CHAPTER XXI

Early History of the Sandwich Islands.

Captain James Cook's Great Discoveries and His Martyrdom—Character

and Traditions of the Hawaiian Islands—Charges Against the Famous

Navigator, and effort to Array the Christian World Against Him—The

True Story of His Life and Death—How Charges Against Cook Came

to Be Made—Testimony of Vancouver, King and Dixon, and Last

Words of Cook's Journal—Light Turned on History That Has Become

Obscure—Savagery of the Natives—Their Written Language Took Up

Their High Colored Traditions, and Preserved Phantoms—Scenes in

Aboriginal Theatricals—Problem of Government in an Archipelago Where

Race Questions Are Predominant—Now Americans Should Remember Captain

Cook as an Illustrious Pioneer.

Regarding the islands in the Pacific that we have for a long time largely occupied and recently wholly possessed, the Hawaiian cluster that are the stepping stone, the resting place and the coal station for the golden group more than a thousand leagues beyond, we should remember Captain Cook as one of our own Western pioneers, rejoice to read his true story, and in doing so to form a correct estimate of the people who have drifted into the area of our Protection, or territory that is inalienably our own, to be thoroughly Americanized, that they may some day be worthy to become our fellow-citizens.

Sunday, January 18th, 1778, Captain Cook, after seeing birds every day, and turtles, saw two islands, and the next day a third one, and canoes put off from the shore of the second island, the people speaking the language of Otaheite. As the Englishmen proceeded, other canoes appeared, bringing with them roasted pigs and very fine potatoes. The Captain says: "Several small pigs were purchased for a six-penny nail, so that we again found ourselves in a land of plenty. The natives were gentle and polite, asking whether they might sit down, whether they might spit on the deck, and the like. An order restricting the men going ashore was issued that I might do everything in my power to prevent the importation of a fatal disease into the island, which I knew some of our men now labored under." Female visitors were ordered to be excluded from the ships. Captain Cook's journal is very explicit, and he states the particulars of the failure of his precautions. This is a subject that has been much discussed, and there is still animosity in the controversy. The discovery of the islands that he called the Sandwich, after his patron the Earl of Sandwich, happened in the midst of our Revolutionary war.

After Cook's explorations for the time, he sailed in search of the supposed Northwest passage, and that enterprise appearing hopeless, returned to the summer islands, and met his fate in the following December. Captain George Vancouver, a friend and follower of Cook, says, in his "Voyage of Discovery and Around the World." from 1790 to 1795:

"It should seem that the reign of George the Third had been reserved by the Great Disposer of all things for the glorious task of establishing the grand keystone to that expansive arch over which the arts and sciences should pass to the furthermost corners of the earth, for the instruction and happiness of the most lowly children of nature.

Advantages so highly beneficial to the untutored parts of the human race, and so extremely important to that large proportion of the subjects of this empire who are brought up to the sea service deserve to be justly appreciated; and it becomes of very little importance to the bulk of our society, whose enlightened humanity teaches them to entertain a lively regard for the welfare and interest of those who engage in such adventurous undertakings for the advancement of science, or for the extension of commerce, what may be the animadversions or sarcasms of those few unenlightened minds that may peevishly demand, "what beneficial consequences, if any, have followed, or are likely to follow to the discoverers, or to the discovered, to the common interests of humanity, or to the increase of useful knowledge, from all our boasted attempts to explore the distant recesses of the globe?" The learned editor (Dr.

Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury) who has so justly anticipated this injudicious remark, has, in his very comprehensive introduction to Captain Cook's last voyage, from whence the above quotation is extracted, given to the public not only a complete and satisfactory answer to that question, but has treated every other part of the subject of discovery so ably as to render any further observations on former voyages of this description wholly unnecessary, for the purpose of bringing the reader acquainted with what had been accomplished, previously to my being honored with His Majesty's commands to follow up the labors of that illustrious navigator Captain James Cook; to whose steady, uniform, indefatigable and undiverted attention to the several objects on which the success of his enterprises ultimately depended, the world is indebted for such eminent and important benefits."

