The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1858-04-22

NIB. EDITOR :-3ei1evlJ& thaS az tWloWfn8 =
sition may. throw somn light OBJ an interesting ques'
ton, / send it for insertion in your next number
The publication Of my opinion will, no doubt. awake
champions of q greater skill than mine; but I hops
that they will encounter me with thefvizor up, as
you see mine. Yours. ST. D. FaIcKsM D.
Mn- EDiroR:-Thel eading article of your paper OF
the 9th inst. on tie laands of the Paclfe and their
different regulations, having renewed the old query
about the CAUSES Of the extinctionsH the native race
when brought in contact with the SO complacently
called superior race, we beg TO step into the arena
opened to the philanthropist.
The same motives that rolled the Vandals from the
north to the south, in the old world, were the pri-
mary reasons that induced the Europeans to pounce
upon America. and lately upon this, the last field
for the adventurer. The Vandals, represented by
many tribes of different denominations, were all
sons of a same nationality, equal in mental fa-
culties to the most civilized among the nations
that became their prey but, like a rough dia-
mond, raw in their manners, in their dress, in
their weapons, they were in that treble respect the
reverse of the invaders of America and the Pacific
Islands the hard o0fcina wherefrom they sprung,
had impaired to them a nature Of iron, of an un-
daunted courage, supported by o superior physical
strength ; they reached their aim in establishing
themselves in the comparative warm climates they
were seeking, in exchanging their barren fields for
fruitful ones, in obtaining a more comfortable life.
with much less hardship and labor-in a word, in
becoming rich, from poor that they were.
Were not such the speculations that seduced the
white men to risk their lives on the high seas? Is
not the possession of similar advantages the main
ambition of their Pacific immigration
In the vast field Of the Vandals' operations, they
..-Jl "a 49, -, z-l~x.x.x.- -
their own number was so far exceeded by the natives ;
they were satisfied with their position of print inter
pares the higher state of civilization of the invaded,
established a counterpoise in their favor, in regard to
the invaders, who. after the hurricane Of a desperate
resistance, bent their proud heads under the infu-
ence of their more polished associates ; in morals as
well as in sanitary condition, in features and color,
no ~dissemblance tended to cause the least aversion
between the associates, therefore a speedy amalgam
was the natural consequence of a union moreover
cemented by that powerful auxiliary, marriage for
the northern warriors were mostly unmarried men,
as were the Romans before they carried off the
daughters of the Sabines.
Our example might be considered far-fetched and
out of proportion. when compared with the elements
that composed the foreigners who fell upon the scanty,
isolated populations of the Pacific islands, but the
fact of similarity n the object of the enterprise has
already been proved ; let us now analyze the forms,
the principles, and the results of this latteDhvasion.
That the first visits of the white men to these ISL
ands, for instance, have not been undertaken with q
view to benefit them, is, we believe, a fact that will
not admit of contradiction the glory or the ambi-
ton of the European kings we're the sole original
stimulus that produced exploration and discovery
expeditions /; these were followed by prl
takings. for private advantages, and were continued
up to this time with the same view.
The ~seafaring material that could be tempted to
hazard the perils of a navigation to this fifth part Of
the world, has not been recruited from a class that
could assist in subduing the barbarity of the natives;
it was, on the contrary, calculated to darken all their
bad propensities and impress a retrograde motion TO
their dispositions. Like the Roman banner, theirs
was bearing the letters s. P. R., but which, instead
of the dignifed meaning, Roman Senate and People,
signifed Syphilis, small Por and Rum. With that
terrific trio, the white man sullied this shore and
laid the foundation of the tombstone of the Hawaiian
race. The personal pursuits of wanderers Of the
same origin, though from a less impure source, left
them neither time nor inclination to raise a barrier
against the impending plague try had not come
for the natives but for their own sake for some,
the kanaka's life was considered as an impediment in
their progress others, on account Of the natives
color alone, treated him as the Hebrews would the
interdicted; the most of those that apparently took a
wife from among the natives, used her but as a brute
would a female few endeavored to raise that strange
companion to their level, but many sunk to the low
degree of the instrument of their lust. The first
Christian teachers have tried some remedies against
the influx of these evils, but they failed, because
they had not prepared their scholars for their pass
age in this world before their departure for the
other, for the Bible was not the elementary book
required in the case. Later, the tide of vices was no
more to be controlled ; the roots of the cancer were
suffered to grow too deep, and the promoters of ami
hilation were too numerous. An unwise measure,
that broke the last anchor of safety, gave to this race
its final blow. We will speak of the Constitution, a
political conquest that raises a civilized man, in
granting to him a personal independence, but ruins
a barbarian, that is as much in need of strings as
an infant that cannot yet walk@a Constitution to an
ignorant, simple people, accustomed to perform an
imposed task to obtain their daily food, careless, inn
provident and inclined to idleness by the nature of
their climate, and the facility to satisfy their limited
wants Their political condition was not that of a
feudal serf, as represented by some levitical his
torians their government was a kind of patri-
archal suzerainty over a social state approaching
communism, more or less exposed to &c petty tyran-
ny of the heads of their tribes. To be a shield
against the arbitrary power of their immediate chiefs
would have been as sound a step as was the act by
which Kamehameha III. was made to snatch out of
the chiefs hands all that paternal authority to which
the kanaka was accustomed, as a child that he was.
In the blind precipitation of the pretended regeneA-
tors, nothing less than a total emancipation Would
cure the ill-studied defects and the Unprotected,
unprovided race was abandoned Mt large, to find its
existence by its own hand. The natives had not the
least notion of the blessings = fiberty that were thus
lavished upon them ; the greatest number entreated
their former chiefs to save them from that famine
decreed through their white friends; many devised
illicit, immoral or criminal plans to get the means of
living few resorted to Industrious operations for
their maintenance. Idleness, legalized by a Consti-
tuition, soon became a prevalent scourge through all
the islands, at a degree that was regulated by the