The Political Revolution in the Hawaiian Islands [pp. 298-304]

Tze Political Revolutionz in the Hawaiian Islands.
There were social rivalries even on the
border; there were business anxieties and
politics, bitter in their restricted range as a
family quarrel. But life had many pleasures
for Jeannette; and upon that period in the
new city of the prairies she always looked
back with a sensation as of the sun shining
brightly upon it; of paths by drifts of spice
breathing wild currant bushes hu ng with
golden tubes, and blown across by the bitter
scent of cherry blossoms; young leaves w avering over shallows and sands, beyond which
the white shoulders of the mountains heaved
themselves against the blue; bright vistas,
clear and charming as the scenery of a Norse
fairy tale.
Marion AMuir Richard son.
TLIE POLITICAL REVO,LUION IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
MARK TWAIN once said that governmental
affairs in the Hawaiian Kingdom were carried on in such a ponderously expensive manner as to suggest the idea of "the machinery of the Greaf Eastern being used to
propel a sardine box." That epigrammatic
opinion contained more truth than those
who are familiar with the flights of fancy of
the great humorist are wont to accord to his
statements. Time has set him right, as in
view of the late violent upset of traditionary
authority in the islands it may be said that
the complicated machinery of public affairs
has upset the sardine box!
To understand intelligently the present
condition of political affairs in that petty
kingdom, i. e., that a minority of voters rule
absolutely,- and that, too, under a dully accepted constitution, -a sketch of the past
political status of rulers anrid ruled in the
Islands will be in order.
Our earliest knowledge of the Hawaiian
Islands begins with their discovery by Captain Cook, the famous English navigator, in
17 78.
At that time each island of the group was
ruled by an Alii, or high chief, and each was
practically independent.
Those chiefs had absolute power over the
people. Their right to rule had come to be
considered "divine " as that of hereditary
chiefs elsewhere -by virtue of their high
descent. The ancient chronological records
of the reigning families of Hawaii, Maui,
Oahu, and Kauai (the four principal islands
of the group) "have" - to quote the words
of the late Abraham Fornander, a profound
student of Polynesian traditions, manners,
and customs -"passed from father to child,
or from master to disciple, within the professional circle of those to whom immemorial
usage had consigned the preservation of
them.... The Hawaiians reckoned
time by generations of their principal chiefs
or kings. They started from Wakea as a
common ancestor of all the chiefs on all the
islands of the group." This chief's period
- according to the same authority - may
be fixed approximately at about I90 A. D.
Thus it will be seen that about the beginning of the Christian era, Hawaiian traditions
claim that a certain powerful family reigned
over the group. Whatever degree of uncertainty there may be in the exact date of the
period of Wakea, there is none in regard to
that of his immediate descendant, Nana-ulu,
who reigned in 500 A. D. Fifteen generations after Nana-ulu, say about 10o30 A. D.,
we find the chronological records of the
chiefs grouped under four or five great families reigning over as many islands.
From the time, then, of Nana-ulu, to the
year i8oo, a period of at least 1300 years,
certain chiefish families ruled absolutely over
the Hawaiian Islands. TIhe only change during that time was the assumption of supreme
power by Kamehameha I, who conquered
the ruling chiefs of all the islands, and became the sole ruler of the group. His immediate successor, Kamehameha II., reigned
298
[Mar.