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March 19, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻIli Lele

Ahupuaʻa are land divisions that served as a means of managing people and taking care of the people who support them, as well as an easy form of collection of tributes by the chiefs.  Ultimately, this helped in preserving resources.

A typical ahupuaʻa (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today) was a long strip of land, narrow at its mountain summit top and becoming wider as it ran down a valley into the sea to the outer edge of the reef.  If there was no reef then the sea boundary would be one-mile from the shore.

Ahupuaʻa contained nearly all the resources Hawaiians required for survival.  Fresh water resources were managed carefully for drinking, bathing and irrigation.

Mauka lands provided food, clothing, household goods, canoes, weapons and countless other useful products.  Within the coastal area and valleys, taro was cultivated in lo‘i; sweet potato, coconut, sugar cane and other food sources thrived in these areas.  The shore and reefs provided fish, shellfish and seaweed.

In ancient Hawaiian times, relatives and friends exchanged products.  The upland dwellers brought poi, taro and other foods to the shore to give to kinsmen there.  The shore dweller gave fish and other seafood.  Visits were never made empty-handed but always with something from one’s home to give.

Some ahupuaʻa were further subdivided into units (still part of the ahupuaʻa) called ʻili. Some of the smallest ahupuaʻa were not subdivided at all, while the larger ones sometimes contained as many as thirty or forty ʻili, each named with its own individual title and carefully marked out as to boundary.

Occasionally, the ahupuaʻa was divided into ʻili lele or “jumping strips”.  The ʻili lele often consisted of several distinct pieces of land at different climatic zones that gave the benefit of the ahupuaʻa land use to the ʻili owner: the shore, open kula lands, wetland kalo land and forested sections.

The gift of land to Hiram Bingham, that later became Punahou School, had additional land beyond the large lot with the spring and kalo patches where the school is situated (Ka Punahou) as part of the initial gift – the land was an ʻili lele.

Punahou included a lot on the beach near the Kakaʻako Salt Works (‘Ili of Kukuluāeʻo;) the large lot with the spring and kalo patches where the school is situated (Kapunahou) and also a forest patch on the steep sides of Manoa Valley (ʻIli of Kolowalu, now known commonly referred to as Woodlawn.)  (Congressional Record, 1893-94)

‘Ili of Kukuluāeʻo is an ‘ili lele (before the reclamation of the reefs, it was on the mauka side of the beach trail (now Ala Moana Boulevard) on the Diamond Head side of the Kakaʻako peninsula).  Included with this were the fishing rights over the reef fronting the property.

In addition to this makai, coastal property, there was an associated larger lot with a spring and kalo land, and another piece of forest land on the slopes of Mānoa Valley.

In 1829, the land was given to Hiram Bingham – who subsequently gave it to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) – to establish Punahou School.

The ‘Ili of Kukuluāeʻo was bounded on Honolulu side by “Honolulu;” the mauka by “Kewalo;” and “Koula;” the Waikīkī side by “Kālia” and extended seaward out to where the surf breaks (essentially the edge of the reef.)  It included fishing grounds, coral flats and salt beds.

The land was owned by the King (Kauikeaouli – King Kamehameha III) and was originally awarded to the King as LCA 387, but he returned it to the government.

It’s not clear how/when the makai land “detached” from the other Punahou School pieces, but it did and was given to the ABCFM (for the pastor of Kawaiaha‘o Church.)

Testimony related to the land noted: “The above land was given by Boki to Mr. Bingham, then a member of the above named Mission and the grant was afterwards confirmed by Kaahumanu.“

“This land was given to Mr. Bingham for the Sandwich Island Mission by Gov. Boki in 1829… From that time to these the S. I. Mission have been the only Possessors and Konohikis of the Land.”

“The name of the Makai part is Kukuluāeʻo. There are several tenants on the land of Punahou whose rights should be respected.”

Interestingly, there are two other ʻili lele, with ʻIli Lele of Kukuluāeʻo, that make up what is now known as Kakaʻako, ‘Ili Lele of Ka‘ākaukukui and ʻIli Lele of Kewalo.

