Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii

by James L. Haley

  She was correct; the king’s half sister Princess Ruth Ke‘elikolani (also present) was, aside from her close friend Bernice, the only surviving direct descendent of the Conqueror. Kamehameha III had removed her from the succession over the question of her legitimacy, but when Lot answered that she was not suitable, he was probably alluding to her truculent bearing, her defiant paganism, and her contempt for foreigners, which would have made her a problematical monarch. Bernice would not be moved, however; King Kamehameha V entered extremis and expired an hour later.

  Elizabeth La‘anui, also their classmate at the Royal School, later claimed that before seeing Bernice Kamehameha V offered the throne to her and she declined. Such an offer would have been quite proper, if it happened, for she was a strong candidate, great-granddaughter of the Conqueror’s older brother. Like Emma she was one-quarter white (granddaughter of Kamehameha II’s shady French secretary Jean Rives); unlike Emma she was married to a white, Franklin Pratt of Boston. Emma also tended Lot in his final hours, but Dominis, alert to promote the interests of the Kalakaua family to whom he had tied his own fortunes, wrote her out of the scene, although all the principal claimants were right there in the room.7 On his deathbed Kamehameha V was heard finally to mumble his assent that Lunalilo, “unworthy” as he was, would have to do, but that fell well short of a decree. Lot’s constitution provided for just such confusion, so when no successor was named, the legislature would choose the monarch.

  Of the four principal contenders to the throne, Bernice Bishop had recused herself, and Ruth Ke‘elikolani was discounted for her questioned legitimacy and reactionary ways. David Kalakaua wanted the job badly and began lobbying his fellow legislators, but one big obstacle stood in his way: William Charles Lunalilo. It may have taken court genealogists to advise the Kamehamehas of his high birth, but it was no mystery to his mother, the kuhina nui Kekauluohi. At the very time of his birth she had chanted, “I luna, i luna, i lunalilo” (up high, up high, disappears up high).

  At one time he had the makings of a splendid king—handsome, popular, extremely intelligent and liberally disposed, he was a famously brilliant conversationalist and debater—and he aimed to accommodate the Americans where he could while stemming their march to take over the whole country. Once again, however, the Kamehameha family ruined their people’s chances for happiness, this time by sabotaging Lunalilo’s chances for happiness when they crushed his romance with their sister Victoria Kamamalu over fear of being outranked by his children.8 (It was extraordinary how “genealogy” had simply become a new word for mana.) Distraught, Lunalilo then sought the hand of Kalakaua’s sister, Lydia Kamaka‘eha, but she also declined him—at the urging of Kamehameha IV—and she entered that dismal marriage with Dominis.9 The Kamehamehas’ jealousy of Lunalilo’s rank apparently extended also to refusing him a position at court, where he could have trained for the reign that most people assumed would one day be his.10 William Lunalilo therefore gimped through adulthood as a lonely alcoholic bachelor, and was far gone in both drink and tuberculosis at the time the whole matter landed in the legislature.

  Lunalilo announced that he would accept the throne only on condition that they hold a plebiscite for the people to vote their choice, and, wrote Castle, “I presume their expression will be in his favor as he is popular.”11 In that referendum the only candidate to stand against him was Kalakaua, and it was a fascinating campaign that showed Hawai‘i in transition, with Lunalilo standing upon his royal rank but enlightened to seek the suffrage of his people, and Kalakaua running something like an American-style campaign, buttonholing key legislators for support, spreading stories about his opponent, and making promises he couldn’t keep.

  Lunalilo’s only statement was that, notwithstanding his right to inherit the throne, “I desire to submit the decision of my claim to the voice of the people,” with the single promise that if he were elected, he would restore the constitution of Kamehameha III, and “govern the nation according to the principles of … a liberal constitutional monarchy.” His only misstep—whether it was published at his direction or only a widespread misconception—was a claim of direct descent from the Conqueror. A circular authored by a committee of “Skilled Genealogists” in Kalakaua’s service quickly brought that up short, but it did nothing to dent Lunalilo’s popular support.

