The strength of character of Kamehameha I is shown in many ways, but especially in the stand he took in regard to liquor, which was having a disastrous effect on his people. When he became convinced that alcoholic drinks were injurious, he decided never to taste them again.
Before the close of his life, he made a noble effort to prevent the use of liquor by his people. All the chiefs on the island of Hawaii were summoned to meet in an immense grass house, which he had ordered built at Kailua, the ancient capital, solely for this council. When they were all assembled the King entered in his magnificent cape of mamo bird feathers, and drawing himself up to his full height, uttered this command:
"Return to your homes, and destroy every distillery on the island! Make no more intoxicating liquors!"
At the death of Kamehameha I, in 1819, his son Liholiho succeeded him as Kamehameha II. Unfortunately, he did not carry out his father's wishes. He was like his father in nothing but name, being weak and dissipated, and easily influenced by the unscrupulous foreigners who surrounded him. Many changes took place in his reign, but so strong had the government been made by his father that it survived them all. Fortunately, too, an able woman, one of the wives of the first Kamehameha, was associated with the King as Queen Regent.
Before the end of the year 1819 the Hawaiians had burned their idols and abolished tabu. It was the influence of Europeans that had led to these radical changes. Early in the nineteenth century the trade in sandalwood sprang up, in return for which many manufactured articles were imported, especially rum, firearms and cheap ornaments. This trade brought increased numbers of foreigners to the Islands, and their sneers undermined the faith of the people in their old gods without offering them any other religion as a substitute.
In this connection, we are told that twice Kamehameha I made an effort to learn something about Christianity. When he heard that the people of Tahiti had embraced the new faith, he inquired of a foreigner about it, but the man could tell him nothing. Again, just before his death, he asked an American trader to tell him about the white man's God, but, as a native afterward reported to the missionaries, "He no tell him." This greatest of the Hawaiians prepared the way, but he himself died without hearing of Christ.
The Hawaiians had now swept their house clean, and they were ready for an entirely new set of furnishings. In a land far away beyond the Pacific these were preparing for them, and the short reign of this second Kamehameha was made memorable not only by the changes already mentioned but also by the coming of the missionaries, in 1820.
Obookiah, whose real name was Opukahaia, was a young Hawaiian who shipped as seaman on a whaler about 1817, and was taken to New Haven, where he found people who befriended him and undertook to give him an education. They sent him to the Foreign Mission School which had been established at Cornwall, Connecticut, for young men from heathen lands. Among his mates were four others from his native islands. It had been his purpose to carry the Christian religion to his home, but he was taken seriously ill at the school and on his death-bed he pleaded with his new friends not to forget his country. His appeal led the first missionaries to embark for those far-away shores. Three young Hawaiians from the school went with them as assistants.
When the Christian teachers arrived, it is said that the captain of the ship sent an officer ashore with the Hawaiian boys. After awhile they returned, shouting out their wonderful news:
"Liholiho is king. The tabus are abolished. The idols are burnt. There has been war. Now there is peace."