Kingdom of Hawaii

[David S Poepoe]

There was legislation on this very question in the last Congress. I felt then and maintain now that the proposal essentially undermines Hawaiian statehood and effectively rewrites history.

If anything undermines Hawaiian statehood its fine by me, but there were some problems that would have had some adverse effect I can't recall right now. It may have had to do with something about the Hawaiians being in the same category or treated similarly as Native American tribes. Not exactly popular.

 

[David S Poepoe]

But if we are considering a stronger monarchy, which has more ability to resist foriegn business interests, than the sugar industry might be denied the import of cheap labour it wants.

Hell, a Hawaiian monarchy might want to weaken the sugar industry anyway.

The sugar industry is needed since there pretty much, within the context of the late 19th and early 20th century, not much Hawaii can export. There were attempts to diversify the economy in the 19th century with such things as coffee, etc., but they were fairly expensive to export in comparison to such places as Colombia, etc. A good source of money would be guano if Hawaii had had the ability to acquire various Pacific atolls.

 

[The Gunrunner Rimbaud]

I don't believe it has, tho at least alot of people get some word about it whenever he goes back there on vacation. I'm sure traffic is terrible over there also when he visits.

Pretty much, he stays in the town I live in, which has pretty much only two main roads. Every time he goes somewhere, they shut down one of them. People here really like to say he's "Hawaii's" president, but to tell the truth, I don't think much of it. If he really identified with Hawaii, he'd be a politician here, not in Chicago.

 

[David S Poepoe]

Pretty much, he stays in the town I live in, which has pretty much only two main roads. Every time he goes somewhere, they shut down one of them. People here really like to say he's "Hawaii's" president, but to tell the truth, I don't think much of it. If he really identified with Hawaii, he'd be a politician here, not in Chicago.

Oh very true. An acquintance congratulated me once on having a president that was Hawaiian. To which I replied that there are only one type of Hawaiians - the Native Hawaiians, the Kanakas - all rest are all just occupiers.

 

[Simon]

What was Japan's attitude to using local rulers or ruling classes in their colonies? I know they had Puyi as their puppet Emperor of Manchukuo but aside from that I don't really have any idea. One wild idea I had was for the Russians to take over Hawaii, a representative of the Russian-American Company tried to get a foothold but had to leave fairly abruptly once it came out that they didn't have official backing for their scheme. Somehow Russia takes over Hawaii only for Japan to demand them in the peace deal of the Russo-Japanese War. They then either continue to use a Hawaiian monarch as the Russians did or institute one themselves as a puppet. Cue the butterflies.

Funny how everyone always assume the entire chain of islands being possessed by a single colonial power; I don’t think I've seen a thread that proposed them divided up amongst various powers.

A very good point. I suppose it's simply because we've always know them as a unitary entity either as a US territory and state or under Kamehameha I and later it just affects people's thinking. The obvious point of departure is that Kamehameha doesn't unify the Big Island under him or he does but for some reason isn't able to conquer the other islands and they remain independent. So you've got what would become the Kingdom of Hawaii in our timeline instead being several separate states that are hostile to each other- say Big Island, Nihue and Kauai, and Maui and O'ahu with Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe mostly under their ruler (from a quick search looks as though they were mostly left to themselves though). It would be amusing if several different colonial powers each ended up controlling one of these states.

 

[David S Poepoe]

If you are able to get there is a very interesting and informative book titled A Military History of Sovereign Hawai'i by Neil B. Dukas, printed by Mutual Publishing in 2004. The military decline of the Hawaiians is directly attributably to Kamehameha's wars of unification. The battles were certainly bloody but the scale of the armies were apparently larger than before. Not to mention that Kamehameha integrated Western tactics and armaments to a degree larger than his opponents.

A incident that had great ramifications, and which I use as a POD in an ATL Hawaii, is the 1802 attempted invasion of Maui. Kamehameha assemblied a huge fleet of canoes and warriors in Waikiki. Unfortunately, the proximity to Honolulu and the visiting Western sailors caused the outbreak of an epidemic that ravaged the gathered forces. By 1804 the whole invasion was called off because of the great numbers of deaths, even Kamehameha barely survived. Speculation considers it may have been typhoid or cholera.

The warrior caste was decimated and never really recovered. The individuals that could have been effective advisors and formed a fairly strong military core were all swept away.

 

[jackalope]

I suggest a POD in the 1790's to do a good job of it. In the unlikely event of a Hawaiian King taking the tiger by the tail, manage trade similar in the way Japanese did two centuries earlier. Hire out trade groups to sell the items of sandalwood directly to the Chinese, to provide monetary exchange. Milk the sandalwood trade, and not for reasons so common with present day or past in OTL.

Do not allow whalers to dock. The two big STDs were already there. (Just after the first western contact Captain Cook was docking about 200 miles away only a few months afterwards, surrounded by desperate Hawaiian men having swollen (x) & wanting a cure.) But without any organization, matters would greatly weaken the government. Things traveled fast in this permissive atmosphere, to be sure, and matters would have to change, and fast. Control is the key thing. Find out how to prevent and act firmly.

In perfect hindsight, poor Portugese, Andes Indians, and Koreans are allowed in, to make up an eventual 10% of the gene pool. The three groups are unlikely to take over, and only men are allowed to immigrate, enfusing the islanders with critical biological boosts.

As recalled, in the 1790's, the Kingdom started getting its foundations by capturing a western ship with a cannon, to tip the ballance of power, eventually taking over all the islands circa 1820's with Kauai. Few westerners could be allowed in, certainly not the missionaries, which really were a fifth column for the monarchy and very necessary Hawaiian customs.

About Japan, if the state of Hawaii can not maintain balance of power as a middle martime entity border state, like Armenia did in Roman times, they would have tried to interfere if at all operating as in OTL. I will let other posters deal with this.

 

[David S Poepoe]

I suggest a POD in the 1790's to do a good job of it. In the unlikely event of a Hawaiian King taking the tiger by the tail, manage trade similar in the way Japanese did two centuries earlier. Hire out trade groups to sell the items of sandalwood directly to the Chinese, to provide monetary exchange. Milk the sandalwood trade, and not for reasons so common with present day or past in OTL.

Do not allow whalers to dock. The two big STDs were already there. (Just after the first western contact Captain Cook was docking about 200 miles away only a few months afterwards, surrounded by desperate Hawaiian men having swollen (x) & wanting a cure.) But without any organization, matters would greatly weaken the government. Things traveled fast in this permissive atmosphere, to be sure, and matters would have to change, and fast. Control is the key thing. Find out how to prevent and act firmly.

In perfect hindsight, poor Portugese, Andes Indians, and Koreans are allowed in, to make up an eventual 10% of the gene pool. The three groups are unlikely to take over, and only men are allowed to immigrate, enfusing the islanders with critical biological boosts.

As recalled, in the 1790's, the Kingdom started getting its foundations by capturing a western ship with a cannon, to tip the ballance of power, eventually taking over all the islands circa 1820's with Kauai. Few westerners could be allowed in, certainly not the missionaries, which really were a fifth column for the monarchy and very necessary Hawaiian customs.

About Japan, if the state of Hawaii can not maintain balance of power as a middle martime entity border state, like Armenia did in Roman times, they would have tried to interfere if at all operating as in OTL. I will let other posters deal with this.

I believe that the missionaries provide many important things that are necessary to Hawaiian society at that particular point when the Old Ways were crumbling due to Western contact. The first generation did a lot of good, it is the second generation that made off like bandits. Definitely the Great Mahele of 1848 has to be completely rethought, or at least land ownership by non-Hawaiians not permitted.

Former Governor Boki and his followers left Hawaii in 1826 or so and head to the South Pacific in search of sandalwood. They could have been the first of a Hawaiian delegation that actually makes contact with such places as Nauhru, Samoa, New Hebrides, Fiji and Tonga - basically the islands most likely to have formed the Federated Empire of Oceania as dreamt by Kalakaua in the 1880s. I would also through in Hawaiian contact with the Maori and even Tahiti.