Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 15, Number 4, 1 April 1998 — Gunboat diplomacy, sandalwood lust and national debt [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Gunboat diplomacy, sandalwood lust and national debt

i By Moilon Kelly Editor's note: This article, written by Marion Kelly of the University ofHawai 'i at Manoa, is part of a series on the historical context leading to the 1898 annexation ofHawai'i to the United States, and the resulting loss of naūonal and cultural identity on the part ofthe Hawaiian people. AT THE death of Kamehameha I, his chiefs demanded and got control over the 'iliahi (sandalwood) trade. No longer was this eommerce controlled by the king as it had been

m 1 under Kamehameha I. From 1 820 to 1840, the debt to foreign traders increased dramatically. Between 1824 and 1844, more than

50 man-of-war ships, including American gunboats. eame to the Hawaiian Islands. Several gunboaf captains threatened to take over the islands if the chiefs did not pay all the sandalwood that the foreign merchants and trading ship captains claimed was owed to them. In response to the threats, the chiefs demanded that every man bring in about 70 pounds of sandalwood, and every woman bring in a mat, a pieee of kapa or a Spanish dol

lar. Thus, in 1826, with the first gun-boat-supported threat, the private debts of the chiefs became the nahonal debt of the Kingdom of Hawai'i. In addition to the regular taxes, the people

were now burdened with this new tax from the chiefs' attempts to pay off their private debts. In the process, Hawaiian sandalwood forests were stripped bare. The debt, still unpaid, continued to attract more gunboats to Hawai'i. The threat of a take-over was real. In 1843, the British Navy took control of the islands for five months before Admiral Thomas retumed them to the Hawaiian govemment. By 1 842, French gunbo'ats had claimed the Marquesas and the Tuamotu Islands. By 1847, the French had taken Tahiti. Fearing his country would be taken over by a foreign power, Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) turned for help to his teachers and friends, the American missionaries, who had raised and educated him in the Chiefs' Children's

School. They responded generously to his request with a plan to set up a Western type of govemment and to privatize the control of land by allowing individuals to own it, buy it or sell it. They assured the king and chiefs that in the event of an invading enemy force, the only land that would be taken by the enemy was land not owned by anyone. Privately owned land would not be taken. Unfortunately, the kānaka maoli discovered too late that not all enemies eame in foreign gunboats. Some were already here, posing as friends. The American missionaries not only became advisors to the Hawaiian king and chiefs; they also became the architects of the new Western-style Hawaiian govemment and authors of all the civil and eiiminal laws adopted. As the design for the new government became more complicated, the greater became the dependency of the Hawaiian king and chiefs on the American missionaries, their lawyers and traders. The missionaries, who became leaders in establishing the new Hawaiian government, may have believed that theirs was the

best way, that their culture was the best eulture, that their religion was the best reli-

gion and that their values were the best values. Was that not the purpose of a missionary — to show "primitive"

people of the world how they must change and how they should live? So it followed, as night follows day, that this was the great opportunity for the Ameiiean missionaries to transform Hawaiians, to lead them into the modern world of Westem capitalism. Failing that, they hoped to make the Hawaiian islands into an eeonomically viable plaee, as close to the

New England model as possible, so that they and their children and grand-

children could hve īn Hawai'i and eonduct business successfully. By 1845, a sugar plantation on Kaua'i had been pro-

ducing for 10 years, proving that sugar eane could be a profitable business. For this, the

missionaries took full advantage of the ehanee to insert themselves and their friends into prominent leadership roles within the Hawaiian govemment, and there they remained until they took over completely in 1893. ■ Kauikeaouli (pictured above), known as Kamehameha III, reigned the longest of all eight Hawaiian sovereigns. During his three decades as mō'l of the kingdom, for-eign-promoted changes in Hawai'i's socio-economic climate nearly paralyzed traditional lifeways and fueled the burgeoning capitalist economy whose benefits weighed in favor of non-natives. Photo courtesy: Guava Graphics.

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