The pressing demand for labour created by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 with the United States led to great changes in the population of the Hawaiian Islands. It became the policy of the government to assist immigrants from different countries. Immigration. In 1877 arrangements were made for the importation of Portuguese families from the Azores and Madeira, and during the next ten years about 7000 of these people were brought to the islands; in 1906-1907 there was a second immigration from the Azores and Madeira of 1325 people. In 1900 the total number of Portuguese in the islands, including those born there, was not far from 16,000, about 2400 of whom were employed in sugar plantations. They have shown themselves to be industrious, thrifty and law-abiding. In 1907 2201 Spanish immigrants from the sugar district about Malaga arrived in Hawaii, and about the same number of Portuguese immigrated in the same year. The Board of Immigration, using funds contributed by planters, was very active in its efforts to encourage the immigration of suitable labourers, but the general immigration law of 1907 prohibited the securing of such immigration through contributions from corporations. Persistent efforts have also been made to introduce Polynesian islanders, as being of a cognate race with the Hawaiians, but the results have been wholly unsatisfactory. About 2000, mainly from the Gilbert Islands, were brought in at the expense of the government between 1878 and 1884; but they did not give satisfaction either as labourers or as citizens, and most of them have been returned to their homes. There never existed any treaty or labour convention between Hawaii and China. In early days a limited number of Chinese settled in the islands, intermarried with the natives and by their industry and economy generally prospered. About 750 of them were naturalized under the monarchy. The first importation of Chinese labourers was in 1852. In 1878 the number of Chinese had risen to 5916. During the next few years there was such a steady influx of Chinese free immigrants that in the spring of 1881 the Hawaiian government sent a despatch to the governor of Hong Kong to stop this invasion. Again, in April 1883, it was suddenly renewed, and within twenty days five steamers arrived from Hong Kong bringing 2253 Chinese passengers, followed the next month by 1100 more, with the news that several thousand more were ready to embark. Accordingly, the Hawaiian government sent another despatch to the governor of Hong Kong, refusing to permit any further immigration of male Chinese from that port. Various regulations restricting Chinese immigration were enacted from time to time, until in 1886 the landing of any Chinese passenger without a passport was prohibited. The number of Chinese in the islands had then risen to 21,000. The consent of the Japanese government to the immigration of its subjects to Hawaii was obtained with difficulty in 1884, and in 1886 a labour convention was ratified. Subsequently the increase of the Japanese element in the population was rapid. It rose from 116 in 1884 to 12,360 in 1890 and 24,400 in 1896. Most of these were recruited from the lowest classes in Japan. Unlike the Chinese, they show no inclination to intermarry with the Hawaiians. The effect of making Hawaii a Territory of the United States was to put an end to all assisted immigration, of whatever race, and to exclude all Chinese labourers. No Chinese labourer is allowed to enter any other Territory of the Union from Hawaii; and the act of Congress of the 26th of February 1885, “to prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labour in the United States, its Territories and the District of Columbia,” and the amending and supplementary acts, are extended to it. But in the treaty of 1894 between the United States and Japan there is nothing to limit the free immigration of Japanese; and several companies have been formed to promote it. The system of contract labour, which was abolished by the act of Congress in 1900, and under which labourers had been restrained from leaving their work before the end of the contract term, concerned few labourers except the Japanese. Various methods of co-operation or profit-sharing are in successful operation on some plantations.
