Captain Cook | Page 4 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 20, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The First Images of Hawai‘i (John Webber)

John Webber (Johann Waeber) served as official artist on Captain James Cook’s third voyage of discovery around the Pacific (1776-1780) aboard HMS Resolution.

Through his work, we have the first glimpses of what the people and landscape looked like.

Webber became the first European artist to make contact with Hawai‘i, then called the Sandwich Islands. He made numerous watercolor landscapes of the islands of Kauai and Hawai‘i, and also portrayed many of the Hawaiian people.

Born in 1751, when John was six, his parents sent him to Bern to live with his father’s sister. He must have shown ability in art, for at sixteen he was apprenticed to a leading, and popular, landscape artist in Switzerland, Johann Aberli.

He spent three years in Aberli’s studio, and then had four years in Paris, where he studied drawing and oil painting at the Académie Royale. Eventually he returned to London to work and to continue his studies at the Royal Academy there.

In 1776, Webber’s work at an exhibition caught the eye of Daniel Solander, a botanist on Cook’s first voyage. Solander knew that the Admiralty was still looking for a suitable expedition artist for Cook’s forthcoming voyage. He met Webber to sound out his interest in the task. (govt-nz)

Knowing that no artist had yet been selected for Cook’s voyage, Solander recommended Webber to the Admiralty and Royal Society. His appointment was made just days before the departure. (gov-au)

Webber was twenty-four years old when he was offered a place as expedition artist with Captain James Cook on his third voyage of exploration to the Pacific.

It must have seemed an amazing opportunity to an artist in the early stages of his career. And indeed that voyage became a launching pad for the direction of Webber’s work for the rest of his life.

Webber’s appointment was a success. He was popular with his shipmates, and his work was appreciated too. He was obviously an assiduous and enthusiastic worker. He penned, crayoned, and water-coloured his way around the world, producing a large volume of material – from lightning quick field sketches, to worked-up drawings, to complete compositions.

One of his first tasks on the expedition’s return to England in 1780 was to complete the portrait of James Cook he had begun in 1776, which he then presented to Cook’s widow.

The Admiralty employed him for several years making oil paintings based on his drawings. These were the illustrations for the official account of the voyage. He then supervised the engravings made of the pictures to enable them to be printed and published.

Webber’s reputation as an artist was thoroughly established by his work from this voyage. His representation of Pacific places continued to fascinate an audience with a thirst for the exotic.

One outcome was his involvement in the creation of stage scenery and costumes for the 1785 London stage spectacle loosely based on Cook’s voyages and on the travels of Omai from the Society Islands.

For the rest of his life he made regular tours drawing landscapes in Britain and Europe. He continued to do portraits and paint compositions based on the drawings of his Pacific travels, such as his painting of Ship Cove

He was one of the first artists to make and sell prints of his own works. He was made a full member of the Royal Academy in 1791 – a distinction in those days for someone who was regarded primarily as a landscape artist. He died from kidney disease in 1793, leaving ‘a considerable fortune’. (govt-nz)

View of the Sandwich Islands_Webber-Anchorage at Atooi

An Inland View of Atooi-Webber-Rumsey-S

A Morai in Atooi-Webber-Rumsey-S

Kalaniopuu, King of Hawaii, bringing presents to Captain Cook-John_Webber-1779

A Morai in Atooi-Webber-Rumsey

Heiau_at_Waimea_by_John_Webber-1778-79

Kealakekua-John Webber art-1779

View of the Sandwich Islands_Webber-Achorage at Atooi-400

Kalaniopuu, King of Hawaii, bringing presents to Captain Cook-John_Webber-1779

A_view_of_Karakokooa,_in_Owyhee_by_John_Webber

A_Canoe_of_the_Sandwich_Islands,_the_Rowers_Masked_by_John_Webber_1779

A_man_of_the_Sandwich_Islands_dancing_by_John_Webber-1778

A_Man_of_the_Sandwich_Islands_in_a_Mask_by_John_Webber_ca_1784_

An_offering_before_Capt._Cook,_in_the_Sandwich_Islands._Drawn_by_J._Webber-1778

C.1779, John Webber art, Kealakekua Bay and Hawaiian people.

Surfing_Cook_Hawaii_John_Webber-1778

September 22, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Captain George Vancouver

George Vancouver was born on June 22, 1757 at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England, the youngest of five children of John Jasper Vancouver (collector of customs) and his wife Bridget.

