Page 53 - Hawaii: Diving, Surfing, Pearl Harbor, Volcanoes and More

amehameha’s unification of Hawaii His defiance of a cornerstone taboo sent position devised a land reform that allowed
K was significant because under sepa- a message throughout Hawai’i that the foreigners to purchase land from locals in
rate rule, the Islands may have been torn old system of laws was no longer to be order to plant sugarcane. Cooke and other
apart by competing western interests. As followed, which dealt a fatal blow to the missionaries became big landowners and
king, Kamehameha took several steps to kapu system. As the kapu system crumbled, sugar producers, and got control of the
ensure that the islands remained a united so did surfing’s ritual significance within economy.
realm even after his death. He unified the Hawaiian culture. Now a commoner could
legal system and he used the products he drop in on a chiefess without fear for his he Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 between
collected in taxes to promote trade with life, or even giving up his lehua wreath. The T the Kingdom of Hawaii (explicitly ac-
Europe and the United States. Kamehameha end of the kapu system also brought about knowledged as a sovereign nation) and the
did not allow non-Hawaiians to own land.. the demise of the Makahiki festival, the an- United States allowed for duty-free impor-
This edict ensured the islands’ independ- nual celebration to the god Lono in which tation of Hawaiian sugar into the United
ence even while many of the other islands surfing played an integral role. States beginning in 1876. This further
of the Pacific succumbed to the colonial promoted plantation agriculture, which
powers. merican Protestant missionaries set- was in the hands of foreign Whites. Hawai’i
A tled in Hawaii at the beginning of the ceded Pearl Harbor together with its shore-
n 1819, less than 50 years after Cook 19th century and quickly gained influence line and four to five miles of land adjacent
I made contact with the Hawaiians, Liholi- and wealth. They prohibited local traditions to the shore, free of cost to the U.S. Na-
ho, the son and successor of Kamehameha they disliked, like the hula or surfboarding. tive Hawaiians protested the treaty on the
I publicly sat down to eat with his mother Reverend Amos Starr Cooke, who arrived in streets until the revolt was suffocated by
and other high chiefesses. Men eating with 1837, set up a school to educate the future U.S. marines.
women had been taboo, but Liholiho had monarchs. When one of his pupils rose to
been swayed and overwhelmed by the the throne, Cooke was appointed unofficial
overpowering influence of haole culture. adviser to the king in 1843 and from this