Paste Jakahi 1
Cole Jakahi
Mr. Ayumu Yokota
29 September 2018
A Century of Change
Hawaii: a colonized archipelago of different Pacific ethnicities and cultures unified by Kamehameha I, progressively ravaged by the politically ambitious negotiations established by his own monarchical successors, coupled with the detriment of foreign influences and their own personal economic interests, and the latter repurposing of the islands as an operational commercial and military territory for the United States. Contemporary Hawaii was valued for its location during WWII, and is most recently mainstreamed as a popular destination for tourism, nicknamed the “Paradise of the Pacific”, due to its unique culture, landmarks, and geography. However, the history of these contributing components to Hawaiian culture are mostly disregarded in the 21st Century. The societal heritage of the Hawaiian Islands was historically affected due to the introduction of foreign emigrants and ideologies, a prior source that related to several significant events that existed during the Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties, including the abolishment of the kapu system, the Mahele, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, and the Bayonet Constitution, which resulted into many ongoing social, political, and economic effects that overall advanced the overthrow and annexation of Hawaii and its monarchy within the span of over a hundred years.
During the existence of Hawaii’s subsistence economy and societal infrastructure, immigration was considered unknown, and the small Hawaiian census coupled with an advanced instinct and knowledge of agricultural maintenance allowed for enough sustenance and resources for the native population. This changed in 1778 when Captain James Cook of England discovered Hawaii, leading to the beginning of Western influences on the lives of the citizens of Hawaii. The kapu system, implemented by Kamehameha I during his reign to maintain control and governance of the maka’ainana (commoners), was the traditional polytheistic religion and code of conduct that helped to distribute the social hierarchy of Hawaii, and consequently establish the economy of the country. Lower social classes were indoctrinated and threatened to obey the kapu, otherwise they would be committing injustice against the gods and stealing their spiritual mana religiously provided to the ali’i, which was commonly penalized through death. This was later changed when commoners realized breaking kapu had no effect against them, as well as when Kamehameha died, and his son, Liholiho, and two prominent female chiefs, Ka’ahumanu and Keōpūolani, insisted the abolishment of the kapu, which they symbolically nullified by breaking one of the most sacred, important commandments of the kapu, aī nōa, their most common eating rules. This resulted into the abandonment of many religious practices, political rules, and cultural traditions. Later, the first American missionaries arrived in 1820, and began influencing the Hawaiian citizens through socially revising their language, education, religion, and culture. The foreigners had helped natives to convert Christianity into Hawaiian culture, by assisting the ali’i to outlaw several Hawaiian traditions, including the hula, the chant, and other native practices. The Hawaiian monarchy substituted the regulations of the kapu, with the political system of foreigners that divided the social hierarchy of the country, making them illegal to practice. This also led Hawaiians to become dependent on their resources, and encouraged the eventual subjugation of their cultivated subsistence economy.
The ratification of the Mahele during Kamehameha III’s sovereignty in 1848 subsequently occurred after the abolition of the kapu, and later Hawaii’s communal agriculture economy. The Mahele was a land redistribution proposal that supposedly compromised suffrage, private land ownership, and allodial title recognition accommodated between commoners and foreigners, due to the increasing popularity of industrial production and immigration within the islands. Under the intervention of foreigners, Kamehameha III established the subdivision of the kuleana ahupua’a, allocating the lands into thirds between the mō’ī (monarch), his subordinate government consisting of ali’i nui and konohiki (chiefs and land managers), and the maka’ainana (commoners). Years later, Kamehameha III proposed the Kuleana Act of 1848 under foreign influence, which officially effectuated native tenants to adapt to a modern fee simple tenure system. The claimant process required a paid land survey, and a Land Commission convention supported by a group of witnesses, in order to successfully purchase land. Although the Mahele was intended to facilitate land acquisition, and Native Hawaiians were provided opportunities to petition for title to kuleana lands, many were socioeconomically affected for different reasons, including not being able to afford property taxes, or purchasing uncultivated land, and being generally unfamiliar with fee simple and land ownership regulations. The rate of poverty and homelessness increased as Hawaiians were left without land. The introduction of diseases and illnesses also contributed to the diminishment of Hawaii’s native population, which slowly precipitated throughout the islands as their subsistence economy was apprehended by knowledgeable emigrants. Foreigners took advantage of the political laws established by Kamehameha III by purchasing the majority of land that once belonged to the ahupua’a, stripping the commoners of their homes and resources, and instead permitting the prosperity of haole businessmen.
