page_title: Kalākaua
section_title: Polynesian confederation
hierarchical_section_title: Kalākaua / Reign / Polynesian confederation
caption_attribution_description: English: Library of Congress image of King David Kalakaua.
context_page_description: Kalākaua, sometimes called The Merrie Monarch, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, reigning from February 12, 1874, until his death. Succeeding Lunalilo, he was elected to the vacant throne of Hawaiʻi against Queen Emma. Kalākaua had a convivial personality and enjoyed entertaining guests with his singing and ukulele playing. At his coronation and his birthday jubilee, the hula that had been banned from public in the kingdom became a celebration of Hawaiian culture.
  During his reign, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 brought great prosperity to the kingdom. Its renewal continued the prosperity but allowed the United States to have exclusive use of Pearl Harbor. In 1881, he took a trip around the world to encourage the immigration of contract sugar plantation workers. Kalākaua wanted Hawaiians to broaden their education beyond their nation. He instituted a government financed program to sponsor qualified students to be sent abroad to further their education. Two of Kalākaua's projects, the statue of Kamehameha I and the rebuilding of ʻIolani Palace, were expensive endeavors but are popular tourist attractions today.
context_section_description: The idea of Hawaii's involvement in the internal affairs of Polynesian nations had been around at least two decades before Kalākaua's election, when Australian Charles St Julian volunteered to be a political liaison to Hawaii in 1853. He accomplished nothing of any significance. Kalākaua's interest in forming a Polynesian coalition, with him at the head, was influenced by both Walter M. Gibson and Italian soldier of fortune Celso Caesar Moreno. In 1879 Moreno urged the king to create such a realm with Hawaii at the top of the empire, " ... uniting under your sceptre the whole Polynesian race and mak[ing] Honolulu a monarchical Washington, where the representatives of all the islands would convene in Congress."
  In response to the activities of Germany and Great Britain in Oceania, Gibson's Pacific Commercial Advertiser urged Hawaii's involvement in protecting the island nations from international aggression. Gibson was appointed to Kalākaua's cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1882. In 1883, he introduced the approved legislation to convey in writing to foreign governments that Hawaii fully supported the independence of Polynesian nations. The subsequent "Hawaiian protest" letter he drafted was mostly ignored by nations that received it. The Daily Bulletin in Honolulu issued its own response, "Hawaii's true policy is to confine her attention to herself, ...". The Hawaiian Gazette criticized Gibson's character and mockingly referred to the proposed venture as the "Empire of the Calabash".
  In 1885, Gibson dispatched Minister to the United States Henry A. P. Carter to Washington D. C. and Europe to convey Hawaii's intentions towards Polynesia. Carter made little headway with Gibson's instructions. He pushed for direct intervention into a political upheaval in Samoa, where the German Empire backed rebels under their leader Tamasese in an attempt to overthrow King Malietoa Laupepa. In an effort to keep him in power, Gibson convinced the 1886 legislature to allocate $100,000 to purchase the steamship Zealandia, $50,000 for its operating expenses, and $35,000 for foreign missions. United States special commissioner to Samoa, George H. Bates advised Kalākaua that Hawaii should mind its own business and stay out of Samoan affairs. Instead, Hawaii sent a delegation headed by John E. Bush to Samoa, where Samoan King Malietoa Laupepa signed a Samoan-Hawaiian confederation treaty on February 17, 1887. Bush also presented Malietoa with the Royal Order of the Star of Oceania, which Kalakaua had created to honor the monarchs and chiefs of the Polynesian confederation. The government sent HHMS Kaimiloa for Bush's use in visiting the chiefs of the other islands of Polynesia.
  The United States and Great Britain joined with Germany in expressing their disapproval of the treaty. Germany warned the United States and Great Britain, "In case Hawaii ... should try to interfere in favor of Malietoa, the King of the Sandwich Islands would thereby enter into [a] state of war with us." When German warships arrived in Samoan waters, Malietoa surrendered and was sent into exile. The Kaimiloa and Bush's delegation were recalled to Honolulu after the ousting of the Gibson administration. Kalākaua's later explanation of Hawaii's interference in Samoa was, "Our Mission was simply a Mission of phylanthropy [sic] more than any thing, but the arogance [sic] of the Germans prevented our good intentions and . . . we had to withdraw the Mission."
caption: Portrait of Kalakaua
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1500", "Image ImageLength": "2062", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "LZW", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "800", "Image YResolution": "800", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2011:07:27 19:41:45", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4541", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2062"}