An interesting sociological problem is raised by the presence of the large Asiatic element in the population. The Japanese and Koreans, and in less measure the Chinese, act as domestic servants, work under white contractors on irrigating ditches and reservoirs, do most of the plantation labour and compete successfully with whites and native islanders in all save skilled urban occupations, such as printing and the manufacture, of machinery. The “Yellow Peril” is considered less dangerous in Hawaii than formerly, although it was used as a political cry in the campaign for American annexation. No success met the apparently well-meaning efforts of the Central Japanese League which was organized in November and December 1903 to promote the observance of law and order by the Japanese in the islands, who assumed a too independent attitude and felt themselves free from governmental control whether Japanese or American; indeed, after the League had been in operation for a year or more, it almost seemed that it contributed to industrial disorders among the Japanese. At about the same time Japanese immigration to Hawaii fell off upon the opening of new fields for colonization by the Russo-Japanese War, and Korean immigration was promoted by employers on the islands. From the first of January 1903 to the 30th of June 1905 Japanese immigrants numbered 18,027; Koreans 7388 (four Koreans to every ten Japanese); but in the last twelve months of this same period there were 4733 Koreans to 5941 Japanese (eight Koreans to every ten Japanese). Another fact which is possibly contributing to the solution of the problem is that the Japanese are leaving the islands in large numbers as compared with the Koreans. The Japanese leaving Hawaii between the 14th of June 1900 and the 31st of December 1905 numbered 42,313, or 4284 more than the number of Japanese immigrants arriving during the same period. The corresponding figures for Koreans during the same period are as follows: number leaving between the 14th of June 1900 and the 31st of December 1905, 721, or 6673 less than the Korean immigrants for the same period. The acceleration of the departure of the Japanese is shown by the fact that in the eighteen months (July 1904 to January 1906) occurred 19,114 of the 42,313 departures in the sixty-six months from July 1900 to January 1906.[7] After 1906, owing to restrictions by the Japanese government, immigration to Hawaii greatly decreased. At the same time the number of departures was decreasing rapidly. The change in the character of the immigration of Japanese is shown by the fact that in the fiscal year 1906-1907 the ratio of female immigrants to males was as 1 to 8, in the fiscal year 1907-1908 it was as 1 to 2, and in the latter year, of 4593 births in the Territory, 2445 were Japanese.
Administration.—The Hawaiian Islands are governed under an Act of Congress, signed by the president on the 30th of April 1900, which first organized them as a Territory of the United States. The legislature, which meets biennially at Honolulu, consists of a Senate of 15 members holding office for four years, and a House of Representatives of 30 members holding office for two years. In order to vote for Representatives or Senators, the elector must be a male citizen of the United States who has attained the age of twenty-one years, has lived in the Territory not less than one year preceding, and is able to speak, read and write the English or Hawaiian language. No person is allowed to vote by reason of being in or attached to the army or navy. The executive power is vested in a governor, appointed by the president and holding office for four years. He must not be less than thirty-five years of age and must be a citizen of the Territory. The secretary of the Territory is appointed in like manner for a term of the same length. The governor appoints, by and with the consent of the Senate of the Territory, an attorney-general, treasurer, commissioner of public lands, commissioner of agriculture and forestry, superintendent of public works, superintendent of public instruction, commissioners of public instruction, auditor and deputy-auditor, surveyor, high sheriff, members of the board of health, board of prison inspectors, board of registration, inspectors of election, &c. All such officers are appointed for four years except the commissioners of public instruction and the members of the said boards, whose terms are as provided by the laws of the Territory; all must be citizens of the Territory. The judicial power is vested in a supreme court, 5 circuit courts, and 29 district courts, each having a jurisdiction corresponding to similar courts in each state in the Union; and, entirely distinct from these territorial courts, Hawaii has a United States district court. A Supplementary Act of the 3rd of March 1905 provides that writs of error and appeals may be taken from the Supreme Court of Hawaii to the Supreme Court of the United States “in all cases where the amount involved exclusive of costs or value exceeds the sum of five thousand dollars.” The Territory was without the forms of local government common to the United States until 1905, when the Territorial legislature divided it into five counties[8] without, however, giving to them the usual powers of taxation. Each county has the following officers: a board of supervisors, a clerk, a treasurer, an auditor, an assessor and tax-collector, a sheriff and coroner, and an attorney. The members (from five to nine) of the board of supervisors are elected by districts into which the county is divided, usually only one from each. All county officers are elected for a term of two years. The act of 1900 provides for the election of a delegate to Congress, and prescribes that the delegate shall have the qualifications necessary for membership in the Hawaiian Senate, and shall be elected by voters qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives of Hawaii. As usual, the delegate has a right to take part in the debates in the national House of Representatives, but may not vote.
