Prominent People | Page 127 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

Haili Church Choir-Winner Singing Contest 1929

Haili Choir-2011

Haili Church – interior

Haili Award-Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame

Haili_Church,_Hilo

December 20, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Seeds to the Hawaiian Mission

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (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 Board has established missions, in the order of time in which they are now named at Bombay, and Ceylon; among the Cherokees, Choctaws, and the Cherokees of the Arkansaw ….” (Missionary Herald)

The following are portions of a December 20, 1809 letter written by Samuel J Mills to the Rev. Gordon Hall, then a student in the Theological Seminary at Andover (he was later a Missionary in the island of Bombay.)

It speaks of ‘Ōpūkaha’ia and his influence in establishing the Hawaiian Islands Mission.

“Very Dear Brother, I received your kind letter, and feel much indebted to you. I have been in this place about two months. When I came, I found my worthy friend E. Dwight here …”

“… I roomed with him about two weeks, and then removed my quarters to the Rev. Mr. Stewart’s, with whom I have lived to the present time. As every day is not so singularly spent by me as this has been, I will notice something not a little extraordinary.”

“To make my narrative understood, you must go back with me to my first arrival in this place. Mr. Dwight, I then found, was instructing a native Owhyean boy. Two natives of this island arrived here five or six months ago, and this was one of them.”

“As I was in the room with Mr. Dwight, I heard the youth recite occasionally, and soon became considerably attached to him. His manners are simple; he does not appear to be vicious in any respect, and he has a great thirst for knowledge.”

“In his simple manner of expressing himself, he says, ‘The people in Owhyhee very bad – they pray to gods made of wood. Poor Indians don’t know nothing.’”

“He says, ‘Me want to learn to read this Bible, and go back then, and tell them to pray to God up in heaven.’ (Not having a place to stay,) I told him he need not be concerned; I would find a place for him. …”

“I told him he might go home with me, and live at my father’s, and have whatever he wanted. He then came with me to my room. I heard him read his lesson, and attempted to instruct him in some of the first principles of Christianity, of which he was almost entirely ignorant. …”

“I told him further, that as my father was one of the Missionary Trustees, he would no doubt obtain for him a support, if it was thought best to educate him, which is my intention to attempt so far as that he may be able to instruct his countrymen, and, by God’s blessing, convert them to Christianity. To this he could hardly object. …”

“He had been talking with the President of the College, and I told him I would see him on the subject … (and I) related to him a part of my plan, which was that Obookiah should go with me to my father’s, and live with him this winter …”

“… and be instructed in the first principles of reading and writing, as well as of Christianity, where he would be abundantly furnished with the means of acquiring both. …”

“The President came fully into the opinion that this was the most eligible course which could be pursued, if Obookiah was willing to go. Obookiah is his Indian name, and he is seventeen years old, I told him he would be glad to go; he was without a home – without a place to eat, or sleep.”

“The poor and almost friendless Owhyean would sit down disconsolate, and the honest tears would flow freely down his sunburn face; but since this plan has been fixed upon, he has appeared cheerful, and feels quite at ease.”

“I propose to leave town in two weeks, with this native of the South to accompany me to Torringford, where I intend to place him under the care of those whose benevolence is without a bond to check, or a limit to confine it. Here I intend he shall stay until next spring, if he is contented. Thus, you see, he is likely to be firmly fixed by my side.”

“What does this mean? Brother Hall, do you understand it? Shall he be sent back unsupported, to attempt to reclaim his countrymen?”

“Shall we not rather consider these southern islands a proper place for the establishment of a mission?”

“Not that I would give up the heathen tribes of the west. I trust we shall be able to establish more than one mission in a short time, at least in a few years; and that God will enable us to extend our views and labours further than we have before contemplated.”

“We ought not to look merely to the heathen on our own continent, but to direct our attention where we may, to human appearance, do the most good, and where the difficulties are the least. We are to look to the climate – established prejudices – the acquisition of language – the means of subsistence, &c. &c.”