Captain George Vancouver pays, in the introduction of his report, a remarkable tribute to Captain Cook, that should become familiar to the American people, for it is one of the features of prevalent Hawaiian literature that the great navigator is much disparaged, and denounced. One of the favorite theories of the missionaries has been that Cook's death at the hands of the savages was substantially the punishment inflicted by God, because the Captain allowed himself to be celebrated and worshipped as a god by the heathen, consenting to their idolatry when he should have preached to them, as was done with so much efficiency nearly half a century later. The fact is the natives had a great deal of "religion" of their own, and defended their superstitions with skill and persistence before yielding to the great simplicities of the Christian faith. Captain Cook, it must be admitted, did not attempt to preach the gospel. The gentleness of the natives turned out to contain a great deal that was most horrible.

The closing years of the last century were those of rapid progress in the art of navigation, and Captain Vancouver gives this striking summary of testimony:

"By the introduction of nautical astronomy into marine education, we are taught to sail on the hypothenuse, instead of traversing two sides of a triangle, which was the usage in earlier times; by this means the circuitous course of all voyages from place to place is considerably shortened; and it is now become evident that sea officers of the most common rate abilities who will take the trouble of making themselves acquainted with the principles of this science, will, on all suitable occasions, with proper and correct instruments, be enabled to acquire a knowledge of their situation in the Atlantic, Indian or Pacific Oceans, with a degree of accuracy sufficient to steer on a meridianal or diagonal line, to any known spot, provided it be sufficiently conspicuous to be visible at any distance from five to ten leagues.

"This great improvement, by which the most remote parts of the terrestrial globe are brought so sasily within our reach, would nevertheless have been of comparatively little utility had not those happy means been discovered for preserving the lives and health of the officers and seamen engaged in such distant and perilous undertakings; which were so peacefully practiced by Captain Cook, the first great discoverer of this salutary system, in all his latter voyages around the globe. But in none have the effect of his wise regulations, regimen and discipline been more manifest than in the course of the expedition of which the following pages are designed to treat.

To an unremitting attention, not only to food, cleanliness, ventilation, and an early administration of antiseptic provisions and medicines, but also to prevent as much as possible the chance of indisposition, by prohibiting individuals from carelessly exposing themselves to the influence of climate, or unhealthy indulgences in times of relaxation, and by relieving them from fatigue and the inclemency of the weather the moment the nature of their duty would permit them to retire, is to be ascribed the preservation of the health and lives of sea-faring people on long voyages."

"Those benefits did not long remain unnoticed by the commercial part of the British nation. Remote and distant voyages being now no longer objects of terror, enterprises were projected and carried into execution, for the purpose of establishing new and lucrative branches of commerce between Northwest America and China; and parts of the coast of the former that had not been minutely examined by Captain Cook became now the general resort of the persons thus engaged."

The special zeal and consistency with which Cook is defended by the English navigators who knew him and were competent to judge of the scope of his achievements is due in part to the venom of his assailants. The historian of the Sandwich Islands, Sheldon Dibble, says: "An impression of wonder and dread having been made, Captain Cook and his men found little difficulty in having such intercourse with the people as they chose. In regard to that intercourse, it was marked, as the world would say, with kindness and humanity. But it cannot be concealed that here and there at this time, in the form of loathsome disease, was dug the grave of the Hawaiian nation; and from so deep an odium it is to be regretted that faithful history cannot exempt even the fair name of Captain Cook himself, since it was evident that he gave countenance to the evil. The native female first presented to him was a person of some rank; her name was Lelemahoalani. Sin and death were the first commodities imported to the Sandwich Islands."

