Statewide County HI Archives History - Books .....Chapter III, Pages 15-21 1925 ************************************************ 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: J Orr orr@hawaii.com August 9, 2009, 5:12 am Book Title: The Story Of Hawaii And Its Builders Builders page 15-21 The Story of Hawaii An Historical Outline of the Hawaiian Islands By Howard D. Case Chapter III. THE AMERICAN MISSION The death of Kamehameha the Great marked the beginning of a new era in Hawaii, for the following year the first American missionary company from New England arrived in the islands. The missionaries found that Hawaii had become a country without a religion, and that the people were in a mood to embrace quickly any new form of worship that might be introduced. Kamehameha the Great died in the pagan faith of his ancestors. It is interesting to note, however, the strong Christian trait that he exhibited when on his death bed. His priests and advisors suggested that several human victims be sacrificed to his patron deity in order to prolong his life. But Kamehameha forbade it. ?The men,? he said, ?are sacred to the king.? In referring to the king, Kamehameha meant his son, Liholiho, later known as Kamehameha II, to whom the great chief left his kingdom. The tabu system of ancient Hawaii was complicated in the extreme. It covered practically every phase of life of the people, enmeshing them in a network of penalties and regulations, the violations of which resulted often in punishment by death, and linked with it was the worship of idols. And at this point it should be borne in mind that the breaking up of the ancient system, and the idolatry, was not due to Christian influence. Almost at the very moment that the power of Kamehameha the Great ceased with his death, the entire foundation underlying the oppressive tabu system and the worship of idols became weakened and threatened to crumble. There were many high chiefs and priests who had ceased to believe in the powers of the ancient gods. To their skepticism was added that of Kaahumanu and Keopuolani, the latter being the highest tabu chiefess in the kingdom and the mother of Liholiho. Secretly, Kaahumanu and Kepouolani had planned to overthrow the tabu system whenever an opportunity was presented. One of the tabus forbade men and women from eating together. Many of the natives looked upon this with disfavor, especially in view of the fact that both men and women were permitted to partake in intoxicating liquor without bringing down upon them the wrath of the gods. They regarded in the same manner the use of tobacco, in the use of which both sexes indulged. Still another factor was the belief in the ?true god? retained by thousands of Hawaiians who were not worshippers of idols. Their ancestors for generations back had adhered consistently to the original religion, brought by Hawaiiloa, and which opposed the worship of idols, and they refused steadfastly to break away from it. They were awaiting the fulfillment of the prophecy that the ?true religion? Page 16 (photo) Page 17 would some day return to them ?in the form of a square box.? How it did return, and in the form of a square box, the Bible, dates back to the arrival of the first American missionaries. QUEEN-MOTHER VIOLATES TABU Shortly after the death of Kamehameha, several chiefs went to Kaahumanu and proposed that she renounce the tabus, but the premier declined, believing that the time for action had not arrived, although the suggestion was exactly in accord with her plans. A little later, Kaahumanu, in a public address in which she declared Liholiho to be king, proposed that thereafter the tabus be disregarded. But Liholiho, not having as yet ascertained the attitude of his subjects, withheld his consent to a general abolition of the tabu, Keopuolani, the queen mother, requested him to send his younger brother, Kaiukeaouli, a lad of six or seven, to her so that they might eat together. Liholiho consented, although he was exceedingly careful that he, personally, did not violate the tabu. The queen mother and the boy ate their evening meal together, and thus the highest tabu chiefess in the kingdom, by openly violating the tabu, set a precedent which was later to become island- wide. In tense dread the people awaited the outcome of Keopuolani?s flagrant violation of the tabu. They expected that at any moment the gods would wreak their vengeance upon her, and that both she and the boy would be stricken dead. But they awaited in vain, and they began to think that the wooden idols and stone images were frauds, and did not represent gods. This felling grew. King Liholiho went to Kawaihae and other places on the Island of Hawaii to consecrate temples, but on each occasion he failed to obtain a faultless ceremony because of the disorders which prevailed. His return to Kailua, the capital, was dramatic. A feat feast had been prepared, and Liholiho sat down and ate openly with the chiefs and chiefesses. ?As they saw no harm ensure,? Alexander, the historian, writes of the common people, ?they raised a joyful shout: ?The tabus are at an end and the gods are a lie!?? IDOLS AND TEMPLES DESTROYED In the meantime a French discovery ship had arrived at Kailua, and the captain was received cordially by the governor of Hawaii. Kalanimoku, better known as William Pitt, prime minister and treasurer under Kamehameha the Great, and one of his leading supporters, accepted Christianity and, at his own request, was baptized aboard the ship by the chaplain. Governor Boki of Oahu was also baptized during the stay of the vessel at Honolulu. Thus fell into ruins idol worship and the tabu system. The high priest of Hawaii set an example of what was to follow by personally burning idols and the temples which housed them. Messengers were sent to all of the other islands of the group to proclaim the abolition of the tabu. With the