Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Keʻelikōlani

Keʻelikōlani’s heritage was controversial. She was the poʻolua (“two heads”) child of Kāhalaiʻa and Kekūanāoʻa. (Johnson)

Her mother, Pauahi, was said to be carrying the child of Kāhalaiʻa when she married Kekūanāoʻa. Kekūanāoʻa claimed Keʻelikōlani as his own in court, and the matter was officially settled, though it would be debated again in later years, even by her own half-brother, Lot. (Nogelmeier)

After Pauahi’s death, Kekūanāoʻa married Kīna‘u, and they became the parents of Lot Kapuāiwa, Alexander Liholiho, and Victoria Kamāmalu, making Keʻelikōlani a half-sister to these three.

Her mother died during her childbirth (February 9, 1826,) and she was raised by the Kuhina Nui and favorite wife of Kamehameha I, Kaʻahumanu. (Kaʻahumanu died six years later; she was then sent to live with her father, Kekūanāoʻa, and her stepmother, Kīnaʻu.)

Keʻelikōlani was an important figure during her lifetime, known for her high rank in the Kamehameha lineage, her social position as a governor and woman of means, and for her character as a woman of dignity, both strong-willed and kind.

She was held in high regard by the general populace, and treated lovingly or respectfully by the ranking chiefs, government officials, and the people of her time.

She was a great-granddaughter of Kamehameha, a grand-niece to Kamehameha II and III, and a half-sister of Kamehameha IV and V. (Nogelmeier)

As a Kamehameha descendant, Keʻelikōlani was part of the royal family and the court for as long as the Kamehameha dynasty ruled. Following the death of Kamehameha V, William Charles Lunalilo ascended the throne by election in 1873.

A Kamehameha through his mother Kekāuluohi, Lunalilo proclaimed the royal family to consist of himself, his father Kanaʻina, Dowager Queen Emma and Keʻelikōlani. His official royal court included these four, along with the king’s treasurer, H. G. Crabbe. (Nogelmeier)

When mentioned in the press, Keʻelikōlani was usually listed as Ka Mea Kiʻekiʻe, Ke Ali‘i Ruta Keʻelikōlani – Her Highness, Chiefess Ruth Keʻelikōlani. Foreigners knew her as “Princess Ruth.” (Nogelmeier)

At the age of sixteen, Keʻelikōlani married William Pitt Leleiōhoku. While serving as governor of Hawai‘i Island, Leleiōhoku died, only twenty-two years old. Their surviving son, William Pitt Kīnaʻu, died at the age of seventeen in an accident on Hawai‘i. (Silva)

Keʻelikōlani’s second husband (June 2, 1856) was the part-Hawaiian Isaac Young Davis, grandson of Isaac Davis, a British advisor to King Kamehameha I. The two had a son (1862,) Keolaokalani, whom Keʻelikōlani gave as a hānai to Bernice Pauahi. Keolaokalani died in about 6-months and Leleiōhoku died of pneumonia in 1877.

She was also the adoptive mother of Leleiōhoku, brother to Kalākaua, Liliʻuokalani and Likelike, and heir apparent, whom she had renamed in honor of her first husband. (Nogelmeier)

“Princess Ruth, daughter of Pauahi and Kekūanāoʻa, who had adopted Leleiōhoku, asked of the king (Kalākaua) if she herself could not be proclaimed heir apparent; and this suggestion was placed before the king’s counsellors at a cabinet meeting, but it was objected that …”

“… if her petition was granted, then Mrs. Pauahi Bishop would be the next heir to the throne, as they were first cousins. At noon of the tenth day of April, 1877, the booming of the cannon was heard which announced that I was heir apparent to the throne of Hawaii.” (Liliʻuokalani)

Keʻelikōlani died in 1883 at Haleʻōlelo, her large hale pili native-style home on the grounds of Huliheʻe Palace in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i.

At her death, Keʻelikōlani’s will stated that she “give and bequeath forever to my beloved younger sister (cousin), Bernice Pauahi Bishop, all of my property, the real property and personal property from Hawaiʻi to Kauaʻi, all of said property to be hers.” (about 353,000 acres)

This established the land-base endowment for Pauahi’s subsequent formation of Kamehameha Schools at her death. Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop passed away a year later.