“All these things, I apprehend, are to be considered. The field is almost boundless; in every part of which, there ought to be Missionaries.”

“In the language of an animated writer, but I must say, ‘he is of another country – O that we could enter at a thousand gates, that every limb were a tongue, and every tongue a trumpet to spread the Gospel sound!’”

“The men of Macedonia; cry, Come over and help us. This voice is heard from the north and from the south, and from the east, and from the west.”

“O that we might glow with desire to preach the Gospel to the heathen, that is altogether irresistible! The spirit of burning hath gone forth. The camp is in motion. The Levites, we trust, are about to bear the vessels, and the great command is, Go Forward.”

“Let us, my dear brother, rely with the most implicit confidence, on those great, eternal, precious promises contained in the word of God: …”

“‘And Jesus answered and said, verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come, eternal life.’”

“Be strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. ‘Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand “shall teach thee terrible things.’” Let us exclaim with the poet:

Come then, and added to thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth.
Thou who alone art worthy! It was thine
By ancient cov’nant, e’er nature’s birth,
And thou hast made it thine by purchase since,
And overpaid its value with thy blood.”

By 1816, contributions to the ABCFM had declined. There were several reasons including post-War of 1812 recession and the fact that India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) were too remote to hold public interest. (Wagner)

Folks saw a couple options: bring Indian and foreign youth into white communities and teach them there, or go out to them and teach them in their own communities. They chose the former. They formed the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall CT.

The school’s first student was Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia (Obookiah,) a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi who in 1808-1809 (after his parents had been killed) boarded a sailing ship anchored in Kealakekua Bay and sailed to the continent. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, more than half of whom were Hawaiian.

At the beginning of the school’s tenure, ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia was considered a leader of the student body, excelling in his studies, expressing his fondness for and understanding of the importance of the agricultural labor, and qualifying for a full church membership due to his devotion to his new faith.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia was being groomed to be a key figure in a mission to Hawai‘i, to be joined by Samuel Mills Jr. Unfortunately, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died at Cornwall on February 17, 1818, and several months later Mills died at sea off West Africa after surveying lands that became Liberia.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia, inspired by many young men with proven sincerity and religious fervor of the missionary movement, had wanted to spread the word of Christianity back home in Hawaiʻi; his book inspired missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Hawaiian Islands.

On October 23, 1819, a group of northeast missionaries, led by Hiram Bingham, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.) With the missionaries were four Hawaiian students from the Foreign Mission School, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”), about 184-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Hawaiian Islands.

Henry_Opukahaia,_ca. 1810s

December 16, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kazakhstan Connection

Ethnic Kazakhs, a mix of Turkic and Mongol nomadic tribes who migrated to the region by the 13th century, were rarely united as a single nation.

The area was conquered by Russia in the 18th century, and Kazakhstan became a Soviet Republic in 1936. (The Republic of Kazakhstan gained its independence from the Soviet Union on December 16, 1991.)

The Trans-ili-Alatau mountains stand in the southeast of Kazakhstan; they are connected to a number of ranges that stretch through Central Asia. At the foot of the Alatau is Tamchiboulac spring (Dropping Spring,) where water oozes out of the cliffs.

Thomas (an English architect and artist) and Lucy were on an exploration trip through this region. An outcome of their trek were several hundred works of art, many of which were subsequently exhibited in London and some of which were reproduced in books Thomas subsequently wrote.

Another outcome was a son, born November 16, 1848, nine months into a journey – they named him for places in the region, Atalau Tamchiboulac. His birth was premature, which was attributed by the doctor to the fact that Lucy had spent every day of the preceding months on horseback.

After almost seven years of travels, the family arrived back in St Petersburg just before Christmas 1853 and remained there until 1858. (Simpson)

Andrew Dickson White, one of the cofounders of Cornell University, met Alatau and his parents at that time, noting “… it was my good fortune to become intimately acquainted with … the British traveler in Siberia.”

“He had brought back many portfolios of sketches, and his charming wife had treasured up a great fund of anecdotes of people and adventure, so that I seemed for a time to know Siberia as if I had lived there. Then it was that I learned of the beauties and capabilities of its southern provinces.”