At about age 15, Vancouver joined the navy and spent seven years under Captain James Cook on Cook’s second (1772-74) and third (1776-80) voyages of discovery (the latter was when Cook commanded the first European exploring expedition to visit the Hawaiian Islands.)

The story of Cook’s death at Kealakekua Bay, on February 14, 1779, has been often described, but the small part played by midshipman George Vancouver is not widely known.

The day before Cook’s death, for the second time in one day, a Hawaiian took some tools from the Discovery and escaped in a canoe. Thomas Edgar, master of the Discovery, and midshipman Vancouver were part of the chase to retrieve the stolen tools – a scuffle later occurred, which included Edgar marooned on a rock close to shore.

As Edgar later reported the incident in his journal: “I not being able to swim had got upon a small rock up to my knees in water, when a man came up with a broken Oar, and most certainly would have knock’d me off the rock, into the water, if Mr. Vancover, the Midshipman, had not at that Inst Step’d out of the Pinnace, between the Indian & me, & receiv’d the Blowe, which took him on the side, and knock’d him down.” (Speakman, HJH)

That same night the cutter itself was taken, setting off the events which culminated in Cook’s death on the beach. The following day, Vancouver was again involved in momentous events when Lieutenant King chose him to accompany the armed party ashore to recover Cook’s body. (Speakman, HJH)

In 1791, Captain George Vancouver entered the Pacific a dozen years later in command of the second British exploring expedition. (HJH)

In the introduction to Vancouver’s journals of his voyage to the Pacific, his brother John wrote, “that from the age of thirteen, his whole life to the commencement of this expedition, (to the Pacific) has been devoted to constant employment in His Majesty’s naval service.”

Vancouver visited Hawaiʻi three times, in 1792, 1793 and 1794. He completed the charting of the Islands begun by Cook and William Bligh.

On the first trip, Vancouver’s ships “Discovery” and “Chatham” first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, and traveled to Tahiti, via Australia and New Zealand, and then sailed north to the Hawaiian Islands.

Arriving off South Point, on March 1, 1792, the Discovery and the Chatham sailed close to the western coast of the island of Hawaiʻi. Later, leaving Kawaihae Bay, Vancouver’s ships made their way past Maui, Kahoʻolawe, Molokai and Lānʻi, to Oʻahu, anchoring off Waikīkī – they later made their way to Kauai.

It is clear from Vancouver’s Journal and other accounts of events in Hawaiʻi in 1792, that neither Vancouver nor the Hawaiian chiefs were completely confident of the good will of each other. On Hawaiʻi, he had found that the people refused to trade except for arms and ammunition, which Vancouver refused to agree to, and on Kauai he was alarmed by tales of Hawaiian hostility. (Speakman, HJH)

Vancouver was also concerned about the apparent drop in the Hawaiian population since his earlier visit with Captain Cook. Waikīkī was “thinly inhabited, and many [houses] appeared to be entirely abandoned.” On Kauai, the village of Waimea had been “reduced at least two-thirds of its size, since the years 1778 and 1779.” (Speakman, HJH)

Vancouver did not seem to have been conscious of disease among the Hawaiian people, but he was aware of the arms trade and interisland warfare and attributed the decrease in the population to the deplorable sale of arms by avaricious European traders to “ambitious and enterprizing chieftains.” (Vancouver, Speakman, HJH) He later left Hawaiʻi and sailed to survey the Northwest coast of the American continent.

On his second trip in February 1793, the “Discovery” and “Chatham” first circled and surveyed the Island Hawaiʻi. From a meeting he had with Kamehameha, he noted in his Journal, that he was “agreeably surprised in finding that his riper years had softened that stern ferocity, which his younger days had exhibited, and had changed his general deportment to an address characteristic of an open, cheerful, and sensible mind; combined with great generosity, and goodness of disposition.” (Vancouver, 1798)

He also met John Young and Kaʻahumanu, noting, “the kindness and fond attention, with which on all occasions (Kamehameha and Kaʻahumanu) … seemed to regard each other.” Vancouver was delighted at “the decorum and general conduct of this royal party. … They seemed to be particularly cautious to avoid giving the least cause for offence….” (Vancouver, 1798)

When Kamehameha came aboard the ship, taking Vancouver’s hand, he “demanded, if we were sincerely his friends”, to which Vancouver answered in the affirmative. Kamehameha then said “he understood we belonged to King George, and asked if he was likewise his friend. On receiving a satisfactory answer to this question, he declared the he was our firm good friend; and according to the custom of the country, in testimony of the sincerity of our declarations we saluted by touching noses.” (Vancouver, 1798)

In the exchange of gifts, after that, Kamehameha presented four feathered helmets and other items, Vancouver gave Kamehameha the remaining livestock on board, “five cows, two ewes and a ram.”

