Whaling | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 4, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Dealing with Outcasts, Desperadoes and Debt

A February 4, 1845 report by US Naval Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones (and accompanying documents) to the US House of Representatives tells us a lot about the situation in the Islands in the early stages of whaling in the Pacific.

This involves petitions from ship owners, business people and others in the community to Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams and resulted in Captain Jones being sent to the Islands to help make things right.

Several merchants and others engaged in whaling wrote to President Monroe saying, “They are fully persuaded that a naval force, properly distributed there, will have a powerful tendency to prevent such fatal occurrences, by deterring from acts of violence the unprincipled, who are inseparably connected with such a multitude of men as are required to navigate their ships.”

“These, which have till within a short time been confined to a small portion of the Pacific, now traverse the greater part of that ocean, which has increased the danger of which they complain to a very considerable degree.”

“Hence, they feel the necessity of a naval force stationed there, that shall visit the remote parts of it, and occasionally touch at those islands to which their ships resort for refreshments, &c. …”

New Bedford wrote the President Adams, “in prosecuting whaling voyages into the most distant parts of the Pacific ocean, it becomes necessary for ships so employed to touch at islands in that ocean for purposes of supplies and refreshment …”

“that the Sandwich islands, as affording convenient opportunities for this purpose, have of late years being very generally resorted to; that very nearly one hundred American whaling ships may be estimated to visit Oahu (a port in the Sandwich islands) in the course of every year, and it is not unfrequent that over thirty American whalemen are lying at that portal one time …”

“Experience has shown that, since the introduction of foreign habits and foreign vices among those distant islanders, their characters have undergone an essential depreciation: the purity of intent which characterizes man in his state of natural simplicity, is now scarcely to be traced among them …”

“outcasts and desperadoes have mingled with them, carrying into their habitations the seeds of iniquity, inciting among them a spirit of evil, and diffusing a skill in the purposes of vice, at once to be deplored and dreaded.”

“Upon a population thus prepared for acts of violence and outrage, the mere influence of a pacific habit cannot be safely trusted to as a restraining motive. The distance, also, at which these people (thus attempered to evil design) are placed from the effective operation of civil power, is a circumstance truly calculated to inspire apprehension and alarm.”

A subsequent petition to President Adams noted that “there were over one hundred and fifty seamen (principally deserters from the whale ships) prowling about the country, naked and destitute … their number was constantly increasing, and serious apprehensions existed that necessity would induce those lawless deserters to commit some act of a piratical nature.” (Petitions to John Quincy Adams)

Mr. Bayly, from the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, made the following remarks, “It appears, from memorials presented to Presidents Monroe and Adams by a large number of merchants and others, residents of Nantucket, engaged in the whale-fishery, that in 1824 and 1825 mutinies were taking place on board of American vessels …”

“and desertions of their crews, who took refuge in the Sandwich islands; which place, it was feared, would become, unless our government interfered, ‘a nest of pirates and murderers;’ and the government was asked to send a national vessel to apprehend the offenders, and to look generally after American commerce in the South Seas.”

In addition, there were debts due to our citizens by the people and government of the Sandwich islands … over $500,000 due by the late king Tamahamaha, of the Sandwich islands, to sundry citizens of the United States; (which debt the successors of Tamahamaha had refused to recognize)”.

“Captain Jones, upon his arrival at the Sandwich islands, found great obstacles to the success of his mission. The natives were a semi-barbarous people, just emerging from heathenism …”

“there were in the islands a great many lawless foreigners, long familiarized to living without the restraint of law, who insidiously opposed every effort to introduce law and order, and everything was in a state of great disorder and confusion.”

“In addition to this, the English government had contrived to possess itself of a very large share of the confidence of those islanders. … The influence thus acquired was not all which the British agents interposed to prevent Captain Jones’s success …”

“but the English consul general, residing at Oahu, in 1826, openly claimed for his king the right of sovereignty over those islands; and, in Captain Jones’s presence, at a general council convoked for conference with him, told the regency that they had no power to make treaties, or to enter into any stipulations with a foreign power, without the consent of Great Britain …”

“and even went so far as to warn the islanders that the steps they were then taking to establish a firm and lasting friendship with the United States, would assuredly bring upon them the wrath of the great and powerful nation which he represented.”

