Kohala Waterfront

Despite news of Cook's violent death, Christian missionaries traveled to what they called the Sandwich Islands (an English name honoring the Earl of Sandwich) in 1820 and found a spiritual vacuum left by the end of the kapu system. In the heart of West Hawaii, they built Mokuaikaua Church -- the first church in Hawaii -- directly across from Hulihee Palace in Kailua Village.

With the help of the new weapons, Kamehameha realized his desires. By 1810, he was firmly in control of the chain from the Big Island to Kauai. He developed a system of governance previously unknown in the Pacific Islands, establishing his court on Hawaii and appointing governors to control the other islands. He instituted a system of commerce and taxation, and he created what amounted to a governmental cabinet, with specific State duties assigned to trusted associates. In short, he transformed the islands into a single nation.

Even before he had fully consolidated his power, Kamehameha began the difficult balancing act of attempting to preserve Hawaiian traditions and ways of life, maintaining Hawaiian sovereignty and entering into diplomatic and commercial relations with the European and American powers.

Kamehameha died in 1819. Even before his death, the kapu system was showing signs of strain, and it began to fracture openly when his son, Liholiho, ascended to the throne with Kamehameha's favorite wife, Ka'ahumanu, assuming the new position of Kahana Nui (regent). His son, Liholiho further revolutionized Hawaiian society by breaking the "kapu" religious system when he sat down with women to eat. Many heiaus and other religious artifacts were soon destroyed by Hawaiians who no longer felt bound by the kapu system. It was the beginning of the end for Hawaiian religious and political control.

During the remainder of the century, a succession of monarchs did their best to stave off the increasing encroachments of the various colonial powers, which had their eyes on Hawaii for economic reasons in whaling and agriculture. During this era, the decline in Hawaiian numbers was brought about by the importation of measles, cholera and typhus, all diseases unknown to Hawaii and deadly to its people. When Captain Cook arrived, Hawaiians numbered about 300,000; a century later, only 50,000 remained.

In the 1840's, two crises arose which illustrate the colonial encroachment of Hawaii. First, the British Deputy Consul and a British naval commander, Lord George Paulet, made a serious attempt to place the islands completely under British control. King Kauikeaouli was on the verge of ceding the islands to France and the U.S. jointly in order to fend off the British when Parliament disavowed the Consul's claims.

The British power grab was precipitated by a land dispute between the British Consul and the Kingdom of Hawaii. All land in Hawaii was owned by the crown and allocated by fief to the ali'i. Land could be leased by foreigners, but not purchased; Hawaiian commoners had no land rights at all. Leases were generally verbal.

Land rights had been a sore point for foreigners for some time. Planters and other foreign businessman worried about the nebulous nature of the leases, and often took to court in disputes with other foreigners, the Crown and the ali'i. Some missionaries were strong proponents of the idea that Hawaiian commoners should have land rights. Even the government, in the 1840 constitution, put forward the idea of land rights for commoners.

All these pressures culminated, in 1845, in what came to be known as the Great Mahele. The king gave up all his rights to the lands except for specific properties which became the crown lands. Ali'i were given the opportunity to purchase the lands they held in fief, and commoners were allowed to buy small plots of land as well. Landowners in general were given the right to lease lands to foreigners for up to 50 years, and in 1850 foreigners were granted rights of purchase identical to those of Hawaiian.

The Great Mahele was contrary to the Hawaiian unit of land measure. The Hawaiian unit of land measure was the ahupua'a, an indeterminate triangle of land with the apex at the mountains and the base out in the sea. Contained within the ahupua'a were all the necessities of life: fertile taro grounds, timber, fresh water and fishing grounds. In short, it was an organic measure, not a geometric one, and it didn't at all conform to Western notions of survey. Boundaries might wander down a stream bed, around rock formations, through a stand of forest and along a line of cliffs descending to the sea. The Hawaiian unit of measure was abolished by King Kauikeaouli with the Great Mahele, which formed the basis of the current unit of land measure today.

About 10,000 commoners found themselves in possession of about 30,000 acres of land. The chiefs, the government and the king held about 4 million acres.

Government and crown lands remained relatively intact through the demise of the kingdom, but much of the land held by ali'i and commoners rapidly migrated into the hands of the foreigners.

