Hawaii: A Brief History
Hawaii is admired for its paradise islands and rich cultural history, the holiday resort continues to seduce tourists to revisit it again and again. Its beaches are famous surfer havens that are frequented by international surfing champions. The state also boasts a chain of fearsome volcanoes because of its location in the Pacific. Apart from that, Hawaii is a rich source of natural resources such as coconuts, bananas and sugarcane products. More than the beaches, volcanoes and the natural resources, Hawaii takes pride in its people known as the Kanaka Maoli – a warm and happy group who has managed a kingdom even before the British colonized them.
Inhabitation of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Archipelago has the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. The islands are located almost 2400 miles from California, 3800 miles from Japan and 2400 miles from the Marquesas Islands. The last group of islands is believed to be the place from which the first settlers, the Menehune, arrived in Hawaii around 300 to 400 AD. This settlement was later displaced by a group of settlers from Tahiti. Under the Multiple Migration Theory, the first settlement of the Menehune people was overthrown by a group of taller and physically stronger people from Tahiti.
Discovery of Hawaii
The isolation of Hawaii from the rest of the world is the reason that it was also one of the last places discovered by the New World. In 1778 while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage between Alaska and Asia, Captain James Cook and his crew stumbled upon a group of islands very far north in the Pacific. Cook named them the Sandwich Islands, many Europeans and Americans explored the islands after him.
How the Kamehamehas changed Hawaii
Hundreds of thousands of Kanaka Maoli lived in the Hawaii islands in a highly organized, self-sufficient and subsistent social system. Since the first contact with explorers and missionaries this number has been drastically reduced to less than 40,000 people.
The reduction in numbers was caused partly by war and partly by diseases. The Kanaka Maoli were originally healthy but unprepared for the diseases of the New World such as smallpox. Besides that, the people of Hawaii were divided before as Kingdoms began to fight more aggressively with the availability of western weapons such as swords and guns, even getting access to buy complete AR-15 rifles. However thirty-two years after the arrival of Captain James Cook and his crew, Hawaii became united into one Great Kingdom under the headship of Kamehameha I with the help of a large army and foreign weapons.
His son, Kamehameha II became his successor when he died. Kamehameha II is also named Liholiho and like his father, he changed Hawaii not only politically but also socially. In his reign he eliminated the kapu (”taboo”) system and broke one of them by eating with his stepmother and other women of chiefly rank. Men and women eating together was one of the kapus forbidden in the old system and punishable by death.
After Liholiho, Kamehameha III continued to carry the torch for the family’s propensity for making evolutionary changes in Hawaii’s politics and governance arena. Under his rule, Kamehameha III issued the Hawaiian Declaration of Rights and promulgated the Constitution for the Hawaiian Islands, he changed the governance of Hawaii from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy.
After Kamehameha III, two more followed to rule Hawaiian monarchy. When the fifth Kamehameha, Lot was dying so he tried to ask his daughter to ascend to the throne but she refused and chose instead to live a private life with her British husband. Despite this refusal, a woman was able to rule the land. Queen Lili’uokalani was the only woman and the last monarch to rule Hawaii before the Kingdom was overthrown by foreigners.
Annexation of Hawaii with and Statehood in the United States
After the monarchy’s line of ascendancy ended in 1893, the European and American merchants and traders overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii. It became an independent republic from 1894 to 1898. When Hawaii was annexed to the United States as a territory, it became the 50th state of America when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill on 18 March 1959 allowing its statehood. After statehood, Hawaii quickly became a modern state with a boom in construction and rapid growing economy.