Ka La Hoihoi Ea | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

Today, we celebrate Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day; it relates back to 1843 when Lord George Paulet, purportedly representing the British Crown, overstepped his bounds, landed sailors and marines, seized the government buildings in Honolulu and forced King Kamehameha III to cede the Hawaiian kingdom to Great Britain.

Queen Victoria, on learning the injustice done, immediately sent Rear Admiral Richard Darton Thomas to the islands to restore sovereignty to its rightful rulers. After five-months of occupation, on July 31, 1843, the Hawaiian flag was raised and sovereignty restored.

The ceremony was held in an area known as Kulaokahuʻa (The Plains;) the site of the ceremony was turned into a park, it was later called Thomas Square.

Today, there remain ongoing claims and discussions about restoring the Hawaiian Government that was deposed on January 17, 1893 and replaced by the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi, later the Republic of Hawaiʻi, then annexation and statehood.

The Hawaiian nation was overthrown … not the Hawaiian race (it was a constitutional monarchy, not race-limited.)

Yet, to date, apparently, the only people permitted to exercise their rights related to discussions on restoration, reparation, sovereignty, independence, etc related to the Hawaiian nation have been those of one race, the native Hawaiians.

In the ongoing nation-building exercise, lately there was Kau Inoa (registration of Native Hawaiians in Hawaiʻi and abroad who will be a part of the new Hawaiian nation and receive benefits provided by the new government,) later Kanaʻiolowalu (registration on an Official Roll and joining together to rebuild a Hawaiian nation,) and now Na‘i Aupuni (who are guiding an election, convention and ratification process where Hawaiians who wish to participate can be heard.)

Kanaʻiolowalu limits participation to “lineal descendant[s] of the people who lived and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands prior to 1778”; a goal of the registration is “self-recognition of our unrelinquished sovereignty”. The latter and latest, suggests an ʻAha (“convention … gathering of elected delegates”) that may conduct a ratification vote.

Likewise, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (Akaka Bill,) and groups like Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, Nation of Hawaiʻi, Ka Pakaukau, Poka Laenui, Hawaiian Kingdom, Hawaiian Kingdom Government and the rest seem to seek to restore or reclaim on behalf of kanaka maoli.

However, all Hawaiian citizens lost their nation in 1893 … Hawaiian citizens with their varying ethnicities, not just those who lived in the Islands prior to 1778.

Why aren’t all Hawaiian citizens included in the recognition and sovereignty discussions and decisions today?

Nationality derives from what nation you are from. It’s your citizenship. Another term for nationality is your political status. Race is not nationality. It’s not a political status. Race is your ethnicity. (Keanu Sai; noted in AlohaQuest)

Hawai‘i was built up of many racial ethnic extractions or heritage, but they all came under one nationality, called a Hawaiian citizen or subject. (Keanu Sai)

A Hawaiian citizen or subject is someone that has the political status of being a Hawaiian national. And it’s not limited to the native race or the aboriginal blood. (Keanu Sai)

If annexation did not happen, today descendants of Hawaiʻi-born or foreign-born naturalized Hawaiian citizens (with no proof of later naturalization to another nation) are still Hawaiian subjects, as their predecessors were in the Kingdom era. (Keanu Sai)

‘Nationality’ means the legal bond between a person and a State and does not indicate the person’s ethnic origin. Everyone has the right to a nationality. (European Convention on Nationality)

At one time, jus sanguinis (right of blood) was the sole means of determining nationality in Asia and Europe (where it is still widespread in Central and Eastern Europe.) An individual belonged to a family, a tribe or a people, not to a territory. It was a basic tenet of Roman law.

Jus soli (right of the soil,) also known as birthright citizenship, is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognized to any individual born in the territory of the related state.

At times, exceptions limit citizenship, typically when a child was born to a parent in the diplomatic or consular service of another state, on a mission to the state in question or a child born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country’s territory.

One of the earliest laws in Hawaiʻi dealt with citizenship; it was part of King Kamehameha III’s Statute Laws 1845-1846. The Chapter for that law was titled: “Of Subjects and Foreigners” and the specific Article was labeled “Aliens, Denizens and Natives.”