The farewell between the British and the Hawaiians was emotional, but both understood that Vancouver would be returning the following winter. Just before Vancouver left Kawaihae on March 9, 1793, he gave Isaac Davis and John Young a letter testifying that “Tamaah Maah, with the generality of the Chiefs, and the whole of the lower order of People, have conducted themselves toward us with the strictest honest, civility and friendly attention.” (Speakman, HJH)

On the third trip to the islands, arriving in early-January 1794, Vancouver brought three ships, “Discovery,” “Chatham” and “Daedalus.” They headed to Hilo.

Here, he met Kamehameha and Vancouver noted Kamehameha was “with his usual confidence and cheerful disposition. It was impossible to mistake the happiness he expressed on seeing us again which seemed to be greatly increased by his meeting us at this, his most favorite part of the island.” (Vancouver 1801)

Shortly after, Kamehameha assembled the principal chiefs from all over the island for a meeting at Kealakekua. There they had a serious discussion of cession. A treaty was discussed that afforded British protection of Hawaiians from unscrupulous traders and predatory foreign powers. It would be achieved through the cession of the Island of Hawaiʻi to Great Britain.

“Tamaahmaah opened the business in a speech, which he delivered with great moderation and equal firmness. He explained the reasons that had induced him to offer the island to the protection of Great Britain; and recounted the numerous advantages that himself, the chiefs, and the people, were likely to derive by the surrender they were about to make.” (Vancouver, 1801)

The chiefs stated clearly that this cession was not to alter their religion, economy, or government, and that Kamehameha, the chiefs and priests “were to continue as usual to officiate with the same authority as before in their respective stations ….”

“(T)he king repeated his former proposition, which was now unanimously approved of, and the whole party declared their consent by saying, that they were no longer ‘Tanata no Owhyhee,’ the people of Owhyhee; but ‘Tananta no Britannee,’ the people of Britain.” (Vancouver, 1801)

To commemorate the event, an inscription on copper was made stating, “On the 25th of February, 1794, Tamaahmaah, king of Owhyhee, in council with the principal chiefs of the island, assembled on board His Britannic Majesty’s sloop Discovery in Karakakooa bay, in the presence of George Vancouver, commander of the said sloop; Lieutenant Peter Puget, commander of his said Majesty’s armed tender the Chatham; and the other officers of the Discovery; after due consideration, unanimously ceded the said island of Owhyhee to His Britannic Majesty, and acknowledged themselves to be subjects of Great Britain.” (Vancouver, 1801)

Vancouver then noted in his Journal, “Thus concluded the ceremonies of ceding the island of Owhyhee to the British crown; but whether this addition to the empire will ever be of any importance of Great Britain, or whether the surrender of the island will ever be attended with any additional happiness to its people, time alone must determine.” (Vancouver, 1801)

The British government did not receive a copy of the “cession” until after Vancouver’s return to England a year later, and then the British parliament never acted on it. The British ship and men expected by the Hawaiians never arrived, and Kamehameha and his chiefs resumed the wars against Maui and the other islands until, in 1810, Kamehameha was King not only of Hawai’i but of all the islands of the Hawaiian chain. (Speakman, HJH)

Captain George Vancouver died on May 10, 1798 at the age of 40.

August 23, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

First Sugar Production

He keiki aloha nā mea kanu

Beloved children are the plants

(ʻŌlelo Noʻeau 684)

In the past two decades, significant advances in radiocarbon dating and the targeted re-dating of key Eastern Polynesian and Hawaiian sites has strongly supported a “short chronology” model of Eastern Polynesian settlement.

It is suggested that initial Polynesian discovery and colonization of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch)

Sugar was a canoe crop; the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks. Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands. On January 19, 1778, off Kauai, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.” (Cook)

Cook notes that sugar was cultivated, “The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-canes, or plantains, in the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure; generally as a square or oblong”. (Cook)

It appears Cook was the first outsider to put sugarcane to use. One of his tools in his fight against scurvy (severe lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in your diet) was beer.

On December 7, 1778 he notes, “Having procured a quantity of sugar cane; and having, upon a trial, made but a few days before, found that a strong decoction of it produced a very palatable beer, I ordered some more to be brewed, for our general use.”

