Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Smallpox

For more than 3,000 years, smallpox killed or badly disfigured many millions of people. On average, the disease killed up to thirty percent of those infected, and the majority of survivors carried deep scars (pockmarks), oftentimes concentrated on their faces.

Throughout history, disease outbreaks sparked fear for many. Before the invention of vaccinations in 1796, people had very few ways to protect themselves from disease.

When Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors arrived in the Americas, they brought smallpox with them, which devastated the Indigenous populations of South and Central America. During the French and Indian War, British forces used smallpox as a biological weapon to weaken the Indigenous tribes that assisted the French.

With every smallpox outbreak, people observed that those who had survived the infection typically did not get smallpox again. For those who contracted smallpox a second time, the infection was much less severe and usually not fatal.

These observations led to the creation of inoculation, the process of contracting smallpox on purpose to induce immunity and reduce the risk of death. Smallpox inoculation was a simple procedure: a doctor removed pus from an active pustule of an infected person, and then inserted that pus into the skin of a non-infected person via a small incision.

Because few American colonists had contracted the disease before, the colonies experienced sporadic and deadly outbreaks of smallpox. There was never a widespread epidemic that resulted in herd immunity.  (NPS)

Colonial Boston had faced many smallpox outbreaks throughout the 1700s, the most severe of which occurred in 1721, 1752, 1764, and 1775.

When American colonists launched their revolution against Britain, they quickly encountered a second but invisible enemy that threatened to wipe out the new Continental Army: highly contagious smallpox. (National Geographic)

Despite the progressive acceptance of inoculation throughout the colonies, another smallpox outbreak seized Boston in 1775. After the Battle of Bunker Hill in June of 1775, military actions between the British, led by General William Howe, and the colonists, led by George Washington, stalled.

In 1775, Continental soldiers, led by Colonel Benedict Arnold, marched from Cambridge, Massachusetts towards Quebec to prevent the city from falling to the British. Just one month later, in December, smallpox was reported among the soldiers.

Smallpox crippled the forces in Canada, preventing them from launching an attack on Quebec in late 1775. Many soldiers’ scheduled enlistment ended on January 1, 1776 and a majority warned their superiors they planned to not reenlist due to fear of the disease.

These soldiers would rather desert the cause than risk death by smallpox. These soon-to-be expired enlistments forced Arnold and General Richard Montgomery to launch their assault on Quebec before the year’s end.

Montgomery later reported that only about 800 men were able to fight, as the rest were sick with smallpox. The lack of healthy soldiers resulted in a spectacular failed attack on Quebec on the 30th of December. British forces killed Montgomery, wounded Arnold, and captured hundreds of colonists.

Arnold maintained substantial forces around Quebec in hopes of launching a second, successful assault, however, the lack of reinforcements and the ravages of smallpox impeded any future attack.

Washington understood the grave threat smallpox imposed upon the Continental Army and their chances of winning the war. He even described smallpox as “more destructive than the sword.”

Personal experience played an important role in Washington’s attitude toward and understanding of the variola virus. While traveling in Barbados in November of 1751 with his brother Lawrence, Washington himself had been stricken with smallpox.

Confined with the illness for twenty-six days, he suffered greatly and was permanently pocked by the experience. Only nineteen at the time of the attack, Washington developed lifelong immunity as a result.

The disease may also have rendered him incapable of fathering children, as modern scientists have documented infertility as a complication of smallpox.  (Becker)

However, Washington also feared the spread of smallpox between soldiers who did not quarantine after inoculating.

In a February 6, 1777 letter to Dr. William Shippen Jr., director of the medical department of the Continental Army, Washington proclaimed: “Finding the Small pox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated.”

“Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.”

“Under these circumstances I have directed Doctr Bond to prepare immediately for inoculating in this Quarter, keeping the matter as secret as possible,”

“If the business is immediately begun and favoured with the common success, I would fain hope they will be soon fit for duty, and that in a short space of time we shall have an Army not subject to this the greatest of all calamities that can befall it when taken in the natural way.”

With this order, George Washington enacted the first medical mandate in American history.  Washington declared his order to Congress that all troops must be inoculated, and he ordered that all new recruits entering Philadelphia must be inoculated upon entry.

To offset the temporary loss of soldiers while they healed from the inoculation, military doctors inoculated divisions in five day intervals. The military used private homes and churches as isolation centers to control spread of the disease.