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Waimea

Hole Waimea i ka ihe a ka makani
Hao mai nā‘ale a ke Kīpu‘upu‘u
He lā‘au kala‘ihi ‘ia na ke anu
I ‘ō‘ō i ka nahele o Mahiki
Kū aku i ka pahu
Kū a ka ‘awa‘awa
Hanane‘e ke kīkala o kō Hilo kini
Ho‘i lu‘ulu‘u i ke one o Hanakahi
Kū aku la ‘oe i ka Malanai
A ke Kīpu‘upu‘u
Holu ka maka o ka ‘ōhāwai a Uli
Niniau ‘eha ka pua o ke koai‘e
Ua ‘eha i ka nahele o Waikā

Waimea strips the spears of the wind
Waves tossed in violence by the Kīpu‘upu‘u rains
Trees brittle in the cold
Are made into spears in Mahiki forest
Hit by the thrusts
Hit by the cold
The hips of Hilo’s throngs sag
Weary, they return to the sands of Hanakahi
Pelted and bruised by
The Kīpu‘upu‘u rains
The petals of Uli sway
The flower of koai‘e droops
Stung by frost, the herbage of Waikā

This is a mele inoa (name chant) for Kamehameha I, that was inherited by his son, Liholiho. This is a tale of the Kîpuʻupuʻu, a band of runners whose name is taken from the cold wind of Maunakea that blows at Waimea on the big island of Hawaiʻi.

They were trained in spear fighting and went to the woods of Mahiki, a woodland in Waimea haunted by demons and spooks, and Waikā to strip the bark of saplings to make spears. Hole means to handle roughly, strip or caress passionately.

In the forest they sang of love, not of work or war. Hanakahi is the district on the Hamakua side of Hilo, named for a chief whose name means profound peace.

Malanai is the name of gentle wind. Pua o Koaiʻe is the blossom of the Koaiʻe tree that grows in the wild, a euphemism for delicate parts. Parts of this old chant, full of double entendre or kaona, was set to music by John Spencer and entitled Waikā.  (Hualapa)

Waimea (which literally means reddish water, as it was thought to be tinted as it was drained through the hāpu‘u tree fern forests or through the red soil) has been poetically characterized as being “like a spear rubbed by the wind, as the cold spray is blown by the kipu‘upu‘u rain…” (Cultural Surveys)

Many elders familiar with the area attribute the red tint not to the red soil, but to the natural color added as the water seeps through the hāpu‘u forest on the slopes of the Kohala Mountains.

The fern plants there are a natural source of red dye, and so they say the reddish tint comes from that vegetation. Perhaps the red tint comes from both the soil and the hāpu‘u.  (Cultural Surveys)

The population of Waimea became the most significant in density, scattered among fields adjacent to streams that provided year-round water for consumption, cleaning and irrigation. The availability of dependable irrigation systems gave Waimea a unique advantage whereby both dryland and irrigated kalo (taro) could be grown.  (Bergin)

The early Waimea inhabitants resided typically within a pā hale (fenced house lot) with a sleeping house and adjacent protected cooking facility. The pā pōhaku (stone wall) surrounded the pā hale, and likely included within was a kīhāpai (garden).

The farming plot (‘apana) of the householder was located elsewhere within the agricultural zone of the respective ahupua’a. These prehistoric farmed areas have become known as the Waimea Field System.  (Bergin)

Dry taro used to be planted along the lower slopes of the Kohala Mountains on the Waimea side, up the gulches and in the lower forest zones. Dry taro was planted also along the slopes toward Honoka’a, and is said to have been grown on the plains south and west of Kamuela.  (Handy)

Archibald Menzies, noted in 1793, “A little higher up, however, than I had time to penetrate, I saw in the verge of the woods several fine plantations, and my guides took great pains to inform me that the inland country was very fertile and numerously inhabited.”

“Indeed, I could readily believe the truth of these assertions, from the number of people I met loaded with the produce of their plantations and bringing it down to the water side to market”. (Menzies)

Kamehameha started marketing sandalwood, a multitude of people from Waimea had been ordered to harvest sandalwood trees from the Kohala Mountains. It was arduous labor that required the men to carry these huge harvested trees to the coastline for shipping.  (Cultural Surveys)

“(W)e were roused by vast multitudes of people passing through the district from Waimea with sandal wood, which had been cut in the adjacent mountains for Karaimoku, by the people of Waimea, and which the people of Kohala, as far as the north point, had been ordered to bring down to his storehouse on the beach, for the purpose of its being shipped to Oahu.”

