bound for the Pacific whaling grounds.

Many of these vessels deliberately left New England short-handed, intending to pick up a full crew in New Zealand, Hawaiʻi or elsewhere amongst the Pacific Islands.

The foundation of the New South Wales penal colony in 1788, and the expansion of European settlement to Hobart Town in Tasmania, and across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, soon fostered sporadic trade linkages with the Pacific Islands. (Te Ara)

The first European colonies in Oceania were Australia (1788) and New Zealand (1840.) Soon after, the French seized French Polynesia (1842) and New Caledonia (1853.) Britain, at first, resisted pressure to annex scattered South Pacific Islands; however, Fiji was taken in 1874.

Then came the emergence of the Panama Canal and the rush of annexations by Britain, France, Germany and the US between 1884 and 1900. In 1899, Samoa was split between Germany and the US, with Tonga and the Solomon Islands were added to Britain. (Stanley)

Early on, in the Pacific, some thought the US was a colony of Great Britain. Until Thomas ap Catesby Jones’s visit to the Society Islands in 1826, “the inhabitants supposed the United States to be a colony of Great Britain, upon a par with Sydney, New South Wales, &c, &c.”

Jones then went to Hawaiʻi; an astonished Kalanimōku (who was the equivalent to Prime Minister in the Islands) noted “It is so…. Is America and England equal? We never understood so before.”

“We knew that England was our friend and that Capt Charlton was here to protect us, but we did not know that Mr Jones, the Commercial Agent, was the representative of America.” (Jones Report to Navy Department, 1827) During Jones’ visit in 1826, he signed an Articles of Arrangement (the first treaty between the US and Hawaiʻi.)

Later, on June 28, 1880, Kalakaua’s Premier Walter Murray Gibson, introduced a resolution in the legislature noting, “the Hawaiian Kingdom by its geographic position and political status is entitled to claim a Primacy in the family of Polynesian States …”

“The resolution concluded with an action “that a Royal Commissioner be appointed by His Majesty, to be styled a Royal Hawaiian Commissioner to the state and peoples of Polynesia …” (Kuykendall) They proposed a Polynesian Confederacy, with Kalakaua as its ruler.

“Then the idea of a great island confederacy dawned upon and fascinated him (Gibson.) He discerned but little difficulty in the way of organizing such a political union, over which Kalakaua would be the logical emperor, and he (Gibson) the Premier of an almost boundless empire of Polynesian archipelagoes.” (Wheeler) “Kalakaua’s dream of empire” failed.

The Polynesian Triangle is a geographical region of the Pacific Ocean with Hawaiʻi (1), New Zealand (Aotearoa) (2) and Rapa Nui (3) at its corners; at the center is Tahiti (5), with Samoa (4) to the west.

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