A lot went on in other parts of the world:
February 17, 1818 – Henry ‘Ōpukaha‘ia died at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall CT
October 20, 1818 – the 49th parallel was established as the border between US & Canada
November 21, 1818 – Russia’s Czar Alexander I petitioned for a Jewish state in Palestine
December 24, 1818 – ‘Silent Night’ composed by Franz Joseph Gruber and first sung the next day (Austria)
December 25, 1818 – Handel’s Messiah, premiered in the US in Boston
January 2, 1819 – The Panic of 1819 began, the first major financial crisis in the US
January 25, 1819 – Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia
February 6, 1819 – Sir Stamford Raffles entered into a treaty with the deposed Sultan of the area which gave Britain authority over the island of Singapore in return for a pension and recognition of that Sultan’s status as legitimate ruler. (The event which founded modern Singapore.)
February 15, 1819 – The US House of Representatives agrees to the Tallmadge Amendment barring slaves from the new state of Missouri (the opening vote that led to the Missouri Compromise)
February 22, 1819 – Spain cedes Florida to the US
March 2, 1819 – Arkansas Territory is created
May 22 – June 20, 1819 – The SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean (Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, England
July 4, 1819 – Arkansas Territory is effective
August 6, 1819 – Norwich University is founded by Captain Alden Partridge in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States.
August 7, 1819 – Battle of Boyacá: Simón Bolívar was victorious over the Royalist Army in Colombia. Colombia acquired its definitive independence from Spanish monarchy.
August 24, 1819 – Samuel Seymour sketches a Kansa lodge and war dance at the present location of Manhattan, Kansas, while part of Stephen Harriman Long’s exploring party. This work is now the oldest drawing known to be made in the state of Kansas.
October 23, 1819 – led by Hiram Bingham, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.) The Mission Prudential Committee in giving instructions to the pioneers of 1819 said:
“Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (The Friend)
December 14, 1819 – Alabama is admitted as the 22nd US state
A lot went on in the Islands:
To set a foundation, we are reminded that in 1782 Kamehameha I began a war of conquest, and, by 1795, with his superior use of modern weapons and western advisors, he subdued all other chiefdoms, with the exception of Kauai. King Kamehameha I launched two invasion attempts on Kauai (1796 and 1804;) both failed.
In 1804, King Kamehameha I moved his capital from Lāhainā, Maui to Honolulu, O‘ahu. In the face of the threat of a further invasion, in 1810, Kaumuali‘i decided to peacefully unite with Kamehameha and ceded Kauai and Ni‘ihau to Kamehameha and the Hawaiian Islands were unified under a single leader. The agreement with Kaumuali‘i marked the end of war and thoughts of war across the archipelago. Later, Kamehameha returned to his home, Kamakahonu, in Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi.
Here is some of what happened in Hawaiʻi in that fateful time:
September 11, 1818, Argentine corsair Hipólito (Hypolite) Bouchard (1783–1843,) signed and Kamehameha placed his mark on a Treaty of Commerce, Peace and Friendship with Hipólito Bouchard, that, reputedly, made Hawaiʻi the first country to recognize United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) as an independent state. In recognition of the reported ‘treaty’, there is a street in Buenos Aires, Argentina named Hawai (a bit misspelled.)
April of 1819, Don Francisco de Paula Marin was summoned to Kailua-Kona the Big Island of Hawai‘i to assist Kamehameha, who had become ill. Although he had no formal medical training, Marin had some basic medical knowledge, but was not able to improve the condition of Kamehameha.
May 8, 1819, King Kamehameha I died.
“Kamehameha was a planner, so he talked to brothers Hoapili and Hoʻolulu about where his iwi (bones) should be hidden,” noting Kamehameha wanted his bones protected from desecration not only from rival chiefs, but from westerners who were sailing into the islands and sacking sacred sites. (Maiʻoho)
Their father, High Chief Kameʻeiamoku, was one of the “royal twins” who helped Kamehameha I come to power – the twins are on the Islands’ coat of arms – Kameʻeiamoku is on the right (bearing a kahili,) his brother, Kamanawa is on the left, holding a spear.