“There were between two and three thousand men, carrying each from one to six pieces of sandal wood, according to their size and weight.”

“It was generally tied on their backs by bands made of ti leaves, passed over the shoulders and under the arms, and fastened across their breast. When they had deposited the wood at the storehouse, they departed to their respective homes.”  (Ellis)

Other activities had altered the landscape. Captain George Vancouver brought gifts of cattle, goats, and sheep for Kamehameha.  A kapu (prohibition) was instituted and the animals multiplied across Waimea and the rest of the lands of north Hawai‘i Island.

Many walls and enclosures had to be built to protect the people’s cultivated crops from destruction from the animals. In 1803, the horse was also introduced to the island.  (Bergin)

With the lifting of the kapu in 1830, Kamehameha appointed the first authorized cattle hunter, John Palmer Parker.  Three years later, Parker married Keli‘i Kipikane Kaolohaka, a great-granddaughter of Kamehameha. The hunting of animals, and especially the salting and corning of beef and the procurement of hides and tallow, became a booming industry.  (Bergin)

The salted beef, hide, and tallow export industry grew to become a major component of commerce. Forty to fifty-nine whaling ships annually called at Kawaihae in the mid-1850s.

They provisioned taking aboard 1,500 barrels of salt beef, 5,000 barrels of sweet potatoes, 1,200 bullock hides, and 35,000 pounds of tallow on an average. Between Waimea and Kawaihae, South Kohala became the center of the cattle industry. (Bergin)

In 1832, the first of numerous Mexican cowboys arrived on Hawai‘i Island to lend their experience and skills in handling cattle.  While the vaqueros were busy teaching their cowboy skills to Hawaiians in the 1800s, Parker became a leader in the industry.

In 1847, he established the Parker Ranch, an enterprise which would later become one of the greatest ranches under the American flag.  (Bergin)

Overlapping with the arrivals of foreign sailors, whalers, and cowboys to the islands was the equally significant arrival of Christian missionaries.  One of the most famous early missionaries was Lorenzo Lyons, who arrived in the islands in 1832.  He established a Mission Station in Waimea.

The Territory, officially through the US Board of Geographic Names, in 1914, agreed to name the community “Waimea” (and further noted it as a “village.”)  Later, in 1954, they revised the name to simply Waimea (and dropped the village reference.)

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Kiribati

Kiribati is an independent republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, located in the central Pacific Ocean. It is part of the division of the Pacific islands that is known as Micronesia. It is located along the equator and International Date Line about halfway between Hawaii and Australia (about 2,500 mi southwest of Hawai‘i).

The islands in Kiribati are divided among three island groups: the Gilbert Islands in the West (named after British Captain Thomas Gilbert who on June 20, 1788 first sighted Tarawa – Adam von Krusenstern named the group of islands the Gilbert Islands in the 1820s (Macdonald)) …

… the Phoenix Islands Protected Area or PIPA (formerly known as the Phoenix Islands Group – reportedly named by Captain John Palmer on the whaling ship ‘Phoenix’ on Feb 23, 1824) in the center, and the Line Islands (a chain/alignment of islands) in the East. 

The name Kiribati is the local rendition of ‘Gilberts’ in the Gilbertese (it is pronounced as kee·ree·bas; in the Gilbertese language the letters ‘-ti’ together make an ‘-s’ sound).

Of the 33 islands of Kiribati, 21 are inhabited. Most of the population is concentrated in the Gilbert Islands and only one of the islands in Phoenix Group (Kanton Island) is inhabited and three of the Line Islands are permanently inhabited. The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Bairiki, an islet of Tarawa, serves as an administrative center. (Kiribati Tourism)

The atoll Kiritimati (kee-ris-mahs – a rather straightforward respelling of the English word “Christmas” in the Kiribati language) is the largest coral atoll in the world; it has a land area of 150 square miles – its lagoon is roughly the same size.

The atoll is about 93 mi in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 30 mi. Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati. This is where Captain Cook spent Christmas.

Cook’s third (and final) voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.  Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery.  (State Library, New South Wales)

After a year among the islands of the South Pacific, many of which Cook was the first European to make contact, on December 8, 1777, they were in Bora-Bora (northwest of Tahiti).