“A few hops, of which we had some on board, improved it much. It has the taste of new malt beer; and I believe no one will doubt of its being very wholesome. And yet my inconsiderate crew alleged that it was injurious to their health.” (Cook)

While the crew “would (not) even so much as taste it”, he “gave orders that no grog should be served … (he) and the officers, continued to make use of this sugarcane beer, whenever (they) could get materials for brewing it.” (Cook) Others later made rum from the sugarcane.

But beer and rum were not a typical sugar use; “in 1802 sugar was first made at these islands, by a native of China, on the island of Lanai.”

“He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandal wood, and brought a stone mill, and boilers, and after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.” (Torbert; Polynesian, January 31, 1852)

While HSPA – HARC states, “The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauai in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200”, others suggest the first commercial production actually started on Maui. (Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC) (successor entity to Hawaii Sugar Planters Association (HSPA))

A couple guys named Ah Hung and Ah Tai, who combined their names in order to identify their company – a 1939 news ‘Short’ says Hungtai “is said to have been one of the earliest manufacturers of sugar in the islands, at Wailuku, Maui in 1823.” (Star Bulletin, April 6, 1939) Others say Hungtai started commercial sales in 1828; still, seven years before Koloa.

Hungtai had a plantation and a water-powered mill in Wailuku, and sold the sugar in their store at Merchant and Fort Streets in Honolulu. They were still selling that sugar as late as 1841, when they were advertising in local newspapers. (TenBruggencate)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well. Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.” (Garvin)

Then, King Kamehameha III sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands. In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly. I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …” (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880. These twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. Basic features of rural factory life were established.

This was a period of rapid growth for the sugar industry, building upon the momentum triggered by the Māhele of 1848, the Kuleana Act of 1850, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. Sugar‐cane farming proved to be the only available crop that could be grown. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885 and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands; the sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. That plummeted to 492,000 tons in 1995.

With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.

A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.

As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

August 16, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Heinrich Zimmermann

In 1768, when Captain James Cook set sail on the Endeavour on the first of three voyages to the South Seas, the trip was mainly to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769. (Wall Street Journal)

However, on this voyage Cook carried with him secret orders from the British Admiralty to seek ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ and to take possession of that country ‘in the Name of the King of Great Britain’. (State Library, New South Wales)

Cook’s second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aboard Resolution and Adventure aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

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 Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

Cook had other foreigners on his ships in these voyages. On his third voyage, one, a German, was Heinrich Zimmermann.

Johann Heinrich Zimmermann was born on December 25, 1741 in Wiesloch, just south of Heidelberg in the Palatinate. (King)

“Johann Heinrich Zimmermann and Anna Maria von Beyerthal” are registering the birth of the child “Johann Heinrich”. The child’s sponsor (susciptor) is recorded as “Johann Heinrich Walthi von Maisbach”. The date of birth is written as: “1741 d. 25 te Xbris”. (Captain Cook Society)

Leaving home in 1770, Zimmermann had a variety of jobs around Europe. He had trained as a “Guertler,” the profession of a worker in precious and non-precious metals who made ornaments, jewelry, cutlery including swords, metal tools and implements.

He spent time working at this in Geneva, Lyons and Paris before he arrived in London in 1776 where, after a short period of working in a sugar refinery, he joined the Discovery as an able seaman on March 12 of that year for James Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific. He became the ship’s coxswain (steersman) in July 1776. (King)

As a sailor in the third voyage (1776 to 1779), Zimmermann kept a journal that later became the basis for his account Reise um die Welt, which was translated into English and later published as Account of the Third Voyage of Captain Cook.

Zimmermann’s descriptions of Hawaii sparked an interest in the Sandwich Islands, but he also offered some of the first descriptions of West Coast Indians. (BCBookworld)

Of that journal Zimmermann noted, “I have long been endeavouring to decide whether I should be doing a wrong in making public the observations made by me during our voyage.”

“Then it occurred to me that it was the duty of the crew to give up their papers: that Great Britain, having been at great expense in fitting out and keeping up this exploring expedition, alone had the right to publish the observations of her navigators …”

“… that we had been paid for our services, and that we were therefore bound to yield up to England any notes which we might have kept during our voyage.”

“To all these scruples I have a few remarks to make, and I wish to set forth the reasons which have nevertheless moved me to write down my personal observations.”

“Is it likely that this incomplete record, which comes from the pen of a simple sailor, will ever be compared with the properly accredited narratives to be published in England? And can it prejudice them in any way?”

