Historical Collections of The Hawaiian Islands - Part 12 - The Ancients ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: by Darlen6 E. Kelley November 20, 2006 http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Hawaii Keepers of the Culture Influence of Foreigners on the Ancients Part 12, a New Religion Missionaries and their Influence on the Hawaiians. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Part 12 -- Having arrived at Kailua, where the king was residing, on the fourth day of April, the missionaries presented their credentials, delivered gifts which they brought with them, stated their purpose of their coming, and requested permission to reside in the country and carry on their work. The answer was not immediately forthcoming. Contemporary accounts prove the friendly disposition of the king and chiefs but indicate certain obstacles, such as to the size of the company, the novelty of their business, and the national jealousies of English and French advisors of the king. It was suggested by some that Great Britain might be offended if American missionaries settled on the islands; others insinuated that the newcomers had been sent by the American goverment for political purposes. After four days of discussion, arguement, and social amenities, the king said they might land at Kailua and remain for a year on trial. The missionaries, however, believed it important for them to have a station at Honolulu; four more days were required to gain Liholiho's consent to such arraingement. This being accomplished, the company was divided, part staying at Kailua,and part going to Honolulu. Two of the missionaries accompanied George Kaumualii to Kauai and at the earliest solicitation of the king of that island a mission station was established at Waimea. A phase of missionary history frequently overlooked was the aid rendered by native assistants as interpreters, teachers of the language, and even as exhorters. During the first few years such aid was of great importance; it was the only means that the gospel message could be delivered to the people. The letters and reports of the missionaries contain many references to the faithful and effective service given by Thomas Hopu, John Honolii, George Sandwich, and other native Christain workers. Of much value likewise was the help recieved from Rev. William Ellis. The latter hd been for six years engaged in missionary work in the Society Islands under the London Missionary Society; in 1822 he came to Hawaii as a visitor and the urgent invitation of the American missionaries and the native chiefs and remained for two years. His familiarity with the Tahitan language, so much like the Hawaiian, enabled him to gain early command of the latter language, and he was the first foreigner to preach to the Hawaiians in their own tongue. By reason of his knowledge and experience his coopration was especially helpful in the important work of reducing the Hawaiian language to written form. From the beginning the chiefs were friendly to the missionaries; for the first few years, indeed, they practically monopolized the efforts of the new teachers. The latter have sometimes been criticized for giving so much attention to the chiefs; in reality, they had no choice in the matter, and if they could not win the chiefs, they had very little chance of success with the common people.. Visitors to the islands in 1822 remarked that all seemed to hang on the word of the king; he said that by and by he would tell his people " that they must all learn the god word, and worship Jehovah; but that the missionaries must teach him first, and get themselves well acquainted with Hawaiian." All restrictions were at length removed, and powerful chiefs were numbered among the first converts. But spiritual results in any large measure came slowly, trailing behind the achievemnts of education. The people, it is true, attended the religious services, crowding by thousands into the thatched churches and under the trees where the missionaries sang and prayed and preached the gospel message; but the printed page was the magic key giving access to the hearts and minds of the people. To most of them Pule and Palapala were two aspects of the thing; religion was an invisable abstraction, letters could be seen; therefore attention was given to letters. religious ideas were incorporated in the reading matter and by that means gained entry into the minds of the readers. [ The word Pule; to pray; the act of worshipping; religious service. The word came to stand for the religious instruction given by the missionaries. The word Palapala: characters made by impressing marks on kapa on paper; hence , a writing; the word was popularly used to designate the great education introduced by the missionaries. ] +++++++++++++++++ Three Christain Natives and the Prince. Along with the missionaries, four Hawaiian youths educated at the Foreign Mission School had come on the Thaddeaus; Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honolii, and George Tamoree, prince from Kauani. They had led adventurous lives in America and were destined for various successes and failures as they returned to their native land. Obookiah and Hopu were just two of many Hawaiians who sought adventures abroad. Chief Kaiana of Kauai was taken in 1787 by a British captain to Canton, China, where he met an Hawaiian woman, probably the first feminine foreign traveler fom the islands, who had been hired as a maid for the captain's wife. Historian James Jarvis found that the kng of Kauai had as interpreter " a middle aged native who had dined with General