Proceeding north, they discovered the Pacific’s largest atoll, Kiritimati (what Cook called Christmas Island (where they celebrated Christmas)) and Cook observed an eclipse of the sun. After stocking up on over a ton of green turtles, the ships departed on January 2, 1778. (Smithsonian)

“On the 2d of January, at day-break, we weighed anchor (at Christmas Island,) and resumed our course to the north; having fine weather, and a gentle breeze at east, and east-south-east …”

“We continued to see birds every day … sometimes in greater numbers than others; and between the latitude of 10° and 11% we saw several turtle. All these are looked upon us signs of the vicinity of land.”

“However, we discovered none till day-break, in the morning of the 18th, when an island made its appearance, bearing northeast by east; and, soon after, we saw more land bearing north, and entirely detached from the former.”  (Cook’s Journal)

On January 18, 1778, 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.)

In another Hawai‘i connection, Hiram Bingham II, son of Pioneer missionary Hiram Bingham, was born on O‘ahu born on August 16, 1831.  He was ordained a Congregationalist minister in New Haven, Connecticut on November 9, 1856, and married Clara Brewster nine days later.

Like his father, he set sail less than two weeks later to begin his missionary career. He left Boston on December 2, 1856, on the brig Morning Star, arrived in Honolulu on April 24, 1857, then he went on to the Gilbert Islands in November 1857.

Hiram II spent seven years in the Gilbert Islands (he settled at Abaiang, just north of Tarawa), struggling against disease, hunger and hostile merchants. During that time, he made few converts, about fifty in all, but learned the language and began translating the Bible into Gilbertese.

Due to ill health, he was forced to return to Honolulu in 1864. Except for occasional visits to the US and another short stay in the Gilberts (1873-75,) Hiram II spent the remainder of his life in Hawaiʻi where he translated of the entire Bible into Gilbertese.

Bairiki, on Tarawa Atoll, serves as the head of Kiribati government and administrative center. During WWII, Tarawa was a Japanese stronghold.

RADM Shibasaki, the Japanese commander there, proclaimed, “a million men cannot take Tarawa in a hundred years.”   The US Marines attacked; 9,000 marines took only four days (November 20 to November 23, 1943) to take it – but not without a staggering 37% casualties.

The Marines would reconstitute at Camp Tarawa at Waimea, on the Island of Hawaiʻi; it became the largest Marine training facility in the Pacific following the battle of Tarawa.

Over 50,000 servicemen trained there between 1942 and 1945.  On Maui, Marines trained in Upcountry, as well as Ma‘alaea.  One of the training scenarios was to take Japan’s Iwo Jima.

During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), the Marines seized Mount Suribachi.   The 36-day assault on Iwo Jima cost America more than 26,000 casualties, including 6,800 dead.  Of the 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 1,083 survived.

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Nonopapa Landing

O‘ahu was the first Hawaiian island sighted by Captain James Cook in January, 1778. Driven off from an anchorage there by winds and currents, Cook came upon Kauai and Niihau, where he spent a few days replenishing stores.  The natives eagerly traded their yams and salt for pieces of iron, and relations were cordial all through Cook’s brief stay.

When he stood away to the north on February 1, he left behind sheep and goats and the good seed of melons, pumpkins, and onions, “being very desirous of benefitting these poor people, by furnishing them with some additional articles of food.” (Dawes and Head)

“In 1847 the king, Kamehameha III, was presented with ‘a plaid-figured blanket’ woven from the wool of Kauai sheep. And one of the first premiums given by the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society in Honolulu was a silver medal awarded in 1851, the report states, for ‘twenty yards of woolen cloth, the sheep raised, and the wool shorn and woven by Joseph Gardener of Kauai.’” (Damon)

In the 1850s the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society pointed out the great potentialities of the Islands for wool production. Sheep ranches were soon established on the Waimea plains of Hawai‘i and on Molokai, Lanai, and Ni‘ihau. (Diversified Agriculture of Hawaii)

In a report by GS Kenway on Sheep Situation in 1852 before the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society Mr. Kenway stated that two Merino ewes imported from Sydney were exhibited at a fair and “two large black beasts of a foreign breed and very mysterious pedigree.” (CTAHR)

“During the nineteenth century, the massive expansion of sheep pastoralism in Australia, New Zealand, the western United States, South Africa, South America, and in less predictable locales such as the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), fueled the alienation of Indigenous peoples from their lands.“

“Hawaiian wool, for example, was purchased during the American Civil War by the Stevens Woolen Mills in Massachusetts, engaged in manufacturing textiles for the Union Army.” (Shaw & FitzSimons)

“Perhaps the largest and longest-lived sheep ranch was the island of Niihau, purchased by the Sinclair family, emigrants from Scotland via New Zealand, in 1864.”

