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January 4, 2022 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Dealing With The Changes In The Early-1800s

In researching and preparing these posts on Hawai‘i, I have had growing appreciation for the way Hawai‘i handled the diversity, complexity and profound nature of the changes it was going through in the early to mid-1800s.

As you can see, here, from the end of the 1790s to the middle of the 1800s the legal, social, religious and economic structures of the pre-existing society are upended and completely changed.

Here are just a few of the things going on around the first-half of that century:

1795 – Kamehameha I invades and conquers O‘ahu at the Battle of Nu‘uanu, uniting the eastern islands under single rule

1805 – Sandalwood trade begins, starting the transition from a subsistence-based society to a barter, trade and monetary system (over the next 20-years the Islands’ Sandalwood forests are decimated)

1810 – Kamehameha and Kaumuali‘i come to an agreement and the islands are unified under single rule for the first time

1819 – King Kamehameha I dies, the role of King is passed to his eldest son, Liholiho

1819 – King Kamehameha II ends the kapu system, ending 500-years of religious, political and social structure

1820 – New England missionaries arrive to spread the gospel and convert the islanders to Christianity

1820 – As the Sandalwood trade is diminishing, the islands start to serve as a central Pacific provisioning site for whaling ships (at its zenith in the 1840s, over 85% of the American whaling fleet was in the Pacific)

1824 – Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and his Queen Kamāmalu contract measles and die in London; Kauikeaouli, his younger brother and son of Kamehameha I, becomes King.

1835 – The first commercially-viable Sugar Plantation starts at Kōloa, Kaua‘i

1839 – Chief’s Children’s School (later renamed Royal School) was created by King Kamehameha III who hired Amos and Juliette Cooke to run the school and teach the next generation of Hawaiian royalty to become rulers.

1840 – The first Constitution is passed in the Hawai‘i legislature

1848 – The Great Māhele dismantles the traditional system of land tenure and instituted a system of private property ownership

1850 – The Kuleana Act of 1850 was passed, permitting land ownership by commoners who occupied and improved any portion of the lands controlled by the Ali‘i and Konohiki

Between 1800 and 1850, the language changed, the religion changed, the apparel changed, the housing changed, where and how people lived and worked changed …

Life became completely different – in a single generation.

Now put these into perspective on how some of these changes greatly affected the Hawaiian people:

• The health of many Hawaiians was weakened by exposure to new diseases, common cold, flu, measles, mumps, smallpox and venereal diseases

• As more ships came in, many of those who came to Hawaiʻi chose to stay and settle

• Many Hawaiians boarded these passing ships for either employment or to move to other areas (primarily, the North American continent)

• Hawaiʻi changed from a land of all Hawaiians to a place of mixed cultures, languages and races

• Many new plants and animals were brought to the islands, both on purpose and by accident (many turned out to be invasive to the native species)

• New products by foreign ships were traded, including firearms, beads, western dress and fabric, crystal lamps, mirrors, nails and metal goods, silk and liquor

• The economy and everyday life was changing from a subsistence way of life to a commodity-based economy that started with barter and trade, that eventually changed to a monetary system

• There was growth of business centers, where people ended up living closer to one another, typically surrounding the best seaports for western ships (small towns soon grew into large cities)

All of this set the foundation for the second half of the century, whose socio-economic status centered on the plantation industries of sugar and pineapple.

This changed the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for well over a century. With it came even greater foreign waves of workforce immigration.

If you look at the records, you’ll see that many of these changes were initiated, supported and promoted by the Aliʻi. They sought and acquired western goods; this caused many of the changes noted here.

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Filed Under: General Tagged With: Hawaii, 1800s

November 15, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1800s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1800s – horses arrive, sandalwood economy and Henry ‘Ōpūkaha’ia sails to New England. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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Filed Under: Place Names, Prominent People, Schools, Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks, Economy, General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Buildings, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Hawaiian Traditions, Military Tagged With: Horse, Sandalwood, 1800s, Hawaii, Timeline Tuesday, Waikiki, Honolulu, Kamehameha, Henry Opukahaia, Royal Center, Sugar

Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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