“(They) had also brought back their only child, a son born on the Siberian steppe, a wonderfully bright youngster, whom they destined for the British navy.”

“He bore a name which I fear may at times have proved a burden to him, for his father and mother were so delighted with the place in which he was born that they called him, after it, ‘Alatow-Tam Chiboulak.’” (White Autobiography)

Later, “For about fifty years Dr. White had tried to find him, but without result. (His parents) were English missionaries from central Asia and they brought with them the future father of Jack whom Dr. White, in his autobiography, describes as ‘a wonderfully interesting child, burdened with the name of his Asian birthplace, ‘Alatau Tam Chiboulak.’”

“The rumor was that the young follow had gone into the navy in after years and so Dr. White often but vainly enquired after him at British naval depots.” (Hawaiian Star, December 9, 1911)

In January 1868, Alatau married Annie Humble in Newcastle-upon-tyne and their first child, Zoe, was born at the end of that year. The following year he left England and the little family made their way to Hawai‘i, via Panama and San Francisco. (Simpson)

Alatau took charge of St Alban’s College (forerunner to today’s ‘Iolani School) under Bishop Staley. Alatau Tamchiboulac later becoming principal of the famous old Fort Street School. (Nellist)

In 1881, he became editor of the Hawaiian Gazette, public opinion on politics and affairs of the time was shaped to a large extent by his own convictions, as expressed through the columns of his paper, and his readers received the benefit of his far reaching knowledge of life and events.

He became inspector general of public schools in 1887 and helped form the educational policies in the Islands, first of the Hawaiian monarchy and later of the Territory. A great part of his life was given to the organization of the present public school system in Hawaii.

When Hawaii was annexed by the US, he was entrusted with the work of taking a census of the islands, the first official accounting of island population. He also served as a member of the House of Representatives in 1898.

Aside from his educational and editorial work, Mr. Atkinson gained favorable attention as a poet, contributing verse to numerous publications, and he was the author of notable papers on subjects pertaining to education. (Nellist)

Oh, the family name of Alatau Tamchiboulac and his parents Thomas and Lucy? … It’s a familiar one and the name of a prominent street (fronting the Hawaii Convention Center) – Atkinson.

At the time of his death (April 24, 1906), Mr. Atkinson was survived by seven children, A. L. C. Atkinson, Robert W., Kenneth Atkinson, Mrs. T. K. C. Gibbons, Mrs. A. M. Brown, Mrs. Samuel G. Wilder and Mrs. R. C. L. Perkins. (Nellist)

“The death of Alatau T. Atkinson removes one of the brightest minds in the Islands and a man who did as much to shape the destiny of Hawaii as any one and raised the standard of education and made it what it is today.”

“It was he who worked incessantly for the annexation of the Islands and as the editor of the leading papers of Honolulu did more to mold public opinion than any other man in the Territory.”

“On every island of the group are a number of prominent men in Hawaiian affairs who owe their station in life to the Instruction received at the hands of this able teacher.”

“Mr. Atkinson was a man of rare executive ability and was highly respected by all the teachers of the Islands. He was a man of decision and to this quality probably more than to any other was due his popularity.” (Maui News; Hawaiian Star, April 30, 1906)

“To him more than to any other man is due the efficiency of the excellent school system which Hawaii enjoys. He founded it in a sense, and worked with all the enthusiasm of his nature to make it what it is, even though shortness of funds sometimes limits its possibilities.” (Herald; Hawaiian Star, April 30, 1906)

Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson WC

Thomas Atkinson’s drawing of the Tamchiboulac Spring

The Arashan Valley in the Terskey Alatau

Unveiling Atkinson Memorial Ceremony Khazakhstan

Atkinson Memorial Ceremony Khazakhstan

Atkinson Memorial Ceremony Khazakhstan-Paul Daulquist

Kazakhstan – map

December 12, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Samurai

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi. Concerned that the Chinese were taking too strong a representation in the labor market the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration. Further government regulations, introduced 1886-1892, virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In 1868, an American businessman, Eugene M Van Reed, sent a group of approximately 150-Japanese to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam.

