Hawaiian Society Before Annexation

Hawaii and most of the other islands in the Pacific were wild and uninhabited by people until relatively recently. In their natural state all of these islands, from the Galapagos off the coast of South America to Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand, had unique and diverse ecologies. Many of these islands, such as those in Hawaii, had active volcanoes and were geologically new.

Around A.D. 200-300, Polynesian seafarers arrived in Hawaii. They managed for a time, but for some reason their society disintegrated and the island was partially depopulated. They were replaced when a new wave of Polynesian immigrants from Tahiti landed in large numbers and integrated or replaced the (related) original Polynesians.

These industrious Polynesians were and remain a remarkable people. They were expert fishers and had a versatile economy. Polynesians had well-developed agriculture, raising many different crops and keeping several types of livestock, thus giving them an immensely varied diet. They built irrigation canals and fish farms. Their agricultural methods were both portable and low-intensity, so they could use many different types of land and grew a great variety of produce. Polynesian culture was also highly adaptable, integrating foreign elements wherever necessary and quickly compensating for local conditions as they migrated..

The technologically audacious island-hopping Polynesians originally came from southern China, specifically Taiwan and the Fukien mainland right across the Taiwan Strait. The terribly persecuted native Taiwanese, making up a tiny proportion of Taiwan's now largely Chinese population, still represent one of the last traces of this original culture. Once they had learned how to build their famous outrigger canoes and mastered the navigational arts, they spread themselves all over the pacific, from New Zealand, Indonesia and Tahiti to Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Their naval and navigational sciences were outstanding. They made a lasting impression on islands from Asia to the Americas. It's been said that theirs was the greatest sea-going society.

Not least of these Polynesian island societies include the monument-builders of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the South Pacific. After constructing hundreds of Moai (huge, unique statues) that stared out to sea, the society collapsed from large-scale environmental abuse. The trees were cut down, the island deforested. There was no more wood for boats, and the bountiful food resources of the forest were replaced by eroding soil and wasteland; a sobering reminder that economic development without foresight and conservation can be deadly, and collapses can come almost without warning.

In New Zealand, Maori brought farm animals, alien crops, hunting and deforestation practices that badly disrupted local ecosystems. Many species of animals became extinct, such as the giant Moa, birds twice the size of ostriches. Wherever Humans landed in the Pacific, ecological disaster always followed. Modern European cultures made these problems many times worse, and in fits of well-meaning but inexcusable thoughtlessness often deliberately introduced foreign animals which quickly became plagues and often obliterated countless unique flora and fauna.

King Kalakaua, the brother of Liliuokalani, wrote about the native Hawaiians and their culture.

With the expansion of European exploration and naval activity, Hawaii could not remain isolated for long. A few explorers and ships landed in Hawaii between 1500-1700, and according to legends ("Myths and Legends of Hawaii"), they even became low-level chiefs after some time. But, overall, Europeans had little lasting impact until much later.

One of the claims Europeans make about Polynesians was their alleged cannibalism. This claim is used by countless peoples around the world to demonize or dehumanize other cultures. The Dene of the Canadian North once said the same thing about their enemies, Inuit hunters who ate raw meat and seemed to live in uninhabitable arctic wastelands, calling them "Eskimo", or "Eaters of Raw Meat". The Greeks and Romans speculated about "barbarian" peoples who ate foreigners. The Arab Muslims thought that the Malays of Indonesia and Malaysia were cannibals. Anti-semitic hysterias in Europe often credited Jews with amazing and terrifying powers and characters, including the need to eat Christian babies. In fact, there was little to most of these stories and some of them were clearly the products of malign, devious or crazed minds. The same appears to have been true of the Hawaiians; there were few cases ever reported of cannibalism being enacted in anything but an after-death ritual capacity, a common enough historical occurence.

Captain Cook was an ardent explorer. The British captain took a crew of naturalists with him to the Pacific and explored New Zealand, which he named, as well as dozens of other territories all over the Pacific Ocean and the Americas. On his last trip, he landed in Hawaii. The locals killed him for unknown reasons.

Christianity, a foreign belief system, arrived in Hawaii with puritan Bostonian missionaries around 1820. It supplanted the integrated spiritial beliefs central to Polynesian society, complete with bizarre and arcane "taboo" laws and ancient customs. Though Christianity was quick to spread throughout the island chain, the Hawaiians were given little time to adapt the other elements of their culture to this new ideology.

Long before it was annexed by the United States, Hawaii's ruling class was highly Europeanized. Hawaiian royalty adopted British customs, including the Royal Anthem "God Save The King". Missionaries introduced the concept of writing to Hawaii, and before long literacy had spread throughout the population.

During the period of greatest European contact, 1800-1900, the population of Hawaii was reduced by disease, economic exploitation, dislocation and foreign political interference. In a story all-too-common wherever European adventurers and explorers landed, over 90 percent of the population was lost. By the turn of the 20th century, there were only 45,000 native Hawaiians. Contact with Europeans devastated Polynesian Hawaii's society. European culture nearly obliterated it from the human mosaic.