Washington in New York, who gave him clothes and treated him with kindness as a native of the islands where Cook was killed." The four Hawaiian boys served as seafarers while Obookiah kept to his studies. +++++++++++++ Thomas Hopu -- Hopu's life story in America was written by the Rev. Joseph Harvey, pastor of the church of Goshen, Connecticut, who turned it into his own deeply religious interpretations before he sent it on to the Andover Theological Seminary on August 29, 1822. Hopu learned to write and spell some easy words and acquired some religious training. Then his wicked disposition seemed rather inclined rather to rove the sea, where he had a tumultuous life. He made 12 voyages,and during the war of 1812, was taken four times by the British and imprisoned for several months on St. Kitts in the West Indies. That winter he returned on an American ship and next spring went out to sea again, in a small vessel, about 30 tons. Shipwrecked about 400 miles from the West Indies, He rescued crew members from drowning by helping them get out of their clothes in the water. Then he swam back to the wreck, tied a swamp boat to the mast, bailed it out and got the swimming crew aboard it. Next day he made a sail from the captains frock and navigated by sun and stars six days to the West Indies. With a former sea captin friend, he sailed back to New England, but the British seized this ship, took Hopu and the captain back to Bermuda and relieved them of everything except the clothes they were wearing. later they were freed and returned to Nantucket. Hopu settled down with a Grangor family at Whitestown, N.Y., for about nine monts serving as a servant and coachman. He lived with various families, until September 1815, when he joined Obookiah who was studying at Goshen. There the Rev. Mr. Harvey claimed Hopu suffered torments over his lack of religious faith and his past sins as he spent with the Rev. Mr. Mills at Torringford. Then at Canaan the fears of hell caused him awful distress in an intense struggle to gain Christian peace and forgiveness of sins while attending the school of Mr. Prentice, who fervently searched the poor fellow's soul. Hopu and Obookiah stayed together in school at Litchfield Farms from the late 1816 until April 1817, when they started their training at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwal. Of the four Hawaiian boys who came with the pioneer party, Hopu was best prepared to serve, for he had proved a good scholar, even in theology. At mission's departure from Boston he offered an eloquent speech in English. After Obookiah's death, February 1818, Hopu and the other boys remained in training at the school until the mission left for Hawaii in October, 1819. Hopu and Kanui were chosen to remain wth the Thurston's and Holmans at Kailua to serve as interpreters and aides to the king. Lucy was amused to watch the two boys the first morning all dressed up in their Boston finery marching proudly to visit the chiefs. Hopu was happiy reunited with his father, who moved his family to Kailua, where Hopu loveingly cared for him teaching him to know Jesus ad praying with him faithfully. He also served the king's household and aided Asa by translating his teachings and preaching. Later at Lahaina with the king, Hopu met and fell in love with an 18 year old girl. He took her to Honolulu to live with and learn from Asa Thurston. Hopu declared "since the Almighty has excited in my heart such yearnings for her, I think it is his will that I marry her." Lucy named her Delia and delighted in the girl's adaptability to private domestic life and she proved to be amiable, piously disposed, with a warm heart, ever open to receive instruction. Delia was thus prepared to be led by Hopu to the alter in a public church ceremony attended by the king, high chiefs and foreigners. this was the first Christian wedding service in the islands. Hopu appeared in his black suit, with Delia in fashionable white dress in her crowning glory " a trimmed straw bonnet." After helping Bingham in Honolulu for sometime, Hopu settled in Kailua where he kept busy teaching, holding Sabbath meetings for the governor, assissting in translating the Bible, and caring for his father, who died after four years at the age of 80. His funeral service was the first missionary one to be held in Hawaii. Throughout those early missionary annal in Hawaii, Hopu appears here and there preforming his duties; forcibly delivering a sermon, spreading cheer, comfort an aid to those suffering from dysentery; comanding the schooner Young Thaddeus as the wild, reckless hand of George Tamoree crashed it on the rocks of Kaunai; teaching, translating, and serving in hard labor. Devoted as Hopu was to Christain associates and his work with them, he later fell from grace when he admitted having slipped back into the native pitfall of adultry. Chester Lyman, a sometime Yale professor, visiting the islands in 1846 found Hopu working in a store in Honolulu. He reports he was over 50 and an interesting man ...... He has been a consistant and useful man since he returned and is now one of the deacons of the Kailua Church where he resides. +++++++++++++ William Kanui -- William Kanui arrived in Boston about 1809 at the age of 12. He worked for a time as a servant, known by the English rendition of his name, Willam Tenooe. During the War of 1812 he found adventures aboard privateering vessels. At length he went to New Haven to learn the trade of a barber, where yale students urged him to a better future, took care of his debts,and gave him lessons until he joined Obookiah and Hopu