‘Ili Lele of Ka‘ākaukukui was awarded to Victoria Kamāmalu, sister of Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V. This was on the Honolulu side of Kakaʻako and the associated fishing area included in this ʻili makes up most of what is now known as Kakaʻako Makai (the Kakaʻako peninsula.)

Kaʻākaukukui held Fisherman’s Point and the present harbor of Honolulu; then kalo land near the present Kukui street, and a large tract of forest at the head of Pauoa Valley.

ʻIli Lele of Kewalo was awarded to Kamakeʻe Piʻikoi, wife of Jonah Piʻikoi (grandparents of Prince Kūhiō;) the award was shared between husband and wife.  The lower land section extended from Kawaiahaʻo Church to Sheridan Street down to the shoreline.

The ʻIli Lele of Kewalo had a lower coastal area adjoining Waikīkī and below the Plain (Kulaokahu‘a) (270+ acres,) a portion makai of Pūowaina (Punchbowl) (50-acres, about one-half of Pūowaina,) a portion in Nuʻuanu (about 8-acres) and kalo loʻi in Pauoa Valley (about 1-acre.)

The image shows the three portions of the ʻili lele initially given to Hiram Bingham; the buff outline notes the present boundaries of the school and the blue background notes the three properties included in the initial gift.  This helps to illustrate the nature and benefits of ʻili lele – makai resource land, kalo land with water source and mauka forest land.

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Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions, Place Names Tagged With: Ili Lele, American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, Kolowalu, Punahou, Ili, Kewalo, Kulaokahua, Kakaako, Kukuluaeo, Kaakaukukui, Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III, Hawaii, Ahupuaa, Waikiki, Pauoa, Hiram Bingham

March 17, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kauikeaouli

Kauikeaouli appeared to be stillborn, but was revived.  He was the second son of Kamehameha I.   His birth site is at the head of Keauhou Bay (the Daughters of Hawaiʻi own and maintain the area.)

His exact birth date is not known; however, the generally accepted date is August 11, 1813.  Never-the-less, Kauikeaouli was apparently an admirer of Saint Patrick and chose to celebrate his birthday on March 17.

Kauikeaouli spent the first 5-years of his life with Chief Kaikioʻewa in the ‘O‘oma ahupuaʻa in Kona (the place where he first learned to be a king.)

Other early education the infant Prince received was at Kailua-Kona, from the Rev. Asa Thurston and Thomas Hopu, a native Hawaiian who had been educated on the continent and who came with the first missionaries to Hawaiʻi.  In Honolulu, the Prince was the pupil of Rev. Hiram Bingham.

The younger brother of Liholiho, he served as Hawai‘i’s King from 1825 to 1854 – the longest ruling monarch over the Hawaiian Kingdom.  Kauikeaouli was a pre-teen when he ascended to the throne; in the early years of his rule, he served under a regency with Kaʻahumanu, his father’s favorite queen, as joint ruler.

During the early- to mid-1800s timeframe, there were significant changes occurring that greatly affected the Hawaiian people:

  • his mother Keōpūolani and Kaʻahumanu convinced Liholiho to effectively break the Kapu system
  • 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
  • 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
  • new products by foreign ships were traded
  • 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)

There is scarcely in history, ancient or modem, any King to whom so many public reforms and benefits can be ascribed, as the achievements of his reign. Yet what King has had to contend with so many difficulties as King Kamehameha III? (The Polynesian, 1855)

“That the existence of the King, chiefs and the natives, can only be preserved by having a government efficient for the administration of enlightened justice, both to natives and the subjects of foreign powers residing in the islands, and that chiefly through missionary efforts the natives have made such progress in education and knowledge, as to justify the belief that by further training, they may be rendered capable of conducting efficiently the affairs of government; but that they are not at present so far advanced.”  (Kamehameha IV, In Obituary to the departed King)

In private life, Kamehameha III  was mild, kind, affable, generous and forgiving. He was never more happy than when free from the cares and trappings of state. He could enjoy himself sociably with his friends, who were much attached to him. (The Polynesian, 1855)