  Kalakaua did attain a measure of royal connection when he married Esther Kapi‘olani, the erstwhile governess of the unfortunate little Prince of Hawai‘i, and whom Emma blamed for his death. (Kapi‘olani’s Christian name is often rendered as Julia, but Kulia—Strive—was her motto, not her name.) Her elderly first husband, Emma’s uncle, died, and she and Kalakaua wed not long after Kamehameha IV died. Kapi‘olani, unlike Kalakaua, was distantly related to the Kamehameha line, a tincture that would pass to their children, if they produced any.12

  For his part, Kalakaua published a platform of windy but clever promises, first shrewdly tying himself to Kamehameha I by promising to enforce the Law of the Splintered Paddle—which he pointed out had been suggested to the Conqueror by Kalakaua’s ancestor Keaweaheulu. Second, he promised to increase the population “and fill the land,” although one can imagine any number of randy Hawaiians wondering with amusement how much personal attention he meant to devote to that pledge. He promised to repeal all personal taxes and pay off the national debt by putting native Hawaiians into government offices—which sounded mighty but made no sense whatever. The plebiscite would be a nonbinding referendum only, and at root, Kalakaua’s chances came down to his ability to influence legislators who would actually decide which would become monarch. Britain and the United States both detected a possibility of trouble—if Lunalilo won the election, which he would, but Kalakaua turned the legislature, which he might, there could be violence. Both consuls requested warships to protect the property of their respective citizens, but only the 2,400-ton screw sloop USS Benicia arrived in time.

  Lunalilo’s triumph in the referendum was so overwhelming that when the legislature convened to vote for monarch, his jubilant supporters thronged the grounds. Their numbers were sufficiently intimidating that one of their supporters in the legislature moved that the members sign their ballots when they voted—a sure antidote to any American-style skulduggery on Kalakaua’s part. It worked, and the vote was unanimous, but for one—John Owen Dominis, Kalakaua’s brother-in-law; he abstained.

  Though a husk of his former self, Lunalilo took the oath as king on January 8, 1873. Mark Twain had met him in 1866 and liked him enormously, finding him “affable, gentlemanly, open, frank, manly; [he] is as independent as a lord and has a spirit and a will like the old Conqueror himself. He is intelligent, shrewd, sensible, is a man of first-rate abilities, in fact.… He has one unfortunate fault—he drinks constantly, and it is a great pity.… I like this man, and I like his bold independence, and his friendship for and appreciation of the American residents.… If I could print a sermon that would reform him, I would cheerfully do it.”13

  The solemnity of the investiture was largely destroyed when the new king, who was quite musical and had always wanted to lead the band, suddenly seized and donned the bass drum, and led the musicians in a march around the palace grounds, whomping it with abandon. As a youth Lunalilo had been diffident where girls were concerned, and in his student workbook he once composed a poem to inscribe in a girl’s autograph book—if one should, he wrote, ever ask him to. Marching to church in the Royal School he was often paired with Emma Na‘ea and the two had remained close friends. He had always been careful of his appearance, and recorded in his diary bathing in a stream with his father and using palolo, a traditional hair-straightening pomade.14 Then came his wrenching romantic reversals with Victoria Kamamalu and Lydia Kamaka‘eha, and Lunalilo, who might have ushered the Hawaiian kingdom into happier days than they had known under the Kamehamehas, instead came to the throne a broken man.

  Indeed, much of the government’s focus from the outset was on keeping him alive, just at a time when
national issues required vigorous attention. The 1872 sugar crop was not good, and in defiance of the law of supply and demand, prices were depressed as well. The subject of a reciprocity treaty with the United States was back in circulation, but with their Reconstruction almost spent, the Southern states were about to regain a voice in Congress, so protection of Southern sugar just promised further disappointment. Then Henry Whitney of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser spoke up. Why not, he suggested, offer the Americans a fifty-year lease on the Pearl River basin west of Honolulu, in exchange for importing Hawaiian sugar duty-free?