Smallpox was under control, supplies were adequate, patients were, for the most part, housed in buildings specifically designed for their care, the staff was large in proportion to the number of patients, fresh vegetables were available from local gardens, and evidence even indicates that sheep and cattle were now being delivered on the hoof.

By May 1777, therefore, the Hospital Department in the North was well prepared to handle the casualties of another hard campaign.

Click the following link to a general summary about Smallpox:

Click to access Smallpox.pdf

© 2026 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … The French Connection

France had long been enemies of their neighbors across the English Channel. While the two had competed in the Hundred-Years War (ca. 1337-1453) for territorial sovereignty in continental France, one could say Britain and France then partook in a second Hundred-Years War (ca. 1689-1815) for global commercial and military power.

Each empire was wary of the other gaining too much wealth, land or naval prowess, and engaged in at least eight major conflicts against each other during this period. (LOC)  Their interests crossed the Atlantic and tensions developed in North America.

In 1749 the French were becoming concerned with the Pennsylvania and Virginia traders in the Ohio River Valley.  That summer they sent an expedition of 247 men under the command of Captain Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville down the Ohio River.  Céloron buried lead plates in the ground stating the French claim to the land.

When he returned to Canada he had a bleak report. The Ohio River Valley Indians “are very badly disposed towards the French.” In order to keep the valley he recommended that the French build a fortified military route through the area.

In 1752, the Marquis Duquesne was named Governor of Canada. His instructions were “to make every possible effort to drive the English from our lands … and to prevent their coming there to trade.”

The next year he began building a series of forts along the waterways in the Ohio River Valley. The first two forts were at Presque Isle, on the south shore of Lake Erie, and Fort LeBoeuf on French Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.

Meanwhile, Robert Dinwiddie, the Governor of Virginia, was granting land in the Ohio River Valley to citizens of his colony. In 1753, he received instructions from the King of England “for erecting forts within the king’s own territory.”

Dinwiddie was very upset about all the French activity in the Ohio River Valley. He sent a young volunteer, George Washington, to deliver a letter to the French demanding that they leave the region.

Later, in 1754, George Washington (a British officer) was sent to the Ohio River Valley with the Virginia militia. He and his troops were told to take the “Lands on the Ohio; & the Waters thereof.”

While at Will’s Creek (what is today Cumberland, Maryland), Washington learned that the French were in control of the Forks of the Ohio and the fort the British had built there. Washington proceeded forward with the construction of a road across the mountains.

On the night of May 27, 1754, Washington and 40 soldiers began a dark and wet overnight march. It was morning before they arrived at the Half King’s camp. Together they decided to surround the French.

Then, the shot was fired. This skirmish invited retaliation from the French and their American Indian allies.  Although officially not at war, both France and Britain supported the fighting by sending troops and supplies.

What became known as the French and Indian war in North America and Seven Years War elsewhere settled into a stalemate for the next several years, while in Europe the French scored an important naval victory and captured the British possession of Minorca in the Mediterranean in 1756.

However, after 1757 the war began to turn in favor of Great Britain. British forces defeated French forces in India, and in 1759 British armies invaded and conquered Canada.

Facing defeat in North America and a tenuous position in Europe, the French Government attempted to engage the British in peace negotiations. After these negotiations failed, Spanish King Charles III offered to come to the aid of his cousin, French King Louis XV, and their representatives signed an alliance known as the Family Compact on August 15, 1761.

By 1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains in North America, including all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.

The ink was barely dry on the Treaty of Paris in 1763 before the French foreign ministry began planning and preparing for the “next” war with Great Britain.

As a nation France was determined to avenge its humiliating defeat during the French and Indian War/ Seven Years War, which had forced it to give up Canada and had upset the balance of power in Europe.

As early as 1767 France began following the growing conflict between Great Britain and its North American colonies with great interest, even sending agents to America to discover how serious the colonists were in their resistance to British attempts to tax them without their consent. (Jamestown)

Then, as colonial North Americans escalated their rebellion against Britain and declared independence from the British Empire in July of 1776, top American leaders and diplomats recognized France’s potential as an ally and arsenal. The new United States desperately needed money, weapons and outfitting since they did not possess large manufacturing depots for these.

As a result, in late-1776, Benjamin Franklin travelled to Paris to try to negotiate economic and military aid. Besides Franklin, Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, William Lee and John Adams played important roles as well in persuading France to send economic and military support to the United States.  (LOC)

 On the French side of negotiations, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs (1774-87), Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, served as the primary diplomat.