Having associated much, while a boy, with foreigners, he continued to the last to be fond of their company. Without his personal influence, the law to allow them to hold lands in fee simple could never have been enacted; neither could conflicting claims to land have been settled and registered by that most useful institution, the Board of Land Commissioners.  (The Polynesian, 1855)

It is hardly possible to conceive any King more generally beloved than was Kamehameha III; more universally obeyed, or more completely sovereign in the essential respect of independent sovereignty, that of governing his subjects free from any influence or control coming from beyond the limits of his own jurisdiction.  (The Polynesian, 1855)

Under his leadership, Hawaiʻi changed from an isolated island kingdom to a recognized member of the modem world. Many of the things he did as king still influence life in Hawaiʻi today.  (Kamehameha Schools Press)

The following are only some of the many accomplishments of Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli:)

  • On June 6, 1825, Kauikeaouli was proclaimed king of Hawaiʻi. To the people he said, “Where are you, chiefs, guardians, commoners?  I greet you.  Hear what I say! My kingdom I give to God.  The righteous chief shall be my chief, the children of the commoners who do you right shall be my people, my kingdom shall be one of letters.”  (Kamakau – Kamehameha Schools Press)
  • June 7, 1839, he signed the Declaration of Rights (called Hawai‘i’s Magna Charta) that, in part, noted, “God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth, in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.”
  • June 17, 1839 he issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.
  • June 28, 1839 he founded Chief’s Children’s School (The Royal School;) the main goal of this school was to groom the next generation of the highest ranking chiefs’ children of the realm and secure their positions for Hawaiʻi’s Kingdom.  (Missionaries Amos and Juliette Cooke were selected to teach the 16 royal children and run the school.)
  • October 8, 1840 (the King was about 27-years-old) he enacted the Constitution of 1840 that, in part, changed the government from one of an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. It provided for a separation of powers between three branches of government, with executive power in the hands of the king, the kuhina nui (similar to a prime minister) and four governors; a bicameral legislative body consisting of a house of nobles and a house of representatives, with the house of representatives elected by the people; and a judiciary system, including a supreme court.
  • April 27, 1846 he declared that “the forests and timber growing therein shall be considered government property, and under the special care of the Minister of the Interior …;” effectively starting the process of protecting our mauka watersheds.
  • January 27, 1848 through March 7, 1848 he participated in what we refer to as the “Great Māhele” that was a reformation of the land system in Hawaiʻi and allowed private ownership
  • June 14, 1852 he enacted the Constitution of 1852 that expanded on the Declaration of Rights, granted universal (adult male) voting rights for the first time and changed the House of Nobles from a hereditary body to one where members served by appointment by the King. It also institutionalized the three branches of government and defined powers along the lines of the American Constitution.
  • Toward the end of Kauikeaouli’s reign there were 423 schools in Hawaiʻi with an enrollment of over twelve-thousand-students. Most of the schools were elementary schools using Hawaiian as the language of instruction.

Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) died December 15, 1854 (at the age of 41.)

Happy Birthday and Cheers to Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III.  I think I’ll have a Guinness (or two) tonight in his honor.  (Happy St Patrick’s Day.)

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Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance Tagged With: Kaahumanu, Liholiho, Kauikeaouli, Asa Thurston, Kamehameha III, Keopuolani, Amos Cooke, Hawaii, Kalama, Hiram Bingham, Daughters of Hawaii, Great Mahele, Hawaiian Constitution

February 26, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Grog

‘Grog’ is any liquor, but especially rum, that’s been diluted with water.

Grog was named after British Admiral Edward Vernon (whom the sailors called ‘Old Grog’ because he always wore a grogram coat (grogram is a coarse fabric of silk mixed with wool,)) who gave the order that the daily rations of rum aboard Her Majesty’s ships be diluted.

Pretty soon, taverns catering to sailors had taken up the practice, and grog became what was settled for when one couldn’t afford a stiffer dose. (Greer)

According to Kamakau, “The first taste that Kamehameha and his people had of rum was at Kailua in 1791 or perhaps a little earlier, brought in by Captain Maxwell.”