“Is it not more likely that it is I who will have cause to fear that my book will be unsaleable, will be ignored and neglected, because the world is awaiting the more complete, the more correct narratives written by those who were able to see more than I? Therefore I alone will suffer.” (Zimmermann)

The fame generated by the book led to Zimmermann being appointed in August 1781 by the Prince Elector of Bavaria, Karl Theodor, to the position of “Churfürstlicher Leibschiffmeister” (Master of the Prince Elector’s Ships), where he was responsible for the fleet of hunting and excursion boats on Lake Starnberg. (King)

After returning from that voyage, Zimmermann and George Dixon were recruited for a voyage to the North West Coast of America and round the world on the Imperial and Royal Ship Cobenzell.

The voyage was to be undertaken for Emperor Joseph II by the Imperial Asiatic Society of Trieste, otherwise known as the Triestine Society, a company set up and run by William Bolts for the purpose of carrying out this voyage.

On July 24, 1782, Dixon wrote to Zimmermann from Vienna. “Dear Harry, Yours I Rec‘d, and am glad you have Resolution, like the Honest Sailor which I allways have taken you for, and are willing to be doing sum thing both for your self and the Country.”

“By this time I expect you will be in Trieste, and have seen Mr Walker… As you may be a little mistaking in Regard to the Voyage and its Nature, Mr Walker can give you sum Information and the Remainder, I shall Acquent you with, when I see you which I expect to be shortly. I am, Dear Harry, Yours &ca, Geo. Dixon.”

While the Emperor was initially enthusiastic, the venture eventually proved impossible to realize. The opposition of Bolts’s Belgian financial partners in the Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp was a principal cause of its not going ahead.

The Emperor also refused to provide financing for it apart from the expenses of his naturalists: in the autumn of 1782 it was abandoned. (King)

Zimmermann had apparently used the time he had spent at Trieste to learn navigation and qualify as a ship’s officer. Likewise, in his account of Cook’s last voyage he had mentioned the willingness of the natives of the North West Coast to engage in trade, consisting mainly on their part of the furs of “beaver” (by which he meant sea otter), sable and seal.

He wrote in his journal: “My plan supposes fitting out two ships of 400 or 500 tons in Europe (with 18 months‘ provisions), which would cost around 8,000 louis d’or, declared ready for sea and to go out on the following System as though going on discovery, making their way around Cape Horn to the Marquesas Islands, there to take on water and refresh the crew.”

“From there they would make their way directly to Owhyee [Hawaii] where the second would stay and stock with provisions and water. From thence to the North West Coast to seek refit on that coast. …”

“In returning engage in trade, the article concerned being sea otter pelts, from my being convinced that it is not idle talk, collecting at least 2,000 in a space of 6 months, as in Kamchatka each would be worth from 30 roubles and the same items can be sent to Okhotsk and from thence to Kiachta on the Chinese border, which is 1,400 miles by land …”

“… from whence the Chinese can gain a good profit by transporting them to Peking which is 700 miles further, and from thence to Japan, which is now inclined to welcome those who go with goods of value to Japan.” (King) That plan was not implemented.

Zimmermann was asked in 1789 to plan a Russian expedition to the Pacific. Although he submitted plans, Russia was then engaged in wars with the Ottoman Empire and with Sweden, and the expedition didn’t happen. It’s not clear if Zimmermann made it back into the Pacific; he did, however, sail to India in the 1780s.

In 1791-1792 he again took a ship, the Edward, to India for Edouard de Walckiers. The advent of war with revolutionary France put an end to the trade with India from the Austrian Netherlands, and Zimmermann returned to Munich. He retired to Starnberg in 1804 and died there on May 3, 1805. (King)

May 23, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Naukane

During Captain Cookʻs visit to Hawaiʻi on his third voyage of exploration in 1779, then-Lieutenant King (later Captain) noted, “During the following night, the cutter belonging to the Discovery was stolen …”

“This irritated captain Cook, and he gave orders to stop all the canoes that should attempt to leave the bay, intending to seize and destroy them, if he could not recover the cutter by fair means.” (Captain King’s Journal)

“The natives now collected in vast numbers along the shore, and began to throng round captain Cook”. Shortly after, “Captain Cook, the last time he was seen distinctly, was standing at the water’s edge”.