“In contrast with the exalted opinion which the Sandwich islanders held of the English nation, was the poor opinion which they had been taught to entertain of the United States.”

“[T]hey had been taught to believe ‘that the Americans were destitute of maritime force. The English,’ they say, ‘have men-of-war, but the Americans have only whalers and trading vessels.’”

“Under these circumstances, Captain Jones thought it indispensable to his success so to demean himself as to elevate, in the eyes of those islanders, the American character; and he was compelled to resort to expensive entertainments and presents, the invariable means of facilitating negotiations with an unlettered people …”

“Notwithstanding the difficulties which he had to encounter, Captain Jones was entirely successful. He negotiated a commercial arrangement with the authorities of the Sandwich islands, eminently beneficial to us, and he prevailed upon them to adopt a plan of raising a revenue to satisfy claims of our citizens, as novel and curious as it was successful.”

“These two measures were the first essay of those islanders in negotiation and legislation; and it is believed the success of them tended to no small extent to generate in them a feeling of independence and self-reliance; which alone, it is more than probable, has prevented these islands from being numbered, by this time, among the colonial possessions of Great Britain.”

“The one has ever been regarded by all nations having intercourse with these islanders as a solemn treaty; has been respected as such; and been made the basis of all similar arrangements entered into with them.”

“The other was so efficient as to secure to our citizens some $500,000, the recovery of which, until it was adopted, had been despaired of.”

(In an agreement between Jones and Kaahumanu (as Regent), Kalanimoku (as Prime Minister), Boki, Hoapili and Namahana, the debt was paid off via a tax where,

“Every man is to deliver half a pecul of good sandal-wood to the governor of the district to which he belongs [and] Every woman of the age of thirteen years or upwards, is to pay a mat, 12 feet long and 6 wide, or tapa of equal value, (to such a mat,) or the sum of one Spanish dollar”.

“After the public debts are paid, the remainder of the amount of this tax to be divided between the king and governors—one half to the regency, for the use of the king; and the other half to be divided between the governors, in proportion to the amount collected from each island.”)

“The importance of the Sandwich islands as a place of refuge for the refreshment and repair of our marine, is understood by all commercial men, and cannot well be overrated; and …”

“the services of Captain Jones, the pioneer in making those arrangements which have kept them open to our shipping, cannot be too highly estimated.”

“He deserves the gratitude of every man who values our South Sea commerce; and ought not to be permitted to suffer from pecuniary losses sustained in rendering such important services to his country.” (US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 28^th Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 92)

He “secured for himself among the people the designation of ‘the kind-eyed chief’ – a compliment falling on the ear of many of different classes”. (Hiram Bingham)

December 16, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Whaling Ship Anchor at +4,000 Feet?

The plaque inscription states, “Found by the salvage ship ‘USS Beaufort ATS-2’ in July 1972 off Lahaina, Maui. This anchor is believed to have been made around 1850 and used by one of the whaling ships of that era. Presented to the men of the Kilauea Military Camp by the officers and crew of USS Beaufort ATS-2”

The anchor was a gift, so it is appropriate wherever it is; likewise, the gift of a whaling anchor found off Lahaina (at a location 4,000-feet above the ocean) helps tell some of the stories of Hawai‘i’s military and economy – I think questioning why it’s there and looking into it a bit is helpful, and not something necessarily out of place.

The USS Beaufort (named for Beaufort, South Carolina) was the Navy’s largest and most capable submarine rescue and deep-ocean search-and-recovery ship. She was built in the late-1960s and commissioned on January 22, 1972 and spent most of her service in the Western Pacific. She was decommissioned on March 8, 1996.

