The beginning of Hawaii
Hawaii is said to have been named after Hawaiʻiloa, the legendary Polynesian navigator who first discovered it. Other accounts attribute the name to the legendary realm of Hawaiki, a place from which some Polynesian people are said to have originated, the place where they transition to in the afterlife, or the realm of the gods and goddesses.
Hawaiʻi [həˈvɐjʔi] or [həˈwɐjʔi]) is a state in the Western United States, about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the U.S. mainland in the Pacific Ocean. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state in the tropics.
Hawaii comprises nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago, 137 volcanic islands spanning 1,500 miles (2,400 km) that are physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania.The state’s ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.S., at about 750 miles (1,210 km).
The eight main islands, from northwest to southeast, are Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and Hawaiʻi—the last of these, after which the state is named, is often called the “Big Island” or “Hawaii Island” to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago.
Shaping of the Islands
The Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanic activity initiated at an undersea magma source called the Hawaiʻi hotspot. The process is continuing to build islands; the tectonic plate beneath much of the Pacific Ocean continually moves northwest and the hotspot remains stationary, slowly creating new volcanoes.
Because of the hotspot’s location, all active land volcanoes are on the southern half of Hawaiʻi Island. The newest volcano, Kamaʻehuakanaloa (formerly Lōʻihi), is south of the coast of Hawaiʻi Island.
The last volcanic eruption outside Hawaiʻi Island occurred at Haleakalā on Maui before the late 18th century, possibly hundreds of years earlier.
In 1790, Kīlauea exploded; it was the deadliest eruption known to have occurred in the modern era in what is now the United States.Up to 5,405 warriors and their families marching on Kīlauea were killed by the eruption.
Volcanic activity and subsequent erosion have created impressive geological features. Hawaii Island has the second-highest point among the world’s islands.
Human History in Hawaii
Based on archaeological evidence, the earliest habitation of the Hawaiian Islands dates to around 1000–1200 CE, probably by Polynesian settlers from the Marquesas Islands.
A second wave of migration from Raiatea and Bora Bora took place in the 11th century. The date of the human discovery and habitation of the Hawaiian Islands is the subject of academic debate.
Some archaeologists and historians think it was a later wave of immigrants from Tahiti around 1000 CE who introduced a new line of high chiefs, the kapu system, the practice of human sacrifice, and the building of heiau.
This later immigration is detailed in Hawaiian mythology (moʻolelo) about Paʻao. Other authors say there is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a later influx of Tahitian settlers and that Paʻao must be regarded as a myth.
The islands’ history is marked by a slow, steady growth in population and the size of the chiefdoms, which grew to encompass whole islands.
Local chiefs, called aliʻi, ruled their settlements, and launched wars to extend their influence and defend their communities from predatory rivals. Ancient Hawaiʻi was a caste-based society, much like that of Hindus in India.
Population growth was facilitated by ecological and agricultural practices that combined upland agriculture (manuka), ocean fishing (makai), fishponds and gardening systems
First Euro Contact
Early British influence can be seen in the design of the flag of Hawaiʻi, which bears the Union Jack in the top-left corner. Cook named the archipelago “the Sandwich Islands” in honor of his sponsor John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, publishing the islands’ location and rendering the native name as Owyhee.
The form “Owyhee” or “Owhyhee” is preserved in the names of certain locations in the American part of the Pacific Northwest, among them Owyhee County and Owyhee Mountains in Idaho, named after three native Hawaiian members of a trapping party who went missing in the area.
Captain James Cook (1728-1779) led three separate voyages (1768-1779) to chart unknown areas of the globe for Great Britain. On his third voyage he encountered Hawaii, first sighting the islands on 18 January 1778.
He anchored off the coast of Kauai and met with the local inhabitants to trade and obtain water and food for his continued voyage. On 2 February 1778, Cook continued on to the coast of the North American continent, searching for a Northwest Passage for approximately nine months.
He returned to the Hawaii chain to resupply, initially exploring the coasts of Maui and Hawaii Island to trade. He anchored in Kealakekua Bay in January 1779.
After departing Kealakekua, he returned in February 1779 after a ship’s mast broke in bad weather.
On the night of 13 February, while Cook’s expedition lay anchored in the bay, Hawaiians stole one of his only two longboats (lifeboats used to ferry to/from ship/shore).
In retaliation, Cook tried to kidnap the aliʻi nui of Hawaii Island, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. On 14 February 1779 Cook confronted an angry crowd. Kanaʻina approached Cook, who reacted by striking the royal attendant with the broad side of his sword.
Kanaʻina picked up the navigator and dropped him while another attendant, Nuaa, killed Cook with a knife.
More in depth Telling of Cooke’s Murder
As the weeks went on, Cook’s men outstayed their welcome. It reached its peak when one of Cook’s men struck down a Native Hawaiian with an oar. Although he soon recovered, his fellow Hawaiians already had Cook and his crew cornered in the surf, where they were pelting them with rocks.
Yet eventually it cooled off with no major violence. However, Cook, who did not witness the scene, decided on February 14, 1779, to go on the offensive. He got his gun and armed a few of his men and went into the village of Kowrowa where the King of Hawai’i was.
