HISTORY15 - Hawaiian Islands

Last January I posted a blog about the history of the Big Island of Hawaii and Pat’s and my plans to visit on our own for a week in April.  Unfortunately, on our flight over from Tucson, I suddenly was stricken with severe sciatica in my back and we had to cancel the whole trip.  So, this year in July, we’re trying again, only this time on a tour of four islands, Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, and Kauai - for 12 days.  I decided to post a new blog on the overall history of all the major islands of Hawaii.

Introduction

The Hawaiian Islands are a group of 136 separate islands, including eight major islands (seven inhabited), several atolls (coral islands circling a lagoon), numerous smaller islets, and coral reefs in the North Pacific Ocean.  As the figure below shows, the Island chain extends 1,500 miles in a southeasterly direction from the Kure Atoll to Hawaii. The U.S. state of Hawaii includes the entire chain of islands, with the sole exception of Midway Island, which is an unincorporated U.S. territory.

The Hawaiian Islands, the most isolated island chain in the world, extend for 1,500 miles in the Northern Pacific Ocean.

Geology

The Hawaiian Islands are actually the exposed peaks of a submerged mountain range that began emerging from a hot spot in the seafloor due to tectonic plate movement about 70 million years ago.  The undersea mountains grew from active volcanic action, some becoming visible above the level of the ocean.  The first of these islands have long since returned to their beginnings below the sea, due to constant erosion from ocean waves and driving rains, while new volcanic islands have replaced them. 

Because of the direction of the plate movement, the northwestern islands were formed first; succeeding islands formed in a southeasterly direction, with the Big Island of Hawaii being the last island to break the surface - thus the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands, rising to the surface about one million years ago.  A new volcanic mountain is growing 20 miles to the southeast of the Big Island, currently 3,200 feet below the ocean surface, and may emerge in a few tens of thousands of years.

Polynesian Arrival

The first humans to settle in the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesians migrating from the Marquesas Islands, about 2,300 miles to the south, who reached the Big Island of Hawaii sometime in 300-500 AD.  They traveled in a group of double-hulled canoes propelled with sails, guided by the stars, ocean currents, wind patterns, or perhaps migrating birds.  They brought with them food staples, including taro, breadfruit, bananas and coconut trees, and animals, including dogs, hogs, rats, and chickens.  At the time, Hawaii contained no edible plants, with no land mammals other than the Hawaiian bat.  The new Hawaiians subsisted on fish until their crops matured.  Little is known about this initial culture.

Archaeologists believe that in 900-1100 AD, a second wave of Polynesian colonists, probably from Tahiti, about 350 miles south of the Marquesas Islands, arrived at the Big Island.  The new colonists may have subdued the initial inhabitants; the second culture was far more aggressive and developed into a highly class-conscious society.  The culture was governed by chiefs who established a long list of taboos called “kapu,” designed to keep order.  These taboos included your shadow falling across the shadow of the chief, interrupting a chief, preparing men’s food in the same container used for women’s food, women eating bananas or pork, men and woman eating together, not observing holy days, and fishing in restricted waters.   The penalty for breaking a taboo was death by strangulation, club, or fire.  Human sacrifices were common and war among rival chiefs the norm.

The early Hawaiians were stewards of both the land and sea, guardians of all that existed in their new land.  Their knowledge of the sea provided ample seafood.  Weaving, and wood and stone-carving allowed them to grow crops and farm.  They skillfully diverted water into irrigation channels to water their taro fields.  The early Hawaiian religious system was very deeply tied to nature with many gods in the system. 

The Hawaiian population flourished in isolation from the rest of the world.  By the time Europeans arrived in the 18^th century, the Hawaiians had populated the six largest Hawaiian Islands and attained a total population variously estimated at five hundred thousand to one million people.

