Morning of Fire

by Scott Ridley

  Joseph Barrell was appointed to a committee of three to manage Washington’s visit to Boston, which would include a ceremony for Washington to review troops gathered on the Cambridge Common, the spot where he had first taken charge of the Continental Army in 1775. Barrell rode out to Worcester to escort Washington’s entourage along the Upper Post Road. There is no record of their conversation, but they most likely touched on foreign trade, and Kendrick’s expedition.

  A year earlier, Barrell had sent Washington one of the medallions commemorating the expedition. Like Jefferson, John Adams, and others, Washington wanted open ports and free global trade so the United States could make full use of her growing population and rich resources to contend with the Old World empires. In response to the gift of the medallion, Washington offered Barrell his hearty wishes for success in the Pacific, with the hope “that the day will arrive (at no very distant period) when the sources of commerce shall be enlarged and replenished; and when the new Constellation of this Hemisphere shall be hailed and respected in every quarter of the terraqueous globe!”

  IT WAS THE RAINY SEASON in the islands. As the rugged sloop continued southward, intermittent thick weather clouded the horizon. During the second week of November, three weeks from the Queen Charlotte Islands, the snowy peak of Mauna Kea (“white mountain”) on Hawaii appeared through the glass as a broad hump, rising nearly13,800 feet. Mauna Loa lay hidden to the southeast. The men undoubtedly wanted to put in at the first harbor on the north shore. But wary of the local warring, and seeking Kaiana and other chiefs he had been told of, Kendrick kept far offshore. He rounded the southern end of the island, staying wide of Ka Lae, an area said to have raging currents and strong winds that could sweep unsuspecting vessels onto reefs and hidden rocks.

  The shoreline grew steeper as they ran up the southwest Kona shore, broadside to swells that had rolled thousands of miles across empty sea. The Washington was the fifteenth ship of record to arrive after James Cook’s landing a decade earlier. Kendrick would find memory of the British explorer still fresh, and as at Nootka, the people still absorbing the impact of that contact.

  FOR CENTURIES THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO was nearly unknown. In the east was the big island of Hawaii. To the west lay the seven main islands of Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau, and other scattered islets. People from the southern Marquesas twenty-three hundred miles to the southeast are believed to have arrived here as early as a.d. 400. An invasion from Tahiti, or several migrations, occurred around the year 1200, and oral histories tell of at least one homeward voyage. Cook had stopped at Tahiti on his way to the American coast. When he asked about islands to the north, the Tahitians reportedly told him they knew of none. Perhaps they had forgotten their oral history, or wanted to be the focus of Cook’s attention and so misled him. Or perhaps he didn’t record their answer.

  Cook is commonly recognized as the first European to discover the islands—in January 1778. However, local historians believe that Spanish sailors and possibly Chinese, Dutch, or Japanese seamen arrived in earlier shipwrecks or expeditions. A common tale was that, while crossing the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippines, Spanish pilot Juan Gaetano had reached the islands in 1542. Estevan Martinez mentioned Gaetano in his recommendations to Viceroy Flores for a Spanish outpost in the islands. Gaetano’s story had never been proved, because Spain’s practice was to keep all its discoveries and maps as state secrets. However, enough facts about the islands had leaked out to make their existence more than speculation. The first world atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, published in 1570, shows an isolated island group called “Los Bolcanes” (the volcanoes) at nearly the same latitude and about ten degrees of longitude east of Hawaii’s actual location.

  Cook certainly knew the rumors of Los Bolcanes and had studied Anson’s maps of the Pacific, which included islands with the Spanish names Los Majos, La Mesa, and La Desgracida near the same isolated location. Regardless of what the Tahitians had told him, as Cook sailed for the American continent, he arced westward out of his way as he approached the region, and picked up sightings of birds and other signs of land.