“Kamehameha went out to the ship with (John) Young and (Isaac) Davis when it was sighted off Keāhole Point and there they all drank rum. …. Then nothing would do but Kalanimōku must get some of this sparkling water, and he was the first chief to buy rum.”

Don Francisco de Paula Marin was a Spaniard who arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.) His knowledge of Western military weapons brought him to the attention of Kamehameha, who was engaged in the conquest of O‘ahu. Marin almost immediately became a trusted advisor to Kamehameha I.

Hawai‘i’s first accommodations for transients were established sometime after 1810, when Marin “opened his home and table to visitors on a commercial basis … Closely arranged around the Marin home were the grass houses of his workers and the ‘guest houses’ of the ship captains who boarded with him while their vessels were in port.”

He fermented the first wine in Hawai‘i and distilled brandy. He also made rum from sugarcane and brewed beer, all of which he sold at his boarding house-saloon near the waterfront.

Within a decade or so, Island residents were producing liquor on a commercial basis. “It was while Kamehameha was on Oʻahu that rum was first distilled in the Hawaiian group,” wrote Kamakau. “In 1809 rum was being distilled by the well-known foreigner, Oliver Holmes, at Kewalo.” Several small distilleries were in operation by the 1820s.

Although both Hawaiians and foreign residents had been drinking hard liquor – either bought from visiting ships or distilled locally – for many years, no mention of bars or saloons occurs in the historical record.

However, by November 1822, Honolulu had seventeen grog shops operated by foreigners. Drinking places were one of the earliest types of retail business started in the Islands. Later, more were established.

Whalers – primarily American vessels – began arriving in Hawai’i in the early-19th century; they were hunting whales primarily for the whale oil for heating, lamps and in industrial machinery; with these ships and sailors came more rum; it became one of the sought-after items the Hawaiians traded for with the Westerners.

“There is scarcely a community in the world able to prevent the pestiferous influence of grog-shops to keep the habitual customers from excess, riot, and rum.” (Hiram Bingham)

The missionaries weren’t the only ones concerned about the effects of liquor. “Some ship-owners are afraid to have their ships come often to this port

Capt. Joy and others have been ordered by their owners not to come into this harbor to recruit, lest their men should be tempted to leave their vessel, or otherwise be led astray and induced to make trouble in consequence of the facilities for getting drunk and bringing other evils upon themselves.”

Capt. Beechey, of the ‘Blossom’ (of the British Royal Navy,) said to Kalanimōku, “If you do not suppress the grog-shops, I will not bring my ship into your harbor, when I return.” To which Kalanimōku replied, “I wish to suppress them, but the British consul owns one of them.” (Bingham)

“For some years after the arrival of missionaries at the islands it was not uncommon in going to the enclosure of the king, or some other place of resort, to find after a previous night’s revelry, exhausted cases of ardent spirits standing exposed …”

“… and the emptied bottles strewn about in confusion amidst the disgusting bodies of men, women and children lying promiscuously in the deep sleep of drunkenness.” (Dibble)

But the missionaries apparently also shared in the libations. As late as 1827, the Honolulu contingent ran in effect a liquor store for its members.

From May 15, 1826 to May 2, 1827, Hiram Bingham bought on his personal account 7 ½ gal of wine, 6 ¾ gal, 1 pt and a bottle of rum, 4 gal of brandy, 1 doz bottles of porter and 4 bottles of port. (Mission Account Book, Greer)

While visiting Anthony Allen for dinner (a former slave who had a home at what is now Washington Intermediate School,) Hiram’s wife, Sybil, notes in her diary, “He set upon the table decanters and glasses with wine and brandy to refresh us”. They ended dinner “with wine and melons”.

The Binghams were not the only missionaries to imbibe. Elisha Loomis bought 8 gal, 1 pt of wine, 1 gal of rum, and 1 ½ gal of brandy. Abraham Blatchley bought 4 gal of brandy, 2 gal of rum, and 2 gal of gin. Joseph Goodrich bought 2 ½ gal of wine and 1 qt of rum.