European Arrival

On January 20, 1778, British explorer Captain James Cook set foot on the beach at Waimea Bay on the island of Kauai.  Cook was on his third voyage to the uncharted Pacific Ocean, having previously achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the first circumnavigation of New Zealand, when he stumbled on Hawaii on his way to Alaska to search for a Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Cook left Kauai and briefly explored Niihau before resuming his northward journey to Alaska on February 2, 1778.  He returned to Hawaii in early 1779 after failing to find a Northwest Passage, landing in Kealakekua Bay at the Big Island.  Cook named the islands the Sandwich Islands after his benefactor, the Earl of Sandwich.

The native Hawaiians treated Cook as a god and during his two-week stay on the Big Island, Cook was honored in ceremony upon ceremony.  After exhausting the Hawaiians’ hospitality and supplies, Cook sailed away, only to break a mast, making it necessary to return to Kealakekua Bay for repairs.  On February 14, 1779, Cook went ashore to try to resolve a dispute about a stolen rowboat.  While ashore, Cook was killed by an angry mob.  One of the greatest explorers the world had ever known was dead at age 50 over a petty skirmish about a stolen rowboat.

Cook’s arrival changed the islands forever.  Like it or not, Hawaii was now set on a path to join the modern world.  Captain Cook and his men also introduced flu, tuberculosis, and syphilis to Hawaii.  Subsequent European visitors brought typhoid, and smallpox.  Seventy-five years after Cook’s first visit, only 70,000 survivors remained in Hawaii.

Captain James Cook's arrival in Hawaii in 1778 changed the islands forever.

The Kingdom of Hawaii

One of the Hawaiians who greeted Captain Cook on his arrival in 1778 was a 20-year old young man named Kamehameha, a local chief on the Big Island, who over the next 17 years would unify the then independent Islands and become the first and most influential king in Hawaiian history.  By 1791 Kamehameha had defeated his cousin and arch rival on the Big Island, and by 1795, he had conquered Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Oahu, unifying the islands and becoming king.  In 1810 he added Kauai and Ni’ihau to the kingdom and ruled until his death in 1819.

King Kamehameha united the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 and served as the first monarch.

With the death of Kamehameha, the precontact Hawaiian culture began to change rapidly.  Kamehameha was succeeded by his son who immediately ended the kapu taboo system that had ruled the islands for generations.  In the 1820s, missionaries arrived and quickly replaced ancient altars and temples with churches, and converted much of the native population to Christianity.  The missionaries also built schools and developed a Hawaiian alphabet and taught it to the people, enabling them to read and write for the first time. 

In 1840 a constitutional monarchy was established, along with a supreme court and a parliament.  In the constitution, the islands were referred to as the “Hawaiian Islands” for the first time in an official document, and that name gradually thereafter took precedence over the “Sandwich Islands.”  The state of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, Hawaii.  A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of Hawaii is that it was named for Hawaiʻiloa, a legendary figure from Hawaiian myth, said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled.

After brief periods on the Big Island, Oahu, and Maui, the royal court and capital were permanently located in Honolulu on the island of Oahu in 1845.  In 1848, Hawaii’s feudal land system was abolished, making private ownership of land legal.  Large tracts of land were sold by the Hawaiian government to royalty, government officials, commoners, and foreigners, effectively stripping many Hawaiians of land they had lived on for generations.  Each succeeding successor to the Hawaiian throne gave up more control over the island kingdom.

Hawaii was about to be discovered by the rest of the world.  The sugar industry was introduced in Hawaii in the 1830s.  Foreign business people were attracted to sugar investments and to exploit Hawaii’s sandal wood and whales.  In the 1890s, pineapples and sugarcane became huge crops. Plantation workers were brought to Hawaii from Japan, China, and the Philippines.  Great Britain, France, and the United States all had their eyes on the islands.  In 1897, to enhance trade with the U.S., Hawaii signed a treaty giving the U.S. exclusive use of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu as a naval base.

In 1891 Hawaii’s only queen and the last sovereign monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani, came to power.  Threatened by European nations wanting to add Hawaii to their empire, American businessmen in Hawaii began to seek annexation by the United States.  Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the monarchy on January 17, 1893, beginning a transition to U.S. control.  

Queen Liliuokalani was the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, reigning from 1891-1893.