  AT DAYBREAK ON JANUARY 18, 1778, Cook’s crew noted clouds and the blue haze of land bearing northeast-by-east. The ships’ accounts show that during the next several hours more clouds showed as distinct islands. The men were fresh from Tahiti, where many had been reluctant to leave what one officer described as “tasting Joys and Bliss that seemed More than Mortal.” The appearance of these islands seemed to offer solace and a temporary reprieve from the frozen reaches of the earth they were headed toward in search of the Northwest Passage.

  That night amid slack winds the current carried them northward toward Kauai. Off the eastern end of the island the following afternoon the appearance of the two ships drew a few daring native men to venture out in canoes. Cook found the words they spoke as they sat alongside the ship similar to Tahitian. Very timidly they traded fish for what little was offered them, and seemed to recognize iron and brass. Sailing on along the coast, Cook’s officers noted villages on the risinghills. Native people onshore, sighting what seemed to be moving islands, fled into the distance or stood in awe at the water’s edge.

  On January 20, the Resolution and Discovery came to anchor near the Kauai village of Waimea. An early native historian noted that there was panic and debate over what the ships might be. A kahuna (priest) argued that they were temples of Lono, a god of prosperity and peace whose banner was a triangular-shaped white cloth hung from a pole with a crosspiece. With a warrior at his side, the kahuna courageously went aboard the Resolution and offered a prayer to lift any kapu, or spiritual power, on the ship. It was the right gesture, but it didn’t stop what was coming.

  Voyage records show that more than half of the 112 members of the crew and officers on the Resolution showed signs of venereal disease. Another seventy crewmen on the Discovery most likely carried similar infections. The disease had spread quickly at Tahiti, where relationships with native women had grown into “marriages” and romantic entanglements that drew some men to attempt desertion. Concerned that there would be the same problems here, Cook decreed that no women would be allowed aboard the two ships. He did not want the dishonor of introducing the disease to these islands. Men with venereal symptoms could not go ashore, under any pretext, and those who did go ashore were to have no connection with the women. No one was to stay onshore overnight. Anyone found breaking the order would receive twelve lashes.

  In the harbor at Waimea, men came aboard trading pigs and sweet potatoes, and marveled at all the metal that might be made into knives and weapons. Thievery was rampant. Any metal object not nailed or tied down was taken. One man carried off a butcher’s cleaver and escaped his pursuers. Another was shot and killed when Cook’s men believed he was trying to steal from a boat as it was landing. Despite this, trading continued through the afternoon and evening, and women swam or paddled out to the ship. Cook’s men rebuffed them, and the women left shouting epithets as they turned back toward shore.

  During a two-week stay, Cook learned of other islands to the east of Kauai, but could delay no further. On February 2, the two ships departed for the north. The impression made by the Hawaiian people and their lush landscape stayed with Cook’s men for the next nine months.

  Kealakekua Bay by John Webber. Despite its reputation for violence and James Cook’s death, the bay at Kealakekua would become a frequent stop for visiting ships.

  ON NOVEMBER 26, 1778, after voyaging to the American coast, north into the Gulf of Alaska, and through the Bering Strait, Cook returned. His search for the Northwest Passage had halted when they reached unending walls of pack ice. Now they were seeking rest and repairs to ships worn by the fierce North Pacific. They sailed around Molokai and Maui, where Cook was greatly discouraged to find signs of venereal disease among the natives who came on board. He believed it had been left by a watering party that was stranded ashore overnight. Some of his officers argued that Cook was f
ighting the inevitable—that the disease would spread—and that it was perhaps indigenous (although the natives knew their disease was linked to the ships).

  Finally agreeing to land and make repairs, Cook headed for a bay on Hawaii’s west shore in early January. The bay was known as Kealakekua—the “pathway of the gods.” Using information from Maui natives on board, Cook apparently knew the impact his arrival might have. This was the annual four-month period of makahiki, when warfare was prohibited; the time for celebration of the god Lono, who had left the island in ancient times and sailed off over the horizon from this very bay. Crowds gathered for the annual festival were astonished as they beheld Cook’s approaching sails, which seemed nearly identical to Lono’s triangular white tapa banner hung on a cross-shaped pole. As at Kauai, priests regarded the ships as emissaries of Lono. Some believed Cook to be the god himself returning. Thousands of people swarmed onto the water in canoes or swam to the Discovery “singing and shouting and exhibiting a variety of wild and extravagant gestures.” The great number who went climbing up the side and into the rigging made the ship heel.