He attempted to take the King by force, but the Hawaiians resisted. A Hawaiian nobleman was shot, and Cook and his men were driven back to the shore. It was there in the shallows of the water that Cook was bludgeoned and stabbed to death.
The obelisk was set up as a memorial by his fellow countrymen in 1878, on land that, while still technically part of the United States, is owned by the British. A small plaque in the surf marks the exact spot where Cook is believed to have died.
Just behind the obelisk in the forest are the ruins of the ancient village of Kaawaloa, a sort of inverse memorial to the Hawai’i that changed after the arrival of outsiders that was marked by Cook’s visit.
The obelisk is understandably disliked by many Hawaiians, who see it as a tribute to a man who invaded their islands and whose presence forever changed Hawai’i’s character.
In 1877, Hawaiian Princess Miriam Likelike deeded a 5,682-square-foot parcel near the spot where Cook fell to England for $1 with the stipulation that it be used “to keep and maintain…a monument in memory of Captain Cook.” Walk up to the 27-foot white obelisk, and you’ll be on British soil.
First American Contact
In 1820 the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaii, sent a year earlier by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Led by Hiram Bingham, the board organized missionaries in 1819 to travel to Hawaii aboard the Thaddeus.
Bingham and the missionaries were appalled by the Native Hawaiians lack of clothing and believed them to be less than human. Kamehameha II was cautious and allowed only half the party to settle in Honolulu and the other half to remain close to him on the big island.
Eventually the monarch allowed a trial period of one year for the missionaries to remain in the islands. The missionaries urged Hawaiian rulers to adopt Christianity.
The ali’i were suspicious of the missionaries at first but slowly began to trust them.The missionaries advised the monarchs on everything from politics to social ethics from their Puritan perspective.
The families of several missionaries became wealthy and their descendants were able to launch businesses and establish plantations in the islands.
According to “The Friend” (Honolulu publication) from the turn of the twentieth century, there were 91 sons and 73 daughters of missionaries with 101 grandsons and 73 granddaughters living in Hawaii.
This was an estimated 1/20 of the white population of Hawaii at the time (a figure that excluded the Portuguese population).
It was common to refer to the entire white population as “the missionary party” and it was a common belief that they ruled the islands having leading positions in society. The missionary publication The Missionary Review of the World (1900) states; “They form the best element of the population of Hawaii”.
The missionary party was heavily involved in land and labor issues but were not able to gain control over government foreign affairs. Most of them were U.S. citizens that were already in constant communications with the US as well as continuous trading.
They controlled all aspects of media, business and politics in Hawaii. After teaming up with the U.S. Republican Party and the U.S. Navy there was little left to exploit.
A campaign of brainwashing followed to convince Hawaiians that the U.S. was the legitimate ruler and that they were, in fact, Americans, according to Dallas Carter.
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian: Ke Aupūni o Hawai‘i), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island of Hawaiʻi, conquered the independent islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi and unified them under one government.
In 1810, the whole Hawaiian archipelago became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Hawaiian Kingdom voluntarily. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom: the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.
The kingdom won recognition from the major European powers. The United States became its chief trading partner and watched over it to prevent other powers (such as Britain and Japan) from asserting hegemony.
In 1887 King Kalākaua was forced to accept a new constitution in a coup by the Honolulu Rifles, an anti-monarchist militia. Queen Liliʻuokalani, who succeeded Kalākaua in 1891, tried to abrogate the new constitution.
Hawaiʻi was briefly an independent republic until the U.S. illegally annexed it through the Newlands Resolution on July 4, 1898, which created the Territory of Hawaiʻi.
United States Public Law 103-150 of 1993 (known as the Apology Resolution), acknowledged that “the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States” and also “that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands, either through the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi or through a plebiscite or referendum.”
Becoming an American Territory (Newlands Resolution)
In 1897, US President William McKinley signed a treaty of annexation for the Republic of Hawaii which lacked 2/3 support in the Senate and thus never went into effect. In April 1898, the United States went to war with Spain.
The Republic of Hawaii decided not to support the war effort and declared its neutrality.
According to Ralph S. Kuykendall, “The Hawaiian government threw aside its neutrality and did all it could to aid the Americans….Honolulu became a mid-ocean stopover for the United States troops that were sent across the Pacific to follow up Dewey’s victory. The American soldiers were enthusiastically welcomed and given a taste of Hawaiian hospitality.”
Hawaii’s support demonstrated its value as a naval base in wartime and won widespread American approval for its help.
With the opposition weakened, Hawaii was annexed by the Newlands Resolution, by way of Congressional-executive agreement method, which requires only a majority vote in both houses. Although the bill was authored by a Democrat, most of its support came from Republicans.
It passed the house by a vote of 209 to 91; supporters included 182 Republicans. It passed the Senate by a two-thirds majority vote of 42–21. It was approved on July 4, 1898, and signed on July 7 by McKinley.
On August 12, a ceremony was held on the steps of ʻIolani Palace to signify the official transfer of Hawaiian state sovereignty to the United States. Some Hawaiian citizens did not recognize the event’s legitimacy and did not attend.