“They introduced sheep, at the same time moving about half of the 500 native inhabitants, and the native dog population, off the island. This left the land clear for their flock of (by 1885) about 40,000 sheep.”

“The extended Sinclair family (including Gays and Robinsons) and their descendants owned sheep runs on other Hawaiian islands, and ran sheep on Niihau until well into the 20th century.” (Shaw & FitzSimons)

In 1863, the Sinclairs decided to sell the Pigeon Bay farm and settle in Canada.  Eliza and 13 members of her family sailed for Canada via Tahiti (captained by her son-in-law, Thomas Gay.)  California was considered as an alternative place to settle, but they were persuaded to try Hawaiʻi. They travelled to Honolulu via Los Angeles.  (Joesting)

On September 17, 1863, the three-hundred-ton ‘Bessie’ anchored in Honolulu Harbor, bearing fine Merino sheep, a cow, hay and grain, chickens, jams and jellies, books and clothing, a grand piano, and thirteen members of the Sinclair family. (Dawes and Head)

The family was anxious to find land on which to settle and they were offered several large tracts on Oʻahu (at Kahuku, Ford Island and ʻEwa.)  When King Kamehameha IV heard the family might leave the Islands, the King offered to sell them the island of Niʻihau.  (Joesting)

But Kamehameha IV died on November 30 before the closing, so Royal Patent No. 2944 shows his brother, Kamehameha V, completed the transaction in 1864.

As he signed the contract, the king said: ‘”Niihau is yours. But the day may come when Hawaiians are not as strong in Hawaii as they are now. When that day comes, please do what you can to help them.’”  (New York Times)

Before the purchase, Ni‘ihauans largely raised dogs for food. But since the Sinclairs intended to use the island for cattle and sheep ranching, they ordered that all the dogs be killed to protect the new livestock. Many islanders refused to kill their animals and so they migrated to Lehua and Kauai. (Tava and Keale)

Unsatisfactory for Hawaiian wet agriculture, Ni‘ihau offered better prospects for livestock. It had one great advantage. Elsewhere in Hawaii the ubiquitous dogs of the Polynesians were a menace to sheep and cattle; on Ni‘ihau, bounded by coast line rather than fences, this problem was quickly mastered. They raised sheep and cattle.  (Dawes and Head)

The Sinclairs “bought sheep and cattle from the big ranches on Hawaii, and took them, with some fine sheep (they) brought with (them) from New Zealand, (began a) new ranch on Niihau.”  (Von Holt) 

In the letters of the Interior Department is one from Charles Gordon Hopkins of the Home Office to Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst, agents for Captain Thomas Gray, Commander of the British Barque ‘Bessie’ under date of April 2, 1864, in which permission was granted to carry 3,000 sheep from Molokai to Ni‘ihau.

This apparently was quite unusual to permit a foreign vessel to interfere with the inter-island carrying trade, but was granted because of the likelihood of sheep getting disease or scab from inter-island vessels as well as to encourage the industry just as sugar had been encouraged. (CTAHR)

Sheep raising was concentrated at two places – the Humu‘ulu Sheep Station of the Parker Ranch and the Island of Ni‘ihau. The sheep are kept primarily for wool production-practically all of them being of the Merino breed. (CTAHR)

Parker Ranch wool always brought good prices in Boston where it was marketed. Shearing was done early in the Spring before the kikania burrs had a chance to mature and harden and stick to the wool. For this reason also Parker Ranch wool was always preferred in the Islands as padding for the Hawaiian quilts. (Maly)

“Perhaps the largest and longest-lived sheep ranch was the island of Niihau, purchased by the Sinclair family, emigrants from Scotland via New Zealand, in 1864. They introduced sheep, at the same time moving about half of the 500 native inhabitants, and the native dog population, off the island.”

“This left the land clear for their flock of (by 1885) about 40,000 sheep. The extended Sinclair family (including Gays and Robinsons) and their descendants owned sheep runs on other Hawaiian islands, and ran sheep on Niihau until well into the 20th century.” (Shaw & FitzSimons)

On Ni‘ihau, the only commercial shipping point was Nonopapa Landing situated on the west side of the island. There were four buildings, a small dock and a derrick for loading cargo. Steamers of the Inter-island Steam Navigation Co call here upon request.

