Friday, October 25, 1929
Hawaiian Islands probably were settled from the islands lying S.W. Generally believed islands were first settled about 590 A.D., probably by fishermen who had been blown here by storm. After a few voyages immigrations came to a standstill and not until the 11th and 12th centuries was intercourse resumed.
The most important visitor was a priest named Paao who came from the Samoan Islands with a band of followers, made himself high priest, and was responsible for many of the ancient tabus. Tradition has it he found the island without a king and returned to get one in Samoa, bringing back Pili who reigned as king and from whom the first Kamehameha was descended.
Again, after the second period of immigration, there seems to have been no immigration to the island, thus permitting a gradual formation of a distinctive racial group with its own traditions and religion.
The first contact with European civilization came when a Spanish ship, blown far off its course, was wrecked on Hawaii, only the captain and his sister surviving. They intermarried and founded a line of chiefs—1527.
The second visitor was Juan Gaetano, a Spanish navigator who in 1555 charted the islands and gave them Spanish names.
Thereafter the islands were in a continual round of wars, the most powerful chiefs of each island trying , but without permanent success, to bring the islands under his power, until in 1778 Captain Cook, a British navigator, “discovered” the islands.
During one of these bloody wars, Kamehameha I was born and thereafter the young prince distinguished himself as a warrior.
Cook made a number of calls at Hawaii, at first being taken for the god Lono and his men for superbeings. However, the men soon disgusted the natives and trouble grew apace, culminating in the death of Cook and some of his men.
Kamehameha I was impressed by an Englishman, Vancouver, who was at the islands about 1790 and later and who introduced shrubs, fruit trees, grape vines, sheep, cattle, and horses. He put the island under British protection in 1794, reserving rights of home government. But the British never officially acknowledged the affair.
Kamehameha I had many wars to fight before he overcame all resistance and united the entire group of islands. Reigning 24 years, he died in 1819 and was succeeded by his son, Lihoiho, with Queen Kaahumanu having power equal to that of the king. During a visit to England, both the king and queen died of measles and the islands again fell into the hands of the loyal chiefs—again divided.
The foreigners now began a series of outrages which showed a desire for control on the parts of several governments. The British and French both, at different times, took over the rule of the island, the King always following a peaceful, submissive policy thus avoiding war.
A system of joint rule came into practice and great strides were made toward modernizing the islands, promoting education, drawing up a constitution, promoting good foreign relations and trade. The kings ruled wisely, as did the queens, for the most part. The islands finally became a republic and with Sanford B. Dole as president applied for annexation to the U.S. Harrison turned it down, but in 1898 McKinley signed the treaty and Congress in April 1900 specified Hawaii to be a territory if the U.S. and Dole was appointed as its first governor.
Missionaries have been fortunate here. Idols and the tabus were thrust out long ago and it only remained to teach another religion to fill in the vacant place left by the old. Liquor and gambling was prohibited in 1827. The islands adopted Christianity and is, I believe, largely Protestant.
Vance called in the morning and suggested a trip around part of the island. So at two-thirty Eddy and Vance appeared and we set out first for Pali, up the fertile Nuuanu Valley. Honolulu lies on a sloping plain between the sea and the Koolau Range of rugged rock—of course all of lava formation—and it extends its arms far up the valleys, places where missionaries are reputed to live. Beware! In these valleys are to be found some delightful homes.
At the Pali we were met with a terrific blast of wind, then a magnificent panorama was spread before us—the road hugging the side of the cliff descended to wind through the fields of sugar cane and pineapple. Far away was the blue sparkling sea, displaying all shades of color about the shallow waters of the coral reefs. To the left the Koolau Range stalked down to the sea, a towering mass of dark gray and green precipices, a serrated barrier impossible to surmount. We were nearly a thousand feet above the perfectly laid pineapple fields, just under the dark mass of threatening clouds that forever seem to cling about the jagged peaks of this range, causing some of the valleys to have an abnormally heavy rainfall.
In the distance is Molokai island with its leper settlement and on a clear day one can see Maui behind it, the Haleakala Crater dipping out of the sea in the dim distance.
The drive along the coast is scenic and varied with lava palisades and irregular hills, fields of sugar cane and pineapple, banana groves, thickets of trees, etc. About thirty miles north of Honolulu on the coast we came to a Mormon Temple, a stately monumental building fronted by an attractive terraced garden.