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands. At that time, whale products were in high demand; whale oil was used for heating, lamps and in industrial machinery; whale bone was used in corsets, skirt hoops, umbrellas and buggy whips.

Whalers’ aversion to the traditional Hawaiian diet of fish and poi spurred new trends in farming and ranching. The sailors wanted fresh vegetables and the native Hawaiians turned the temperate uplands into vast truck farms.

There was a demand for fresh fruit, cattle, white potatoes and sugar. Hawaiians began growing a wider variety of crops to supply the ships.

In Hawaiʻi, several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour “on Japan,” “on the Northwest,” or into the Arctic.

The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years. For Hawaiian ports, the whaling fleet was the crux of the economy. More than 100 ships stopped in Hawaiian ports in 1824.

“At present the whale ships visit the Sandwich Islands in the months of March and April and then proceed to the coast of Japan, the return again in October and November remain here about six weeks, and then proceed in different directions …”

“… some to the Coast of California, others cruise about the Equator when they return thither again in March and April and proceed a second time to the Coast of Japan; it usually occupies two seasons on that coast to fill a ship that will carry Three Hundred Tons.” (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

“The number of hands generally comprising the Company of a whale ship will average Twenty Five; and owing to the want of discipline, the length and the ardourous duties of the voyage, these people generally become dissatisfied and are willing at any moment to join a rebellion or desert the first opportunity) that may offer …”

“… this has been fully exemplified in the whale ships that have visited these islands, constant disertions have taken place and many serious mutinies both contributing to protract and frequently ruin the voyage.” (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

The effect on Hawaiʻi’s economy, particularly in areas in reach of Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo, the main whaling ports, was dramatic and of considerable importance in the islands’ history. Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

Then, whaling came swiftly to an end. In 1859, oil was discovered and a well was developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry.

At volcano … in 1898, Lorrin Thurston owner of Volcano House and head of the Hawai‘i Promotion Committee (forerunner to the Hawai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau) worked closely with the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company to create an excursion business from Honolulu to his hotel at Kīlauea.

Although he sold his interest in Volcano House to hotelier George Lycurgus (1858–1960) in 1904, Thurston continued to promote Kīlauea and Hawai‘i’s other natural sites.

He helped with the establishment of the Hawaiʻi National Park, an entity to encompass both Kīlauea and Haleakalā. Hawai‘i’s new National Park, established August 1, 1916, was the thirteenth in the new system and the first in a US territory. (Chapman)

The history of the Park generally mirrors the history of Kīlauea Military Camp (KMC.) Interest in Kīlauea as a military training and rest area began in September 1911, when Companies A and F, Twentieth Infantry, arrived. They were followed two years later by one hundred men from Company D, First Infantry, who camped near the Volcano House. (Nakamura)

Thurston helped negotiate a lease for about 50-acres of land from Bishop Estate; trustees held the lease (they included Ex offico the Commander of the Army Department of Hawaii; Ex officio the Commanding General of the National Guard of Hawaii; Lieut Col John T. Moir, National Guard, Island of Hawaiʻi; GH Vicars of Hilo and LA Thurston of Honolulu and Hilo).

In the early years, to get there, off-island folks took steamer ships to either Hilo or Punaluʻu (from Hilo they caught a train to Glenwood and walked/rode horses to Volcano. From Ka‘ū, a five-mile railroad took passengers to Pahala and then coaches hauled the visitors to the volcano. Later, the roads opened.

The Kilauea Military Camp is located at an elevation of 4,000-feet, directly on the belt road around the island (the road was later relocated mauka of the Camp.)

KMC greeted its first group of US Army Soldiers from Company A, 2nd Infantry, November 6, 1916. Three buildings for dining and recreation were still unfinished, so the visiting Soldiers were expected to provide their own sleeping tents. A couple weeks later, November 17, KMC was officially opened, and many Soldiers came to this unique site.

