History of Hawaii

History of Hawaii

Hawaii is unique in many ways. It is the only one of the fifty United States that lies outside the northern hemisphere and is, with Alaska, one of two states that is not part of the contiguous forty-eight states that, until 1959, constituted the United States of America. It is the only state that is composed of a group of islands, running from the big island of Hawaii to the islet of Kure at Hawaii’s northwest extreme. Ka Lae, or South Cape, on the big island, is the southernmost point in the United States.

Hawaii is also the most multiethnic state in the Union. Some 40 percent of Hawaiian marriages are interracial. In this state of idyllic islands with inviting beaches, one can ascend the big island’s Mauna Loa volcano in winter and, at an altitude of almost fourteen thousand feet, go skiing. Although 80 percent of its population lives in bustling, crowded cities, mainly Honolulu, Hawaiians are probably the most relaxed of all Americans.

Early History

As early as the middle of the eighth century, people sailed from the South Seas to Hawaii, presumably intent on colonizing some of its islands. Most of these people were southeast Asians who had made their arduous way to Tahiti and the Marquesa Islands. In time, sailing in large double-hulled canoes, they continued to Hawaii, carrying with them roots and seeds to plant, as well as animals, mostly pigs and chickens, to raise.

These seamen knew enough about sailing and about the currents of the Pacific Ocean, presumably, to make trips from Tahiti to Hawaii and safely back to Tahiti. Seemingly they did this regularly between 1100 and 1400. An influx of foreigners resumed, however, in the eighteenth century, this time from Europe as well as Asia. The native Hawaiian population, which exceeded 225,000 toward the end of that century, plummeted to about 50,000 one hundred years later, as many natives fell victim to diseases that visitors brought to the islands.

Although Spanish seamen sailed from Manila in the Philippines to the west coast of Mexico in the seventeenth century, they seem to have passed north of the Hawaiian archipelago and were unaware of this chain of volcanic islands. Captain James Cook, in January, 1778, was probably the first European to find the Hawaiian Islands, calling them the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, from whom he had financial support for his explorations. In February, 1779, Captain Cook was killed by natives on the big island of Hawaii in an argument over some thefts from his ship. In time, trade with White merchants began to flourish, Hawaii’s chief export being sandalwood. As foreign merchants came to Hawaii to trade, the social structure of the islands began to change.

The Kingdom of Hawaii

In 1810, Kamehameha I, a warrior chief, founded the Kingdom of Hawaii after gaining the loyal support of Kauai’s chieftain. Although a native Hawaiian gained political control, the islands had already been altered appreciably by the influx of people from the West who came there to do business. Upon the king’s death in 1819, Kamehameha II, who welcomed traders from the West, was given the reins of power. Under his jurisdiction, the kapu system, based on the ancient laws and taboos that had long prevailed in the islands, began to give way to Western customs.

The following year, the first Christian missionaries arrived from New England. These Congregationalists were soon followed by Methodists from the United States, Roman Catholics from France, Anglicans from Britain, and Lutherans from Germany. Mormon missionaries arrived considerably later and had such great success in winning Hawaiians to Mormonism that they ultimately established a branch of Brigham Young University and a Mormon temple and information center on Oahu’s northeast coast.

The pusillanimous Hawaiians, who were traditionally polytheistic, were easy to convert to Christianity, although they still preserved the myths of many of their deities, such as Pele and Maui. The arrival of the missionaries marked a wave of immigration to the islands and also heralded an era of interracial interchanges and interracial marriage, thereby minimizing many of the ethnic divisions that characterize some societies.

The next wave of immigration came in the 1850s, when large numbers of Chinese immigrants arrived, drawn to Hawaii by its climate, its strategic location, and its commercial possibilities. The Chinese, many of whom initially worked on the sugar and pineapple plantations, soon gravitated to urban centers, mostly to Honolulu, to establish businesses. Soon they had the highest family income of all the ethnic groups in the islands.

During the nineteenth century, significant numbers of immigrants arrived, first from Japan around 1860, then from Scandinavia, Spain, Madeira, the Azores, Puerto Rico, and Germany. The overwhelming influx was from Asia. About half of Hawaii’s population is of Asian ancestry. Intermarriage reduced the number of full-blooded Hawaiians from about 225,000 at the end of the eighteenth century to less that 10,000 at the end of the twentieth century.

