KALĀKAUA

ʻAround the World in 80 Daysʻ by Jules Verne was published in 1872 as a periodical then later a book in French, then English in 1873.  It was a sensation worldwide.

After his Presidency, Ulysses S. Grant undertook his World Tour in 1877 and Andrew Carnegie in 1878.  Having met Grant in 1875 the King and President very likely discussed the book at a State Dinner, and Kalākaua may have already read of the exploits of Phileas Fogg, 

Indeed when he later learned that Mr. Carnegie also traversed the world in 1878 the King proposed his World Tour in 1880 to the Hawaiʻi Legislature, and was finally awarded $22,500 for the trip.

It was a time of great change for the world.  The United States and Hawaiʻi became nations at nearly the same time.  Queen Victoria was the sovereign of Great Britain and since the 1778 Voyage of James Cook, destiny tied all three countries together.  

Just over a century earlier, at the time of the great chiefs, Hawaiians marveled at metal and weapons of explosive destruction brought on foreign ships.  Now the whole world would see the decline of sail, sun and water replaced by the energy power of machines.

The steam engine heralded the dawn of the industrial revolution and the age of new science and technology that would engulf the world.  Previously a voyage around the world could take a year or more. The King took 281 days.  A trip across the ocean took more than a month and more but with the new steam-engine assisted ships that trip was now only a few weeks.  Trains were being built on every continent and people were talking about ʻhorseless carriagesʻ the idea of a small train-like vehicle without tracks.

The dramatic affect of mechanical technology and world commerce foreshadowed the beginning of globalization.  The whole world would have to adapt in similar ways we did after contact with those foreign ships a century earlier.

The population of the Hawaiian Kingdom was estimated at about 40,000.  If you added others who moved here, including non-citizen foreigners,  business, military, and others, the estimates were near 50,000.

This was a fraction of the population estimated to be 800,000 or more, when James Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay.  In just one century ninety five percent of  Native Hawaiians succumbed to introduced novel diseases such as measles, small pox, cholera, tuberculosis and leprosy.  This has had a permanent traumatic effect.

When Kamehameha became the first King of Hawai'i he knew the young country would need to adapt to the new world and adopt new forms  of governance and trade. 

Provisioning visiting ships had always been a mainstay but rather small for a national commerce.  ʻIliahi, Hawaiian sandalwood, became the new foreign trade tying commerce with Asia.  Then whaling became an industry further linking a relationship with the United States.  Most of the seafaring nations had some relationship with our islands.

By 1874 these early economic sources had declined and the new focus was on sugar cane plantations to develop a sugar industry.  Large blankets of Land was readily available.  Access to, control of, and Land Ownership was the new dynamic of the economy. 

National Economy expands dramatically during Kalākaua Reign. (722%)

1874                                                     2021 relative

Imports were $ 1,311,000                     $ 30,460,855

Exports were  $ 1,839,000                   $ 42,728,842

1890                                                     2021 relative

Imports were $  6,962,000                  $ 146,193,516

Exports were  $ 13,282,000                 $ 308,604,939

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago in the mid Pacific Ocean - we call her Moana Kahiko (the Ancient Ocean).  The volcanic islands were formed by a ʻhotspotʻ situated relatively stationary on the earthʻs crust.  As the Pacific Ocean plate moves northwest year after year, a series of islands were formed - the oldest more than 70 million years ago, sits close to Russia, and the youngest, Hawai'i, about one million to a day.

Most Islands were formed by the merging of two or more volcanoes.

Each island has diverse climatic zones.  Hawaiʻī has the most diversity due to the immensity of the two main volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

The rich volcanic soil makes various farming very productive.  Husbandry and other activities are easily supported.

Because of our location, weather patterns normally park a High Pressure Zone to the North which produces our regular ʻTradeWindsʻ a cooling breeze - we call it Moaʻe.

The newest volcano, called Lōʻihi and located 22 miles southeast of Hawai'i coast, is still undersea and will not become an island for another 200,000 years.

In 1874 the islands of Hawai'i had been a social entity for at least a thousand years, some say more.  Overtime individual Island Chiefdoms were created by a social order of Al'i - a heirarchical family clan, which developed into Kingdoms with a supreme leader - Mōʻī.

At the time of Kamehameha, 1775, succeeding generations of Chiefs were trying for two centuries to unify all the islands into one Chiefdom, a single political entity, a new nation. Kamehameha achieved this in 1795 creating the country he named Hawai'i, and becoming the first King.

Foreigners and their technology were part of his achievement and continued to advise national government.  But Kamehameha was guarded about foreigners and worked to keep them at a distance, even though he needed their technology and support.

He ruled as supreme sovereign and accepted the new concept of becoming a King, while retaining his Council of Chiefs, and the traditional system of government.

Soon after his death in 1819 the old system of the Ai Kapu was abolished.  This left a vaccuum in the spiritual and political structure of the young nation.  You could argue this was the Hawaiian Civil War, although with very different results as in America.

His son, Liholiho, Kamehameha II, did not rule long and his younger brother Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III, became King in 1825.  From this point onward the Hawaiian Kingdom became firmly rooted in a hybrid system of European and Hawaiian values that would govern the Kingdom in ever increasing foreign influences, particularly from the United states but also from Great Britain.

By the time of the reign of Kalākaua the country was a Constitutional Monarchy which he re-establsihed with a bicameral Legislature.  A country almost a hundred years old, and in the past 50 years, Hawaiians were losing control over their Government that was being dominated by foreigners and businessmen.  There was extreme anxiety about the future.