  Coming ashore a short time later, Cook found villagers falling on their faces as he approached. Taken by priests, he was put through a ritual at their temple, fed part of a rotting, roasted pig, and given a bitter drink, most likely the slightly narcotic awa.

  As expected, the rule against women on board the ships did not hold. According to officers’ accounts, the ships were filled with women engaging in sex. The crew also engaged in numerous liaisons near the stone temple where they were allowed to camp. Angered by breaches of local customs, steady demands for food, spreading disease, and jealous friction, goodwill toward the foreign men wore down.

  As incidents of physical scuffles and threats began to occur, Cook determined that “these people will oblige me to use some violent measures” and that “they must not be left to imagine, that they have gained an advantage over us.”

  On February 14, 1779, the Discovery’s large cutter was stolen from her mooring. In retaliation, Cook proposed seizing and holding all thecanoes in the bay until the cutter was returned. He sent out boats and armed men to block escape from the harbor, then went ashore with nine marines to the village of Kaawaloa to take the old chief Kalaniopuu hostage. On the way back to shore with the chief, hundreds and ultimately as many as three thousand people surrounded Cook’s party. Word came ashore that a chief attempting to leave the bay had been shot and killed in a canoe by men in one of the ships’ boats. The crowd was enraged. One warrior threw a rock and struck Cook. Another threatened him with a knife. A marine officer was attacked and beat back a man with the butt of his gun. Cook fired his pistol. More stones began to fly and Cook fired again. As Cook turned to shout to the launch, he was struck with a club or stabbed in the neck or shoulder and fell forward into the water. The crowd surged around him, killing him and four marines as others scrambled into the launch and rowed out of reach.

  Astronomers and carpenters who were ashore across the bay conducting an astronomical observation heard the musket shots and received orders to abandon their camp. The ships fired cannons into the village, scattering people into the hills. The expedition’s grieving officers wanted Cook’s body returned and they threatened to destroy the village if it were not delivered. A few days later, two priests of Lono, who lamented the killing, came to the ship with a piece of flesh from Cook’s buttocks wrapped in a bundle. His skull was said to be in the possession of the chief Kalaniopuu. The priests related that the rest of him was burned, dismembered, and distributed; his intestines were said to have been used to rope off a temple. Armed parties went ashore, burning houses and killing several natives. Two warriors’ heads were cut off and hung on the bows of ships’ boats. Order was finally restored several days later before the ships sailed, but a reputation for violence hung over this harbor.

  Nathaniel Portlock, who made a brief visit in May 1786, concluded that it was not safe to land at Kealakekua without a strong guard. George Dixon apparently communicated this warning to James

  Colnett and others. However, this was the harbor William Douglas frequented with the Iphigenia, and where Kendrick would have the best opportunity to meet Kaiana and other important island chiefs.

  THE AMERICAN COMMANDER WAS FAMILIAR with the stories of Cook’s death, and prepared the Washington‘s guns as they made for Kealakekua Bay. After passing villages along the shore, they came toward the most densely populated part of the island. Smoke drifted from groves of coconut trees as they rounded Palemano Point. At the blunt head of the mile-wide bay, an immense, steeply sloping cliff, pocked with caves, rose six hundred feet above the water. The abrupt shore below it cut off low peninsulas to the north and south.

  Arriving at Kealakekua, the Lady Washington’s crew would have found a greeting that matched their expectations. (Drawing by Sigismund Bacstrom)

  Little had changed since Cook was here. On the barren north peninsula was the royal village of Kaawaloa, a hundred or so houses with walls and roofs of thatched pili grass. On the south side was Waipunaula (now known as Napo’poo’o), where farmers and fishermen lived. Over the rugged rising land to the south, cultivated enclosures andmore huts were scattered among groves of coconut trees. The shore all around the bay was enclosed with blackened volcanic rock and lava beds. At Waipunauloa there was a sandy beach and a well of fresh water.

