Early Hawaiian Home

    The first Hawaiians are believed to have come from the Marquees Islands by way of Southeast Asia. No one knows what caused these people to take to their voyaging canoes.  Maybe, there were disputes, maybe their village was short on food, but for whatever the reason, they ended up in the Hawaiian Islands.  These islands are some of the most isolated in the world. They are over 2,400 miles of the nearest continent.
    The early travelers must have brought food and water along on they voyage. Scientists believe that the Polynesians, the group of people to which Hawaiians belong, probably brought chickens, dogs, and pigs in their large canoes.  These first settlers lived on the biggest of the over 4,000 islands.  It is believed that this happened about 400-500 AD.

    About 500 years later in about 1000 AD, a group of fierce people came to the Islands from Tahiti. The Tahitians were bigger than the Hawaiian settlers and swiftly became the rulers of the native Hawaiians who became the workers or common people. These Tahitians became the Ali'i, the Hawaiian royalty.  High chiefs were the absolute rulers. Common people were not allowed to even look at them.  The penalty of looking or touching an Ali'i was usually death.

    There was often warfare between the eight major islands.  This warfare ended in the 1700s when Kamehameha the first conquered all the islands.  About the same time Captain James Cook, an English sea captain, discovered the islands for Europeans.  Cook made three voyages to the South Pacific.  He spoke Titian and was able to communicate.  The Hawaiians thought he and his sailors were gods.  When they discovered that he was just a man, they killed him. A monument to Captain Cook exists on the big island of Hawaii.

    In the early 1800s Congregational Church missionaries came to Hawaii and began to change Hawaii's future.  Hawaii had begun to be a major port for European and American ships to stop and take on supplies.  The Chinese loved sandalwood and this tree grew on the higher levels of the volcanic mountains.  A huge trade began in sandalwood.  European and American traders made enormous amounts of money from this trade.  The island chiefs had the commoners harvest these trees to a point that sandalwood trees became almost extinct.  The money the chiefs received caused them to want goods from Europe. Over time the Hawaiians became traders.

    As time went on, new industries came to the islands. Sugar cane had always been grown by the Hawaiians and it began to be grown to export to the rest of the world. In 1850 foreigners were allowed to buy land.  This lead to the Hawaiians selling their land.  Within just 30 years, 80% of the land was owned by foreigners.  Many of the new landowners were the children of the missionaries.  The Hawaiians did not like working in the sugar cane and pineapple fields so many workers from Southeast Asia and Europe were brought to the islands as workers.

    Foreigners, began to take over the islands.  Queen Liliuokalani wanted to restore power to the Hawaiian royalty.  This caused the planters to fear that she would interfere with their making money from their plantations and they thought they could stop her by making Hawaii a United States territory.  The sugar companies had become very powerful and were very much the leaders in overthrowing Liliuokalani.  The queen was kept as a prisoner in the royal palace.  In time, Hawaii became a United States Territory and in 1959 a state.

    The Japanese were responsible for the United States entering World War II.  On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the American naval base, and most of the Army air fields on the island.  Many American battleships were sunk and many airplanes were destroyed in the early Sunday morning attack.  Hawaii became an important part of the war effort against the Japanese.

    Since World War II, Hawaii has become a major tourist center.  Many people from all over the world visit to see the beaches and volcanoes.  Sugar cane and pineapple are no longer grown for export.  The land is too valuable.  Tourism has become Hawaii's number one industry.  People are moving to the islands in droves because of its beauty and way of life.
 

    August 2000 Revised July 26, 2007