Then, WWI broke out and virtually all of the troops in Hawai‘i had transferred to the continental US, many of them then moving on in succeeding months to the trenches of France and Belgium. (Chapman)

To keep the place going, school summer programs and Boy Scouts stayed at the camp. Following WWI, the trustees transferred their KSBE lease to the Park Service. By late-1921, soldiers on recreation leave started to return to the Camp and the facilities started to expand.

As part of the original agreement, the Navy built its own rest and recreation camp on a 14-acre parcel adjacent to KMC in 1926. The Navy camp was transferred to KMC’s control in 1935. (KMC)

On July 1, 1961, Hawaiʻi National Park’s units were separated and re-designated as Haleakalā National Park and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. The relationship between the military and Park Service was not always smooth.

Today, Kīlauea Military Camp is open to all active and retired armed forces, Reserve/National Guard, dependents, other uniformed services, and current and retired Department of Defense civilians, including Coast Guard civilians and sponsored guests.

September 28, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819. The family name was Melvill, and he added the “e” to the name. His father was a merchant from New England. His mother came from an old, socially prominent New York Dutch family.

Melville lived his first 11 years in New York City. After the collapse of the family’s import business in 1830 and Allan Melvill’s death in 1832, Herman’s oldest brother, Gansevoort, assumed responsibility for the family and took over his father’s business.

After two years as a bank clerk and some months working on the farm of his uncle, Thomas Melvill, Herman joined his brother in the business. About this time, Herman’s branch of the family altered the spelling of its name.

Inexperienced and now poor, Melville tried a variety of jobs between 1832 and 1841. He was a clerk in his brother’s hat store in Albany, worked in his uncle’s bank, taught school near Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

In 1839, at the age of 20, Melville took his first voyage across the Atlantic sea as a cabin boy on the merchant ship the St. Lawrence. After this expedition and a year exploring the West, Melville joined the crew of the whaling ship Acushnet in January of 1841.

He later sailed for a year and a half aboard the Acushnet; Melville and a fellow seaman deserted the ship, only to be captured by cannibals in the Marquesas Islands, the Typee. But the natives turned out to be gentle hosts.

More than five months after deserting the Acushnet, Melville’s adventures were not over. He later joined the crew of whaler Charles and Henry, where he worked as harpooner.

When the Charles and Henry anchored in Maui Island five months later in April of 1843, Melville took up work as a clerk and bookkeeper in a general store in Honolulu.

On August 17, 1843, he enlisted as a seaman on the frigate “United States,” flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron.

His four years during his twenties (1841-1845) working on whaling ships provided him with material for his first three novels. Melville was also able to communicate the fear and terror of a whale hunt, a feat that would make his greatest work, Moby Dick, a literary tribute to the whaling industry.

Melville returned to his mother’s house determined to write about his adventures. His subsequent writings borrowed from his own experiences as well as other peoples’ fantastic stories that he heard during his travels.

The books that recounted his experiences and made his reputation were Typee (1846); Omoo (1847); Mardi (1849), a complex symbolic romance set in the South Seas; Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850).

Melville then began Moby-Dick, another “whaling voyage,” as he called it, similar to his successful travel books. He had almost completed the book when he met Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, etc.) Hawthorne inspired him to radically revise the whaling documentary into a novel of both universal significance and literary complexity.

Melville had a brief stay in Hawaiʻi.

In 1843, he spent four months in Hawaiʻi; at some point early in his stay he worked in a Honolulu bowling alley as a pinsetter. He also spent time beachcombing in Lāhainā.

He describes surfing in passages of Mardi and a Voyage Thither (his first pure fiction work – reportedly based on his travels linked to his brief stay in the Islands:)
“Past the break in the reef, wide banks of coral shelve off, creating the bar where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water bolts that shake the whole reef till its very spray trembles. And then is it that the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf.”

“For this sport a surfboard is indispensable, some five feet in length, the width of a man’s body, convex on both sides, highly polished, and rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation, invariably oiled after use, and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.”

“Ranged on the beach, the bathers by hundreds dash in and, diving under the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that suits.”

“Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed both increasing till it races along a watery wall like the smooth, awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo, every limb in motion to preserve their place on the very crest of the wave.”