Samuel Ruggles bought 1 ¼ gal of brandy and 2 ¼ gal of wine. Levi Chamberlain bought 3 qts of wine and 2 qts of brandy. The Medical Department drew 4 gal of rum. (Mission Account Book, Greer)

However, they shortly got on the bandwagon against liquor and encouraged King Kamehameha III and most of the chiefs to pledge themselves to total abstinence. And, in part, became zealous preachers of temperance; the king himself frequently addressing the people on the subject. (The King and others regularly fell off the wagon.)

In March 1838, the first liquor license law was enacted, which prohibited all selling of liquors without a license under a fine of fifty dollars for the first offense, to be increased by the addition of fifty dollars for every repetition of the offense. (The Friend, December 1887)

All houses for the sale of liquor were to be closed at ten o’clock at night, and from Saturday night until Monday morning. Drunkenness was prohibited in the licensed houses under a heavy fine to the drinker, and the loss of his license to the seller. (The Friend, December 1887)

In 1843, the seamen’s chaplain, Samuel C. Damon, started ‘The Temperance Advocate and Seamen’s Friend;’ he soon changed its name to simply “The Friend.”

Through it, he offered ‘Six Hints to seamen visiting Honolulu’ (the Friend, October 8, 1852,) his first ‘Hint,’ “Keep away from the grog shops.”

However, that was pretty wishful thinking, given the number and distribution of establishments in the early-years of the fledgling city and port on Honolulu.

The map illustrates this, noting various grog shops and other places where it was sold in Honolulu, from the turn of the century to the mid-1800s (Info here and map based on Greer and geo-referenced into Google Earth.)

Here’s a list of these establishments/proprietors:

1. Shipyard Hotel
2. Alex. Smith’s Private Grog-Shop
3. Oahu Hotel and South Seas Tap
4. William R. Warren’s Boarding House
5. Joseph Navarro’s Hotel
6. Blonde (Boki House)
7. Ship And Whale, Blonde
8. Indigenous Grog-Shop
9. Pearl River House
10. Sign of the Ann
11. Joel Deadman, Alex. Smith, James Vowles, Church, Charles Turner
12. Telegraph Tavern
13. Eagle Tavern, National House Hotel
14. Shipwright Arms
15. John Crowne
16. Telegraph
17. John Hobbs
18. Commercial Hotel
19. Samuel Thompson
20. Samuel Thompson
21. Francisco De Paula Marin’s Boarding House And Hotel
22. Adelphi
23. William E. Gill’s Hotel
24. Louis Gravier, Thomas Mossman
25. Dog And Bell, Rising Sun, White Swan
26. The Red Lion
27. Alex. Smith’s, Samuel Thompson’s Grog Shops
28. Warren Hotel, Canton Hotel
29. The Blonde
30. Jose Nadal’s Grog-Shop
31. Globe Hotel
32. Hill And Robinson Coffee House
33. Alex. Smith And John Munn
34. Paulet Arms
35. French Hotel
36. Capt. Nye’s Boarding House
37. George Chapman’s Consular Boarding House
38. Samuel Thompson
39. Samuel Thompson
40. French Hotel
41. Royal Hotel, Desprairie’s Victualing House
42. French Hotel, Mrs. Carter’s Boarding House
43. Mansion House Hotel
44. Mrs. Dominis’s Boarding House
45. Robert Boyd’s Grog-Shop And Hotel

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Filed Under: General, Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks, Economy Tagged With: Kamehameha, Don Francisco de Paula Marin, Honolulu Harbor, Kalanimoku, Liquor, Hawaii, Honolulu, Downtown Honolulu, Hiram Bingham, Grog

January 16, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Battle of Honolulu – 1826

The Hawaiian Islands in the early-1800s were in a state of social and political upheaval. With Kamehameha’s death in 1819, the subsequent breaking of the kapu by Liholiho and the acceptance of the missionaries and their beliefs meant significant changes were taking place.