The principal products shipped from the island are cattle, sheep, wool, and honey. These are lightered out to the ships in whale boats. (US Coast and Geodetic Survey, Register 4242, 1927)

Nonopapa, also spelled Lonopapa, was the location of the hale pale hulu hipa, the “sheep wool bailing house.” (Clark)  Sheep were sheared at Nonopapa, where the wool was graded, sorted and put in sacks for shipment to the mainland markets (Boston or other Eastern centers). (CTAHR)

Shearing was done with electric shears powered by a generator. Wool was sometimes stained by the red dirt on the island, making it difficult to sell. Sheep were also sold to other ranches, or sold for meat off-island. (Tava and Keale)

“There is a carriage road through from Ki to the ranch house and Nonopapa. From the road you get a view of the most fertile portion of the island. On the occasion of this visit, although it was a dry season, the grass and other vegetation looked wonderfully healthy, and the cattle and horses were sleek and in good condition.” (Hawaiian Directory, 1896-7; Evening Bulletin, Apr 5, 1899)

“The natives on Niihau … call Mrs (Sinclair) ‘Mama.’ Their rent seems to consist in giving one or more days’ service in a month, so it is a revival of the old feudality. … It is a busy life, owing to the large number of natives daily employed, and the necessity of looking after the native lunas, or overseers.”  (Isabella Bird, 1894)

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Gilberts and Marshalls

“During more than a century and a half (1606-1762), the South Pacific was almost empty of ships. Europeans preferred to trade with the Far East by way of the Cape of Good Hope. … Interest in the broad reaches of the Pacific revived after 1762.”

“Twenty years elapsed, in which important discoveries were made in the South Pacific by three French navigators, Bougainville, La Perouse and D’Entrecasteaux, and by the great Captain James Cook. …” (Morison, Life, May 22, 1955)

“Europeans’ knowledge of the central Pacific developed most rapidly after the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay [Australia], and the adoption of the ‘outer passage’ for the return voyage to Europe via Canton.”  (Macdonald)

“Then came two obscure English seamen, not otherwise known to fame, who have left their names, probably for all time, on the Gilberts and Marshalls.”

“William Marshall was master of the Scarborough, and Thomas Gilbert of the Charlotte. Both sailed from England as part of the convoy under Captain Arthur Phillip, RN, first governor of New South Wales, which brought the first convict settlement to Australia.”

“Their vessels, the Charlotte and Scarborough, were English merchant ships chartered by the Honourable the East India Company to take 334 convicts with a Royal Marine guard, and the marines wives, to Botany Bay, Australia, and thence to Canton in order to load tea for England.  The convoy arrived at Botany Bay Jan. 18, 1788.” (Morison, Life, May 22, 1955)

“With their prisoners discharged and their holds empty, the ships of the First Fleet disbanded and struck north for Canton to pick up cargoes of oriental goods for the return voyage to England a practice that came  to be followed by most British convict vessels in succeeding years.” (Hezel)

Two of the more enterprising captains, Gilbert and Marshall, after discharging their unwilling passengers at Botany Bay, viewing the foundation of Sydney, and taking in wood, water, jerked kangaroo meat and such other provisions as aboriginal Australia afforded, sailed for Canton on May 6, 1788. (Hezel and Morison)

They “brought their ships well around to the east on a course that took them through the archipelagoes that now bear their names.”  (Hezel)

Gilbert was the first European to name and describe what is now Kiribati, arriving on June 20, 1788: “The southernmost island of the chain, I left first for Captain Marshall to name, which he thought proper to name Gilbert’s Island …”

“… the middle, I named Marshall’s Island; and the northernmost, Knox’s Island; – to the large island with the cluster, I gave the name of Mathews’s Island, in honour of the owner of the Charlotte; – the bay, I called Charlotte’s Bay …”

“… the south point, which terminates the beautiful cluster of islands, I have named Charlotte’s Point; and the north point of the island, which forms the bay, Point William.” (Gilbert, Voyage from New South Wales to Canton)

Mathews’s Island, now known as Tarawa, is part of sixteen coral atolls in the part of the Pacific known as Micronesia (the region of “small islands”). Lying across the equator, they form the middle of a long chain which includes the Marshall Islands to the northwest and the Ellice Islands to the southeast.