While initially wary to engage in another costly conflict, Vergennes agreed to provide initial clandestine aid to the United States from 1776 to 1778.

The French also provided war material and clothing to the Americans through the neutral Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius, which was probably the single largest source of gunpowder for North American revolutionaries.

In addition, individual French officers and soldiers decided to join the Continental Army’s ranks, most famously the Marquis de Lafayette but also military engineers like Louis Duportail, François Fleury and Maudit du Plessis.

King Louis XVI and Vergennes, however, hesitated to formally join the American cause, waiting for the young United States to prove that they could succeed militarily against the British and would not abandon the cause to form a separate peace.

Such a sign came in the U.S. victory over British General John Burgoyne by American Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold at Saratoga, New York in the fall of 1777.

Vergennes and the American commissioners came to terms very quickly, signing two treaties on February 6, 1778.

It committed the United States and France to a joint military and no separate peace should Britain declare war (which they soon did). Vergennes dispatched Conrad Alexandre Gérard as the first French minister to the United States to facilitate this alliance.

France’s economic support was essential in bolstering U.S. finances, supplying and outfitting the American army and replacing the colonies’ lost trade in leaving the British commercial network. France’s actions further legitimized the rebellion, helping to convince other rivals of Great Britain, such as the Spanish and the Dutch, to support the U.S. cause. (LOC)

Roughly 12,000 French soldiers served the rebellion, along with some 22,000 naval personnel aboard 63 warships. Lafayette was the one of the earliest and most prominent officers to join.  (Jamestown)

The French national debt incurred during the war contributed to the fiscal crisis France experienced in the late 1780s, and that was one factor that brought on the French Revolution.  In the end the French people paid a high price for helping America gain its independence.  (Jamestown)

Marquis de Lafayette

Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier Lafayette (Marquis de Lafayette – also spelled La Fayette) was a French aristocrat who fought in the Continental Army with the American colonists against the British in the American Revolution.

He joined the circle of young courtiers at the court of King Louis XVI but soon aspired to win glory as a soldier.

He traveled at his own expense to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia in July 1777, 27-months after the outbreak of the American Revolution.

With no combat experience and not yet 20 years old, Lafayette was nonetheless appointed a major general in the Continental Army, and he quickly struck up a lasting friendship with the American commander in chief, George Washington.

The childless general and the orphaned aristocrat seemed an unlikely pair, but they soon developed a surrogate father-son relationship.

The more Washington saw of the young Frenchman, the more impressed he was and the closer the two became.  (Britannica)

Lafayette served on Washington’s staff for six weeks, and, after fighting with distinction at the Battle of the Brandywine, near Philadelphia, on September 11, 1777, he was given command of his own division. He conducted a masterly retreat from Barren Hill on May 28, 1778.

Returning to France in February 1779, he worked with American emissaries Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to help persuade the government of Louis XVI to send additional troops and supplies to aid the colonists.

Lafayette arrived back in America in April 1780 with the news that 6,000 infantry under the command of the comte de Rochambeau, as well as six ships of the line, would soon arrive from France.

He was given command of an army in Virginia, and in 1781 he conducted hit-and-run operations against forces under the command of Benedict Arnold. Reinforced by Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne and militia troops under Steuben, Lafayette harried British commander Lord Charles Cornwallis across Virginia, trapping him at Yorktown in late July.

A French fleet and several additional American armies joined the siege, and on October 19 Cornwallis surrendered. The British cause was lost.

Lafayette was hailed as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” and on returning to France in 1782 he was promoted to maréchal de camp (brigadier general). He became an honorary citizen of several states on a visit to the United States in 1784. (Britannica)

Later, as a leading advocate for constitutional monarchy, he became one of the most powerful men in France during the first few years of the French Revolution and during the July Revolution of 1830.

Click the following link to a general summary about the French Connection:

Click to access French-Connection.pdf

© 2026 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Common Sense

After fighting had broken out at Lexington and Concord, England’s King George III expressed his view of the British-colonial relationship in a speech to Parliament On October 27, 1775.  Both the king and the majority party in Parliament viewed any compromise with the colonies as a threat to the continued existence of the British Empire.

King George declared that the American colonies were in rebellion against the crown and therefore subject to military intervention.

Thomas Paine wrote a response to the king’s pronouncement, for which his friend Dr. Benjamin Rush suggested the title Common Sense (the full title is Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America).  Paine argued that the cause of America should not be just a revolt against taxation but a demand for independence.