This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (‘first year men’,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM)

One early arrival was Sentaro Ishii. “He had been a samurai warrior in the service of a lord opposing the emperor. Unemployed, he was approached by a young man in Tokyo who told him there was a chance to go to Hawaii and ‘earn some money.’”

“Obtaining traveling money from his highly placed sister he walked to Yokohama. In order to enter Yokohama, he had to discard his samurai sword to avoid arrest, a highly symbolic act which, in effect, cut him from his past.”

“At Yokohama we went on board a sailing vessel in the evening, as we had not passports from the government.” (Beechert)

“He left Tokio in a Spanish sailing vessel, commanded, he says, by an American captain, but he had no idea where he was bound for. When the vessel reached port he got shore leave, and he overstayed leave.”

“He forgot the way back to the ship, and as he couldn’t find anyone to talk his language was not able to ask the way and was left behind.”

“He finally found the landing from which he was supposed to reach his ship but the ship was gone. He was stranded in a country he did not know and where there were practically no persons who knew his language. The port was Lahaina, Maui.” (Maui News, July 21, 1916)

“He was assigned to the McKee Ulupalakua Plantation. After the initial contract pay of four dollars per month, they received nine dollars per month on re-signing.” (Beechert)

Later, when his contract expired, Ishii declined to return to Japan, “as I did wrong while in Japan. I left my lord, my wife, and a child who was two years old at the time.” (Beechert)

“In 1880 he went to Kipahulu. He married a Hawaiian woman (Philomena (born Kahele)), by whom he had four children.” (Maui News, December 3, 1915)

In 1916 Ishii was determined to be the oldest Japanese living in the Territory and therefore entitled to the gift of the Mikado’s coronation cup, a medal from Emperor Yoshihito in commemoration of his coronation.

“One Japanese in all Hawaii was found who was eighty years old and qualified, therefore to receive a medal from Emperor Yoshihito in commemoration of his coronation. He is Sentaro Ishii of Kipahulu, Maui, eighty-two years old.”

“He announced himself when he arrived from Maui yesterday morning, and Acting Consul-General Arita forwarded his name to Tokio in the Shinyo Maru’s mail yesterday afternoon.”

“Ishii was the only one who reached, eighty years, but there was a seventy-eight-year-old woman here, a seventy-nine-year-old man at Moiliili, and another seventy-seven years old at Ola‘a, Hawai‘i.” (Maui News, December 3, 1915)

“In 1935, Ishii Sentaro, the last surviving member of the gannenmono, told an interviewer that he joined the group because working for four dollars per month was a ‘splendid offer,’ though he did not know what sugar cane was or where Hawaii was located.” (Van Sant)

“The last of the original group, Sentaro Ishii, died on September 18, 1936, at the age of one hundred two.” (Okihiro)

Japanese – Groups – Early-PP-46-4-005-00001

December 9, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Exploration in the Pacific

“After Magellan’s daring voyage round South America and across to the Philippines (1519-1521), the magnet of Pacific exploration was Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent supposed to lie between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.”

“Alvaro de Mendana, the Spanish voyager, sailed from Callao in Peru in 1567 and reached the Solomon Islands. It was not until 1595 that he went back, with Pedro Fernanadez de Quiros, found the Marquesas and got as far as the Santa Cruz Islands.”

“Quiros went out from Callao in 1605 with the Portuguese Luiz de Vaez de Torres and believed he had found the continent when they reached Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), which Quiros called ‘Austrialia del Espiritu Santo’ – managing a compliment to Philip III of Spain who was Archduke of Austria.”

“Quiros and Torres now split: Quiros went north-east to California, while Torres went north-west through the strait named after him, discovering that New Guinea was an island, but failing to see Australia.”