September 19, 1819, Edmond Gardner, captain of the New Bedford whaler Balaena (also called Balena,) and Elisha Folger, captain of the Nantucket whaler Equator, became the first American whalers to visit the Hawaiian Islands
November 1819, Kamehameha I, his son, Liholiho (King Kamehameha II) declared an end to the kapu system. “An extraordinary event marked the period of Liholiho’s rule, in the breaking down of the ancient tabus (kapu), the doing away with the power of the kahunas to declare tabus and to offer sacrifices, and the abolition of the tabu which forbade eating with women (ʻai noa, or free eating.)” (Kamakau)
“The custom of the tabu upon free eating was kept up because in old days it was believed that the ruler who did not proclaim the tabu had not long to rule…. The tabu eating was a fixed law for chiefs and commoners, not because they would die by eating tabu things, but in order to keep a distinction between things permissible to all people and those dedicated to the gods”. (Kamakau)
Kekuaokalani, Liholiho’s cousin, opposed the abolition of the kapu system and assumed the responsibility of leading those who opposed its abolition. Kekuaokalani (who was given Kūkaʻilimoku (the war god) before his death) demanded that Liholiho withdraw his edict on abolition of the kapu system. (If the kapu fell, the war god would lose its potency.) (Daws)
The two powerful cousins engaged at the final Hawaiian battle of Kuamoʻo; Liholiho’s forces defeated Kekuaokalani.
December 1819, just seven months after the death of Kamehameha I, the allies of his two opposing heirs met in battle on the jagged lava fields south of Keauhou Bay. Kekuaokalani (wanting restoration of the kapu) marched up the Kona Coast from Kaʻawaloa and met the warriors under Liholiho (Kamehameha II) at Kuamo‘o, just south of Keauhou. Liholiho’s forces won.
April 4, 1820 (after 164-days at sea) the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona with the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries
Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Hawaiian Islands.)
At the time,
“This village (Honolulu,) which contains about two hundred houses, is situated upon a level plain extending some distance back from the bay part of which forms the harbour, to the foot of the high hills which abound throughout the Island. The little straw-huts clusters of them in the midst of cocoanut groves, look like bee-hives, and the inhabitants swarming about them like bees.”
“In passing through the midst, in our way to the open plain, it was very pleasant to hear their friendly salutation, Alloah (Aloha,) some saying, e-ho-ah, (where going?) We answered, mar-oo, up yonder. Then, as usual, they were pleased that we could num-me-num-me Owhyhee (talk Hawaiian.)” (Sybil Bingham)
“Passing through the irregular village of some thousands of inhabitants, whose grass thatched habitations were mostly small and mean, while some were more spacious, we walked about a mile northwardly to the opening of the valley of Pauoa, then turning south-easterly, ascended to the top of Punchbowl Hill an extinguished crater, whose base bounds the north-east part of the village or town.” (Hiram Bingham)
“Below us (below Punchbowl,) on the south and west, spread the plain of Honolulu, having its fish-pond and salt making pools along the sea-shore, the village and fort between us and the harbor, and the valley stretching a few miles north into the interior, which presented its scattered habitation and numerous beds of kalo (taro) in it various stages of growth, with its large green leaves, beautifully embossed on the silvery water, in which it flourishes.” (Hiram Bingham)
“The soil is of the best kind, producing cocoanuts, bananas, and plantains, bread fruit, papia, ohia, oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, tamarinds, sweet potatoes, taro, yams, watermelons, muskmelons, cucumbers and pineapples, and I doubt not would yield fine grain of any kind.” (Ruggles, The Friend)
“We were sheltered in three native-built houses, kindly offered us by Messrs. Winship, Lewis and Navarro, somewhat scattered in the midst of an irregular village or town of thatched huts, of 3,000 or 4,000 inhabitants.” (Hiram Bingham) “(O)ur little cottage built chiefly of poles, dried grass and mats, being so peculiarly exposed to fire, beside being sufficiently filled with three couples and things for immediate use, consisting only of one room with a little partition and one door.” (Sybil Bingham)
“In addition to their homes, the missionaries had grass meeting places, and later, churches. One of the first was on the same site as the present Kawaiahaʻo Church. On April 28, 1820, the Protestant missionaries held a church service for chiefs, the general population, ship’s officers and sailors in the larger room in Reverend Hiram Bingham’s house. This room was used as a school room during the weekdays and on Sunday the room was Honolulu’s first church auditorium.” (Damon)
The image shows Liholiho eating with women (Mark Twain-Roughing It.)