Charities.—The principal public charity of the Territory is the leper asylum on a peninsula almost 10 sq. m. in area on the N. side of the island of Molokai. A steep precipice forms a natural wall between it and the rest of the island. The place became an asylum for lepers and the caring for them began to be a charity under government charge in 1866; but conditions here were at first unspeakably unhygienic, their improvement being largely due to Father Damien, who devoted himself to this work in 1873. The patients are almost exclusively native Hawaiians, and their number is slowly but steadily decreasing; in 1908 they numbered 791, and there were at Molokai 46 non-leprous helpers and 27 officers and assistants, including the Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in charge of the homes. In 1905 the United States government appropriated $100,000 for a hospital station and laboratory “for the study of the methods of transmission, cause and treatment of leprosy,” and $50,000 a year for their maintenance; the station and laboratory to be established when the territorial government should have ceded to the United States a tract of 1 sq. m. on the leper reservation. The cession was made soon afterward by the territorial government. In 1907-1908 a home for non-leprous boys of leprous parents was established at Honolulu. Another public charity of Hawaii is the general free dispensary maintained by the territorial government at Honolulu.
Education.—Education is universal, compulsory and free. Every child between the ages of six and fifteen must attend either a public school or a duly authorized private school. Consequently the percentage of illiteracy is extremely low. The school system is essentially American in its text-books and in its methods, thanks to the foundations laid by American missionaries. Between 1820 and 1824 the missionaries taught about 2000 natives to read. Several important schools were founded before 1840, when the first written laws were published. Among these was a law providing for compulsory education, and decreeing that no illiterate born after the beginning of Liholiho’s reign should hold office, and that no illiterate man or woman, born after the same date, could marry. The first Hawaiian minister of public instruction was the Rev. William Richards (1792-1847), who held office from 1843 to 1847, and was followed by Richard Armstrong (1805-1860), an American Presbyterian missionary, the father of General S. C. Armstrong. He laid stress on the importance of manual and industrial training during his term of office (1847-1855), and was succeeded by a board of education (1855-1865), of which he was first president; then an inspector-general of schools was appointed, Judge Abraham Fornander being the first inspector; in 1896 an executive department was created under a minister of public instruction and six commissioners; in 1900 a superintendent of public instruction was first appointed. English is by law the medium of instruction in all schools, both public and private, although other languages may be taught in addition. Formal instruction in Hawaiian ceased in 1898. The schools are in session forty weeks during the year. In 1908 there were 154 public schools with 18,564 pupils (27.06% of whom were Japanese, 20.89% Hawaiian, 13.54% part Hawaiian, 18.72% Portuguese and 10.63% Chinese) and 51 private schools with 4881 pupils. A normal school has been established at Honolulu, with a practice school attached to it. The territorial legislature of 1907 established the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaii, and also founded a public library. The Honolulu high school does excellent work and has beautiful buildings and grounds. The Lahainaluna Seminary on west Maui, founded in 1831 as a training school for teachers, furnishes instruction to Hawaiian boys in agriculture, carpentry, printing and mechanical drawing. The boys in the industrial school (1902) at Waialee, on the island of Oahu, are taught useful trades. The teaching of sewing in the public schools has met with great success, and a simple form of the Swedish sloid was introduced into many of the schools in 1894. Lace work was introduced into the public schools in 1903. But the best industrial instruction is furnished by the independent schools, among which the Kamehameha schools take the first place. They were founded by Mrs Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1831-1884), the last lineal descendant of Kamehameha I., who left her extensive landed estates in the hands of trustees for their support. They furnish a good manual and technical training to Hawaiian boys and girls, in addition to a primary and grammar school course of study, and exert a strong religious influence. There are six boarding schools for Hawaiian girls, supported by private resources. The most advanced courses of study are offered by Oahu College, which occupies a beautiful site near the beach just E. of Honolulu; it was founded in 1841 as the Punahou School for missionaries’ children, and was chartered as Oahu College in 1852. It is well equipped with buildings and apparatus, and has an endowment of about $300,000.
