ALOHA WORLD RESOURCES

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

THE NEW AMERICA AND THE FAR EAST
A picturesque and historic description of these lands and people

CHAPTER IV


THE NAPOLEON OF THE PACIFIC
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P

ili’s lineal descendant Kalaniopuu was king of Hawaii at the time of Captain Cook’s visit. He also held sway over part of Maui. Kahekili, “ the Thunderer,” a brother to the wife of Kalaniopuu, was moi of the greater part of Maui. His cousin, Kahahana, was king of Oahu, Molokai, and Lanai. Kauai and Niihau were ruled by a queen related to the royal family of Hawaii, and whose husband was a younger brother to the king of Maui. It will thus be seen that the rulers of the different islands were connected by ties of blood, though little love was lost on this account, when the frequent wars brought the bitterness of strife.

At that time Kahekili was arming to overpower Kahahana of Oahu, expecting to be assisted by Kauai’s queen. Captain Cook found Kalaniopuu away fighting this same Thunderer, to avenge the death of his eight hundred nobles, the flower of his army, who had been hewn down like playthings at Hana the year before by Kahekili’s doughty warriors.

There was then in the court of Kalaniopuu a silent, taciturn man of forty, who was destined to end all these petty strife’s in a Napoleonic conquest of the islands. He was of stalwart frame, and his courage and prowess were well known, though none dreamed of his skill and ambition as a warrior. Born at Halawa, in the Kohala district, during a turbulent period, when all the forces of Hawaii were mustering for an invasion of Maui, he was the accepted son of the king’s half-brother, Keoua, though some believed he was the son of Kahekili, the Thunderer. However that might be, he was of royal blood, and what was more important still, possessed the indomitable, far-seeing spirit of Kamehameha the Conqueror. This Kamehameha took an active part in the fight which resulted in the death of Captain Cook, and more than any other person remarked the great superiority of the weapons of the whites over those of his countrymen. After this unfortunate scene he retired to his estate in Kohala, and was quietly building canoes and looking after his patrimony when the aged king died in 1782. Kiwalao, the moi’s oldest son, now succeeded to the kingship, with Kamehameha second in power.

Usually the death of a king was followed by a civil war, and this case was no exception to the rule. Four chiefs of Kona joined issue under Kamehameha, and a fierce battle ensued just south of Kealakekua Bay, when Kiwalao was killed and his brother became ruler over Kona and Kohala. The rest of the island was divided among a brother and uncle of Kiwalao and Kahekili and his brother Kaeo.

An intense and prolonged warfare between the rival powers followed, during which Kamehameha acted a stirring part in assailing West Maui, while Kahekili and his brother Kaeo attacked the district of Hilo. No faction gained a decisive victory. During a lull in this savage contention, in 1786, American and European ships on their way to Canton began to stop here for supplies, or engaged in the fur trade on the northwest coast of America, ran down here to spend the winter, Waimea, on the island of Kauai, and Kealakekua Bay being the harbors most frequented by them.

Some of the native chiefs were inclined to look with suspicion upon these visitors, and, though a brisk trade soon sprung up, to treat them treacherously. Kamehameha showed a more far-seeing policy by treating with the strangers fairly, trying to gain their confidence by offering them every hospitality at his disposal and even defending them against the faithless treatment of the other chiefs. In this way he secured the better part of the trade, and came into the possession of firearms, powder, and shot, the articles most in demand by the natives.

In 1789 a treacherous act of his enemies was the cause of giving to Kamehameha just such an aid and counsel as he needed in the coming conquest. In February, 1790, an American fur-trader named Metcalf, on his way to China, with two vessels, the Eleanor and Fair American, the latter commanded by his son, a youth of twenty, anchored off Honuaula, Maui. That night, after killing its occupant, some of the natives stole a boat and stove it to pieces to get its nails.

The following morning, learning that the offenders had gone to Olowalu, Captain Metcalf proceeded thither. Arriving there during a religious festival, he waited until it was over, and then, making no mention of the wrong which had been done him, opened trade with the Hawaiians. This called a great number of canoes about the vessel, when he ordered a broadside of shot to be poured upon the unsuspecting crowd. The water was strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded natives and the ruins of their canoes. Immediately after doing this, Captain Metcalf ran down to the Hawaiian coast, lying off Kealakekua Bay for the coming of the Fair American.