The Republic of Hawaii was established in 1894.  Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. in 1898 and became an official territory of the U.S. in 1900.

American Hawaii

Agriculture slowly began to diversify in the Hawaiian Islands under American influence.  Sugarcane was the backbone of the Big Island’s economy for more than a century.  In the mid-20^th century, sugarcane plantations began to downsize, and by the end of 1990s, sugar plantations were essentially closed.

Tourism emerged as the Hawaiian Islands dominant industry, starting in the early 1900s, with passenger ships delivering American tourists from the West Coast to Hawaii and the building of resort hotels.    After a slowdown from 1941-1944 during World War II, tourism exploded, along with real estate activity, centered in resort areas on the coasts of each island. Trans-Pacific airplane flights from San Francisco to Hawaii began in 1955.

After the Japanese attack of the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl on the island of Oahu in 1941, and America’s entry into World War II, all of the Hawaiian Islands were placed under martial law, with a military governor controlling every facet of Hawaiian life.     The Islands served as an important base for U.S. operations in the Pacific. 

In 1958, the citizens of the Hawaiian Islands voted in favor of becoming a U.S. state.  In March 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill which led to statehood.  Hawaii became our 50^th state on August 21, 1959.

The Major Hawaiian Islands

The eight largest Hawaiian Islands are identified in the figure below, showing the Islands’ relative sizes and locations with respect to each other.  Hawaii is the largest of the Hawaiian Islands - about the size of the state of Connecticut, and could easily hold all of the other Hawaiian Islands combined.

The eight major Hawaiian Islands.

These eight islands experience a variety of tropical climates that change with altitude and location. The islands receive most rainfall from the trade winds on their north and east flanks (the windward side).  Coastal areas are drier, especially on the south and west (leeward) sides.  The Hawaiian Islands receive most of their precipitation during the winter months (October to April).  Drier conditions generally prevail from May to September.  Temperatures at sea level generally range from highs of 85-90 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer to 79-83 degrees Fahrenheit during the winter. 

The Hawaiian Islands are one of the most racially diverse places in the world.  The variety of cultures can be traced back to the old “plantation days” in the Islands, when various ethnic groups migrated to Hawaii to earn a living and support their families.  Today, there is no ethnic majority - everyone is a minority!  The racial ancestry breakdown from the 2010 Hawaiian Census was:

36.9%   Asian:  Filipino (14.5%), Japanese (13.6%), Chinese (4.0%), and Other (4.8%)

  8.9%   Hispanic or Latino

24.7%   White

   5.9%   Native Hawaiian

 23.6%   Two or more races

The original Hawaiian language was a Polynesian language.  From the 1830s to the 1950s, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian gradually decreased in favor of English, the official language today.  Since 1949, there has been a gradual increase in attention and promotion of the Hawaiian language in immersion schools, but the language is still classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.  In 2008, it is estimated that there were about 24,000 native Hawaiian speakers in the Islands.

Much of Hawaii’s native flora and fauna were carried to the Islands on water, wind, and wing from lands to the south and west, across thousands of miles of open ocean to their remote tropical island homes.  When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found 67 varieties of native birds, a third of which are now extinct.  Among the survivors, is Hawaii’s state bird, the endangered nene, a relative of the Canadian goose.   There were only two native mammals - the hoary bat and the Hawaiian monk seal. 

There are 168 native fern species.  Native flowers include the state flower, the yellow hibiscus. Native trees include one of Hawaii’s largest trees, the Koa tree, which grows to 100 feet tall, with a trunk more than 10 feet in diameter, and has flowers that are pale yellow puff-balls.  The wavy Koa wood was used by ancient Hawaiians for dugout canoes, paddles, spears, and surfboards.  Approximately 680 species of fish are known to inhabit the waters around the Hawaiian Islands, approximately 450 species stay close to the reef and inshore areas.

As trade routes and tourism became common place, newly introduced plants, animals, and insects became intermingled with native flora and fauna so that today the Hawaiian Islands harbor a diverse number of plants and animals.  