at Goshen. Back in Hawaii, Kanui proved less amenable to missionary discipline and demands. At Kailua with Hopu, he in a few short months violated his vows by excess drinking, was excluded from Christian fellowship, but still performed some service for the chiefs for a time, then became a wanderer for many years. Kanui took off for California, made a small fortune in the gold fields, lost it in a bank failure, ran a restaurant, and then made his way as bootblack and junk dealer. He even taught a Bible class and had some contact with other Hawaiians who were serving as missionaries to the Indians. After an absence of 20 years, he was accepted back in the church in Hawaii. He lived another 24 years, and was buried next to Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu. +++++++++++++++ John Honolii -- John Honolii had shipped from Hawaii as a sailor to take the place of one who had died. After arriving in Boston in 1815, he found admiring and interested friends who offered to help him acquire an education. The ship company agreed to release him and generously added $ 100 toward his expenses. When he later joined the others at the Foreign Mission School, he became a valuable Hawaiian language instructor because, having come at a later age, he still had good comand of his native tongue. He also won praise for his considerable vigor and intellect and his discreet and stately deportment. Honolii proved an important assistant at Kailua, Honolulu, and briefly at Kauai, during those early days while the missionaries were still acquiring their later expertness in the Hawiaan tongue and faithful to the Christian training, he walked irreproachably with his church. He died in February 1838. +++++++++++++ Prince George Tamoree [ Kaumualii ]-- Perhaps the earliest of the boys to leave his native land was the son of Kaumualii, king of Kauai, a friendly, intelligent and enterprising ruler. Trustfully the king had sent the young boy off with a ship's captain to get an education in America. This may have been for the boy's protection as being born of a commoner mother, he was not considered favorably by the high rankng queen. Later, when he was aboard the Thaddeus, Lucy Thurston considered him an illigitimate son sent away by his father to save him from falling prey to malice and jealousy of his wife. Of course that was Lucy's religious minded interpretation as the Hawaiians never considered children to be illegitimate. Though the captain had been provided with some means for taking care of his seven year old charge, he left the lad in a lurch and, as the boy later wrote his father, the captain became "intemporate and exposed with the property you sent with him ... and I have to shirk for myself." He had gained a fair feeling for English expression if not the exact words. As Hawiian names are puzzling to the uninitiated, Kaumualii became Tamoree in English and was dubbed George. His first four years were spent with Captain Rowan at Worchester, Massachusetts, then four more years with a Captain Samuel Cotten, a school keeper. After that, he spent time at Fitchburg, acquiring some ability as a carpenter. Restless, Tamoree left for Boston to look for passage home. He enlisted in the U S Navy in 1815 as George Prince. He served on the Enterprise and the on the Guerriere under Stephen Decatur in the Mediterranean, who was the final stop to the harrasment of the Barbary Pirates. Discharged in 1816, George next reported living with the "Purser of the Navy" at Charlestown, Massachusetts. He too was later discovered and invited to join the others at the Foreign Mission School . Though the young prince performed creditably in navigation and astronomy. At the school his religious attitude failed to meet the strict standards of the ABCFM. They had observed too much of his demanding ways and his ead unbowed before God to count him as a promise of proponent of the work of salvation. But since his father was king of Kauai it seemed advantageous topay for George's passage home to his royal parent and to win favor there. From Honolulu, Captain Blanchard on the Thaddeus delivered George to his long bereft father on Kauai. On leaving, young George shed tears. The king rejoiced at the long awaited reunion and warmly embraced the two missionaries, Ruggles and Whitney, even offering them special privileges that, quite unlike other white men " they did not covet,"such being quite contrary to their religious moral standards The king generously awarded the captain free supplies for his ship and added sandal wood, valued at $1,000. The happy father lavished on his repatriated son princely powers, chests of rich clothes, the stone fort, and overloardship of the fertile valley of Wahiawa. All this proved to be too much for the long deprived lad and led to his undoing. He later wthdrew to his valley and reverted to native ways with his bride from Honolulu, Betty Davis, whose father had served along with John Young for Kamehameha the Great, the two of them holding high positions in the Kingdom. The favored Prince, known locally as Humehume, met his downfall four years after his return. revolting with other dissident chiefs after the death of his father, he and his forces were quickly defeated, his wife and infant daughter captured, and he was chased down and found in the mountains, naked, foodless and drunk. Taken to Honolulu, he succumbed to a fever two years later, the victim of despair, hatred and rum. He spured spiritual aid for his soul, clinging to indifference and antipathy till his death. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Continued in part 13.