Finance.—The revenue of the Territory for the fiscal year ending the 30th of June 1908 amounted to $2,669,748.32, of which $640,051.42 was the proceeds of the tax on real estate, $635,265.81 was the proceeds of the tax on personal property; and among the larger of the remaining items were the income tax ($266,241.74), waterworks ($141,898.04), public lands (sales, $37,585.75; revenue, $122,541.71) and licences ($206,374.28). On the 30th of June 1908 the bonded debt of the Territory was $3,979,000; there was on hand net cash, without floating debt, $677,648.48.
History.—The history of the islands before their discovery by Captain James Cook, in 1778, is obscure.[9] This famous navigator, who named the islands in honour of the earl of Sandwich, was received by the natives with many demonstrations of astonishment and delight; and offerings and prayers were presented to him by their priest in one of the temples; and though in the following year he was killed by a native when he landed in Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii, his bones were preserved by the priests and continued to receive offerings and homage from the people until the abolition of idolatry. At the time of Cook’s visit the archipelago seems to have been divided into three distinct kingdoms: Hawaii; Oahu and Maui; and Lanai and Molokai. On the death of the chief who ruled Hawaii at that time there succeeded one named Kamehameha (1736-1819), who appears to have been a man of quick perception and great force of character. When Vancouver visited the islands in 1792, he left sheep and neat cattle,[10] protected by a ten years’ taboo, and laid down the keel of a European ship for Kamehameha. Ten or twelve years later Kamehameha had 20 vessels (of 25 to 50 tons), which traded among the islands. He afterwards purchased others from foreigners. Having encouraged a warlike spirit in his people and having introduced firearms, Kamehameha attacked and overcame the chiefs of the other kingdoms one after another, until (in 1795) he became undisputed master of the whole group. He made John Young (c. 1775-1835) and Isaac Davis, Americans from one of the ships of Captain Metcalf which visited the island in 1789, his advisers, encouraged trade with foreigners, and derived from its profits a large increase of revenue as well as the means of consolidating his power. He died in 1819, and was succeeded by his son, Lilohilo, or Kamehameha II., a mild and well-disposed prince, but destitute of his father’s energy. One of the first acts of Kamehameha II. was, for vicious and selfish reasons, to abolish taboo and idolatry throughout the islands. Some disturbances were caused thereby, but the insurgents were defeated.
On the 31st of March 1820 missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions—two clergymen, two teachers, a physician, a farmer, and a printer, each with his wife—and three Hawaiians educated in the Cornwall (Connecticut) Foreign Missionary School, arrived from America and began their labours at Honolulu. A short time afterwards the British government presented a small schooner to the king, and this afforded an opportunity for the Rev. William Ellis, the well-known missionary, to visit Honolulu with a number of Christian natives from the Society Islands. Finding the language of the two groups nearly the same, Mr Ellis, who had spent several years in the southern islands, was able to assist the American missionaries in reducing the Hawaiian language to a written form. In 1825 the ten commandments were recognized by the king as the basis of a code of laws. In the years 1830-1845 the educational work of the American missionaries was so successful that hardly a native was unable to read and write. A law prohibiting drunkenness (1835) was followed in 1838 by a licence law and in 1839 by a law prohibiting the importation of spirits and taxing wines fifty cents a gallon; in 1840 another prohibitory law was enacted; but licence laws soon made the sale of liquor common. Missionary effort was particularly fruitful in Hilo, where Titus Coan (1801-1882), sent out in 1835 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, worked in repeated revivals, induced most of his church members to give up tobacco even, and received prior to 1880 more than 12,000 members into a church which became self-supporting and sent missions to the Gilbert Islands and the Marquesas. In 1823 Keopuolani, the king’s mother, was baptized; and on a single Sunday in 1838 Coan baptized 1705 converts at Hilo. In 1864 the American Board withdrew its control of evangelical work.