“The English circumnavigations by Drake (1577-1580) and Cavendish (1586-1588) were not rich in discoveries. The Dutch merchant Isaac Ie Maire, with Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, reached the Pacific in 1615 via Cape Horn (which they named) but had no luck with the missing continent before reaching Batavia in 1616.”

“Sailing from there, the Dutch had made several sightings of the coast of Australia, north, west and south, in the early seventeenth century, and Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1631 to 1645, was responsible for a number of expeditions, of which the most important was that of Abel Janszoon Tasman with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher, which left Batavia in August 1642.”

“Tasmania was reached (Van Diemen’s Land), then the south island of New Zealand where four men were killed, followed by the Tonga group and Fiji.”

“Much later, another Dutch expedition, under Jacob Roggeveen, left the Netherlands in 1721 in search of the southern continent. Roggeveen went through the Strait of Le Maire and found Easter Island and Samoa before reaching Batavia after a year’s voyage.

“The English had now come strongly on the scene, with the expeditions of Narborough up the South American coast (1669-1671), a mixed assembly of buccaneers, adventurers and privateers, including Dampier, Wafer, Cowley, Ringrose, Woodes, Rogers and Shelvocke, followed by the grand naval expedition of 1740-1744 under Anson.”

“As far as discoveries go, the most important of these men was the remarkable amateur William Dampier, whose painfully assembled New Voyage Round the World (1697) set alight the imagination of eighteenth-century England.”

“On this first voyage Dampier had touched on Australia (New Holland), ‘a very large Tract of Land’, and had thought the inhabitants ‘the miserablest People in the World’.”

“He returned on his second voyage but was only able to make a cursory investigation of the north-western and northern coasts.”

“The major period of English exploration in the Pacific followed the ending of the Seven Years War with France in 1763. The Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1763 until 1766, sent out John Byron in the Dolphin in 1764, and on its return from a speedy circumnavigation in 1766, sent the ship out again under Samuel Wallis, with Philip Carteret in the Swallow as consort.”

“Wallis and Carteret were separated. Wallis went on to find Tahiti, unknown to Europeans. He named it King Georrge’s Island and his five-week visit had an importance for Europeans and Polynesians that is hard to measure.”

“Carteret struggled on alone, and made many important discoveries, including Pitcairn. At this very time the French expedition in La Boudeuse and L’Etoile, under the great Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was making its way through the Pacific, reaching Tahiti, fa nouvelle Cythere, hard on Wallis’s heels.”

“However important these voyages were for geographical knowledge and the advancement of science – and Bougainville with his naturalist Commerson were deeply concerned with the advancement of science …”

“… all these expeditions by the competing European powers of Spain, France and Britain were undertaken for the control of new territory for commercial exploitation and strategic use.”

“The scientific element was very much to the fore, however, in the next British expedition. The Royal Society, which in the hundred years of its existence had always regarded voyages to distant lands as a vital source of scientific information, was making plans for a voyage to the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus across the sun in 1769.”

“The observations were needed to help establish the distance of the earth from the sun, and it was necessary for observers to be stationed at different points on the earth’s surface. The planet had crossed the sun in 1761, but the observations world-wide were unsatisfactory. The phenomenon would not occur again for over a hundred years.”

“In 1767 the Royal Society recommended Alexander Dalrymple to lead the expedition. He was an energetic and imaginative thirty year old who had spent much time in Madras and was a keen advocate of English commercial expansion, as well as a firm believer in the possibilities of the great southern continent.”

“He was a skilled navigator but had comparatively little experience of command at sea. His idea was that he should command the expedition and that he should have a master to sail the ship. This was Bougainville’s position, and the practice was common in England in Tudor times.”

“But the Royal Society knew that it depended on the Royal Navy to transport its observers to the Pacific and the Navy was totally opposed to a divided command.”

“James Cook, thirty-nine years of age, a master in the Navy engaged on the survey of Newfoundland, was proposed by the Navy, and during April and May 1768 it was agreed that he should become leader of the expedition.” (The Journal; Edwards)

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.)

Hawaiian lives changed with sudden and lasting impact, when western contact changed the course of history for Hawai‘i.