The first visit to the Hawaiian Islands by the US Navy was in 1826 when the warship USS Dolphin came into port in Honolulu. Commanding the ship was Lieutenant John Percival (aka “Mad Jack” Percival.)

Percival had been sent to the Pacific to bring the mutineers of a whaling ship to justice and to enforce the settlement of debts owed by Hawaiʻi’s ruling chiefs to American sandalwood dealers.

As the ship sailed into Honolulu Bay, these objectives were not uppermost on the minds of the crew, however. The men of the Dolphin, like mariners then, had expectations of female companionship while in port.

They arrived on January 16, 1826, and were surprised to find the port unusually tranquil and utterly devoid of the welcoming maidens the crew had anticipated.

After making inquiries in the village they learned that, under the influence of the missionaries, the chiefs had not only forbidden the women to swim out to the ships, but had restricted the sale of alcohol. His men were outraged.

In a frenzy, Percival demanded to see the Queen in person, warning that if the leader of the missionaries (Hiram Bingham) interfered, he “will shoot him: that he was ready to fight, for though his vessel was small, she was just like fire.”

Percival attempted to persuade the Queen to release her women, reasoning that “It is not good to taboo the women. It is not so in America!”

The Queen replied, in a letter, that she had a “right to control her own subjects in this matter; that in enforcing the tabu she had not sought for money … she had done no injustice to other nations, or the foreigners who belonged to other nations; and that while seeking specially to save the nation from vice and ruin, they had been lenient to strangers … (and) that strangers, passing from one country to another, are bound, while they remain in a country, to conform to its laws.” (Bingham)

Percival said, “Why tabu the women? Take heed. My people will come: if the women are not forthcoming they will not obey my word. Take care of your men, and I will take care of mine. By and by they will come to get women, and if they do not obtain them, they will fight, and my vessel is just like fire.” (Bingham)

Kaʻahumanu replied, “Why make war upon us without a fault of ours as to restraining our women? We love the Word of God, and therefore hold back our women. Why then would you fight us without cause?” (Bingham)

Finally, able to hold his temper no longer, Percival clenched his fists with rage and shouted that the next day he would issue his men rum and turn them loose, where, if they were still denied, they would pull down the houses of the missionaries and take any women they pleased by force.

Kaʻahumanu replied, “Why are you angry with us for laying a tabu on the women of our own country? Had you brought American women with you, and we had tabued them, you might then justly be displeased with us.” (Bingham)

There were several other crews in port, of whom many sympathized with this commander and a large part of his crew. On a Sunday, the commander of the Dolphin allowed double the usual number of his men to spend the day on shore at Honolulu. The violent among them, and the violent of other crews, attempted to form a coalition to “knock off the tabu.”

First, they knocked out seventy of the windows at Kalanimōkū’s house (where church service was being held, with Kaʻahumanu, Kalanimōkū, Nāmāhana and Boki in attendance.) Then, the mob went on to the home of Hiram Bingham, the leader of the missionaries.

When the mob surged forward and one of the sailors struck Bingham, the riot ended as the Hawaiians responded by clubbing the ringleaders unconscious and overcame the remainder.

Shortly thereafter, the captain was back at the palace, admitting that his men may have overreacted, however, repeated their demands for prostitutes. He then told the Queen that the Dolphin would not leave port until his men were taken care of.

The Hawaiians by this time were very anxious to see the end of this and fearful of further violence, agreed to lift the taboo.

The prostitutes then came to the ship, and apparently the Navy’s Hawaiian mission was accomplished. Captain Percival arranged for the repair of the damaged homes and put two of the most violent sailors in irons.

After a visit of about three months, the Dolphin sailed, having obtained the name of “the mischief making man-of-war.” The incident was quickly christened “The Battle of Honolulu.”

Mad Jack’s actions were later renounced by the United States and resulted in the sending of an envoy to King Kamehameha III.

