Preparations in Honolulu to welcome the arrival of Liholiho included extended practice for a large hula performance with 270 dancers...
Around 1,000 years ago, navigators from the Marquesas Islands launched an unprecedented voyage of discovery across the Pacific Ocean.
On October 23, 1819, a double-masted, 85-foot-long ship set sail from Boston Harbor, headed for the Sandwich Islands (Hawai‘i). in recognition of these events two hundred years ago, we take the opportunity to reflect on this complex history.
This first exhibit of Eia Hawai‘i: 1819 – 1841 explores the events in Hawai‘i and New England before missionaries first arrived in Hawai‘i in 1820. Within a period of fifty years, Hawai‘i had experienced a dramatic transition from geographic isolation to playing a pivotal role as a provisioning stop for growing Western trade and colonial exploration, a shift that profoundly impacted the indigenous culture and practices of the islands.
Kauikeaouli was Hawai‘i’s longest-reigning monarch, ruling as Kamehameha III from 1825 – 1854. Born to Keōpūolani and Kamehameha I, he...
The second exhibit of Eia Hawai‘i: 1819 – 1841 follows the journey of the Thaddeus and explores the first years...
Kamehameha I died in May 1819, in Kamakahonu, Hawai‘i. Early on, the king had named his son, Liholiho, successor. But two powerful women – Ka‘ahumanu and Keōpūolani, both his widow – would demand new freedoms, igniting a struggle that toppled the ancient religion.
Faced with declining revenues for its global missions, ABCFM founded the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, in 1816 as a way to proselytize at home and to boost donations.This boarding school aimed to educate non-Christian boys to become missionaries in their homelands.
Though sometimes criticized for being a product of Western ideas, the Declaration of Rights and Constitution transformed Hawai‘i. Drafted by...
For Hawaiians, land was not something to be bought and sold but a living ancestor. The ali‘i and common people...
By the mid-1830s, Hawai‘i had endured a series of escalating foreign conflicts. Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) was pressured from all sides...
On July 11, 1842, Levi Chamberlain, business agent for the Mission, bundled four of his children and two others into...