“Should they fall behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted and thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over the steed they ride. ’Tis like charging at the head of cavalry; you must on.”

“An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank, now half striding it and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the scud, coming on like a man in the air.”

“At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts like a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out and, like seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.” (Herman Melville)

Melville died September 28, 1891. (The inspiration and information, here, is primarily from pbs-org)

August 26, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

James Colnett

Captain James Cook set sail on three voyages to the South Seas. His first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on May 27, 1768. It had three aims; go to Tahiti to record the transit of Venus (when Venus passes between the earth and sun – June 3, 1769;) record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks; and search for the Great South Land.

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

“Every Fighting Service has, and must have, two main categories – ‘Officers’ and ‘Men.’ The Royal Navy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was no exception. The distinction existed: was indeed more than ordinarily marked. It was not only a naval distinction, but a sharp social one too.”

“‘Officers’ as contemporary society used that word, came from one walk of life, ‘Men’ from another: and, as it was not easy in Society to pass from a lower stratum to a higher, so in the Navy, it was not easy for a ‘Man’ to become an Officer. But it was possible.” (Captain Cook Society)

“Cook had chosen his subordinates well or had been lucky. The officers of the third voyage were a remarkably intelligent group of men.” (Captain Cook Society)

“All the great remaining voyages of the eighteenth century drew on Cook’s officers. Bligh, Portlock, Vancouver, Colnett, Riou, and Hergest all got their commands and served with great distinction. These men then passed on their skills to a second generation of men such as Flinders and Broughton.” (Mackay, Captain Cook Society)

James Colnett was born in 1753 at Plymouth, England; the Colnett family was originally from the Stepney district of East London.

His father, James Colnett senior, was in the Royal Navy and this took him and the family to Plymouth and Portsmouth. His father died in 1760. James Jr’s mother, Sarah, was left to bring up the four children alone.

The younger James began his naval career on June 28, 1770 as an able seaman on the Hazard, a small sloop. On September 4, 1771, he became a midshipman on HMS Scorpion under James Cook and transferred to the Resolution when Cook was readying for his second Pacific voyage.

Colnett served as midshipman throughout Cook’s second voyage from 1772 until 1775. Colnett was the first European to sight New Caledonia, and Cook named Cape Colnett and Mount Colnett commemorated that sighting.

One of his midshipman colleagues, John Elliott, later described Colnett as ‘Clever and Sober’.

After Cook’s voyage, Colnett was appointed to the Juno, a 5th rank, as gunner on January 1, 1776. He was then appointed master of the Adventure during the War of American Independence before passing for lieutenant on February 4, 1779. Ten days later he was appointed third lieutenant of the Bienfaisant, a 3rd rank, remaining on that ship until 1783.

In one of his journals, he provides advice on passage around Cape Horn (south of South America), “I have doubled Cape Horn in different seasons …”

“… but were I to make another voyage to this part of the globe, and could command my time, I would most certainly prefer the beginning of winter, or even winter itself, with moon-light nights; for, in that season, the winds begin to vary to the Eastward; as I found them, and as Captain, now Admiral, Macbride, observed at the Falkland Isles.”

“Another error, which, in my opinion, the commanders of vessels bound round Cape Horn commit, is, by keeping between the Falkland Isles and the main, and through the Straits Le Maire …”

“… which not only lengthens the distance, but subjects them to an heavy, irregular sea, occasioned by the rapidity of the current and tides in that channel, which may be avoided, by passing to the Eastward.”

“At the same time, I would recommend them to keep near the coast of Staten Land, and Terra del Fuego, because the winds are more variable, in with the shore, than at a long offing. …”

“If the navigation round Cape Horn should ever become common, such, a place we must possess; and agreeable to the last convention with Spain, we are entitled to keep possession of it, and apply it to any purpose of peace or war. Great advantages might arise from such a settlement.” (Colnett)

In 1785, a London merchant, Richard Cadman Etches, had formed the King George’s Sound Company to send ships to the Northwest coast of North America to exploit the sea otter pelt trade.

