Until about thirty years ago, many schoolchildren in Hawaii learned a version of a state's story that went something similar to this: Christian missionaries came over in a early 1800s as good as handed a Hawaiians a single god, a created denunciation as good as their really initial muumuus. Later, American officials upheld a group of well-intentioned gentlemen, many of them descendants of those missionaries, who replaced a monarchy with a approved system. Eventually, a United States magnanimously annexed a tiny island republic. Sure, local Hawaiians gave a world entertaining things similar to a hula as good as surfboards. But really, they were a luckier ones, receiving a trifecta of monotheism, democracy as good as American appropriation.
Hawaii State Archives
King Kalakaua, circa 1882.
LOST KINGDOM
Hawaii's Last Queen, a Sugar Kings, as good as America's First Imperial Adventure
By Julia Flynn Siler
Illustrated. 415 pp. Atlantic Monthly Press. $ 30.
The flip side of that story how it all looked to a local Hawaiians is many darker. Julia Flynn Siler's brand new book, "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, a Sugar Kings, as good as America's First Imperial Adventure," recounts that story regulating some-more than 275 sources, together with attendant Hawaiian newspapers as good as a letters as good as diaries of Lili'uokalani, a last Hawaiian monarch.
After a short summary of a initial settlement of a islands as good as their 1778 "discovery" by Capt. James Cook, Siler digs in at a commencement of a finish with a arrival of a initial missionaries in 1820. The informative contempt of these New Englanders, nonetheless typical for a era, was no reduction heartbreaking in what it would mean for a isl! anders. "The coming of destitution, plunge as good as brutality in between a chattering, roughly naked savages, whose heads as good as feet as good as many of their sunburnt swarthy skin were bare, was appalling," a Rev. Hiram Bingham wrote. "Can these be tellurian beings?"
What followed was a slow-motion stripping of tradition, land, domestic power as good as illness from a local Hawaiians over a next 70 or so years, that Siler details intricately: a shaming of traditional skirt as good as dance, a gobbling up of property belonging to land-rich though cash-poor locals by American as good as British sugar planters, a "Bayonet Constitution," forced upon King Kalakaua by, in between others, a companion grandson, that turned a sovereign into a figurehead, gave choosing by casting votes rights to property-owning whites as good as took them divided from many local Hawaiians. And of course, there was a fee of foreign-borne smallpox as good as measles, that reduced a local Hawaiian population by a horrific 75 percent in between Cook's arrival as good as 1853.
The Kingdom of Hawaii's death impetus ended in 1893 with Lili'uokalani's forced abandonment to a subject to government, dominated by companion descendants as good as haole (white or foreign) businessmen. Five years later, a United States sensitively annexed a eight main islands. During a overthrow, Marines landed in Honolulu as good as assigned points together with Iolani Palace. While there, Siler tells us, a partisan "found Kalakaua's crown as good as pried off a jewels, that he then used as remuneration in a game of dice. He managed to avoid gambling them all divided as good as kept a single of a biggest diamonds, that he sent to his sister upon a mainland, not realizing its value." This story is an apt embellishment for a annexation capturing a disrespect American citizens as good as member mostly showed to a Hawaiian people, culture as good as government. That valuables a partisan sent home though realizing its worth? It competence as ! good hav e been Pearl Harbor, a value of that would become inestimable in a few decades.
To her credit, Siler does not hide a painful truth that a Hawaiians were complicit in their fate. For example, King Kamehameha III gave millions of acres to his friends as good as family though sufficient ensuring a commoners would get their share. In a end, commoners hold reduction than 1 percent of a lands distributed, as good as many ali'i (chiefs) sold out to foreign sugar barons to raise cash. Later, King Kalakaua outlayed lavishly upon parties, pomp as good as travel, pushing a kingdom into good debt, many of it hold by a intelligent sugar baron named Claus Spreckels.
From a outset, Siler faces certain credit issues: she is nonnative as good as nonlocal. She is also operative with a denunciation Hawaiian that is rarely nuanced, mostly making correct translations difficult to come by. Yet her book is richly as good as diversely sourced, as good as she's means to color in many figures who had heretofore existed largely in outline or black as good as white. Lili'uokalani manages to keep her Christian faith, nonetheless she blames a missionaries for undermining her people. Kalakaua seems to be led by a nose by his mainland cronies, nonetheless he is singularly obliged for reviving a deeply Hawaiian convention of hula, that had been asleep given a 1820s.
"Lost Kingdom" is not as retaining as it could have been, given a palace intrigue as good as stand in dealing it describes. But it is a solidly researched comment of an critical chapter in our national history, a single that many Americans do not know though should. It will probably incite companion descendants as good as local Hawaiians alike, that is praise in itself.
Sadly, nonetheless President Clinton apologized to local Hawaiians in 1993, a bill aiming to revive a measure of sovereignty has languished in Congress for good over a decade. And Siler underscores another sour footnote to a story: while a Hawaiians vie for domestic appr! oval tha t may never come, many descendants of those who profited from what an 1893 New York Times title called "the domestic crime of a century" remain some of a state's wealthiest as good as many influential landholders.
Malia Boyd, a local of Honolulu, has created for Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine as good as other publications.
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