Section III of that law noted: All persons born within the jurisdiction of this kingdom, whether of alien foreigners, of naturalized or of native parents, and all persons born abroad of a parent native of this kingdom, and afterwards coming to reside in this, shall be deemed to owe native allegiance to His Majesty. All such persons shall be amenable to the laws of this kingdom as native subjects.

All persons born abroad of foreign parents, shall, unless duly naturalized, as in this article prescribed, be deemed aliens, and treated as such, pursuant to the laws. (Ka Huli Ao Digital Archives – Punawaiola-org)

Hawaiʻi followed the Anglo-American common law rule of “jus soli;” those born in the country and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens. Subsequent interpretation of the laws and practices affirmed who were Hawaiian citizens and what rights and obligations they possessed.

In 1850, HW Whitney, born in Hawaiʻi of foreign parents, asked the Minister of the Interior, John Young II, about his status. The question was referred to Asher B Bates, legal adviser to the Government, who replied that, “not only the Hawaiian Statutes but the Law of Nations, grant to an individual born under the Sovereignty of this Kingdom, an inalienable right, to all of the rights and privileges of a subject.” (Hanifin)

In 1856, the Kingdom’s Supreme Court decided Naone v. Thurston, recognizing that persons born in Hawaiʻi of foreign parents were Hawaiian subjects.

On January 21, 1868, the Minister of the Interior for the Hawaiian Kingdom, Ferdinand Hutchison, stated the criteria for Hawaiian nationality:

“In the judgment of His Majesty’s Government, no one acquires citizenship in this Kingdom unless he is born here, or born abroad of Hawaiian parents (either native or naturalized,) during their temporary absence from the kingdom, or unless having been the subject of another power, he becomes a subject of this kingdom by taking the oath of allegiance.”

Subsequent laws through the Republic, Territory and State provide that “All persons born or naturalized in the Hawaiian Islands, and subject to the jurisdiction of the Republic, are citizens thereof.”

A lot of non-kanaka maoli were born in the Islands or became naturalized citizens, or are descendants of such. By laws and practice, they, too, are Hawaiian citizens … history and the laws related to Hawaiian citizen status are clear and unambiguous.

In 1893, all Hawaiian citizens lost their nation … Hawaiian citizens with varying ethnicities. As noted by Keanu Sai, “Hawai‘i was a country of laws and nationality and not necessarily a specific race.”

If there are to be discussions and decisions leading to restoration, reparation, sovereignty, independence, etc that affect all Hawaiian citizens, whatever their ethnicity, all should be included in that process.

Again, why aren’t all Hawaiian citizens included in these discussions and decisions, today?

I am sure these others will be heard from at some time – it would be better that they are included, sooner than later.

The image shows the Hawaiian Kingdom flag, ‘Ka Hae Hawaii’ as observed by Louis Choris in 1816. It flew over the Islands from 1816-1843.

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Hawaiian Flag – 1816-1845

By the time the Pioneer Company of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Protestant missionaries arrived in 1820, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished.

The missionaries first lived in the traditional Hawaiian hatched house, the hale pili. 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 December 31, 1820, Levi Sartwell Loomis, son of Elisha and Maria Loomis (the first white child born in the Sandwich Islands) and Sophia Moseley Bingham, daughter of Hiram and Sybil Bingham (the first white girl born on Oʻahu) were baptized.

Within a year, Hiram Bingham began to preach in the Hawaiian language. 4-services a week were conducted (3 in Hawaiian and 1 in English.) Congregations ranged from 100 – 400; by the end of the year, the thatched church was expanded.

Between 1836 and 1842, Kawaiahaʻo Church was constructed. Revered as the Protestant “mother church” and often called “the Westminster Abbey of Hawai‘i” this structure is an outgrowth of the original Mission Church founded in Boston and is the first foreign church on O‘ahu (1820.)

Kawaiahaʻo Church was designed and founded by its first pastor, Hiram Bingham. Hiram left the islands on August 3, 1840 and never saw the completed church. Reverend Richard Armstrong replaced Bingham as pastor of Kawaiahaʻo.

Richard Armstrong was born in 1805 in Pennsylvania, the youngest of 10-children; he attended three years at Princeton Theological Seminary. He married Clarissa Chapman, September 25, 1831; was ordained at Baltimore, Maryland, October 27, 1831; and sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, November 26, 1831 for Hawaiʻi.