In 1824 the king and queen of the Hawaiian Islands paid a visit to England, and both died there of measles. His successor, Kamehameha III. ruled from 1825 to 1854. In 1839 Kamehameha III. signed a Bill of Rights and in 1840 he promulgated the first constitution of the realm; in 1842 a code of laws was proclaimed; by 1848 the feudal system of land tenure was completely abolished; the first legislature met in 1845 and full suffrage was granted in 1852, but in 1864 suffrage was restricted. Progress was at times interrupted by the conduct of the officers of foreign powers. On one occasion (July 1839) French officers abrogated the laws (particularly against the importation of liquor), dictated treaties, extorted $20,000 and by force of arms procured privileges for Roman Catholic[11] priests in the country; and at another time (February 1843) a British officer, Captain Paulet of the “Carysfort,” went so far as to take possession of Oahu and establish a commission for its government. The act of the British officer was disavowed by his superiors as soon as known.
These incidents led to a representation on the part of the native sovereign to the governments of Great Britain, France and the United States, and the independence of the islands (recognized by the United States in 1842) was recognized in 1844 by France and Great Britain. In 1844 John Ricord, an American lawyer, became the first minister of foreign affairs. A new constitution came into effect in 1852. It was the aim of Kamehameha III. and his advisers to combine the native and the foreign elements under one government; to make the king the sovereign not of one race or class, but of all; and to extend equal and impartial laws over all inhabitants of the country. Kamehameha IV. and his queen, Emma, ruled from 1855 to 1863 and were succeeded by his brother, Kamehameha V., who died in 1872, and in whose reign a third (and a reactionary) constitution went into effect in 1864, by mere royal proclamation. Lunalilo, a grandson of Kamehameha I., was king for two years, and in 1874, backed by American influence, Kalakaua was elected his successor, in preference to Queen Emma, a member of the Anglican Church and the candidate of the pro-British party. Kalakaua considered residents of European or American descent as alien invaders, and he aimed to restore largely the ancient system of personal government, under which he should have control of the public treasury. On the 2nd of July 1878, and again on the 14th of August 1880, he dismissed a ministry without assigning any reason, after it had been triumphantly sustained by a test vote of the legislature. On the latter occasion he appointed C. C. Moreno, who had come to Honolulu in the interest of a Chinese steamship company, as Premier and minister of foreign affairs. This called forth the protest of the representatives of Great Britain, France and the United States, and aroused such opposition on the part of both the foreigners and the better class of natives that the king was obliged, after four days of popular excitement, to remove the obnoxious minister. During the king’s absence on a tour round the world in 1881, his sister, Mrs Lydia Dominis (b. 1838), also styled Liliuokalani, acted as regent. After his return the contest was renewed between the so-called National party, which favoured absolution, and the Reform party, which sought to establish parliamentary government. The king took an active part in the elections, and used his patronage to the utmost to influence legislation. For three successive sessions a majority of the legislature was composed of office-holders, dependent on the favour of the executive. Among the measures urged by the king and opposed by the Reform party were the project of a ten-million dollar loan, chiefly for military purposes; the removal of the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquor to Hawaiians, which was carried in 1882; the licensing of the sale of opium; the chartering of a lottery company; the licensing of kahunas, or medicine men, &c. Systematic efforts were made to turn the constitutional question into a race issue, and the party cry was raised of “Hawaii for Hawaiians.” Adroit politicians flattered the king’s vanity, defended his follies and taught him how to violate the spirit of the constitution while keeping the letter of the law. From 1882 till 1887 his prime minister was Walter Murray Gibson (1823-1888), a singular and romantic genius, a visionary adventurer and a shrewd politician, who had been imprisoned by the Dutch government in Batavia in 1852 on a charge of inciting insurrection in Sumatra, and had arrived at Honolulu in 1861 with the intention of leading a Mormon colony to the East Indies. To exalt his royal dignity, which was lowered, he thought, by his being only an elected king, Kalakaua caused himself to be crowned with imposing ceremonies on the ninth anniversary of his election (Feb. 12, 1883).