Kalanimōku wrote a letter to Hiram Bingham concerning the battle – in it he notes, “Here is my message to all of you, our missionary teachers. I am telling you that I do not see your wrongdoing. If I should see you to be wrong, I would tell you all. No, you should all just be good.”

“Give us literacy and we will teach it; and give us the word of God, and we will heed it. Our women are restricted, for we have learned the word of God.”

“Then foreigners come, doing damage to our land, foreigners of America and Britain. Do not be angry, for it is we who are to blame for you being faulted, and not you foreigners.” (Kalanimōku to Bingham, October 28, 1826)

You may see that letter (written in Hawaiian) and its translation in the Ali‘i Letters Collection at Hawaiian Mission Houses – here: https://hmha.missionhouses.org/collections/show/178.

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Filed Under: Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks, Economy, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings Tagged With: Hawaii, Hiram Bingham, Kaahumanu, Percival, Battle of Honolulu, Mad Jack

November 18, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Oh, father, dear father, do take me back!”

From 1820 to 1848, 12-Companies of missionaries, under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), arrived in the Islands. Every group of missionaries arrived by ship, sailing from New England, around Cape Horn and finally reaching the Hawaiian Islands usually after a five-month sea voyage. (Miller)

For the most part, the missionaries were married – typically ‘just married’ a few weeks or months of their departure. In the Pioneer Company, by the middle of the trip, four of the wives were pregnant.

After 164-days at sea, on April 4, 1820, the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Hawai‘i’s “Plymouth Rock” is about where the Kailua pier is today.

Starting a few short months after their arrival, the new missionary wives became mothers.

The first child was Levi Loomis, son of the Printer, Elisha and Maria Loomis; he was the first white child born in the Islands. Here is the order of the early missionary births:

July 16, 1820 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Levi Loomis
October 19, 1820 … Waimea (Kauai) … Maria Whitney
November 9, 1820 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Sophia Bingham
December 22, 1820 … Waimea (Kauai) … Sarah Ruggles
March 2, 1821 … Waimea (Kauai) … Lucia Holman
September 28, 1821 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Persis Thurston

More missionaries, and more children, came, later.

By 1853, nearly three-fourths of the native Hawaiian population over the age of sixteen years was literate in their own language. The short time span within which native Hawaiians achieved literacy is remarkable in light of the overall low literacy rates of the United States at that time. (Lucas)

This was fine for the Hawaiians who were beginning to learn to read and write, but the missionary families were looking for expanded education for their children.

There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

“During the period from infancy to the age of ten or twelve years, children in the almost isolated family of a missionary could be well provided for and instructed in the rudiments of education without a regular school … But after that period, difficulties in most cases multiplied.” (Hiram Bingham)

Missionaries were torn between preaching the gospel and teaching their kids. From 1826 until 1842, young missionary parents began to make a decision seemingly at odds with the idealizing of the family so prevalent in the 19th century; they weighed the possibility of sending them back to New England. The trauma mostly affected families of the first two companies.

“(I)t was the general opinion of the missionaries there that their children over eight or ten years of age, notwithstanding the trial that might be involved, ought to be sent or carried to the United States, if there were friends who would assume a proper guardianship over them”. (Bingham)

“Owing to the then lack of advanced schools in Hawaii, the earlier mission children were all ‘sent home’ around Cape Horn, to ‘be educated.’ This was the darkest day in the life history of the mission child.”

In 1840, as the ship carrying the missionaries’ offspring pulled away from the dock, a distraught seven-year-old, Caroline Armstrong, looking at her father on the shore, the distance between them widening every moment … “Oh, father, dear father, do take me back!”

Her plea echoed in the hearts of the community. In June of that year the mission voted to establish a school for the missionary children at Punahou.

The Missionary Period lasted from 1820 to 1863; during the first 21-years of the Missionary Period, no fewer than 33 children were either sent or taken back to the continent by their parents.

Click HERE to view/download Background Information on Missionary Children

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Sophia Bingham-photo of original painting
Sophia Bingham-photo of original painting

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Schools Tagged With: Hiram Bingham, Missionaries, Sophia Bingham, Hawaii

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