Today, tourism makes up 21% of the state of Hawaii’s economy with over 9.4 million visitors in 2017, spending over $16 billion.  The four largest islands have major tourism industries, with visits divided approximately:  Oahu (50%), Maui (25%), Hawaii (15%), and Kauai (10%).

The table below summarizes some of the key characteristics of the eight largest Hawaiian Islands, with additional details about the four largest islands to follow.

Hawaii

The Big Island of Hawaii was built from five different volcanoes, one currently extinct, one dormant, and three active. The Big Island is still growing from the volcanic activity of Hualalai (last erupted in 1801), Mauna Loa (last erupted in 1984) and Kilauea which has been continuously erupting since 1983. The island has 266 miles of coastline.

The highest point on the Big Island is the dormant volcano Mauna Kea at 13,800 feet - also the tallest mountain on Earth (33,500 feet) when measured from the bottom of the sea floor, two-thirds of a mile taller than Mount Everest. 

Today’s major crops include macadamia nuts, papaya, flowers, tropical and temperate vegetables, and coffee beans.  Orchid agriculture on the Big Island is the largest in the state and has earned it a second nickname “The Orchid Isle.”  The Big Island is also home to one of the largest U.S. cattle ranches, Parker Ranch, on 175,000 acres in Waimea.

The Big Island is a growing center of both education and research.  Home to one of the University of Hawaii’s campuses in Hilo, the Big Island is renowned for its study of astronomy, alternative energy, and ocean research.  Numerous telescopes operate on the summit of Mauna Kea, where atmospheric clarity is excellent and there is little light pollution.

Four out of five of the National Parks in the state of Hawaii are located on the Big Island:

Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park.  Kamehameha built this place of worship around 1790 and dedicated it to the war god Kūka’ilimoku.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.  It is one of the few places on this planet where you can safely watch an active volcano (Kilauea) up, close and personal. 

Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historic Park.  Site where Hawaiians who broke a kapu taboo fled to avoid punishment. Warriors that were defeated during battle also sought refuge here.  The park contains numerous archaeological sites.

Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park.  Protects an ancient Hawaiian settlement. Contains ancient petroglyphs, housing platforms, and a place of worship.  

There are also 14 state parks on the Big Island - preserving a variety of scenic and historic sites and providing recreation areas - and a 175-mile national historic trail designated in 2000 for the preservation, protection and interpretation of traditional native Hawaiian culture and natural resources.

Aerial view of the Big Island's Kilauea Crater.

Maui

Maui, with 120 miles of coastline, was formed from two large volcanos that overlapped one another to form an isthmus between them.  The older, western volcano has eroded considerably and is cut by numerous drainages, forming the peaks (highest at 5,788 feet) of the West Maui Mountains.  The larger, younger volcano to the east, Haleakala, rises to more than 10,000 feet and last erupted in 1790.

Europeans were initially attracted to Maui to log sandalwood - a heavy, yellow, fine-grained, aromatic wood that produces an oil used in making incense, perfumes, cosmetics and aftershave - and to hunt humpback whales that winter in local waters.  At the height of the whaling era (1843-1860), Lahaina, on the island’s west coast, was a major center.  At the peak, over 400 ships visited in one season, with up to 100 ships anchored at the same time.  Whaling declined steeply at the end of the 19th century as petroleum replaced whale oil.

Maui was involved in World War II as a staging center, training base, and rest and relaxation site.  The main base of the 4th Marine Division was in Haiku.  Beaches were used to practice landings and train in marine demolition and sabotage.

Besides tourism, other large contributors to Maui’s economy today include retail, health care, business services, and government.  Primary agriculture products are corn and other seeds, fruits, cattle, and vegetables.  Other products include coffee, macadamia nuts, papaya, flowers, and fresh pineapple.

Maui is also a science leader with an Air Force Optical and Supercomputing observatory in Kihei and the Haleakala Observatory for advanced astronomical research at the summit of Haleakala.