cessation of the armed conflicts which followed the work of destroying the idols was carried on with greater fervor than ever. Throughout the islands public worship and the sacrifice ceased and, as Jarvis put it, Hawaii presented the strange spectacle of a nation without a religion. However, there were many natives who still retained their faith in the power of the ?true god,? and who had never swerved from their worship of the three god heads, Kane, Ku and Lono, constituting a deity similar to Jehovah or Almighty God. ?Still,? writes Alexander, ?the ancient idolatry was cherished by many in secret; and many of their superstitions, especially those relating to Page 18 sorcery and the cause of disease, were destined to survive for generations to come, and to blend with and color their conceptions of Christianity.? FERTLE FIELD FOR MISSIONARIES And so the New England missionaries, who arrived in the islands in 1820, found a fertile field in which to sow the seeds of Christianity. At first the Hawaiians were skeptical, but the famous John Young convinced them quickly that it was nought but the return of the ?true god,? and that He had come back to them in the form of a square box- the Bible. The name of Henry Obookiah, or Opukahaia, will stand forever upon the honor roll of Hawaii. In Cornwall, Conn., on Feb. 17, 1818, just before Obookiah died, he turned to his American and Hawaiian friends at his bedside and said: ?I wish to live to do good; if it were not for this, I would not wish to live another moment.? Obookiah was born on Hawaii about 1792. When he was about 12 years old his mother and father were killed in a civil war. When, some time later, a sailing ship out of New York arrived off Hawaii, Obookiah went aboard and managed to make Captain Britnall understand that he desired to remain. Another Hawaiian youth, Thomas Hopoo, also went aboard, and finally the captain agreed to let both boys stay. The ship reached New York in 1809 and Captain Britnall took the two boys to New Haven, his home, and there they became acquainted with Yale students, who took a kindly interest in them. By this time Obookiah had heard much about Christianity and God. He made the acquaintance of E. W. Dwight, who was associated with Yale, and who was the man who really taught Obookiah to read and write. It was during the summer of 1814 that Obookiah, by that time a proficient scholar and more than ever inspired with the desire to return to Hawaii and instruct his people in the teachings of Christ, and carry to them a knowledge of the English language, undertook to translate a few verses of the Scriptures into Hawaiian and to prepare a spelling book. He encountered considerable difficulty, however, as the Hawaiian language was not a written one, and the task of reducing the different sounds to writing through the use of letters of the English alphabet seemed at first to be insurmountable. He was so successful, however, that later he began work on a dictionary and grammar. By this time several other Hawaiian youths had arrived in Connecticut for an English education. Obookiah came into contact with practically all of them, and he was instrumental in converting them to Christianity. In 1817 the Foreign Mission School was opened at Cornwall, Conn., for the instruction of young men from heathen lands, and five young Hawaiians were among its earliest pupils, Obookiah being one of them. Obookiah?s crowning achievement was the translation into his native language of the whole of the book of Genesis, and at the time of his death he had made considerable progress in the preparation of the spelling book, grammar and dictionary. These labors by Obookiah were later to prove of the greatest value to the first American missionaries to Hawaii. One of his last requests was that Christian missionaries and teachers be sent to his homeland. A year later, in 1819, the first company of missionaries set sail from Boston for Hawaii. THE FIRST COMPANY OF MISSIONARIES The voyage was made via Cape Horn in the brig Thaddeus, Captain Blanchard, and the mission company consisted of the following persons: the Rev. Hiram Bingham and the Rev. Asa Thurston, graduates of Andover; Dr. Thomas Holman, a physician; Daniel Chamberlain, a farmer; Samuel Ruggles, catechist and teacher; Samuel Whitney, a mechanic and Page 19 teacher, and Elisha Loomis, a printer and teacher. Each of these men was accompanied by his wife, and Chamberlain by his five children. Three Hawaiian youths from the Cornwall School were also in the company to act as assistants and interpreters. Eleven other companies of missionaries followed in later years. When the Thaddeus dropped anchor off the coast of Kohala, Hawaii, on March 31, 1820, a boat under the command of the first officer, was sent ashore. The officer returned with the information that the tabu system had been abolished and the idols destroyed. Following an interview with the king at Kailua, then the capital, the missionaries were granted permission to reside in the islands for one year, two of them at Kailua, and the remainder at Honolulu. John Young had used his influence in their favor, and assured the king and chiefs that they taught the same religion as the English missionaries whom Captain Vancouver had proposed to send to them. Mr. and Mrs. Thurston and Dr. and Mrs. Holman elected to remain at Kailua, and were given a thatched hut to occupy in common. The remainder of the company proceeded to Honolulu in the Thaddeus, and Governor Boki gave them a building site about half a mile east of the landing and some distance from the village. At the urgent request of the chief of Kauai, Whitney and Ruggles went to reside at Waimea, on that island.in 1821 there arrived at Honolulu the frame of a dwelling house which had been sent out from Boston, and after considerable difficulty permission was obtained from the king to erect it. The first church, a