They are typical atolls (An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon. (National Geographic)), with few notable features: “the low horizon, the expanse of the lagoon, the sedge-like rim of palm-tops, the sameness and smallness of the land, the hugely superior size and interest of sea and sky.”

“The atoll, like the ship, is soon taken for granted; and the islanders, like the ship’s crew, become soon the centre of attention.  The isles are populous, independent, seats of kinglets, recently civilised, little visited.”

“In the last decade many changes have crept in; women no longer go unclothed till marriage; the widow no longer sleeps at night and goes abroad by day with the skull of her dead husband; and, fire-arms being introduced, the spear and the shark-tooth sword are sold for curiosities.” (Robert Lousi Stevenson)

After making a number of discoveries in the Gilbert Islands, Gilbert and Marshall crossed the equator at 175 degrees east and cruised up along the eastern chain of the Marshalls. (Hezel)

The Marshall Islands, north of the equator and west of the International Date Line, include 29 coral atolls and over 1200 islands and islets, situated in two island chains extending over 800 miles in length. (Kwajalein Atoll is the largest atoll in the Marshall Islands, and the world.)

While their total land area is about 70 square miles, barely larger than Washington, DC, the Marshall Islands have the largest portion of territory made of water of any sovereign state, at over 97%. (NPS)

When Gilbert and Marshall headed to Canton, their route “was probably the first time that anyone had attempted to sail from Australia to China. It may seem strange that the two captains should make such a wide sweep to the eastward as to encounter the Marshalls”. (Morison)

“But the passage through the Torres Strait was one that baffled even Cook; the Moluccas were full of pirates; China Strait between New Guinea and the Louisiades was not discovered until 1873 by Captain Moresby.”

The “captains probably figured on making a good easting in the westerly winds of south latitudes, in order to enjoy a fair slant in the northeast trades to Canton.” (Morison, Life, May 22, 1955)

They made Macao; “The city of Macao, which is situated on an island, at the entrance of the river of Canton, belongs to the Portuguese. It was formerly richer, and more populous than it is at present, and totally independent of the Chinese; but it has lost much of its ancient consequence …”

“… for though inhabited chiefly by the Portuguese, under a governor appointed by the King of Portugal, it is entirely in the power of the Chinese, who can starve or dispossess the inhabitants whenever they please. …”  (Gilbert)

“No occurrences worthy of insertion happening during my stay in China, I shall only add, by way of conclusion, that I was dispatched with the same regularity and expedition as the established Indiamen usually are …”

“…  and proceeded to England with a valuable cargo of teas and china-ware. And here I must not omit to mention, with grateful remembrance, the repeated civilities and attention I received from the supercargoes of the East- India Company, resident there.” (Gilbert)

“When Otto von Kotzebue sailed from Russia in 1813 on the brig Rurick with instructions to search for the Northeast Passage that hypothetical waterway from the Bering Sea into the Atlantic he was ordered to spend the winter months exploring the little-known Marshall Islands.”

“For almost three months in early 1817 he did just this, visiting many of the islands in the Ratak or eastern chain. He returned late in the same year for a shorter visit to the islands before sailing westward on his homeward voyage to Kronstadt.”

“Eight years later, Kotzebue was back in the Pacific on a second voyage of exploration with a higher rank and a larger ship, the Predpriatie. [H]e found time to spend a few weeks in the Marshalls on two separate occasions in 1824 and 1825, renewing old acquaintances and observing the progress of the people there.”

“Culturally speaking, the Marshall Islands were still virgin territory when Kotzebue first visited them in 1817. The people recalled a couple of old stories of ships passing the islands and showed the Russian commander a few scraps of iron that they had presumably salvaged from driftwood washing ashore, but otherwise they were altogether untouched by Western influence.”

“Kotzebue very swiftly learned that he could quickly dispel the initial fear of the islanders with small presents of iron, and he was soon on friendly terms with the people wherever he went.” (Hezel)

“In the 1820s Adam von Krusenstern, the Russian explorer and cartographer, brought together all known information on the Pacific in an atlas and a series of commentaries that were the best of their day.  It was he who named the archipelago stretching  from Makin to Arorae in the Gilbert Islands in recognition of the 1788 sightings by Gilbert and Marshall.” (Macdonald)

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