The Kamehameha Dynasty was the reigning monarchy of the Hawaiian Kingdom, beginning with its founding by Kamehameha I in 1795, until the death of Kamehameha V in 1872 and Lunalilo in 1874. On July 6, 1846, U.S. Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, on behalf of President Tyler, formally recognized Hawaii’s independence under the reign of Kamehameha III.
As a result of the recognition of Hawaiian independence, the Hawaiian Kingdom entered into treaties with the major nations of the world and established over ninety legations and consulates in multiple seaports and cities. The kingdom would continue for another 21 years until its overthrow in 1893 with the fall of the House of Kalākaua.
The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a coup d’état against Queen Liliʻuokalani, which took place on January 17, 1893, on the island of Oahu and led by the Committee of Safety, composed of seven foreign residents and six non-aboriginal Hawaiian Kingdom subjects of American descent in Honolulu.
The Committee prevailed upon American minister John L. Stevens to call in the U.S. Marines to protect the national interest of the United States of America. The insurgents established the Republic of Hawaii, but their ultimate goal was the annexation of the islands to the United States, which occurred in 1898.
The Organic Act and Hawaii’s first Congressional Delegate
The Hawaiian Islands were an independent kingdom until American businessmen, supported by a diplomat and U.S. Marines, overthrew Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. Forming a provisional government, the victors requested annexation to the United States.
After initial annexation efforts failed, Congress passed the Newlands Resolution to annex Hawaii in 1898. Congress approved an Organic Act in 1900 to give Hawaii territorial status and provide a territorial government.
The Organic Act permitted Hawaii one nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Hawaii’s first delegate, Robert W. Wilcox, served from 1900 to 1903.
The Hawaiian Language
To the missionaries, the thorough Christianization of the kingdom necessitated a complete translation of the Bible to Hawaiian, a previously unwritten language, and therefore the creation of a standard spelling that should be as easy to master as possible.
The orthography created by the missionaries was so straightforward that literacy spread very quickly among the adult population; at the same time, the Mission set more and more schools for children.
Headline from May 16, 1834, issue of newspaper published by Lorrin Andrews and students at Lahainaluna School
In 1834, the first Hawaiian-language newspapers were published by missionaries working with locals. The missionaries also played a significant role in publishing a vocabulary (1836) grammar (1854) and dictionary (1865) of Hawaiian.
The Hawaiian Bible was fully completed in 1839; by then, the Mission had such a wide-reaching school network that, when in 1840 it handed it over to the Hawaiian government, the Hawaiian Legislature mandated compulsory state-funded education for all children under 14 years of age, including girls, twelve years before any similar compulsory education law was enacted for the first time in any of the United States.
In 1896, the Republic of Hawaii established English as the official language in schools.The number of native speakers of Hawaiian gradually decreased during the period from the 1830s to the 1950s. English essentially displaced Hawaiian on six of seven inhabited islands. In 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to less than 0.1% of the statewide population.
Linguists were unsure if Hawaiian and other endangered languages would survive.
Nevertheless, from around 1949 to the present day, there has been a gradual increase in attention to and promotion of the language. Public Hawaiian-language immersion preschools called Pūnana Leo were established in 1984; other immersion schools followed soon after that.
The first students to start in immersion preschool have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers. However, the language is still classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.
A creole language, Hawaiian Pidgin (or Hawaii Creole English, HCE), is more commonly spoken in Hawaiʻi than Hawaiian. Some linguists, as well as many locals, argue that Hawaiian Pidgin is a dialect of American English.
Born from the increase of immigrants from Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Korea, Portugal, Spain and the Philippines, the pidgin creole language was a necessity in the plantations. Hawaiian and immigrant laborers as well as the white luna, or overseers, found a way to communicate amongst themselves.
Pidgin eventually made its way off the plantation and into the greater community, where it is still used to this day.
The Name of the Language
The initial “O” in the name “Oh-Why-hee” is a reflection of the fact that Hawaiian predicates unique identity by using a copula form, ʻo, immediately before a proper noun.Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying ʻO Hawaiʻi, which means “[This] is Hawaiʻi.”The Cook expedition also wrote “Otaheite” rather than “Tahiti.”
The spelling “why” in the name reflects the [ʍ] pronunciation of wh in 18th-century English (still used in parts of the English-speaking world). Why was pronounced [ʍai]. The spelling “hee” or “ee” in the name represents the sounds [hi], or [i].
Putting the parts together, O-why-(h)ee reflects [o-hwai-i], a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, [ʔo həwɐiʔi].
American missionaries bound for Hawaiʻi used the phrases “Owhihe Language” and “Owhyhee language” in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and during their five-month voyage to Hawaiʻi. They still used such phrases as late as March 1822.However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase “Hawaiian Language.”
Work Cited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hawaii
https://www.mauiaccommodations.com/blog/20-quirky-facts-about-hawaii/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_language
https://www.hawaiianairlines.com/trip-planning-guide/10-interesting-facts-about-hawaii
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newlands_Resolution
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/captain-cook-monument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Safety_(Hawaii)
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