Two ships, the King George and the Queen Charlotte, had already been dispatched in 1785 under the command of Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon and it was now proposed to send another two ships.

Colnett had been in discussions with Etches and, having obtained permission from the Admiralty for extended leave of absence, he took command of the expedition and the Prince of Wales, the larger ship. Charles Duncan was appointed to command the Princess Royal consort vessel.

The ships left Britain in October 1786 and spent the summer of 1787 trading in the Queen Charlotte Islands and the adjacent mainland. The two ships then sailed in August 1788 for Hawai‘i. The traders had usually wintered at the Hawaiian islands.

It was then, in what appears is the first reference and suggestion that Pacific captains should hire Hawaiians to their crew. In his journal, Colnett suggested, “If you can procure a hardy willing fellow from Isles [Hawai‘i] to embark with you to increase your strength …”

He also provides other observations about the Hawaiian, “You will in the winter Season send what Vessels you Judge proper to the Sandwich Isles for Provisions …”

“… and in their return we imagine that some of the Natives of those Isles both men and women may be embark’d and transplanted to America and made useful in our employ. This must be done by their own consent and with every precaution with regard to their health as well as happiness.” (Colnett)

Colnett had been away for five and a half years during which time his mother had died in 1790. A codicil to her will was witnessed by Nathaniel Portlock, who had led the other Etches expedition to the Pacific.

The Pacific sperm-whaling industry began with the 1789–90 voyage of the Emelia out of England. Prompted by that voyage’s success, the Emelia’s owners commissioned James Colnett in 1793 to take the Rattler to the Pacific Ocean to discover exactly where and when sperm whales congregated and to discover suitable ports and anchorages that British whalers could use.

Colnett’s narrative of the voyage was published in 1798 together with a series of charts. Colnett’s voyage opened up the South Pacific whale fishery.

Sperm oil, used in lamps, and spermaceti (a waxy substance found in the head cavities of the sperm whale), used in candles, fueled the eighteenth-century lighting revolution, inside homes and outside on public thoroughfares.

James Colnett died on September 1, 1806, at his lodgings in Great Ormond Street, London. He was buried on September 6 in St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney. (Information here is from A Voyage to the South Atlantic and around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, Colnett; New Histories of Pacific Whaling, Jones & Wanhalla; Captain Cook Society)

July 24, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawai‘i Enters the Global Economy

Beginning well before 1600, the North American fur trade was the earliest global economic enterprise. The North American fur trade was a response to declining populations of fur-bearing animals in Western Europe and the cost of purchasing and importing furs from Russia.

Eventually, all of the North American colonies, even the Carolinas, produced some furs for markets in Europe, and there was a lively trade in furs and deer hides out of Louisiana, but the best furs were to be obtained north of the Great Lakes.

Then, from 1775-1783, war was waging on the eastern side of the continent. The main result was an American victory and European recognition of the independence of the United States.

When US independence closed the colonial trade routes within the British empire, the merchantmen and whalers of New England swarmed around the Horn (around southern Africa), in search of new markets and sources of supply.

Supplying Explorers and Traders

The opening of the China trade was the first and most spectacular result of this enterprise; the establishment of trading relations with Hawai‘i followed shortly.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China. The fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

The Hawaiian Islands first entered the international economic scene in the latter-18th century when its ports and favorable climate made the Islands an ideal winter harbor and stopover for merchant ships, whalers and explorers’ vessels who needed to replenish food and water supplies, or make necessary repairs. (Duncan)

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i for refreshment and recreation.

Fur trading on the coast remained profitable from the 1780s into the 1820s, but the successful trade in furs depended entirely on the locale. Some parts of the coast, such as Nootka Sound and Clayoquot Sound, witnessed a complete collapse of the sea otter population after only a decade of intense hunting. (Igler)

Sandalwood

Sandalwood (ʻiliahi) has been highly prized and in great demand through the ages; its use for incense is part of the ritual of Buddhism. Chinese used the fragrant heart wood for incense, medicinal purposes, for architectural details and carved objects.

