The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-05-03
THE PACIFIC
Commercial AOOrttiser.
SATURDAY. MAY s..

SATURDAY. MAY 5.
THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PRESENT
Whoever in these days shall undertake the task
Of writing the history of the Hawaiian nation,
must, in order to a just treatment Of bis subject
and a fur understanding Of the peculiar dsabili-
ties and disadvantages under which the race mas
labOred, be constrained to divide his history into
three distinct, though comparatively short periods.
These may perhaps be appropriately termed the
ante-missionary5 the missionary, and the post
missionary periods. In 80 other way can q clear
and correct understanding be reached of the
causes that have led to the great and rapid de-
crease of tho native population now so apparent;
and, ON the othcF hand, by no other process of
examination can be so satisfactorily exhibited the
reasons which exist to-day for Il strong hope of
the recuperntion and ultimate prosperous growth
and perpetuity OF the Hawaiian race and nation.
The proper treatment of the topic requires some
thing more careful and studied than can possibly
be expected in a newspaper article and we have
reason to think that able pens among us arc now
engaged On the task.
Ii has become the prevalent fashion Of many
writer's and speakers of the present day when al
luding to the Hawaiians, to represent them rs
an interesting, but beyond question ga
doomed race" and their utter extinction and
obIiteratiOn from of the face of these fair isles of
their heritage, in n computed time, is spoken of
as n foregone conclusion. We care not here to
consider how far the wish may be father to the
thought in the minds of some who prominently
seem to take pleasure in obtruding these views,
nor do we deprecate while we anticipate their
ridiculc for yenturing TO hold the opinion, as we
decidedly do, that the Hawaiian people of to-day,
despite the many disadvantages with which they
still have to contend, present to the view of the
unprejudieed, careful observer, unmistakable ele-
mcnts of national vitality.
The Hawaiians of the first period-those who
constituted the nation Mt the time when the
pioneer missionaries arrived-have all, or nearly
all, chiefs and serls, passed away. They met the
incoming tide of foreign influences, and they fell
before it. Enured to labor and accustomed to u
life Of activity in the savage state and under
stern feudal rule, they were a hardy and naturally
long-lived race but when the First Kamehameha
passed away, they speedily succumbed to the
tram Of vices and diseases that followed in the
path of foreign commerce. His was the %controll-
ing mind that governed his people sterniy, but
wisely to their preservation. ut the reign of
his son and immediate successor was u time of Ii
cense and indulgence, following the overthrow of
the ancient tabus. Agriculture, SO carefully and
judiciously pursued in the past. was now neglected,
and drunkenness and debauchery abOunded.
with attendant wrong, crime, misery and death.
\ study of this period discloses the fact that
then were planted Theoretically, those seeds of
decay in the life of the race that have since been
so fearfully developed.
Then came the intermediary, OF transition
period. during which, under the third kameha-
meha and the teachings of the Missionaries
whose influence with the government had now
become paramount-the nation Was nominally
Christianized, and really half civilized. The
Christianity, it is true, was too often with the
mass of the people an external habit TO be put
on and off like the clothes borrowed from civili-
cation. Constitutional liberty, to become fitted
for which older nations of the world have passed
through centuries of bloody pupilage. was freely
conferred upon the Hawai- ians before they had
more than = slight comprehension of it's signif-
canoe and an ownership in the soil was gener-
ously granted to the common people, while as yet
they had scarcely any appreciation OF the magni-
tude Of the boon. During this period, the poIit-
advancement of the race may indeed he
termed q HOL-uousc STONAu. Livery tui 4 WIS III
naturally lorced too much was anticipated in
too brief q time. IL was enthusiast ically declared
at the time that tn Hawaiians were " as a nation
born in a day - but to continue the metaphor,
they were apparently like Jonah's gourd, that
. . came up in a night, and persisted IN a night"
And truly it is not strange that this people just
emerging from barbarism, surrounded in the bat
tie Of life by the new and strange elements Of
civilization, have become decimated. Much was
done in Individual instances by the missionaries,
with the limited means Mt their command and in
view of their mission being directed specially to
the spiritual needs of the people, TO induce sys-
tematic industry among them. But these efforts
were isolated, and in the absence Of any general
system OF government aid had no effect upon the
mas of the people. These were 81 freemen and
freeholders, with little or no incentive to labor
where Nature is SO ~prOdigal, and whose wants
we're as yet so few. When disease came, ignor-
ant Of all sanitary rules for themselves or their
children, they too often died of sheer inertia. The
true verdict would be, died Of Ignorance. The
habit Of going half clothed. neither naked or ;