  The village dogs barked as double canoes and single hulls with outriggers launched out. Unlike the seasonal Mowachaht villages, which subsisted on hunting and gathering, the people here lived a settled life on parcels of land known as ahupuaa, which were subdivided and granted according to a sophisticated feudal system. Shares of crops from the ahupuaa went to the local chief, who then passed shares to the district chief for this section of the island. The chiefs were interrelated members of ruling families with inherited divine powers, or mana. The ruling families, known as ali ‘i, were tiered by the purity of their royal blood and stood at the top of a rigid caste system. Beneath them were the kahunas, who were priests or masters in certain crafts. The fields were worked by the maka’ainana, or people of the land, and the kauwa, who were outcasts and slaves. Daily life was controlled by a system of religious instructions and taboos (kapu, or spiritual power) that dictated how each person should act at a particular time and place, shaping each person’s destiny from birth to death. These instructions influenced planting of the fields, fishing, eating, drinking, sex, dancing, games, trade, and war. Violations could result in bad fortune, or an array of punishments, including death. Life was a journey among spiritual powers guided by kapu and the whims of chiefs and their queens. The ali ‘i and some of the kahuna could declare or lift kapu to control events, although there were certain restrictions even they had to observe or risk the wrath of the gods and the disruption of the social order.

  The Washington anchored not far from the spot where Cook had lost his life. Onshore were men who had taken part in the attack. One of them, Pelea, who may have been on Kauai at the time Kendrick arrived, was said to have been the first who stabbed Cook, and he kept a white ruffled shirt rent with holes that he claimed belonged to theexplorer. For some visitors, he would bring it out and describe the order in which the wounds had been delivered.

  As when Cook arrived, Kendrick and the Washington’s crew found themselves in the midst of the four-month makahiki season at Kealakekua, which had begun in October. Their arrival lived up to everything they had been told. In the clear waters of the bay, brownskinned women in a “state of nature” came alongside in canoes or swam around the ship. Some wore only a short skirt of grass or a bark-cloth loin skirt—a pa’u—which they readily stripped off. The young, unmarried women were crowned by flowers, with long brown or black hair flowing over their shoulders. Most of the women coming to the ship had their hair cut short in back and long in front, some with bangs stained white with clay or crushed lime from coral. They wore necklaces of shells or polished black wood. A number of them had their front
teeth knocked out—a sign of mourning for a husband or loved one lost in battle. With local warfare taking a heavy toll, so many of these young widows and mourners swam out to the ships that their toothless smiles were mistaken by the sailors for an odd local fashion. Unlike the barter for women on the Northwest Coast, romance was the custom here, and women who were widowed by war were eager to ally with a man who had some degree of power.

  On board the Washington, the women flirted with the crew. In the modest words of one officer, they “seemed not to esteem chastity a virtue.” Another officer observed “that few could but admire them and none resist the impulse of the moment.” According to native history, even James Cook was seduced when a chieftess offered her daughter, Lelemahoalani, to him. Whatever seductive dancing or sensual arts the women might have practiced, they were never recorded or were washed out in the wave of missionary fervor that followed the merchant traders decades later. However, deep affection was common. Foreign men became bound to the islands and chiefs in part through the women. And in certain cases, women betrayed a chief to report to sailors a plot brewing against their lives.

  Kendrick had put up boarding nets, which ran eight feet up from the deck to control access to the ship. The men coming on board were affable and ready to trade hogs, taro, plantains, and fish held in the canoes. They were stout and well muscled, with black hair tied in many finger-width braids or cut short on the sides and long on top. Most wore only a malo, a sash tied around the waist that secured a narrow breechcloth. Some were tattooed, and all of them appeared incredibly clean. They paid little attention to the women around them.