Sandalwood was first recognized as a commercial product in Hawai‘i in 1791 by Captain Kendrick of the Lady Washington, when he instructed sailors to collect cargo of sandalwood. From that point on, it became a source of wealth in the islands, until its supply was ultimately exhausted.

It was not until the opening years of the 19th that the sandalwood business became a recognized branch of trade. Trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s; by 1805 it had become an important export item.

Sandalwood trade was a turning point in Hawai‘i, especially related to its economic structure. It moved Hawai‘i from a self-sufficient economy to a commercial economy. This started a series of other economic and export activities across the islands.

In 1811, an agreement between Boston ship captains and Kamehameha I established a monopoly on sandalwood exports, with Kamehameha receiving 25% of the profits. As trade and shipping brought Hawaiʻi into contact with a wider world, it also enabled the acquisition of Western goods, including arms and ammunition.

Between about 1810 and 1820, the major item of Hawaiian trade was sandalwood. Sandalwood, geography and fresh provisions made the Islands a vital link in a closely articulated trade route between Boston, the Northwest Coast, and Canton, China.

By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed. Hawaiian forests were exhausted and sandalwood from India and other areas in the Pacific drove down the price in China and made the Hawaiian trade unprofitable.

Whaling

From the 16th century through the 19th century, whale oil was used principally as lamp fuel and for producing soap. (Britannica)

The over-fishing of “on shore” New England whales in the 1700s forced local whalers to venture “offshore”, journeying further west in search of their lucrative prey.

The first New England whalers rounded Cape Horn in 1791, and fished off both the Chilean and Peruvian coasts. Many sailed around South America and onward to Japan and the Arctic.

In 1819, the New Bedford whaler Balaena (also called Balena,) and the Nantucket whaler Equator became the first American whalers to visit Hawai‘i. A year later, Captain Joseph Allen discovered large concentrations of sperm whales off the coast of Japan, setting off an exodus of whalers to this area.

These ships might have sought provisions in Japan, except that Japanese ports were closed to foreign ships. So Hawaiian ports became the major ports of call for whalers. (NPS)

When whaling was strong in the Pacific (starting in 1819 and running to 1859,) Hawaiʻi’s central location between America and Japan whaling grounds brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

The whaling industry had a major effect upon Hawaiian commerce and trade. As the Northwest fur trade decreased and sandalwood supplies and values dropped, the whaling industry began to fill the economic void.

Whaling had been “an economic force of awesome proportions in these Islands for more than forty years,” enabling King Kamehameha III to finally pay off the national debts accumulated in earlier years. (NPS)

Sugar

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

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. Others later made rum from the sugarcane.

But beer and rum were not a typical sugar use. Since it was a crop that produced a choice food product that could be shipped to distant markets, its culture on a field scale was started in about 1800. Hawaiʻi had the basic natural resources needed to grow sugar: land, sun and water.

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

What encouraged the development of plantations in Hawaiʻi? For one, the gold rush and settlement of California opened a lucrative market. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

In addition, the Treaty of Reciprocity-1875 between the US and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.

For nearly a century, agriculture was the state’s leading economic activity. It provided Hawai‘i’s major sources of employment, tax revenues and new capital through exports of raw sugar and other farm products. The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. (However, a majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.)

As an economic entity, sugar gradually replaced sandalwood and whaling in the mid‐19th century and became the principal industry in the islands, until it was succeeded by the visitor industry in 1960.

Pineapple

Christopher Columbus brought pineapple, native of South America, back to Europe as one of the exotic prizes of the New World. (‘Pineapple’ was given its English name because of its resemblance to a pine cone.)

Although sugar dominated the Hawaiian economy, there was also great demand at the time for fresh Hawaiian pineapples in San Francisco, and, later, canned pineapple.