Paine was born and raised in England to a Quaker family of modest means in Norfolk, England in 1737. His formal education ended when he was 12 years old, after which he pursued various occupations without great success.

In 1774 he emigrated to Philadelphia, where he soon took on the job of editing Robert Aitken’s radical new monthly newspaper, the Pennsylvania Magazine. Paine loved controversy, hated the British aristocracy, and was devoted to the Enlightenment ideal of individual liberty. So it comes as no surprise that he was an immediate and vocal supporter of American independence. (Magen Mulderon)

Paine had originally intended Common Sense to appear in newspapers in several installments, but he realized that his argument was more convincing when taken as a whole. So he contracted with Philadelphia printer Robert Bell to publish the work.

When it was first published in 1776, Common Sense did not credit its author. Its publisher, the wealthy Benjamin Rush, was also anonymous. For many months, while the pamphlet was the talk of the colonies, the public didn’t know who wrote or published it.

Paine wanted it that way, both because his arguments against British rule would bring government retaliation, and because he shared the Enlightenment belief that ideas were more important than the identity of the speaker expressing them.  (Institute for Free Speech)

In part, Paine writes in Common Sense,

“Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.”

“But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.”

“I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.”

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was originally published on January 10, 1776; the pamphlet is famous as one of the most influential essays in history, credited with convincing large portions of the American colonies that independence from Great Britain was necessary. Without Paine’s work, the American Revolution as we know it may not have happened.

Common Sense’s first printing consisted of 1000 copies, with profits to be split evenly between the author and publisher. By January 20 Bell was advertising a “new edition” in press, which likely means that the first printing had already sold out.

Bell published his unauthorized “second edition” (really just a reprint of the first edition) on January 27. Paine meanwhile contracted with printers Thomas and William Bradford to publish, at the author’s expense, a “new edition” with “large and interesting additions by the author” and a response to Quaker objections to a military rebellion. The Bradford edition was published in February and sold for half the price (one shilling) of Bell’s.

Undeterred, Bell produced a third edition that not only pirated the additional materials from the Bradford edition, but also included a section called “Large Additions to Common Sense,” which reprinted several pieces by other authors. Paine was predictably incensed by this and published another denunciation in the Post, to which Bell then responded in kind.

Despite – or more likely, because of – this feud, copies of Common Sense continued to sell briskly in Philadelphia.

Paine often gets credit for more or less single-handedly galvanizing the reluctant colonists to commit to the war of independence. As one historian puts it “Common Sense swept the country [sic] like a prairie fire,” and “as a direct result of this overwhelming distribution, the Declaration of Independence was unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.

This may be overstating the case a bit. Paine’s pamphlet was certainly popular and influential in revolutionary America, but the real story of Common Sense‘s creation, dissemination, and reception is less straightforward –  and perhaps more interesting –  than the myth.  (Mulderon)

There were many loyalist rebuttals of Common Sense. One of the earliest and best known is Plain Truth: Addressed to the Inhabitants of North America, written by Maryland planter James Chalmers under the generic pseudonym Candidus.

Paine’s follow-up to Common Sense was a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis. General George Washington had the first pamphlet read to his troops at Washington’s Crossing in late 1776 to convince them to extend their enlistments so he could attack Trenton.

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” said Paine.

In his later years, Paine would become a controversial figure because of his writings on religion and his role in the French revolution.  President Thomas Jefferson had permitted Paine to return from France in his final years and wrote about the author in 1821.

“Paine wrote for a country which permitted him to push his reasoning to whatever length it would go … no writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style; in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.”

“[I]n this he may be compared with Dr Franklin: and indeed his Common sense was, for a while, believed to have been written by Dr Franklin, and published under the borrowed name of Paine, who had come over with him from England.” (National Archives)

Click the following links to general summaries about Common Sense:

Click to access Thomas-Paines-‘Common-Sense-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Common-Sense.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Boston Tea Party

The practice of tea drinking arrived with colonists from both England and the Netherlands and was already established by the mid-seventeenth century, evidenced by the number of tea wares recorded in household inventories.

When he visited Boston in 1740, Joseph Bennett observed that “the ladies here visit, drink tea and indulge every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode and neglect the affairs of their families with as good grace as the finest ladies in London.”

