Gone With the Trade Winds

(Photo from iolanipalace.org)

When I first visited Iolani Palace as a school kid, I gawked. (There was a time, children, before the internet, when the only images we had of famous places were tiny black-and-white pictures from "encyclopedias"--ever wonder how Wikipedia got its name?)

Explanations were kept simple; that's the bed where King Kalakaua slept, there's his throne, that's the dining room, etc.

Dining room

To the extent there was moral judgment, teachers implied that it was a good thing that the Kingdom of Hawaii was annexed by the United States.

Hawaiian society had brutal kapus where common folk were killed, for example, if the shadow of an alii (royalty) fell on them, and Hawaiians cannibalized Captain Cook's body (now it is believed he was, yes, cooked but not eaten).

Throne room.

In college the narrative changed. The Hawaiians were exploited by the descendants of missionaries, who "came to Hawaii to do good, and they did well." Thousands of Hawaiians died from measles, leprosy, venereal disease, and other maladies against which they had no immunity. Lacking the weaponry and the disposition to fight the developed civilizations of the West and East, Hawaiians offered little resistance to the 1898 Annexation.

Queen Liliuokalani

It's easy to be angry about the predations of Western colonialism, and our educational institutions do not hesitate to stoke that anger. As for me, I just feel sad.

IMHO it was inevitable that Hawaii, with its strategic location in the middle of the Pacific, would have been seized by a great power. The Russians, British, Spanish, French, and Portuguese all had designs on the Island Kingdom.

But it was the Japanese who were the greatest rival to America; tens of thousands of laborers were imported to work in the sugar-cane and pineapple fields, and the Japanese population after the turn of the century outnumbered the native Hawaiians.

Despite efforts by Hawaii's last monarchs, King David Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani, to remain on good terms with the United States by becoming fluent in its language and culture, sugar interests forced the Annexation. After a few months under house arrest, the Queen abdicated her throne so that her sympathizers would not be harmed. Were she born a hundred years later, her poetry, music, and art, her generous Christian spirit, as well as her genuine love for her people, might well have led to the Kingdom's survival. At least we still have her music.

Every Sunday Island churches, including mine, sing the Queen's prayer in the original Hawaiian. Below is the English translation:

Your loving mercy
Is as high as Heaven
And your truth
So perfect

I live in sorrow
Imprisoned
You are my light
Your glory, my support

Behold not with malevolence
The sins of man
But forgive
And cleanse

And so, o Lord
Protect us beneath your wings
And let peace be our portion
Now and forever more

Amen