In researching and preparing these posts on Hawai‘i, I have
had growing appreciation for the way Hawai‘i handled the diversity, complexity
and profound nature of the changes it was going through in the early to mid-1800s.
As you can see, here, from the end of the 1790s to the
middle of the 1800s the legal, social, religious and economic structures of the
pre-existing society are upended and completely changed.
Here are just a few of the things going on around the
first-half of that decade:
1795 – Kamehameha I invades and conquers O‘ahu at the Battle
of Nu‘uanu, uniting the eastern islands under single rule
1805 – Sandalwood trade begins, starting the transition from
a subsistence-based society to a barter, trade and monetary system (over the
next 20-years the Islands’ Sandalwood forests are decimated)
1810 – Kamehameha and Kaumuali‘i come to an agreement and
the islands are unified under single rule for the first time
1819 – King Kamehameha I dies, the role of King is passed to
his eldest son, Liholiho
1819 - King Kamehameha II ends the kapu system, ending
500-years of religious, political and social structure
1820 – New England missionaries arrive to spread the gospel
and convert the islanders to Christianity
1820 – As the Sandalwood trade is diminishing, the islands
start to serve as a central Pacific provisioning site for whaling ships (at its
zenith in the 1840s, over 85% of the American whaling fleet was in the Pacific)
1824 – Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and his Queen Kamāmalu
contract measles and die in London; Kauikeaouli, his younger brother and son of
Kamehameha I, becomes King.
1835 – The first commercially-viable Sugar Plantation starts
at Kōloa, Kaua‘i
1839 - Chief’s Children’s School (later renamed Royal
School) was created by King Kamehameha III who hired Amos and Juliette Cooke to
run the school and teach the next generation of Hawaiian royalty to become
rulers.
1840 – The first Constitution is passed in the Hawai‘i
legislature
1848 – The Great Māhele dismantles the traditional system of
land tenure and instituted a system of private property ownership
1850 - The Kuleana Act of 1850 was passed, permitting land
ownership by commoners who occupied and improved any portion of the lands
controlled by the Ali‘i and Konohiki
Between 1800 and 1850, the language changed, the religion
changed, the apparel changed, the housing changed, where and how people lived
and worked changed …
Life became completely different - in a single generation.
Now put these into perspective on how some of these changes
greatly affected the Hawaiian people:
•
The health of many Hawaiians was weakened by
exposure to new diseases, common cold, flu, measles, mumps, smallpox and
venereal diseases
•
As more ships came in, many of those who came to
Hawaiʻi chose to stay and settle
•
Many Hawaiians boarded these passing ships for
either employment or to move to other areas (primarily, the North American
continent)
•
Hawaiʻi changed from a land of all Hawaiians to
a place of mixed cultures, languages and races
•
Many new plants and animals were brought to the
islands, both on purpose and by accident (many turned out to be invasive to the
native species)
•
New products by foreign ships were traded,
including firearms, beads, western dress and fabric, crystal lamps, mirrors,
nails and metal goods, silk and liquor
•
The economy and everyday life was changing from
a subsistence way of life to a commodity-based economy that started with barter
and trade, that eventually changed to a monetary system
•
There was growth of business centers, where
people ended up living closer to one another, typically surrounding the best
seaports for western ships (small towns soon grew into large cities)
All of this set the foundation for the second half of the
century, whose socio-economic status centered on the plantation industries of
sugar and pineapple.
This changed the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an
entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for well
over a century. With it came even
greater foreign waves of workforce immigration.
The image is a map of the Hawaiian Islands from Vancouver,
1798 (a time when the change was starting over the following decades –
(UH-Mānoa, Hamilton Library.))
No comments:
Post a Comment