  It did not seem suspicious. The presence in Hawai‘i at that moment of a high-level American military delegation was easily explained away. During his decline, Kamehameha V planned to visit the United States for medical treatment, and as a courtesy, the U.S. Navy dispatched the USS California, a large, new, massively armed wooden steam frigate, to transport him. She was under command of Adm. A. M. Pennock, whose orders included turning the port call into a goodwill visit, and to “use all your influence and all proper means to direct and maintain feeling in favor of the United States.” Also present on board were Lt. Col. B. S. Alexander, of the Corps of Engineers, and Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, commander of the Division of the Pacific. They, it was reported, were on a recreational leave for Schofield’s health—although Schofield was only forty-two.

  What no one in the islands knew was that they were on a secret mission, “for the purpose of ascertaining the defensive capabilities of the different ports and their commercial facilities, and … to collect all information that would be of service to the country in the event of war with a powerful maritime nation.” So far from their interest in Pearl Harbor being coincidental, their orders also warned, “It is believed the objects of this visit … will be best accomplished if your visit is regarded as a pleasure excursion, which may be joined in by your citizen friends.”15 What everyone knew was that the Pearl River estuary was the most capacious and most sheltered harbor in the Pacific, but blocked by a coral reef. Alexander being an engineer, short of taking soundings or otherwise arousing suspicion, he could estimate how much effort it would take to blast through it, how much dredging would be required to service a fleet, the best location for a coaling station, and other logistics.

  Henry Whitney, who had sold the Advertiser and now published the Hawaiian Gazette, gave plausible reasons why and how a lease would benefit the kingdom. “It will defeat and indefinitely postpone all projects for the annexation of these Islands to any foreign power, at the same time that it will secure to us all the benefits claimed by the advocates of annexation, and will guarantee our national independence under our native rulers as long as the treaty may continue.”16 An important clause, that last one. If apples and oranges make a poor comparison, Whitney wrote an entire fruit basket on the question of how American warships in Pearl Harbor could satisfy the cases both for and against annexation.

  The U.S. minister to Hawai‘i, Henry Peirce, had apparently not been included in the plan to quietly assay Pearl Harbor’s defensive potential, and when asked about the possible quid pro quo, repeated that the United States had no territorial ambition in the kingdom, but sent dispatches to Secretary of State Hamilton Fish detailing the activity and requesting instructions. The sick and unhappy king was persuaded to support the idea, but if the previous thirty years had taught the educated native class anything, it was that alienation of any part of Hawai‘i nei was anathema. As the plan became more widely known—and helping to raise the alarm was Walter Murray Gibson, the excommunicated Mormon, now publishing a bilingual newspaper called the Nuhou—public gatherings against it were so large and angry that Lunalilo must have known that he had stepped amiss.

  The king entered an acutely ill period; he probably knew his time was short, for at one of his last parties he commanded the band to play “God Save the King” seven times. He retreated to his cottage in Waikiki, but more trouble followed him there. Hawai‘i had no real standing military force; most of the men in uniform were the band started by his predecessor. There was a small company of household troops sufficient to deal with any local disturbances, and in the quest for spit and polish, they were given over to a Hungarian martinet, Capt. Joseph Jajczay. His infliction of nineteenth-century military discipline was out of proportion to his command. On September 6, 1873, he discovered four treasury guards absent from their post, found them enjoying a Saturday night in town, and locked them up, shackled to balls and chains. The next morning, with the captain gone to church, those prisoners with four others in the cell knocked down the door with the balls they were chained to, and freed themselves but did not run away.