“… he was desirous of preventing any farther bloodshed … whilst he faced the natives, none of them had offered him any violence, but having turned about to give his orders to those in the boats, he was stabbed in the back”. Cook was killed. (Captain King’s Journal)

One of the Hawaiians at the scene was Naukane, son of Kamanawa (Kamehameha’s uncle and one of his closest allies – Kamanawa (left) and Kameʻeiamoku, his twin brother (right) were later memorialized on the Hawaiʻi coat of arms.) (Kittelson)

When Kamehameha moved his Royal Center to Honolulu, his chiefs came with him. Naukane, then in his early twenties, accompanied his father and probably became involved in royal court life. However, fascinated by the growing number of ships calling in the islands, Naukane looked to the sea. (Kittelson)

His chance came in February 1811, when John Jacob Astor’s ‘Tonquin,’ under the command of Captain Jonathan Thorne, called. The captain wanted to hire twenty-four of the Islanders, twelve as seamen and the remaining half to establish a post for the Pacific Fur Company on the Columbia River.

This was the first large group of Hawaiians to come to America. The king appointed Naukane to go with them as a royal observer. (Duncan)

Because Naukane resembled one of the Americans, he became known as John Coxe and retained the name throughout his long and colorful life in the Pacific Northwest (he also went by John Cox and Edward Coxe, or, simply Coxe.) (Duncan)

The Tonquin reached the mouth of the Columbia in March; after a few days looking, they selected a site and by the end of May they had completed Fort Astoria. It was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast of what was to become the United States.

Astor planned the post to grow into a permanent settlement, with plans to develop a large trade ring that included New York, the Pacific Coast, Russian Alaska, Hawaiʻi and China. The furs collected in the northwest and Alaska, would be shipped to China and exchanged for porcelain, silk and other cloth, and spices that would be brought back, via Hawaii to New York.

Other operators had other posts. In the summer of 1810, Jacques-Raphaël Finlay (Jaco Finley) of the North West Company built Spokane House at the junction of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers.

Shortly after arriving in the northwest, Coxe started working for Canadian David Thompson of the North West Company. Coxe later spent the winter of 1811-1812 at Spokane House with Finlay. On those expeditions, Coxe became the first Hawaiian to visit the inland Northwest.

Coxe accompanied Thompson “across the Rocky Mountains from western Montana and in the long trail to Fort William on Lake Superior. … John Coxe also took the trail east from Fort William but his road led to Quebec, where he created a sensation with his stories of Hawaiʻi and his demonstrations of Polynesian dance steps.” (Taylor)

By 1813, Fort Astoria and all other assets in the area were sold to the North West Company – they renamed it Fort George. Coxe continued to work there until August, 1814, when all of the Hawaiians at Fort George were sent back to the Islands.

Comfortable with the service from the Hawaiians, in 1817, North West sent a ship “to bring as many of the Sandwich Islanders to the Columbia river as we could conveniently accommodate.” (Corney)

(In 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company combined with the North West Company, and the post name was changed back to Fort Spokane.)

After he returned to Honolulu in 1815, Coxe probably reverted to his native name, Naukane. He was well received by Kamehameha.

Not only was Naukane the son of one of Kamehameha’s closest advisors, and a member of Liholiho’s entourage, but he had traveled widely. Kamehameha I died in 1819 and Naukane rose in stature when Liholiho ascended the throne. (Kittelson)

Naukane’s expeditions did not end on the American continent. Because of his familiarity with western ways (with travels to America, Europe & South America) and his personal ties, when Liholiho departed on November 27, 1823 to England aboard the L’Aigle to discuss the future of his Islands with George IV, Naukane accompanied the King.

The King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu died of measles in July 1824; apparently Naukane’s travels had built up his immunity, for he was hardly bothered by measles.

King George IV held an audience for the remaining Hawaiians at Windsor Castle on September 11; Coxe was present. The bodies of Liholiho and his queen were returned to Hawaii aboard the frigate Blonde captained by Lord Byron.

With the King dead, Naukane no longer was bound, and he immediately offered his services to the Hudson’s Bay Company and returned to the Northwest. He was only one of approximately thirty-five Islanders working for the company by 1825. (Duncan)

The firm’s base of operations had been transferred from Fort Spokane to a new site farther inland, Fort Vancouver. Coxe worked for a few more years; then the company retired him and gave him a plot of land two miles below the fort. (Kittelson)

Naukane died February 2, 1850. The vast plain between Fort Vancouver and the Columbia became the Hawaiian’s memorial – Coxe’s Plain … “A couple of miles below the fort (Vancouver) there were luxuriant meadows of great extent.”

“A portion of these bore at that time the name of Coxe’s Plain, a name I think which it still continues to bear. Old Coxe, a native of the Sandwich Islands and a very original character, was the swine-herd and had his residence there among the oaks which dotted the verge of the plain.” (Anderson; Barry)