At another time, Kalm stated: “With the tea was eaten bread and butter or buttered bread toasted over the coals so that the butter penetrated the whole slice of bread. In the afternoon about three o’clock tea was drunk again in the same fashion, except that bread and butter was not served with it.”

This tea-drinking schedule was followed throughout the colonies. In Boston the people “take a great deal of tea in the morning,” have dinner at two o’clock, and “about five o’clock they take more tea, some wine, madeira [and] punch.” (Baron Cromot du Bourg) The Marquis de Chastellux confirms his countryman’s statement about teatime, mentioning that the Americans take “tea and punch in the afternoon.”

During the first half of the 18th century the limited amount of tea available at prohibitively high prices restricted its use to a proportionately small segment of the total population of the colonies.  About mid-century, however, tea was beginning to be drunk by more and more people, as supplies increased and costs decreased.

Tea Act

America was becoming a country of tea drinkers.

However, due to debt due to the costs associated with the French and Indian Wars, Parliament imposed new taxes.  In the 1760s, the British government began to impose a tax on tea, first through the Stamp Act of 1765 and later with the Townshend Acts of 1767.

Dissatisfied colonists took to smuggling tea or drinking herbal infusions. Outraged merchants, shippers, and colonists staged a number of demonstrations.

Then, the Tea Act of 1773 was imposed.

It was an “act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America; to increase the deposit on bohea tea to be sold at the India Company’s sales; and to impower the commissioners of the treasury to grant licenses to the East India Company to export tea duty-free.”  (Tea Act)

The act contained a number of provisions:

  • The East India Company was granted a license to export tea to North America.
  • They were no longer required to sell their tea at the London Tea Market.
  • The duties on tea shipped to North America and other foreign parts were not imposed nor refunded when the tea was exported.
  • Anybody receiving tea from the East India Company was required to pay a deposit upon receipt.

The Tea Act was intended to bail out the struggling East India Company, which was very important for the British economy, and the Tea Act would raise revenue from the 13 colonies.

The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to directly ship tea to the colonies without passing England. This way, duties were reduced and resulted in the cheaper price of English tea in the colonies. The Tea Act received royal assent on May 10, 1773.

By reducing the tax on imported British tea, this act gave British merchants an unfair advantage in selling their tea in America. American colonists condemned the act, and many planned to boycott tea.

Boston Tea Party

The colonists resisted the Tea Act more because it violated the constitutional principle of self-government by consent than because they could not afford the tax, which had existed since the passage of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act.

As George Washington explained, “What is it we are contending against? Is it against paying the duty of [three pence per pound] on tea because [it is] burdensome? No, it is the right only … that, as Englishmen, we could not be deprived of this essential and valuable part of our constitution.”

In the ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, citizens prevented British tea from being unloaded, threatened tax collectors into resigning, and protested taxation without representation. In Boston, political organizer Samuel Adams oversaw the adoption of resolutions calling on the tea agents to resign, but they refused.

On November 28, 1773, however, the Dartmouth dropped anchor in Boston Harbor loaded with 114 crates of British tea. Its colonial owner, Francis Rotch of Nantucket Island, had a great deal of money invested in the cargo and wanted it unloaded, but Patriot leaders wanted to use the landing of the tea to galvanize the people against the British. They also feared that if the tea were landed and sold at cheaper prices, people would continue buying it and ruin the boycott.

The following day, a crowd of five or six thousand people warned Rotch that landing the tea would be at his “peril,” posted a guard around the ship, and demanded that it return to England.

But Thomas Hutchinson, a staunch Loyalist who now served as royal governor, refused to allow the Dartmouth‘s departure. With twenty days to either unload the cargo and pay taxes or forfeit both the tea and the ship, Rotch found himself in a terrible position.

Over the next week, two more ships laden with tea berthed beside the Dartmouth at Griffin’s Wharf. Many people predicted imminent violence.  As Abigail Adams wrote, “The flame is kindled … Great will be the devastation if not timely quenched or allayed by some more lenient measures.”

On December 14, thousands again demanded that Rotch seek clearance for a return voyage to England, but Hutchinson again refused the request. Three British warships now stood in the harbor ready to enforce his order. Matters were coming to a head.

On December 16, 1773, one day before the deadline for the landing of the tea, more than seven thousand gathered in the Old South Meeting House, Boston’s largest building.

When Samuel Adams announced that nothing more could be done to save their country, dozens of colonists, dressed like Indians as a symbol of American freedom and to disguise their identities from British authorities, entered the assembly with piercing war whoops.

