Honolulu Honolulu (Oahu) Hawaii United States
Years: 1770 - 2215
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The third Pacific expedition of Captain James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first views O'ahu, then ...
He had been a young midshipman on Cook's fatal landing thirteen years earlier, so avoids coming ashore at Kealakekua Bay.
He is disturbed by the frequent request for firearms, and tries to avoid escalating the ongoing civil war, spending the winter in Oʻahu.
He makes arrangements for his tiny fleet to winter and re-supply in Hawaiʻi for the duration of the expedition.
Captain John Kendrick arrives in Fairhaven (now Honolulu) on December 3.
There are also two other British vessels: the Jackal under Captain William Brown and the Prince Lee Boo under a Captain Gordon.
This is, coincidentally, when a Hawaiian chief named Kaeo invades Oahu, meeting little resistance from Chief Kalanikupule.
Brown sends eight men and a mate to aid Kalanikupule’s forces.
Kendrick also had probably sent some of his men to help the Hawaiian chief in what will later be called the Battle of Kalauao.
The muskets of the sailors drive Kaeo’s warriors into some hills that overshadow Fairhaven.
They finally retreat into a little ravine.
Kaeo tries to escape, but Brown’s men and Kendrick’s men see his 'ahu 'ula, his scarlet coat with yellow feathers, and fire at the enemy chief from their boats in the harbor to show his position to Kalanikupule’s men.
The Oahu warriors kill Kaeo along with his wives and chiefs.
The battle ends with Kalanikupule as the victor.
Kendrick’s brig fires a thirteen-gun salute at 10:00 the next morning, December 12, 1794, to which the Jackal answered with a salute back.
One of the cannons is loaded with real grapeshot, though, and the shot smashes into the Lady Washington, killing Captain Kendrick at his table on deck along with several other men.
Kendrick’s body and the bodies of his dead men are taken ashore and buried on the beach in a hidden grove of palm trees.
John Howel, Kendrick’s clerk, reads the ship's prayer book for the captain’s funeral.
Kamehameha is now ruler of all the Hawaiian Islands from Oʻahu to the east, but the western islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau continue to elude him.
Using Honolulu as a base, he has a forty-ton ship built.
When he attempts to invade the western islands in 1796, Kaʻiana's brother Namakeha leads a rebellion on Hawaiʻi island against his rule, and Kamehameha is forced to return and put down the insurrection.
Kamehameha tries again in 1803 to conquer the western Hawaiian Islands, but this time, disease breaks out among his warriors; Kamehameha himself falls ill, though he later recovers.
During this time, Kamehameha is amassing the largest armada Hawaiʻi has ever seen: foreign-built schooners and massive war canoes, armed with cannon and carrying his vast army.
Marín acts as an interpreter in negotiations with Kamehameha I and Kalanimoku, a prominent Hawaiian government official.
Besides his work in discussion between the Hawaiian Monarch and the PFC officers, Marín also acts as the pilot to guide the ship into port, for which he receives five Spanish dollars.
Twenty-four Hawaiian kanakas are recruited for three years service, half in the fur venture and the other half as laborers on the Tonquin.
One of the Hawaiians, Naukane, is appointed by Kamehameha I to oversee the interests of these laborers.
Naukane will be given the name John Coxe while on the Tonquin and will later join the North West Company.
The Tonquin and its crew leave the Hawaiian Kingdom on March 1 1811.
Naukane returns to the Hawaiian Islands in 1815 following the demise of the Pacific Fur Company.
The effect of the maritime fur trade on native Hawaiians is similar to that of the North West Coast natives, but more powerfully transformative.
The Hawaiians are generally receptive to Western incursion and settlement.
The rise of King Kamehameha I and the unification of the islands under his rule had been made possible in part by the effects of the maritime fur trade and its larger Pacific scope.
The influx of wealth and technology helps make the new Kingdom of Hawaii relatively strong, in political and economic terms.
Many non-native foodstuffs are introduced to the Hawaiian Islands during the early trading era, including plants such as beans, cabbage, onions, squash, pumpkins, melons, and oranges, as well as cash crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar.
Animals introduced include cattle, horses, sheep, and goats.
Due to its high fertility, Oahu becomes the most important of the islands.
The population of Honolulu is over ten thousand by the 1820s.
Women are allowed to eat forbidden food and to eat with men; the priests are no longer to offer human sacrifices; the many prohibitions surrounding the high chiefs were relaxed.
Kamehameha I, the conqueror of the islands, had just died; his son Liholiho succeeds him (and will later be known as King Kamehameha II), coming to power amid scenes of grief and license.
The usually strict rules of the Hawaiian religion and social system, known as kapu, are in abeyance during the usual mourning period.
Women eat pork and bananas; people have sexual intercourse with whomever they please; routine life is completely overthrown.
When a new high chief comes to power, he usually re-imposes the kapu.
Liholiho does attempt to reestablish the kapu, but he is opposed by his mother, Keōpūolani, and the other wives of Kamehameha, notably Kaʻahumanu, the powerful Maui woman chief.
He takes refuge in his canoe and after sailing about aimlessly for two days on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, he lands and eats the feast of dog meat (ordinarily reserved for women) that the women chiefs had prepared for him.
Messengers are then sent over the islands announcing that eating is free and the kapu has fallen.
The downfall of the old religion will be further hastened by the arrival of Christian missionaries a few months later.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
― George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)