Meanwhile a fleet of canoes had gone out to the other ship, and under pretence of trade gained the deck. The boy captain, taken off his guard, was killed, and the slaughter of his crew quickly followed, the mate, Isaac Davis, being alone spared. The vessel was then ransacked, and taking everything with them, with Davis a captive, the natives retreated from that vicinity.

On March 17th, while waiting in the hope of finding his son or some of the crew, his boatswain, John Young, while on shore was captured and carried off by the natives. Giving up all hope of finding the lost ones, and believing Young to have been killed, Captain Metcalf went on his way. Kamehameha soon obtained possession of the muskets, cannon, and ammunition taken from the Fair American, and the prisoners fell into his hands. In the two foreign sailors, if he could induce them to enter his service, he foresaw valuable assistants in the work he had ahead, and he treated them with kindness and respect.

Realizing that they had little hope of being found and rescued by their countrymen, and being adventurous, ambitious natures, they soon yielded to his overtures, to become his most able advisors and supporters in the long and arduous war to follow. They were in fact, as another has well put it, the marshals of the Hawaiian Napoleon, his Ney and MacDonald. Thus the affair connected with the two American ships, as questionably as it was on both sides, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of Hawaii.
Kamehameha lost no more time in resuming his war with the powers of Maui, and that year, 1790, he defeated its defenders with terrible slaughter in the Iao valley, where it was said the dead fell so fast and thick that the waters of the Wailuku were dammed by the bodies. In his triumph here he was planning to overrun Molokai, when word came that affairs at home were getting into bad shape. The brother of his enemy defeated here had captured Hilo and was sweeping away everything before him.

Returning at once to Hawaii, he made short, if bloody, work in routing this foe; but while he was doing it, the Thunderer and his followers rallied to regain possession of Maui. The next move in this bloody game of conquest was a sea-fight between Kamehameha and his united enemies of Hawaii. This was fought off Waimanu, and owing to the superiority of his arms Kamehameha won a decided victory. He followed this up by the disreputable act of his long and eventful life. Sending Keoua to meet him in a friendly conference at Kawaihae, he then caused him and his attendants to be massacred as they were trying to effect a landing. Thereupon Kamehameha proclaimed himself king of all Hawaii, and there was none to dispute his title. No doubt his enemy would have resorted to the same methods had he been able to make them successful, but it seems none the less a pity that a record otherwise remarkably bright for a heathen should have been stained with a deed like this. This was in 1791, and he celebrated his triumph by building that year a new heiau at Puukohola, offering the bodies of his captives as sacrifices to his favorite war-god.

The following year Hawaii was visited by Capt. George Vancouver, who had been with Captain Cook on his second and third voyages. Kamehameha now learned much more than his American counselors had told him of the power and grandeur of the Christian nations, while he listened with wonder and interest to the other’s teaching of justice and humanity and his description of Christian’s faith in God. Captain Vancouver visited the islands three times during 1792-94, and there is no doubt his teaching made a deep and abiding impression upon the Hawaiian king, who, if he still clung to his idols and pagan rites, showed afterward a milder spirit in all that he did.

Captain Vancouver presented him with cattle and sheep and many useful plants, but refused to let him have powder and firearms. So favorable an impression was made by this humane navigator that February 25, 1794, Kamehameha and his chiefs voluntarily placed Hawaii under the protection of Great Britain, and the British flag was raised on the shore of Kealakekua.

This act, however, did not mean that his spirit of conquest was subdued or tat his wars were over, for inside of a year we find him mustering the greatest army the island ever knew. His old enemy Kahekili, king of the leeward islands, worn out with his fighting as much as his years, left his kingdom to be divided between his son, Kalanikupule, ruler of Oahu, and his brother, Kaeo, moi of Maui. This twain straightaway went to fighting over their respective domains. By the aid of a couple of English traders, Captains Brown and Gordon, then visiting at Honolulu, Kalani of Oahu defeated his rival and put him to death. Immediately he began to grow jealous of his allies, and having an ambition of his own to rule over all of the islands, he planned to kill them and then, with the ships and a fleet of canoes, sail to Hawaii to attack Kamehameha. He managed to murder the captains, but in such a bungling manner that the sailors escaped with the vessels, going to Hawaii direct, when they turned them over to Kamehameha with all their arms and ammunition.