  When Jajczay returned from church, other troops ignored orders to seize them; the captain hit one with the flat of his sword, and that soldier knocked him down. Governor Dominis and the Adjt. Gen. Charles Judd (another son of Gerrit) were called to the scene; when Judd tried to force the situation, he was knocked down. Then there was a full-on mutiny. Fourteen loyal troops sided with the government, forty barricaded themselves in the barracks with a six-pounder cannon seized from the palace yard. Haole families living in the area left their houses; the streets filled with celebrating kanakas who cheered the rebels and brought them food and water. And then, interjecting himself unbidden into the disturbance was David Kalakaua, presenting himself as mediator. Anything that embarrassed Lunalilo made him look good to the public, and he may well have made things worse. After a week three of the mutineers were given safe conduct to Waikiki, where the king promised them amnesty if they would return to duty, and that ended the affray.17 The rebels were discharged and barred from further service, whites were put in charge of the armory, and many people, the haoles especially, tried to put it out of their minds. At some level beneath conscious acknowledgment it registered on them that it was significant how quickly the kanakas had stormed to support a mutiny, and thus how much resentment lay just beneath the surface.

  Although Lunalilo was pressed to name a commissioner to negotiate yet a new attempt at a reciprocity treaty, this time on the basis of a Pearl Harbor lease, he finally followed both his own instincts and the popular remonstrance, and withdrew his support. He had tried to govern, through the ravages of whiskey and disease, and in truth kept the one promise he made during the campaign: He restored the universal male suffrage of the 1852 constitution. The king was barely conscious when the election was held on February 2, 1873, and his death from pneumonia the next day saddled the privy council with deciding which legislature must choose a new monarch: the old one, which had not been prorogued, or the new one scheduled to convene in April. They chose the latter.

  One matter of which Lunalilo made certain before he expired was to express his command not to be buried with the Kamehameha kings at Mauna ‘Ala. His bitterness at their refusing him their sister still burned. He was instead laid to rest in a small, stately Victorian mausoleum in the Kawaiaha‘o churchyard, inscribed simply LUNALILO KA MO‘I, “Lunalilo the King.”

  Through the king’s persistent illness, Emma often nursed him, but they seldom had any time alone. Thwarted in marriage by his cousins, Lunalilo had taken for a mistress the green-eyed Eliza Meek, hapa haole daughter of Honolulu’s harbormaster. Hopelessly overmatched in the company of the royal family, she became shrill and shrewish, careful never to leave Emma and Lunalilo alone together, refusing to leave the room even when asked to be excused. She insulted the king to such a degree that even in his exhaustion he once found the strength to throw a chair at her. Emma took it in stride,18 knowing that there was a faction at court who believed she was angling for his endorsement to succeed him. While the dowager queen basked in the love of the people, she was under no illusions about her lack of popularity among the wealthy Americans. But upon both major counts of her intransigent Anglophilia she was unshakable: her Episcopal religion, and her preference for British over American influence in Hawai‘i. It looked increasingly as though the new contest, sharpened as never before, would be a fa
ce-off between Emma and Kalakaua.

  * * *

  The grief over Lunalilo’s death overshadowed any appreciation of a living reminder of their history glimpsed at the same time by the observant American writer Charles Nordhoff. Of that first generation of missionaries there was now a single survivor in the islands:

  Of the first band who came out from the United States, the only one living in 1873 is Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, a bright, active, and lively old lady of seventy-five years, with a shrewd wit of her own. She drives herself to church on Sundays in a one-horse chaise, and has her own opinions of passing events. How she has lived in the tropics for fifty years without losing even an atom of the New England look puzzles you; but it shows you also the strength which these people brought with them, the tenacity with which they clung to their habits of dress and living and thought, the remorseless determination.19

  In truth Mrs. Thurston had no difficulty maintaining the aura of old New England, for she had just finished her memoirs, using copies of her letters that her husband long before had encouraged her to make. “In the silence and solitude of night, with my study lamp,” she wrote, “I was young again, and I saw my father’s family surrounding me, so loving and so lovely. Many, many noble friends had assembled with them.… So real, so near they all seemed, that when about to open these lips to speak to them in an easy manner, a thrill went through me.” Others may have seen an eccentric elderly lady clattering to church in her buggy on Sundays, but in her own mind she had been twenty-five again, and writing one of the most fascinating and readable memoirs of early American Hawai‘i.20