The big tourist spots in Maui include the spectacularly beautiful Hana Highway, Haleakala National Park, Iao Valley, and Lahaina.

Maui's Haleakala Crater.

Oahu

Oahu is the third largest Hawaiian island with 112 miles of beautiful coastline in a highly irregular shape that was greatly influenced by two massive landslides, that removed ~1/3 of the northeastern portion of the island and approximately 1/2 of the western side. Today, the shape of Oahu is constrained by two great mountain ranges that are the eroded remnants of two separate volcanoes truncated by the prodigious slides.  Today, Oahu’s volcanoes are extinct, but remnants and craters can still be seen.

The Ko‘olau Range runs up the northeast side of the island, perpendicular to the trade winds, whereas the older Wai‘anae Range extends along the west side, with deep valleys between the mountain ranges.  Moisture rich trade winds are typically pushed across the broad side of the Ko‘olaus, maintaining lush vegetation that reaches from the mountains to the coast. In contrast, the Wai‘anae Range on the west side is dry, receiving little of the moisture carried by the trade winds.

In 1810, Kamehameha III moved the Hawaiian capital from Lahaina, Maui to Honolulu.  In 1882, other members of the royal family built Iolani Palace, still standing today as the only royal palace on American soil. 

The Imperial Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu on the morning of December 7, 1941 brought the United States into World War II.  The surprise attack was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine Air Forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve American warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and resulted in the deaths of 2,335 American servicemen and 68 civilians (of those, 1,177 were the result of the destruction of the USS Arizona alone).

Today, Oahu is home to roughly one million people - about two-thirds of the population of the State of Hawaii.  Honolulu is the largest city, with a population of about 350,000 people in the city and 955,000 people in the metropolitan area.  Honolulu is also the state capital and main deep-water marine port for the State of Hawaii.  As such, Honolulu dominates the economy of Oahu, serving as the transportation crossroads of the Pacific, connecting East with West, with expanded harbor facilities for international cargo. 

Other elements of Honolulu’s economy, besides tourism, include military defense, research and development, and manufacturing.  Military defense includes Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Marine Base Kaneohe, and Schofield Barracks Army base.  As the home of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu is a center for research in oceanography, astrophysics, geophysics, and biomedicine.  Manufacturing includes jewelry, clothing, food and beverages, rubber products, construction materials, electronics, and computer equipment. Well-known points of interest found on Oahu include Waikiki, Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head, Hanauma, Kane’ohe Bay, and the North Shore.

The USS Arizona Memorial lies atop the sunken ship in Pearl Harbor on the Island of Oahu.

Kauai

Kauai is the oldest major Hawaiian island at over 5 million years, the most northern, and has a roughly circular shape, with 137 miles of coastline.  It was formed by the eruptions of one (or perhaps two) volcanoes.  The second highest peak is Mount Wai’ale’ale, near the center of the island - 5,148 above sea level.  The east side of Mount Wai’ale’ale, is one of the wettest spots on earth, with an annual average rainfall of 460 inches. 

The high annual rainfall has eroded deep valleys in the central mountains, carving out canyons with many scenic waterfalls. On the west side of the island, Waimea town is located at the mouth of the Waimea River, whose flow formed Waimea Canyon, one of the world's most scenic canyons, which is part of Waimea Canyon State Park.  At three thousand feet deep, Waimea Canyon is often referred to as "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific.”  Kokeo Point lies on the south side of the island. The Na Pali Coast is a center for recreation in a wild setting, including kayaking past the beaches, or hiking on the trail along the coastal cliffs.  

After tourism, Kauai’s largest industry, the Island’s largest economic sectors today include accommodation/food services, government, retail, educational services, and agriculture.  Farmers raise many varieties of fruits, guava, coffee, sugarcane, mango, banana, papaya, avocado, star fruit, noni, and pineapples.

Kauai is home to the U.S. Navy's "Barking Sands" Pacific Missile Range Facility, on the sunny and dry western shore. HF ("shortwave") radio station WWVH is located on the west coast of Kauai about 3 miles south of Barking Sands.  WWVH, WWV and WWVB are operated by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, broadcasting standard time and frequency information to the public.

