Historical Collections of The Hawaiian Islands -  Part 19 - 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 27, 2006
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Historical Collections of Hawaii
Keepers of the Culture 
Influence of Foreigners on Hawaii
Part 19 - The Thirties-- 
Difficulties with Foreigners
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Part 19 - The Thirties

There was something more underneath all this then to sow wild oats. In
the revival of the hula and ancient games, we recognize elements of the
racial culture struggling for expression after a long perod of enforced
retirement. There was also during the years 1833 and 1834 a protracted
sruggle between the king and the older chiefs resulting from the
decision of the king to terminate the regency and from what looks lie an
attempt on is part to regain for the crown as much as possible of the
power which had gradually passed into the hands of the council of
chiefs. Frm this viewpoint some of the incidents of of these years,
taken together, constitute an important episode in the line of
constitional development. On February 8, 1833 Levi Chamberlain wrote in
his journal:

" There are a good many things which look as though the King meant to
bring things round to his will; or a least to make the attempt. He
probably feels restricted and he wishes to follow his own inclinations
more fully without so much regard to the chiefs as he has been
heretofore under the necessity of paying."

The king's first direct challenge to Kinau and the older chiefs was his
action in taking land away from several natives in disregard of the
proclamation of July 5, 1832. His next move was to abrogate some of the
laws. Then on March 15, he called the people together in an assembly
and addressed them insubstance as follows:

" These are my thoughts to all ye chiefs, classes of subjects and
foreigners representing this country which by victory of Mokuohai was
conquored by my Father and his chiefs -- it has descended to us as his
and their posterity. This is more -- all this is within it, the living
and the dead, the good and the bad, the agreeable and the pleasant --all
are mine. I shall rule with justice over all the land, make and
promulgate all laws: neither the chiefs nor the foreigners have any
voice in making laws for this country. I alone am the one. Those three
laws which were given out formally remain still in force, viz, not to
murder, not to steal, not to committ adultry; therefore govern yourself
accordingly."

Then the king turned to Kina and deignated her as kuhina-nui. This
occasioned a little surprise, as it  had been hoped by some and feared
by others that he would remove Kinau and put in her place  Liliha or
even Kaomi, a young Tahitian who was his boon companion and principal
abettor in his disorderly course. This is the reason to believe that if
the king had felt perfectly free to follw his own inclination, he might
have appointed Liliha; he had great fondness for her, and there was a
jealousy of long standing between him and Kinau. But such an appointment
was too hazardness, carrying with it the danger of civil war.

The action of the king left the government
in a somewhat ambiguous condidtion. If he meant literally to arrogate to
himself all authority, then the position of Kinau as kuhina-nui and the
status of the council
of chiefs would of necessity be fundamentally different from what they
had been theretofore. But neither Kinau nor the other chifs had any
intention of yielding without a struggle. During the next year or more
the king vacillated between the assertion of his complete indepedence
and acquiescence in the wishes of the older chiefs. The latter kept up a
steady pressure in an effort to bring him back to the constitutional
position in which he stood before March 15, 1833, excepting only the
termination of the regency. Kamehameha III had not the character of an
autocrat. The role of a constitional monarch was better suited to him.
In the end he yielded, and the net result of two years of the confusion
and uncertainty in the government was the termination of the regency,
and the assumption by Kamehameha III of whatever power and authority
belonged to the kingly office, but leaving the other organs of
government, the kuhina-nui and council of chiefs, much as they had been
before. A reconciliation was effected between the king and Kinau and
from the beginning of 1835 the king left the responsibility of
government very largely in her hands. An interesting commentary on this
fact is found in one of the official letters of the British consul,
written in the latter part of 1836.

"Kauikeaouli ( or Tamehameha ) is now about twenty three years of age
and is possessed of more talent than almost any other native, but being
of very indolent habits and excessively fond of pleasures,  he does not
attend to the affairs of government, but trusts Kinau his half sister
with the reins. She is entirely governed by the American Missionaries
who through her govern the Islands with unlimited sway." 

In view of the confusion of this time and the loose way in which the
king dealt with the laws, the restoration of normal conditions, called
for the new code of laws. Hence this subject received the attention of
the chiefs and a set of laws was drawn up during 1834 and proclaimed by
the king in public assembly on January 5, 1835, the exectution of the
laws being entrusted to Kinau. This little penal code is in five
chapters or divisions, each signed by Kauikeaouli. The first deals with
murder and lesser degrees of homicide, providing penalties graded
according to the offense.  The second deals with theft, calling for a
fine of twice the amount stolen, imprisonment, or lashing on the bare
back, the number of strokes being proportioned to the amount stolen. the
third chapter relates to unlawful sexual intercourse and also divorce;
the fourth has to do with fraud and false-witness; the fifth with
drunkenness and and offenses committed while in a state of intoxication,
with graduated penalties.

The Hawaiian rulers composed their domestic difficulties not a moment to
soon, for the next few years brought them a multplicity of troubles with
foreigners and foreign governments. The really serious difficulties with
foreigners revolved around such questions as the right of foreigners to
enter the country, to reside there, to engage in business  (trade,
agriculture, missionary work, etc.), to acquire house lots and land by
lease or otherwise, to build houses on land so acquired, and to transfer
their property either by sale, lease, will, or inheritance. In spite of
a good deal of loose talk, no responsible person ever seriously denied
the right of the Hawaiian government to restrict foreigners in any or
all of these respects. The advisability of restriction was a different
matter. It came to be recognized that any general rights which aliens
might acquire along these lines would have to be based upon treaties.
Hence arose the zeal of various navel officers in the makig of treaties
and conventions during the years 1836-1839. There was an earlier treaty,
the " articles of arrangement " negotiated by the American naval
officer, Captain T.ap C. Jones, in 1826, but it had been designed
primarily to protect trade and the whaling
industry ad was not well suited to the needs of forigners permanently
domiciled in the country. Still, it was appealed to on several occasions
as a guarentee of various privileges claimed by American residents.