The crowd went into a frenzy, screaming, “The Mohawks are come!”

John Hancock called on his countrymen to do their patriotic duty: “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.”

Thousands of citizens spilled into the streets and watched as the band of Mohawk impersonators boarded the three ships and dumped into the harbor  342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company.  The crowd then slowly dispersed into the night while the disguised participants went home with their identities still concealed.

Although some colonists saw the Boston Tea Party as a destructive mob action, most praised the protest.  John Adams rejoiced, “This is the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire.”

“The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered – something notable And striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History.”  (Adams, National Archives)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Tea Act – Boston Tea Party:

Click to access Boston-Tea-Party-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Tea-Act-Boston-Tea-Party.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … John Kendrick – American Patriot Who Died in Honolulu

Sea Captain John Kendrick was born in 1740 in Cape Cod; he followed his father and went to sea by the time he was fourteen.

Kendrick fought in the French & Indian War in 1762. Like most Cape Codders of the time, he served for only eight months and did not re-enlist.

Family tradition holds that on the rainy night of December 16, 1773, John Kendrick had taken part in the Boston Tea Party band that boarded two East India Company ships at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

Kendrick later fought in the American Revolutionary War and commanded three different ships, the Fanny, Count D’Estaing and Marianne.

After the victorious Revolution, an economic depression had settled across the new nation.

The US needed to turn to trade to raise the necessary funding and shipping was a critical component of early commerce.

Kendrick and Robert Gray were selected to lead an expedition to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish and find the legendary Northwest Passage.

In September 1787, Kendrick in the Columbia and Gray in the Lady Washington, along with fifty other men – sailors and tradesmen alike – set sail from Boston.

They became the first citizens of the new nation to sail into the Pacific and lay eyes on the lush and resource-rich Northwest Coast of North America.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska.  The furs were to be mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods that were sold in the US.

Trading ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water; traders realized they could get these in Hawai‘i.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China.

Kendrick provisioned in Hawai‘i a number of times and is also credited for initiating the sandalwood (‘iliahi) trade there (Hawai‘i’s first commercial export).

Sandalwood became a source of wealth in the islands, trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s; by 1805 it had become an important export item.

Unfortunately, the harvesting of the trees was not sustainably managed (they cut whatever they could, they didn’t replant) and over-harvesting of ‘iliahi took place. By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed.

On December 3, 1794, Kendrick returned to Fair Haven (Honolulu Harbor) Hawaiʻi aboard the Lady Washington; a war was waging between Kalanikupule and his half-brother Kaʻeokulani (Kaʻeo.)

Also in Honolulu were British Captain William Brown (the first credited with entering Honolulu Harbor) in general command of the Jackall and the Prince Lee Boo, Captain Gordon.

Kalanikupule sought and obtained assistance from Captain Brown. Brown furnished guns and ammunition, and, as Kaeo continued to advance, the mate of the Jackall, George Lamport, and eight sailors from the English ships volunteered to fight for the Oahu king.”

“In the final battle, between Kalauao and Aiea, the Englishmen were stationed in boats along the shore inside the eastern arm of what is now called Pearl Harbor. Kalanikupule gained a decisive victory and Kaeo was killed.” (Kuykendall)

On December 12, 1794, to celebrate the victory, Kendrick’s brig fired a thirteen-gun salute.  (The tradition of rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them rendered them harmless.)

Brown answered with a round of fire. Unfortunately, one of the saluting guns on Brown’s ship was loaded with shot, killing Kendrick.

“Kendrick was buried at the place where Captain Derby was interred in 1802 and Isaac Davis in 1810.” “[T]he chiefs designated a place for the burial of a foreigner in 1794 [so] it is likely that other foreigners who died in Honolulu would be interred in the same locations.” (Restarick)

On December 12, 2022, the Hawai‘i State Organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution installed a memorial plaque in honor of Captain John Kendrick.  It was placed at a spot that would have been about the shoreline when Kendrick was killed.

Click the links below for general summaries that helps explain it – the file ending with ‘SAR–RT’ is a formatting used by the Sons of the American Revolution for presentations by its members under its Revolutionary Times program:

Click to access John-Kendrick-American-Revolutionary-War-Patriot.pdf

Click to access John-Kendrick-–-American-Patriot-Who-Died-in-Honolulu-SAR-RT.pdf

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