We have already quoted Captain Cook's first words on this subject. He had much more to say giving in detail difficulties rather too searching to be fully stated. As for the charge that Cook personally engaged in debauchery, it rests upon the tradition of savages, who had no more idea than wild animals of the restraint of human passion. It was debated among the islanders whether the white men should be assailed by the warriors, and it was on the advice of a native queen that the women were sent to make friends with the strangers; and this was the policy pursued. As for the decline of the natives in numbers, and the "digging the grave of the nation." the horror of the islands was the destruction of female infants, and also the habit of putting aged and helpless men and women to death. The general indictment against Captain Cook is that this amiable race was just about prepared for Christianity when he thrust himself forward as a god, and with his despotic licentiousness destroyed immediate possibilities of progress.

In Sandwich Island notes by "a Haole" (that is to say, a white person) we see what may be said on the other side of the picture: "It becomes an interesting duty to examine their social, political and religious condition. The first feature that calls the attention to the past is their social condition, and a darker picture can hardly be presented to the contemplation of man. They had their frequent boxing matches on a public arena, and it was nothing uncommon to see thirty or forty left dead on the field of contest.

"As gamblers they were inveterate. The game was indulged in by every person, from the king of each island to the meanest of his subjects. The wager accompanied every scene of public amusement. They gambled away their property to the last vestige of all they possessed. They staked every article, of food, their growing crops, the dollies they wore, their lands, wives, daughters, and even the very bones of their arms and legs—to be made into fishhooks after they were dead. These steps led to the most absolute and crushing poverty.

"They had their dances, which were of such a character as not to be conceived by a civilized mind, and were accompanied by scenes which would have disgraced even Nero's revels. Nearly every night, with the gathering darkness, crowds would retire to some favorite spot, where, amid every species of sensual indulgence they would revel until the morning twilight. At such times the chiefs would lay aside their authority, and mingle with the lowest courtesan in every degree of debauchery.

"Thefts, robberies, murders, infanticide, licentiousness of the most debased and debasing character, burying their infirm and aged parents alive, desertion of the sick, revolting cruelties to the unfortunate maniac, cannibalism and drunkenness, form a list of some of the traits in social life among the Hawaiians in past days.

"Their drunkenness was intense. They could prepare a drink, deadly intoxicating in its nature, from a mountain plant called the awa (Piper methysticum). A bowl of this disgusting liquid was always prepared and served out just as a party of chiefs were sitting down to their meals. It would sometimes send the victim into a slumber from which he never awoke. The confirmed awa drinker could be immediately recognized by his leprous appearance.

"By far the darkest feature in their social condition was seen in the family relation. Society, however, is only a word of mere accommodation, designed to express domestic relations as they then existed.' Society' was, indeed, such a sea of pollution as cannot be well described. Marriage was unknown, and all the sacred feelings which are suggested to our minds on mention of the various social relations, such as husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, were to them, indeed, as though they had no existence. There was, indeed, in this respect, a dreary blank—a dark chasm from which the soul instinctively recoils. There were, perhaps, some customs which imposed some little restraint upon the intercourse of the sexes, but those customs were easily dispensed with, and had nothing of the force of established rules. It was common for a husband to have many wives, and for a wife also to have many husbands. The nearest ties of consanguinity were but little regarded, and among the chiefs, especially, the connection of brother with sister, and parent with child, were very common.

For husbands to interchange wives, and for wives to interchange husbands, was a common act of friendship, and persons who would not do this were not considered on good terms of sociability. For a man or woman to refuse a solicitation was considered an act of meanness; and this sentiment was thoroughly wrought into their minds, that, they seemed not to rid themselves of the feeling of meanness in a refusal, to feel, notwithstanding their better knowledge, that to comply was generous, liberal, and social, and to refuse reproachful and niggardly. It would be impossible to enumerate or specify the crimes which emanated from this state of affairs. Their political condition was the very genius of despotism, systematically and deliberately conducted. Kings and chiefs were extremely jealous of their succession, and the more noble their blood, the more they were venerated by the common people."