This was the conqueror’s opportunity, and, assisted by his marshals, he mustered over sixteen thousand warriors, and with the best equipped, as well as the largest army Hawaii had known, in the spring of 1795 set sail with his immense fleet of canoes for Maui. This island was given over to him without a battle, and then he captured Molokai in the same easy manner.

By this time Kalanikupule had rallied his forces, ten thousand strong, and prepared to make a desperate stand in the Nuuanu Valley, near where the ice-works are now located. Kamehameha reached Waialae Bay the last of April, where he learned that one of his trusted chiefs, who had agreed to meet him there, had deserted him, and with all of his followers joined the enemy.

Nothing daunted by this, Kamehameha lost no further time in marching against his foes, when the two armies met in that deadly grapple which was not only to decide the fates of kings but the whole future of the Hawaiian Islands. The Oahuans proved themselves true to their reputation as fighters, and there, with the cloud-swept cliffs behind, the homeland of Kaulau below them, with the blue sea shimmering through the cocoanuts, and in plain sight of the thatched roofs of their grass houses, they gave their lives in heroic contest for the lost cause. Slowly pressed back toward the brink, the survivors, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, hurled themselves over the precipice upon the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.

Again Kamehameha had proved himself the conqueror, and by this victory all of the Hawaiian Islands, except Kauai and Niihau, passed under his sovereignty. Kaiana, the traitor, had met death from a cannon-ball, and Kalanikupule, finding his warriors completely routed, tried to escape by flight; but he was pursued, overtaken, and captured, to be held as a sacrifice at the heiau at Moanalua.

According to custom the great victory must be celebrated with adequate ceremonies, and the grandest hookupu (festival during which the people made presents to the king) ever witnessed in Oahu followed. Finding that it was policy to treat their new king with as good grace as possible, the Oahuans became extremely liberal, until the offerings reached an amount and variety which astonished every one, even to Kamehameha. But the highest gift was reserved for the last. In the midst of the bustle and confusion, an old man, who had been among the most active and bitter of the island defenders, was seen approaching the alter, or grand stand, leading by the hand a beautiful girl, an ehu (Hawaiian blonde), as a gift to his new king. Not over sixteen years of age, of fair skin, expressive, hazel-brown eyes, tall, perfectly molded figure, and abundant tresses of a glimmering brown mixed with threads of gold falling like a gauze veil down the well-rounded shoulders, she was of that matchless type of beauty rarely found even when the best blood of two races blends. A skirt of yellow tapa, embroidered in dark designs of many birds, and rustling like folds of silk, fell from her slender waist to her knees, while her head was wreathed in yellow oo feathers, and shell bracelets encircled her small wrists. Suspended from her neck, by its three hundred braids of human hair, was the sacred Niho Palaoa, the royal insignia of the gods. Surely never fairer bid for kingly favor was made than this of old Kavari, who hoped to propitiate his new sovereign and thus win back the fortune he had lost by opposing the iron Conqueror.

Frightened by the sight of so many intent spectators, and realizing more than ever her strange position, the maid stood before the king with downcast eyes, wet with tears, and bosom rising and falling tumultuously under great emotion.

Kamehameha the Great smiled, and was about to address the aged chief who came with this human gift, when there was a commotion in the ranks of his soldiers, and a young warrior, who had covered himself with glory in the battle that day, sprang forward to place himself in front of the trembling damsel.

A low murmur of horror came from the watchful crowd as the daring act was witnessed, for all knew it was death to interfere with the royal will. The dark countenance of the king grew black, and his eyes flashed furiously; but instead of ordering the young man to put to death, as the onlookers expected, he demanded of him:
“ What means this interference, rash youth? How dare you meddle with the sacred rights of the king?”
The warrior bowed low, but did not offer to speak.
“What name, sir?” though Kamehameha well knew.
“Hakuole, who led the warriors of Kona on the right, my king.”
“So Hakuole, the dauntless, is tired of being a soldier, and prefers the company of women to that of his comrades in arms?”
At this humiliating question Hakuole bowed lower, and wisely held his peace, while the king ordered the girl to be led forward.
“Knowest this foolhardy young man, who chooses the companionship of women to that of warriors?” he asked of her, who now stood bravely up before him.
“ I wore his wreath at the last hula dance before the battle,” she replied, modestly, “though father would not remember this.”
Then it must have flashed through the mind of the astute king that this bold tableau was a love act, and those nearest imagined they detected a smile under the grim exterior of the Conqueror. But he spoke as sternly as ever, when he said:
“Hakuole, I command you to listen. Today you have done that which you knew would bring you the punishment of a displeased king. You have shown yourself brave officer, now listen to my decree. You are suspended from your official rank for thirteen moons. Go with this girl to her fathers estate, which I now bestow upon her children. Away with you, and forget not the judgment of Kamehameha.”

Covered with confusion at this happy and unexpected termination of the affair, the lovers beat a retreat, amid the cheers of their friends, and there is no doubt they lived to bless the name of Kamehameha, whose true character is best illustrated in the little incidents of his long and checkered career. Of course the hookupu was a great success, and the king soon won the confidence and esteem of his new subjects.

After spending a year in reorganizing and strengthening his army, he set out to conquer Kauai, but the elements this time interfered with his plans, and losing many of his canoes and men in a violent tempest off the coast of the Garden isle, he was obliged to return to Oahu. Then an insurrection on Hawaii next took his attention, and he finished his wars in putting that down, though he still dreamed of adding Kauai o his kingdom.

Kamehameha now turned from warlike to civil affairs, beginning to make many radical changes in the condition and government of the islands. He first divided the land among his followers, after reserving a generous portion for himself, according to their rank and service. He chose governors for each island, made them responsible to him, and empowered them to elect chiefs of districts, heads of villages, and all petty officers, who were held accountable through them to him. He appointed collectors of revenue, who, lacking the art of writing, kept their accounts by a method used by the British exchequer in ancient times. He had his board of advisors, who, with the governors, met with him at regular dates, the meetings being held in strict privacy.

John Young was made governor of Hawaii. In all of his selections to office the king showed remarkable judgment of men, and was seldom, if ever, deceived. So thoroughly did he master every situation and enforce the honesty of his purpose, that crime became almost unknown, and it was a common saying that “old men and children could sleep in the highways in safety.” He also paid considerable attention to the industrial and agricultural interests, doing much in the way to repair the ravages of his wars.
But an evil hd entered his kingdom against which he could not successfully cope. The seeds of disease and intemperance sown by foreigners had developed into a foe which no army could withstand or people combat. In 1800 some Botany Bay convicts introduced the method of distilling liquor, and drunkenness at once became very prevalent. Four years later a pestilence, believed to have been cholera, was brought from China, and half the population of Oahu fell victims, while elsewhere disease and death claimed their victims in overwhelming numbers. Such misery and death as the common people had never known now fell to their unhappy lot.

At this time Kamehameha had just completed his immense fleet of war canoes, called the peleleu, built for the purpose of invading Kauai, but the terrible disease sweeping the islands carried off in a few days half of his army and the majority of his counselors. The Kauai expedition had to be abandoned, never to be considered again by the sobered king, who told his remaining soldiers to go into the fields and work. He joined them for a time, as not only disease but famine stared them in the face.

In March, 1810, Kaumualii, the last king of Kauai, visited Honolulu in the American ship Albatross, Capt. Nathan Winship, and made a voluntary concession of his islands to Kamehameha, who very considerately allowed him to hold them in fief during his lifetime, on condition of paying tribute.

About this time and continuing during the first quarter of a century, the sandalwood trade with foreign markets sprang up. At Canton, China, in particular, this fragrant wood was in great demand for incense and the manufacture of fancy articles. While the wood lasted it was a source of vast profit for the landholders. It was soon almost entirely removed, so it is seldom found now.

While attending to the many details of his government with far-seeing foresight, he neglected to adopt a national flag. With a feeling of friendliness toward all foreign countries, England and the United States in particular, he though it sufficient to fly the flags of those countries as it happened, intending, no doubt to be fair in the matter. All went well in this way until the War of 1812 had been in progress several months. Then a Yankee privateer, putting into Honolulu, saw with amazement the British flag floating in the breeze. He demanded an explanation, when the king, to prove his friendliness, caused the stars and stripes to be run up in place of the other flag. This satisfied the American, but in a short time an English man-of-war appeared on the scene, and again the king was taken to account.

Kamehameha was sorely puzzled, and he thought of flying both flags, until Young and Davis explained to him that two flags of hostile countries could not fly from the same staff. He was then advised to have a flag of his own, and Young suggested that a compromise be made by taking the stars and stripes with the British cross for a field. The nest day the new flag was hoisted and everybody pleased.

During 1825, under the order of Baranoff, the Russian governor of Alaska, Doctor Scheffer, visited Kauai, and urged its aged king to place himself under the protection of Russia, and even went so far as to build a fort at Waimea and hoist the colors of the empire over it. Upon learning this, Kamehameha sent word for doctor Scheffer to leave, which he did, and the Hawaiian king raised a strong fort on the island in 1816.

This year, upon the advise of Young, a fort of stone and embrasure for cannon, with walls about twelve feet high and twenty feet thick, was built at Honolulu. It was nearly square and about three hundred and fifty feet on a side, and stood across what is now Fort Street. Prior to that time the place had been but a fishing-village, with a sandy, treeless background and a fringe of cocoanuts on the seashore. In November, 1820, the court was moved from Hawaii by Kamehameha II., and it became the seat of government for the island states.

On May 8, 1819, at the ripe age of fourscore years, Kamehameha died at Kailua, Hawaii, forbidding in his last illness the usual sacrifice of human beings at his funeral, saying, “The men should be sacred to the king,” meaning his son and successor. If belonging to a barbaric race, he was no ordinary man. A shrewd, sagacious organizer and commander of armed forces, he was none the less gifted in executive ability, and he not only consolidated the islands under a strong government, but he fused a rabble of ignorant people and chieftaincies into a united kingdom, and stimulated among his subjects a patriotism which is felt to this day by their descendants.

So fearful were the ancient chiefs of Hawaii that some harm might be done to their bodies after death, --- that their bones be utilized for making fish-hooks or arrow points for shooting mice, --- it was the invariable custom for the most faithful of the king’s survivors to bear away the remains to some unknown place of sepulture, some dark recess in the volcanic mountains, or to a grave in the sea. Sometimes the ingenuity of the barbaric undertaker devised strange places or methods of concealment. Upon the death of a noted king of Oahu, some two hundred years ago, the bones were stripped of the flesh, and then entrusted to a careful friend for safe internment. Instead of seeking some hidden spot in the mountains to receive them, he pulverized the bones into a fine powder, which he mixed with the poi to be eaten at the funeral feast. The repast over, and asked if he had faithfully done his work, he replied: “Safe, indeed, are the bones of Kaulii. They are hidden in a hundred living sepulchers; you have eaten them!”

Where the bones of Kamehameha I. rest no man knows. A chief, by the name of Hoolulu, was entrusted with the sacred charge, and it is believed he secretly bore the kingly remains to a lonely hiding-place in the hills back of Kailua. Two men met him upon his return, and, being asked if they had seen anyone going in the direction of the hills that morning, saved their lives by answering “No.” Had their reply been different the questioner would have killed them on the spot, that they might not reveal the secret of his errand. This chief left children, and no doubt he entrusted his secret with one of them, according to custom; but in 1853, when secrecy was no longer necessary, Kamehameha III. Sought this favored son of Hoolulu, that he might learn the location of the rude sepulcher of his illustrious ancestor. But he could not persuade the other to reveal the spot, and the secret died with him a few years later.

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posted by Don  # 4:12 AM

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