Armstrong was with the Fifth Company of missionaries (which included the Alexanders, Emersons, Forbes, Hitchcocks, Lymans, Lyons, Stockton and others. They arrived on May 17, 1832.

Shortly after arrival, Clarissa wrote about a subject most suspect was not a part of the missionary lifestyle … On October 31, 1832, she noted, “Capt Brayton has given me a little beer cask – it holds 6 quarts – Nothing could have been more acceptable.”

“I wanted to ask you for one, but did not like to. O how kind providence has been & is to us, in supplying our wants. The board have sent out hops – & I have some beer now a working. I should like to give you a drink.”

Armstrong was stationed for a year at the mission in Marquesas Islands; he then replaced the Reverend Green as pastor of Kaʻahumanu Church (Wailuku) in 1836, supervised the construction of two stone meeting houses one at Haiku, and the other at Wailuku. Reverend Green returned to replace Armstrong in 1840.

He was pastor of the Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu from 1840 to 1848. “Mr. Armstrong preached to congregations of twenty-five hundred and often three thousand people. The ground about the church looked like an encampment when the people came from valley and shore on horseback and spent their noon hour in the rush-covered basement awaiting the afternoon session.” (The Friend, July 1932)

Following the re-raising of the Hawaiian flag above the Islands on July 31, 1843 for Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea – Sovereignty Restoration Day, religious services were held that evening in Kawaiahaʻo Church.

A sermon apropos of the occasion was preached by Rev. Richard Armstrong, the text being taken from Psalms 37, 3 – ‘Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.’ There could have been no question but that his hearers had been fed on that day. (Thrum)

In 1848 Armstrong left the mission and became Minister of Public Instruction on June 7, 1848, following the death of William Richards. Armstrong was to serve the government for the remainder of his life. He was a member of the Privy Council and the House of Nobles and acted as the royal chaplain.

He set up the Board of Education under the kingdom in 1855 and was its president until his death. Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

The government-sponsored education system in Hawaiʻi is the longest running public school system west of the Mississippi River. To this day, Hawaiʻi is the only state to have a completely-centralized State public school system.

Armstrong helped bring better textbooks, qualified teachers and better school buildings. Students were taught in Hawaiian how to read, write, math, geography, singing and to be “God-fearing” citizens. (By 1863, three years after Armstrong’s death, the missionaries stopped being a part of Hawaiʻi’s education system.)

The Armstrongs had ten children. Son William N Armstrong (King Kalākaua’s Attorney General) accompanied Kalākaua on his tour of the world, one of three white men who accompanied the King as advisers and counsellors (Armstrong, Charles H Judd and a personal attendant/valet.)

Armstrong and Judd were Kalākaua’s schoolmates at the Chiefs’ Children’s School in 1849. (Marumoto) “Thirty years afterward, and after three of our schoolmates had become kings and had died (Kamehameha IV & V and Lunalio) and two of them had become queens (Emma and Liliʻuokalani,) it so happened that Kalākaua ascended the throne, and with his two old schoolmates began his royal tour.” (Armstrong)

Another Armstrong son, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, became a Union general in the American Civil War and was founder of Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School (later called the Hampton Institute, then Hampton University.) (King Kalākaua visited Hampton Normal and Agricultural School on one of his trips to the continent.)

Among the school’s famous alumni is Dr Booker T Washington, who became an educator and later founded Tuskegee Institute. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the historic “Emancipation Tree,” which is still located on the campus today.

Richard Armstrong’s home was a stone building on Beretania adjoining Washington Place (called “Stonehouse,” named after the residence of Admiral Richard Thomas in England. It later served as temporary facilities at different times for what became St. Louis and Punahou Schools.

Reverend Richard Armstrong died on September 23, 1860; on his way to preach in Kāneʻohe “he had been thrown from his horse and seriously hurt. He was a good rider, but the horse had been suddenly startled and a girth gave way.”

He is buried “in the shadow of the great Kawaiahaʻo church where he had preached for so many years.” Clarissa, moved to California in 1880; she died in 1891 (the reverse of her tombstone says “Aloha.”)

The image shows Richard Armstrong. In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.