Before 1820 the foreigners who became residents of Hawaii and who
acquired land were predominantly of a humble status, commonly sailors.
They conformed, in manners of property, to the customs of the country.
After 1820 conditions changed. The number of foreigners increased. Many
of them were of higher station in life, merchants, mechanics,
missionaries, agriculturists, professional men. These later comers did
not always understand the native system, and even when they did
understand, many of them had little respect for it. Foreigners began to
deal with their property as they would have done in their home
countries; in doing so they sometimes violated Hawaiian customs. On the
other hand, the native authorities treated the property of foreigners as
they did that of their own subjects, thus creating much dissatisfaction.
Before 1830 the difficulties between foreigners and the government had
to do with moral laws and mercantile debts; after 1830 there were many
cases arising out of alleged violations of the land and property rights
of foreigners. Foreigners began to deny the right of the government to
arbitrarily dispossess them of their land or to prevent the transfer of
property from one foreigner to another, and they appealed to their own
governments for protection -- successfully in some instances.

After about 1830 several new elements entered the situation.One was the
effort of the British consul and other Englishmen to counteract or
offset the American influence in the government which was growing from
year to year with the increase of American commercial interests and
missionary enterprise. A curious detail of this effort was a pamphlet
published in London in 1832, containing a letter addressed " to a Noble
Lord " by T. Horton James " on the importance of settling the Sandwich
and Bonin Islands ..... on the plan of a propriety government ...... "
Another new factor was the growing interest and activity in agriculture
and industry, to be described later. A third element was the attempt of
Catholic missionaries to establish themselves and their work in Hawaii.
This was a French enterprise and toward the end of the decade it
obtained the active support of the French government. The best picture
of the foreign impact during the 1830's willbe gained by describing the
more important incidents in chronological order. But it is necessary
first to go back and bring up the history of the Catholic mission to the
year of 1831.

The Catholic mission in Hawaii finds its origin in activities and ideas
of  young Frenchman, John Rives, boon companion and secretary of
Kamehameha II. Rives went to England with Liholiho in 1823. He was with
the king to the moment of his death in July, 1824,but subsequently, for
some reason which is not clear, fell out of favor with the suviving
members of the party and separated from them. It appears that Rives had
taken with him to Europe the idea of utilizing the favor and the
property which had been bestowed upon him, by Liholiho and his father,
to promote a commercial enterprise in Hawaii and to introduce into the
islands a Catholic mission. After attempting without success to interest
English captitalists in his commercal scheme, Rives went over to his
native country. He could hardly have selected a more opportune moment
for presenting his projects in France. There were capitalists willing to
embark on distant trading enterprises; church and state were in close
alliance in consequence of the accession of the clerical minded King
Charles X; there existed in Catholic and missionary circles a strong
interest in the islands of the Pacific and a determination to establish
there Catholic missions in order to combat the errors of both heathenism
and Protestantism; a young and religious order, the Congregation of the
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, stood ready to undertake such a mission
as Rives suggested. He had, therefore, little difficulty in interesting
merchants and captalists, government officials, and Catholic missionary
authorities.

The result was the organization of two commercial expeditions and a
religious mission. The first to get underway was a trading enterprise
undertaken by the bankers Lafitte of Harve and Paris, which sailed from
Harve in April, 1826, in the ship Heros. Its first objective was trade
along the western coast of America. The second enterprise was organized
under the patronage of the French government by Bordeaux firm of
'Monneron, which was already engaged  in trade along the Pacific coast
of America. The expedition was to consist of a trading venture and a
permanent agricultural settlement in the Hawaiian islands; and with it
was to be associated the Catholic mission, though the two enterprises
had no organic connection. The second expedition sailed from Bordeaux in
November. 1826, in the ship Comete. The missionary party consisted of
three priests, Fathers Alexis Bachelot, Abraham Armand, and Patrick
Short, a choir brother and two lay brothers, Theodore Boissier, Melchoir
Bondu, and Leonore Portal; Father Bachelot was head of the mission with
the title of apostolic prefect. The agricultural settlers were three or
four in number, headed by a young French lawyer, Auguste de Morineau, wo
expected ultimately to be appointed French consul at Honolulu.

The success of all these projects depended to a vital degree upon the
favor which Rives promised to obtain for them from the Hawaiian
authorities; but that prop proved to be a broken reed. The death of
Liholiho left Rives without any influential friend among the Hawaiian
chiefs; stories designed to discredit him were brought back by the
survivors of Liholiho's party; Kaahumanu turned against him. Rives had
sailed from Harve on the Heros; learning on the coast of California of
the change in his standings
on the islands, he did not return to Hawaii. For the lack of support
expected of him, the agricultural settlement project was a complete
failure, and the missionary enterprise was seriously handicapped.

The Comete arrived in Honolulu July 7, 1827. The priests, perhaps
fearing a refusal, made no formal request for pemission to land and
remain in the country. Kaahumanu ordered the captain of the ship to take
them away, but he sailed without doing so, and no serious objection
seems to have been raised against them for a year or two. They rented a
small enclosure containing three huts and there the entire company of
missionaries ad agriculturists lived until November, when Morineau
obtained a grant of a small piece of land ( part of the premises now
occupied by the Catholic mission in Honolulu), where a house was built,
and in January, 1828, the priests opened a little chapel to the public.
In October, 1827, two of the settlers went back to France and Morineau
followed them about the beginning of 1828. The latter hoped to get a
re-enforcement and backing for a commercial establishment, but he was
unsuccessful and hence did not return to the islands.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Continued in part 20