Mr. Sheldon Dibble is a historian whose work was published in 1843. He complains most bitterly that the natives bothered the missionaries by trying to give them the benefit of native thought. They wanted to do some of the talking, and said very childish things, and were so intent on their own thoughts that they would not listen to the preachers. But it ought not to have been held to be an offense for a procession of heathen to march to a missionary's house and tell him their thoughts. That was an honest manifestation of profound interest—the slow ripening of a harvest field. Mr. Dibble's book is printed by the Mission Seminary, and Mr. Dibble says, page 21: "We know that all the inhabitants of the earth descended from Noah," therefore, the Hawaiians "must once have known the great Jehova and the principles of true religion." But the historian says on the next page that the Hawaiians were heathen from time immemorial, for, "Go back to the very first reputed progenitor of the Hawaiian race, and you find that the ingredients of their character are lust, anger, strife, malice, sensuality, revenge and the worship of idols." This is the elevation upon which Mr.

Dibble places himself to fire upon the memory of the English navigator Captain James Cook. The first paragraph of the assault on Cook is this:

"How unbounded the influence of foreign visitors upon the ignorant inhabitants of the Pacific! If the thousands of our countrymen who visit this ocean were actuated by the pure principles of the religion of Jesus, how immense the good they might accomplish! But, alas! how few visitors to the Western hemisphere are actuated by such principles."

This is preparatory to the condemnation of Cook in these terms: "Captain Cook allowed himself to be worshipped as a god. The people of Kealakeakua declined trading with him, and loaded his ship freely with the best productions of the island. The priests approached him in a crouching attitude, uttering prayers, and exhibiting all the formalities of worship. After approaching him with prostration the priests cast their red kapas over his shoulders and then receding a little, they presented hogs and a variety of other offerings, with long addresses rapidly enunciated, which were a repetition of their prayers and religious homage.

"When he went on shore most of the people fled for fear of him, and others bowed down before him, with solemn reverence. He was conducted to the house of the gods, and into the sacred enclosure, and received there the highest homage. In view of this fact, and of the death of Captain Cook, which speedily ensued, who can fail being admonished to give to God at all times, and even among barbarous tribes, the glory which is his due? Captain Cook might have directed the rude and ignorant natives to the great Jehovah, instead of receiving divine homage himself.

"Kalaniopuu, the king, arrived from Maui on the 24th of January, and immediately laid a tabu on the canoes, which prevented the women from visiting the ship, and consequently the men came on shore in great numbers, gratifying their infamous purposes in exchange for pieces of iron and small looking-glasses. Some of the women washed the coating from the back of the glasses much to their regret, when they found that the reflecting property was thus destroyed.

"The king, on his arrival, as well as the people, treated Captain Cook with much kindness, gave him feather cloaks and fly brushes and paid him divine honors. This adoration, it is painful to relate, was received without remonstrance. I shall speak here somewhat minutely of the death of Captain Cook, as it develops some traits of the heathen character, and the influence under which the heathen suffer from foreign intercourse."

After setting forth the horrible character of the natives, Captain Cook is condemned and denounced because he did not refuse the homage of the ferocious savages, paid him as a superior creature. One of Cook's troubles was the frantic passion the islanders had to steal iron. The common people were the property of the chiefs, and they had no other sense of possession. They gave away what they had, but took what they wanted.