Land Ownership

The king originally owned most of the state’s land, held as crown lands. These properties, broken up in 1848, eventually reverted to the territorial government, which now owns about 40 percent of Hawaii’s land. The federal government owns another 10 percent, and private land barons own all but about 3 percent of the remaining land. As a result, many people who own houses or other buildings in Hawaii built them on leased land. Long-term leases offer homeowners some protection, but when the leases come up for renewal, substantial increases are usually imposed.

The Bishop Estate is the largest private landowner in Hawaii, holding about 9 percent of all the land in the state. It uses the large income that these lands produce to fund the Kamehameha School, initially established to educate children of Hawaiian blood and thought to be the most affluent secondary school in the world.

The Annexation of Hawaii

By the middle of the nineteenth century, during the reign of Kamehameha III, the kingdom was increasingly influenced by American missionaries. Kamehameha III in 1843 ceded the islands to Britain, but within a few months, the United States had strongly protested this action, and, shortly thereafter, both Britain and France acknowledged Hawaii’s independence. The kingdom was reformed under the Organic Acts of 1845-1847.

The reigns of Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V witnessed the growth of huge sugar plantations owned mostly by Americans. U.S. financial interests in Hawaii grew before the reign of Queen Liliuokalani, who ascended to the throne in 1891. She showed signs of becoming a more absolute ruler than her predecessors, so in 1893 she was deposed, and a republic, whose president was American Sanford B. Dole, was soon created. Dole and his legislature requested that the United States annex Hawaii, which, after some hesitation, it did in 1898. It officially became a United States territory in 1900.

Moving Toward Statehood

With the advent of military aircraft during World War I, Hawaii began to be viewed by military leaders as a first line of defense for the continental United States. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans soon realized how vulnerable Hawaii was to attack and how vital it was both as a line of defense and as a staging area for a Pacific war.

During the early days of World War II, Nisei Japanese who lived in Hawaii were viewed with a combination of distrust and contempt. They were barred from service in the U.S. armed forces, although they were not incarcerated in camps, as their counterparts on the mainland West Coast had been. Eventually they were admitted to the armed forces and, as members of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442d Regimental Combat Team, performed heroically in some of the most desperate battles of the conflict, proving their loyalty.

Shortly after the war, mainland labor unions called plantation strikes in Hawaii that paralyzed shipping in 1946, 1948, and 1958. The five business cartels that controlled a great deal of the islands’ economy were forced to make substantial concessions to plantation workers. Many Japanese Americans rose to political power and did a great deal to reform state government. As the territory attracted large numbers of new inhabitants and gained considerable affluence, agitation for statehood grew. In 1959 statehood was conferred.

The Growth of Tourism

Hawaii’s economy during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth came largely from the sale of sandalwood, sugar, and pineapples, although the federal and territorial governments increasingly provided jobs that bolstered the economy. In 1970 seventy thousand of the islands’ population of less than one million were employed in state and federal jobs. By 2019 the federal government employed only about 37,000 people in Hawaii. Then the state was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. After the pandemic ended in about 2021, the state had lost about 15,000 employees due in part to a lack of childcare workers because many had long COVID.

Although the federal government spends a billion dollars a year in Hawaii, its expenditures are far exceeded by the revenues generated for the state through tourism, which in 2019 amounted to nearly eighteen billion dollars. The Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce is among the most efficient and accommodating in the United States. The five islands that are most often visited—Oahu, Maui, Hawaii, Molokai, and Kauai—have excellent tourist facilities and offer breathtaking beaches and waves that attract surfers from around the world. Of the inhabited islands, only Lanai, owned by the Dole Corporation, limits tourism.

Honolulu is Hawaii’s most-visited city. Waikiki Beach, close to the main section of Honolulu, is lined with elegant hotels. Its beaches are filled with tourists and surfers throughout the year. Such natural attractions as the Haleakala volcano on Maui, the Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea volcanoes on Hawaii, Diamond Head on Oahu, and the Waimea Canyon on Kauai are popular among tourists.

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