As the expansion of foreign industrial innovation continued on Hawaii grounds, American businessmen later experienced an economic depression after the increased rate of import taxes in the U.S in 1875. In desperation, they seeked assistance from Kalakaua; one of the first recently elected monarchs after the Kamehameha dynasty that dedicated himself to preserving Hawaii’s cultural and agricultural influences. Kalakaua was required to propose, draft, and pass a reciprocity treaty, a free trade agreement that established taxless, economic privileges for foreigners to export and trade commerce, in exchange for exclusivity of Pearl Harbor to be consolidated for military and commercial purposes. He became the first Hawaiian monarch to make a universal negotiation, thereby diverting the attention of imperialist first-world countries towards Hawaii’s successful economy, and placing a vulnerable disadvantage on the country with the subject of possible annexation. King Kalakaua’s attempts of guaranteeing a more ethical ministerial sovereignty and preserving their native culture and heritage were severely impacted by the reciprocity treaty, which instead administered more political authority and supremacy towards foreigners.
King Kalakaua and his controversial prime minister Walter Murray Gibson had a controversial term attempting to reconstruct Hawaiian civilization (one incident being the opium franchise bribery case of Tong Kee). Simultaneously, a conspiring private organization ran by Lorrin Thurston and Sanford Dole, which predominantly consisted of American and European businessmen, ministry members, and landowners, were arranging a coup for Kalakaua to sign what they had referred to as the Bayonet Constitution, that denoted the monarchy position of Kalakaua with threats of forced abdication, and possibly assassination. As rumors began to spread, Kalakaua dismissed Gibson and his cabinet, and proceeded to authorize the country under the influence of foreigners until June 30, 1887, when Kalakaua was threatened at gunpoint by an organized riot of non-Hawaiian citizens, plantation owners and businessmen, armed militia of the Honolulu Rifles, and the “Hawaiian League”, to institute a legal document by the unicameral legislature enforcing the resignation of his authority, his nation’s monarchy and suffrage rights, and the annexation of Hawaii as a state. The document ultimately undermined the authority of King Kalakaua and instead enabled the parliament to adopt a new constitution under a modified bicameral legislature and to substitute Kalakaua’s cabinet with foreign politicians and downgrade him into the mere authority of a figurehead. Kalakaua’s cabinet insisted on the administration of higher property ownership requirements for plantation landowners, revising voting policies to only inhabitants that owned property and had enough money (disenfranchising the majority of Hawaiian citizens and immigrants), and overall motivated the inevitable takeover of Hawaii. After Kalakaua was demoted, many of the native population sought to restore his monarchy and dismantle the unjustified constitution established by the foreigners. Native Hawaiians began to protest and respond against the Hawaiian League by assisting Queen Liliuokalani to arrange another constitution. Nonetheless, the Hawaiian League managed to overthrow her position after her efforts, and therefore, annexed the country.
The annexation of Hawaii was approved by President William McKinley in 1898, and Hawaii’s monarchy had been successfully overthrown. Although the annexation of Hawaii was unfortunate, it is regardless ignorant to insinuate that the overthrow of Hawaii was generalized by one individual event or person, especially when it was triggered by several events over several decades and monarchies. From a broader, rational perspective, Hawaii was one out of many inevitably acquired territories overthrown by foreigners for land development and personal financial gain. For example, during the precedent centuries of Hawaii’s annexation, the migration of Europeans in Native America had stimulated ethnic population growth, urbanization, and industrialization throughout the continent, as more foreign businessmen were able to form the United States, forcing a series of treaties, land cessions, and warfare upon the native population, which later encouraged Pacific expansion. Land ownership was an unfamiliar concept to the natives of North America when they first settled there, and they lost their land by signing pieces of paper that they were also unfamiliar with. Another historic example involves Cuba, an isolated island in the Carribeans whose economy was also influenced by sugar production and consumption, that also shared foreign ties with the U.S. Cuba, similarly to Hawaii, became devastated due to foreign disease, and was acquired by a larger country, specifically Spain.