Mr. Dibble shows his animus when he charges that Cook did not give the natives the real value of their hogs and fruit, and also that he had no right to stop pilferers in canoes by declaring and enforcing a blockade. This is a trifling technicality much insisted upon. Dibble's account of the death of Cook is this:

"A canoe came from an adjoining district, bound within the bay. In the canoe were two chiefs of some rank, Kekuhaupio and Kalimu. The canoe was fired upon from one of the boats and Kalimu was killed. Kekuhaupio made the greatest speed till he reached the place of the king, where Captain Cook also was, and communicated the intelligence of the death of the chief. The attendants of the king were enraged and showed signs of hostility, but were restrained by the thought that Captain Cook was a god. At that instant a warrior, with a spear in his hand, approached Captain Cook and was heard to say that the boats in the harbor had killed his brother, and he would he revenged. Captain Cook, from his enraged appearance and that of the multitude, was suspicious of him, and fired upon him with his pistol. Then followed a scene of confusion, and in the midst Captain Cook being hit with a stone, and perceiving the man who threw it, shot him dead. He also struck a certain chief with his sword, whose name was Kalaimanokahoowaha. The chief instantly seized Captain Cook with a strong hand, designing merely to hold him and not to take his life; for he supposed him to be a god and that he could not die.

Captain Cook struggled to free himself from the grasp, and as he was about to fall uttered a groan. The people immediately exclaimed, "He groans—he is not a god," and instantly slew him. Such was the melancholy death of Captain Cook.

"Immediately the men in the boat commenced a deliberate fire upon the crowd. They had refrained in a measure before, for fear of killing their Captain. Many of the natives were killed."

"Historian Dibble does not notice the evidence that Cook lost his life by turning to his men in the boats, ordering them not to fire. It was at that moment he was stabbed in the back. Dibble represents the facts as if to justify the massacre of the great navigator, because he allowed the heathen to think he was one of their gang of gods. But this presumption ought not to have been allowed to excuse prevarication about testimony. The importance of Dibble's history is that it is representative. He concludes with this eloquent passage: "From one heathen nation we may learn in a measure the wants of all. And we ought not to restrict our view, but, look at the wide world. To do then for all nations what I have urged in behalf of the Sandwich Islands, how great and extensive a work! How vast the number of men and how immense the amount of means which seem necessary to elevate all nations, and gain over the whole earth to the permanent dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ! Can 300,000,000 of pagan children and youth be trained and instructed by a few hands? Can the means of instructing them be furnished by the mere farthings and pence of the church?

Will it not be some time yet before ministers and church members will need to be idle a moment for the want of work? Is there any danger of our being cut off from the blessed privilege either of giving or of going? There is a great work yet to be done—a noble work—a various and a difficult work—a work worthy of God's power, God's resources, and God's wisdom. What Christendom has as yet done is scarcely worthy of being called a commencement. When God shall bring such energies into action as shall be commensurate with the greatness of the work—when he shall cause every redeemed sinner, by the abundant influence of His Holy Spirit, to lay himself out wholly in the great enterprise, then there will be a sight of moral sublimity that shall rivet the gaze of angels."

We quote this writer as to what became of the remains of Cook: "The body of Captain Cook was carried into the interior of the island, the bones secured according to their custom, and the flesh burned in the fire. The heart, liver, etc., of Captain Cook, were stolen and eaten by some hungry children, who mistook them in the night for the inwards of a dog. The names of the children were Kupa, Mohoole and Kaiwikokoole. These men are now all dead. The last of the number died two years since at the station of Lahaina. Some of the bones of Captain Cook were sent on board his ship, in compliance with the urgent demands of the officers; and some were kept by the priests as objects of worship." The "heart, liver, etc.," were of course given to the children to eat! The bones are still hidden, and presumably not much worshiped. The first of the remains of Captain Cook given up was a mass of his bloody flesh, cut as if from a slaughtered ox. After some time there were other fragments, including one of his hands which had a well known scar, and perfectly identified it. Along with this came the story of burning flesh, and denials of cannibalism. Mr.

Dibble speaks of Cook's "consummate folly and outrageous tyranny of placing a blockade upon a heathen bay, which the natives could not possibly be supposed either to understand or appreciate." That blockade, like others, was understood when enforced. The historian labors to work out a case to justify the murder of Cook because he received worship. As to the acknowledgment of Cook as the incarnation of Lono, in the Hawaiian Pantheon, Captain King says: