I did a little bit of work to parts 3 and 4, to try to make them a little less outlandish.
3) Maui Ascendant
In 1786, the island of Maui received more visited from distant lands. French explorer Jean Francois de Galaup arrived on Maui after departing Easter Island. He heard tales of Cook’s expedition, and of the hostility of Hawaii compared with the hospitality of Maui. De Galaup attempted to forge a deal with Kahekili II, an early attempt to annex the island, with dismal results. Future French attempts to gain a foothold in the islands would focus on Hawaii itself. In 1790, American fur traders, seeking seal, sea otter and other maritime furs, arrived on Maui, where natives managed to steal the ship’s cutter. Attempts to regain the boat resulted in a native village being reduced by the ship’s gun.
In 1792, a British expedition under the commander of George Vancouver arrived on the island. After dealings with the French and Americans, the Mauians were weary of outsiders, even more of Cook’s people. Vancouver brought with him not ill intentions, but gifts, including several head of cattle. The Big Island would have made far better country for cattle, but Cook’s reception, as well as ongoing warfare, gave zero chance of a landing occurring there. Despite this, a few Hawaiians attempted to contact Vancouver while he was anchored off Maui.
Along with cattle, Vancouver brought along several advisors who expressed interest in visiting the islands. The British captain was hesitant to fulfill requests for firearms. Kahekili II was a brutal conqueror. In the conquest of Oahu, some years before contact, he killed all the chiefs who opposed him, and used their bones in the construction of houses. Not only was he brutal, but ambitious. Those aged for the day, he still had designs on furthering his control over Kauai (his brother was consort to the Queen of Kauai) and of conquering Hawaii. During the wintering on Maui, the Mauians learned much from the British, and did eventually obtain a small supply of muskets.
A trade treaty was signed between the King of Maui and the British government. The British had much to offer the Maui. Over the course of the next ten years, several aging merchantmen were delivered. These were old, and obsolete by European standards, but mighty ships in the eyes of the Mauians. These ships were put to use in the islands’ own trade. By 1825, the ships were venturing as far as China, where demand for was hard to satisfy. So much so, that by the 1830s, Sandalwood trees were growing scarce on Maui. Along with trade goods from across the Pacific, the merchantmen brought back many exotic diseases that would ravage the Mauian population for decades to come.
The islanders also had a love for nails. These simple items in the eyes of the British were almost worth their weight in gold. The Mauians did not use them to hammer wood together, but instead used them in more ingneious ways. Fish hooks, blades and even the tips of spears became the new use for these bits of iron. What did the Mauians have that the British could want in return? A resupply stop in the middle of the empty North Pacific. That, and land. In exchange for goods, the King of Maui granted land to the British. The British desired locations on Oahu, particularly Honolulu. There, a number of whaling stations popped up over the decades. Along with ocean front property, the British gained lots of forest, where the valuable Sandalwood tree grew. Unlike the Mauians, who stripped the forest bare, the British brought in their own foresters, with centuries of experience in maintaining Britain’s limited woods.
Along with the trade of goods, the trade of ideas flowed into Maui. Behind the British Captains and Diplomats came the Missionaries. Anglican missions opened up schools and began to teach the Mauians how to read and write. Most of this was done in English, though the Mauians did develop a written language for their own language, using the Latin alphabet. Education was one of the positive effects of the missions, but only one of a few. Missionary priests were quite appalled by the lack of modesty among the natives, as well as made a concerted effort to stamp out what they saw as heathen practices. Worse than the British Missionaries were the American ones, far more evangelized than their British cousins. The conversion of Maui to Christianity was a slow process, taking the better part of a century before many of the old ways were largely abandoned.
4) Tropical Gulag
With Kahekili, and later his heir Kalanikupule, casting eyes towards taking more control of Kauai, the Kauaians were in desperate scrapes. With the death of Queen Kamakahelei, her son Kaumualii became King of Kauai. With a new trade in sandalwood to China, Maui sought more of the wood to sell for Chinese goods. Kauai had its own groves of Sandalwood trees, and instead of allowing Kauai its own trade, the King of Maui decided to make them his own. Maui’s first attempt in 1809 was called off due to an epidemic raging through Kalanikupule’s army, claiming many warriors.
Before Maui made the attempt on seizing direct control over Kauai, a rather fortuitous event occurred. In 1815, a ship owned by the Russian-American Company wrecked off Kauai, survivors making it to the island. These were like the outsiders that arrived off Kauai decades previous, and have made many voyages to the Hawaiian Islands since. Kaumualii welcomed the foreigners, and attempted to communicate with them. A few in Kauai had learn the English language, which proved of little use to these new foreigners. A few of the Russian sailors had some grasp of English, and a long, protracted negotiation was entered.
During their time on the island, the stranded Russians (as well as other nationalities under contract) built a small fort. This later evolved into Fort Elizabeth. In late 1816, Kaumualii signed a treaty with the Russian-American company, which he believed was an alliance with this powerful and distant land. In the terms of the treaty, Kauai became a Russian Protectorate, and would turn out to be not as equal as the King believed. Along with Fort Elizabeth, the Russians constructed Fort Alexander on the northern coast of the island. Situated on Hanalei Bay, Fort Alexander soon became the chief port for the Russian import-export business. This base allowed the Russians to extend their claim westward as far as Midway and Wake. Fort Alexander also became home to Russian whaling stations and a few fishing vessels.
At first, the alliance was great for Kauai. Along with Russian forts and guns, Russian soldiers garrisoned these installations, and Kauaian warriors were trained in the European style of warfare, including the use of muskets. The Russian-American Company kept a tight control over powder and ammunition. The Russian brought outside trade as well. The Russian-American Company was foremost interested in the hides of marine mammals, which they ruthlessly hunted across the northern Pacific. For additional profit, the Russians, instead of the Mauians, extracted the sandalwood from Kauai, virtually eliminating the tree from Kauai and Niihau.
When fur began to dwindle, the Company’s position in Kauai was saved by the Sandalwood tree. The incense extracted from the tree was of great value in China. With both the British and Mauians trading in the wood, why should Russia not profit from it as well? Russia did not have the same level of experience in managing forests as the British, and stripped a few areas bare. To better manage the resource, the Company divided land into plantations amongst their own people. The King of Kauai was not pleased. To placate him, he was given a sizable quantity of nails as payment. To keep up with demand, the Russians began to press more of the Kauaians on to the “plantations”. When the native population was struck by a severe outbreak of small pox in 1836, a new source of labor was sought. The Russian-American Company began to import various peoples the Tsar’s regime deemed undesirable for penal servitude.
Along with sandalwood, the Russian grew a great deal of produce on the island. Much of this was slated for use in the Company’s operations in the frozen north. Some made it as far as the Russian Far East, but the slow wagon ride across Siberia limited just how far inland they could be distributed. Sweet Potatoes turned out to be one of the more popular native crops with the Russian colonists.
The culture of Kauai began to shrink at the influx of nationalities from across the Russian Empire. The surviving elite of the island found themselves speaking more Russian than their native language. The end of Kauaian religion came in 1851, when the Russians forced the natives to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. The last Kauai King, Kauamilii II lead a rebellion against the now Russian oppressors. The rebellion was crushed, and the last King executed on November 3, 1851. Following the uprising, the Russian Empire outright annexed the islands of Kauai.