To quote King Kalakaua, one of the last and most historically acclaimed Hawaiian monarchs for his courageous attempts to preserve Hawaiian culture: “It would afford me unfeigned satisfaction if my kingdom can add its quota toward the successful accomplishment of the most astronomical observation of the present century, and assist, however humbly, the enlightened nations of these costly enterprises.” This citation refers to Kalakaua’s involvement in the construction of the groundbreaking Thirty Meter Telescope observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea, which connected foreign political diplomacies with other first-world countries, and provided socioeconomic compromise b+etween Hawaiian citizens and foreigners (e.g, the introduction of white missionaries and the Mahele). Throughout the Hawaiian monarchy, however, many had different political motives. King Kamehameha II abolished the traditional customs and rules of Hawaii under persuasion of dominant but systematically oppressed female chiefs, which prompted the introduction of Western foreigners and their sociopolitical influence upon Hawaiian culture, their agricultural economy, and their society as a whole. King Kamehameha III appealed the Mahele and other precedents that were intended to compromise land acquisition after the development of foreign trade, but instead further divided the subsistence economy of native citizens and empowered foreigners with more political authority. Kalakaua had corroborated a reciprocity treaty during his term sharing a foreign diplomacy with the U.S to compromise preservation of native land and culture with the involuntary promise of tariff-free exports for foreigners, resulting into foreigners demanding a more permanent negotiable resolution for their hard-earned labor, which led to the forced signing of the Bayonet Constitution and furthermore the annexation of Hawaii.[1] The final conscious phrases of King Kalakaua, one of the final reigning Hawaiian monarchs, were “Aue, he kanaka au, eia i loko o ke kukonukonu o ka ma‘i.,” or “Alas, I am a man who is seriously ill.[2]” These were his last recorded words during his battle of Bright’s Disease, after becoming aware of the political damage done to Hawaii. He was able to fulfill his pledge of cultural preservation socially, but not politically. The Hawaiian monarchy did not contain experienced negotiators after Kamehameha I died, since many weren’t familiar with foreign politics, which especially affected native citizens. The tourist attractions, landmarks, and current culture in modern Hawaii epitomize the patriotic accomplishments established by the Hawaiian monarchy. Like history itself, it is important to appreciate the present and encourage the possible future, despite judgements of the past. Kamehameha I was enthusiastic about the technological, astronomical, and societal innovations of foreigners. If Kamehameha I were alive today, what would his opinions be of the annexation and modernity of
Annotated Bibliography / Works Cited
1.) Rhodes, Diane L., & Greene Linda W. “Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites (Table of Contents).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/historyt.htm.
The contents of this database, collaboratively written by two respectable American historians and archaeologists, effectively evaluate different aspects that contributed to Hawaii’s culture, geography, and history, uncovering arguments and facts regarding the social, political, and economic biases of numerous historic primary sources. Although intended to provide important additional information based on the modernized sites and structures of different park locations instead of insights of ethnohistorical research, several sections of the database confirm many examples of causes and effects, and how the development and evolution of foreign immigration and industrialism influenced the land and resources of Hawaii. Different sections were useful for my essay since they specified many facts about the Hawaiian monarchy, as well as many historic events like the abolishment of the kapu system with Kamehameha II, the redistribution of land proposed by Kamehameha III, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 and Bayonet Constitution during Kalakaua’s reign.
2.) “Kalakaua's Last Words, Written by Joseph Poepoe.” Honolulu Magazine, www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/February-2013/Famous-Last-Words/Kalakauas-last-words-written-by-joseph-poepoe/
This primary source translates the writing of Joseph Mokuohai Poepoe, a Democratic candidate in the legislature of Oahu during the death of Kalakaua, from a magazine company that endorsed Kalakaua with the misconceived slogan, “Tell my people I tried.” Although the website itself isn’t completely accurate since the domain belongs to a commercial organization for a magazine brand, the source helped me to reaffirm my conclusion with important quotes from Kalakaua because it included a translated biography of Kalakaua’s final phrases before he passed, and possibly what his thoughts were on the future of the Hawaiian kingdom.
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