thatched building, was completed at Honolulu in August of the same year. EDUCATION BROUGHT TO HAWAII The arrival of the first company of American missionaries paved the way not only for Christianity in Hawaii, but for the education of the Hawaiian people. The early Hawaiians had considerable knowledge of geography, geology, natural history, astronomy and navigation, and also possessed a wealth of folklore, legends and unwritten literature, but they had no idea of printed words nor of written language. With the coming of the missionaries, the Hawaiians began to take an interest not only in the strange, new religion, but in acquiring a knowledge of reading and writing in their own dialect. As soon as they had become settled permanently, the missionaries began an intensive study of the Hawaiian language. Fortunately they were scholars, many of them being proficient in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and they had already gained a preliminary knowledge of the language through their contact with the Hawaiians who had been students at the Cornwall School. In their study of the Hawaiian language they found that there were twelve sounds in it, and that these sounds could be represented by the letters, a, e, I, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p and w. after they had prepared a Hawaiian alphabet, they set up a printing press and, in January, 1822, issued a small spelling book. King Liholiho, Kamehameha III and other chiefs were among the first to acquire a knowledge of the new arts of reading and writing. As soon as a few of the chiefs became proficient they assumed the roles of teachers, and within a comparatively short time were able to send out the best scholars among them to act as instructors in the several districts. It is said that before the end of 1824 more than two thousand natives lad learned to read. AN ENTIRE NATION AT SCHOOL The Hawaiians then established a peculiar system of schools. The chiefs sent out the best scholars to the various districts and commanded Page 20 the people to assemble at certain centers for instruction. For a few years following 1824 almost the entire adult population spent some time in school, a condition probably unique in history. In 1832 schools for native children were opened. These gradually took the place of the schools for adults. Each missionary station became a center for educational work. With regard to the advance of educational and religious work, one writer says: ?Slowly but surely they (the missionaries) gathered their classes together. It took three months before Mr. Thurston had the opportunity to preach to the king. But at the end of the first four months in the islands, English schools were established at Kailua and Kawaihae, Hawaii; Honolulu, Oahu, and at Waimea, Kauai. At the school established at Kailua and conducted by Mr. Thurston and Dr. Holman, the king, Liholiho, his brother, Kauikeaouli, then five years of age, with several of the chiefs and a son of John Young, who ranked as a chief, were the scholars. In three months? time, King Liholiho, his fears allayed, was reading easy lessons in Webster?s spelling book.? Some of the early schools established in the Hawaiian Islands included the Lahainaluna School at Lahaina, Maui, which was founded in 1831, and the Oahu Charity School, in Honolulu, which was founded in 1833. The latter institution was located where the Judiciary Building now stands and was perhaps the first English-speaking school in the Pacific area. Pupils came to it from Alaska, California and Mexico. The present McKinley High School at Honolulu is an outgrowth of this early institution. Punahou School was established in Honolulu in 1836 as a preparatory school for the children of the missionaries. In 1837 the Hilo Boarding School was established on Hawaii. The Royal School, now located in Emma street, Honolulu, and in use today as a public elementary school, was established in 1839 as a boarding school for the education of the children of the chiefs in the English language. PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ORGANIZED In 1845 William Richards was appointed minister of public instruction, and the public school system was organized as a department of the government. The Rev. Richard Armstrong succeeded Richards on the latter?s death in 1847. In 1865 the office of inspector general of schools was created by law, and was maintained until the department was organized as the department of public instruction in 1900, following the annexation of the islands to the United States, and the establishment of territorial government. The report of the minister of public instruction in 1850 shows that the population of the Hawaiian Islands was 84,165. In the same report the minister makes the follwing reference to Punahou School: ?Its location is healthful, delightful, and not very inconvenient to Honolulu.? The same school today is in the center of one of Honolulu?s largest residential districts. The following statistics show the growth in school enrollment in the public schools of the Hawaiian Islands from 1880 until Jan. 1, 1925, and also the changing complexion of the enrollment according to racial descent: Page 21 1880 1925 Hawaiian 5,675 3,514 Part-Hawaiian 955 5,596 Anglo-Saxon 376 1,839 Chinese 85 5,404 Japanese 0 28,308 Korean 0 1,039 Filipino 0 1,905 Portuguese 55 5,883 Spanish 0 351 Porto Rican 0 1,076 Others 36 582 Totals 7,164 55,497 Additional Comments: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders. With which is Incorporated Volume III Men of Hawaii. An historical outline of Hawaii with biographical sketches of its men of note and substantial achievement, past and present, who have contributed to the progress of the Territory, edited by George F. Nellist. Published by Honolulu Star Bulletin, Ltd., Territory of Hawaii, 1925. 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