The first profitable lot of canned pineapples in Hawai‘i was produced by Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1903 and the industry grew rapidly from there. (Bartholomew)

The demand for canned pineapples grew exponentially in the US and in 1922, a revolutionary period in the history of Hawaiian pineapple; Dole bought the island of Lanai and established a vast 200,000-acre pineapple plantation to meet the growing demands.

Lanai throughout the entire 20th century produced more than 75% of world’s total pineapple. More land on the island of Maui was purchased by Dole.

Then, pineapple production on O‘ahu began a steady decline. In 1991, the Dole Cannery closed. The Dole Plantation tourist attraction, established in 1950 as a small fruit stand but greatly expanded in 1989 serves as a living museum and historical archive of Dole and pineapple in Hawai‘i.

Crossroads of the Pacific

As trade and commerce expanded across the Pacific, numerous countries were looking for faster passage and many looked to Nicaragua and Panama in Central America for possible dredging of a canal as a shorter, safer passage between the two Oceans.

Finally, in 1881, France started construction of a canal through the Panama isthmus. By 1899, after thousands of deaths (primarily due to yellow fever) and millions of dollars, they abandoned the project and sold their interest to the United States.

After Panamanian independence from Columbia in 1903, the US restarted construction of the canal in 1905. “The opening of the canal will increase Hawaii’s importance as a coaling and general calling station.”

“Tremendous new cargoes of supplies that will cross the Pacific, because of the canal, will need shelter and protection at a common port of supply – Honolulu.” (Hawai‘i Historical Review)

In 1912, this strategy and declaration was claimed in an article in ‘Paradise of the Pacific’ that Hawaiʻi was truly deserving of the name, “Crossroads of the Pacific”.

Before the Panama Canal was ‘officially’ opened for commerce (the canal officially opened on August 15, 1914), “The first commercial business handled by the canal was a shipload of sugar from Hawaii.” It was also “the first continuous ocean-to-ocean trip through the Panama Canal by any vessel.”

The first cargo ship passing westward through the Panama Canal to call at Honolulu was the American Hawaiian Steamship Company’s SS Missourian commanded by Captain Wm. Lyons, on September 16, 1914.

Visitor Industry

Hawai‘i’s first accommodations for transients were established sometime after 1810, when Don Francisco de Paula 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.”

In the late-1890s, with additional steamships to Honolulu, the visitor arrivals to Oʻahu were increasing. When Hawaiʻi became a US territory (June 14, 1900,) it was drawing cruise ship travelers to the islands; they needed a place to stay.

By 1918, Hawai‘i had 8,000 visitors annually, and by the 1920s Matson Navigation Company ships were bringing an increasing number of wealthy visitors. This prompted a massive addition to the Moana. In 1918, two floors were added along with concrete wings on each side, doubling the size of the hotel.

Between 1950 and 1974, domestic and international visitor numbers shot up to more than 2-million from less than 50,000. Statehood and the arrival of jet-liner air travel brought unprecedented expansion and construction, in Waikīkī and across the Islands.

On March 21, 1927, Hawai‘i’s first airport was established in Honolulu and dedicated to Rodgers. 1959 brought two significant actions that shaped the present day make-up of Hawai‘i, (1) Statehood and (2) jet-liner service between the mainland US and Honolulu (Pan American Airways Boeing 707.) The Visitor Industry remains the primary economic force in the Islands.

A total of 10,424,995 visitors came to Hawaii in 2019 (another record number). That’s more than seven times the state’s population. Tourism represents roughly a quarter of Hawai‘i’s economy.

Resident concerns and impacts of COVID have shifted Hawai‘i Tourism Authority’s focus with more emphasis to address tourism’s impacts. This shift recognizes the need for tourism to provide both a quality visitor experience and enhanced quality of life for Hawai‘i residents.

Plans now call for re-balancing attention from mainly marketing to greater emphasis on ‘destination management’ and support for culture, community and multicultural programs, and natural resources. (HTA Strategic Plan)

Click HERE for an expanded discussion on Hawai‘i and its role in the global economy.