The Great Mahele opened the door for foreign ownership of Hawaii's lands, but other and equally great pressures were in effect before and after the loss of the land. Missionaries had been in the islands since the 1820's, and while they met with mixed success in the realm of salvation and were roundly disliked by the business community and many Hawaiians, they largely succeeded in driving much of Hawaiian culture -- the dancing and festivals in particular -- underground.

The sugar industry was expanding rapidly and exercised increasing influence into Hawaiian affairs, and planters were importing labor from China, then Japan and, late in the century, from the Philippines. The whaling industry brought hundreds of ships and thousands of crew to Lahaina Harbor and Honolulu every season. Hawaiians dispossessed in the Great Mahele migrated to the larger towns seeking work; the agricultural and fishing traditions began to fade.

In addition to commercial and cultural pressures, Hawaiians were waging an almost constant political battle against colonialism, forced to play all the major powers against each other in order to maintain independence. Disease continued to take a heavy toll on the natives, so their numbers were steadily on the wane as the influx of foreigners increased.

In an attempt to avoid losing the islands completely, Hawaiian rulers had been according increasing rights to foreigners since Kamehameha's time. By the time Queen Liliuokalani took the throne in 1891, Hawaii had undergone numerous constitutional crises, the most recent in 1887 when the "Reform" party, led by planters and the sons of missionaries, essentially tied the monarchy's hands.

Liliuokalani was a complicated woman, a Christian whose closest friend was a pragmatist who took advice from a German psychic living in her court. She was determined to regain at least some of the authority that the previous ruler, her brother, King David Kalakaua, had been forced to relinquish, but she was uncertain as to how.

Queen Liliuokalani inherited a tumultuous political situation, with alliances between various factions among foreigners and native Hawaiians.

In 1876, island cane planters and commodity agents had negotiated a treaty with the U.S. in which their sugar and a few other agricultural commodities would not be subject to the normal tariffs and duties of imported goods. The treaty allowed them to compete with domestic U.S. and territorial growers, and was a tremendous boon to business. The original course of the treaty ran eight years, and its annual continuation was deemed vital by the businessmen, in fact, they forced Kalakaua to cede Pearl Harbor to the U.S. in exchange for continuation in 1887. But now, it appeared as though the treaty would not be renewed again.

A small group of planters, agents and other upright citizens saw only one way to ensure that Hawaiian sugar would receive favorable treatment from the U.S. forever, and that was to persuade the States to annex Hawaii as a U.S. territory. Hawaiians would never agree to this voluntarily and the U.S. expressed no particular interest in taking the islands by force. What was needed was a Hawaiian government which would request annexation -- a Hawaiian government without Hawaiians.

The solution then was to create a situation wherein those in favor of annexation could seize power in some remotely plausible fashion, and then petition to become a territory. Liliuokalani, in 1893, presented the schemers with justification they believed adequate: She attempted to introduce a new constitution restoring the rights of the monarchy and the Hawaiian people. On January 17, with the cooperation of the U.S. Consul and with the help of a U.S. warship and troops, the monarchy was overthrown.

Liliuokalani appealed to the U.S. to reverse the coup. The new rulers had been confident that Benjamin Harrison's administration would annex Hawaii in short order, but Harrison was defeated by Grover Cleveland in November of 1892. Cleveland was outraged by the coup and the U.S. Consul's role in it, and demanded that the insurrectionists surrender the nation back to the Queen. The U.S. Congress refused, and Cleveland was reluctant to force a confrontation. Liliuokalani mounted an abortive counter-revolution in 1895, but it failed miserably. She was imprisoned in her own palace for a year, but was later freed and restored to full citizenship in her own land.

Four years later, the leaders of the "Republic of Hawaii" found a more receptive audience in William McKinley. On August 12, 1898, the Republic of Hawaii became the Hawaiian Territory, with Republic President Sanford Dole appointed as the first Territorial governor. The annexation of the Hawaiians was complete. Liliuokalani, the last queen, died in 1917, still mourning the death of her land and people.

With the islands annexed, the leading businessmen set about ensure that control of local affairs remained firmly in their own hands. By this time, five companies (already known as the Big Five) controlled virtually every aspect of island commerce.

In the 20th century Hawaii emerged as an important Pacific Basin commercial and travel center. After statehood in 1959, all the islands experienced rapid economic growth. West Hawaii is now one of the world's best-known vacation spots, a center for health and healing, and home of the world-famous Kona Coffee bean, among many other distinctions.

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