 

Kalao Valley and the Iao Needle on Kauai.

Hawaiian Traditions

Finally, I wanted to find out a little about some of the Hawaiian traditions that are familiar to us non-natives.  These traditions have become iconic symbols of the Hawaiian Islands:

Leis.  The custom of welcoming visitors to Hawaii with a warm “aloha” and adorning them with beautiful fresh flower leis has its origins with the native Polynesian people.  In Hawaiian tradition, these garlands were worn by ancient Hawaiians to beautify themselves and distinguish themselves from others.  Leis were also used to symbolize a peace agreement between opposing chiefs.  Leis were constructed of flowers, leaves, shells, seeds, nuts, feathers, and even bones and teeth of various animals.

Ukulele.  The ukulele is a four-stringed musical instrument from the lute family, developed in the 1880s, based on several small guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin.  The ukulele was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants and popularized in Hawaii by King David Kalakaua, known as the “Merrie Monarch.”  He incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings.

Hula.  The familiar modern hula dance got its start as an ancient dance of the Polynesian Hawaiians.  The hula was danced as a religious homage to their gods, telling stories, danced exclusively by men, and accompanied by chants, drums, bamboo rattles, rock castanets, and striking sticks.  The hula was denounced by Protestant missionaries who arrived in 1820 and public performances were banned. But in 1874 King David Kalakaua renewed pubic performance of the dance, which evolved to a less formal, modern style, accompanied by guitars, bass, steel guitars, ukuleles, and a singer -  and performed by both men and women.  The dance still tells stories of Hawaii, but has lost most of its religious significance and has become pure entertainment.

Luau.   The Luau is a traditional Hawaiian party or feast that is usually accompanied by entertainment. Today, it often features pig cooked in an earth oven and poi, made from the roots of taro.  The luau began when the Islands’ second monarch, King Kamehameha II, abolished the kapu taboo against women eating with men.  A feast, where the king ate with women, was the symbolic act which ended the taboo, and the luau was born.  The favorite dish at these royal feasts is what gave the luau its name.  Young and tender leaves of the taro plant were combined with chicken, baked in coconut milk, and called luau.  The traditional luau feast was eaten while sitting on the floor.  The luau tradition spread to the population and really gained in popularity with growth of tourism to Hawaii in the first half of the 1900s.

Clothing.  Several items of clothing are identified with Hawaii.  The loose fitting, unbelted Muumuu dress that hangs from the shoulder, was introduced to Hawaii by Protestant missionaries who found the women in the 1820s wearing nothing more than a skirt cloth wrapped around the hips, with bare breasts.  The missionaries designed the muumuu garment and taught women to cover their bodies in the tradition of other lands.  Today, the popular dress features Hawaiian designs such as ginger blossoms, hibiscus, orchids, and birds of paradise in bright colors.  Grass skirts were brought to Hawaii by immigrants from the Gilbert Islands in the 1870s and 1880s.  By the turn of the century, Hawaiian dancers were wearing grass skirts.  Even today, some hula dancers still wear them.  The modern men’s Aloha shirt was devised in the early 1930s by a Chinese merchant.  Within years, major designer labels sprung up all over Hawaii, with the manufacturing and selling of Aloha shirts en masse.  Aloha shirts are often brilliantly colored with floral patterns or generic Polynesian motifs.  They are worn as casual, informal wear.

Surfing.  Surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture - even before European contact.  It was a popular pastime that was often used as part of warrior training.  In Hawaii, surfing became more of a spiritual pastime and became ingrained into the very fabric of Hawaiian religion and culture as an art.  Protestant missionaries regarded surfing as frivolous as they attempted to turn the population from their traditional beliefs into Christians.  With the influx of tourists in the early 1900s, surfing began a resurgence in popularity.  Local Hawaiians started surf clubs and gained wide-spread recognition for their skills and the pastime, and helped spread it from the beaches of Hawaii around the world.