All of us, watching the Maui Invitational tonight, were thinking it: How did Honolulu become the big city in the Hawaiian Islands? Why not Lahaina, the ancient capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, on Maui? Why not anywhere on the Big Island, where James Cook got himself killed as he tried to kidnap the Hawaiian king?
Well, it turns out that James Cook was only trying to kidnap the king of Hawaii the island, not Hawaii the islands. Hawaii wasn’t unified until King Kamehameha unified it in 1810, winning big battles on Maui and Oahu to do so. Kamehameha hailed from the Big Island, but he became the first king of all the islands, together. He built a palace in Lahaina, and either he or his son, Kamehameha II (or the widow of Kamehameha I, who was doing most of the ruling after the first Kamehameha’s death) made Lahaina the capital of the unified kingdom. Sources differ on when this was done and by whom. I wonder whether they wanted the capital to be more centrally located within the islands. I wonder whether it was just a nice palace that Kamehameha I built. We’ll have to read a book sometime.
As for Honolulu:
Similarly to how he built a palace in Lahaina, Kamehameha I moved his royal court—at least briefly—to the island of Oahu, first to Waikiki and then to the area which would become downtown Honolulu. It wasn’t until Kamehameha III’s reign, though, that the capital wound up in Honolulu. Why was this? And did the capital become the largest city, or did the largest city become the capital? There’s no quick answer, but the explanation seems to be—from a bunch of internet sources, again we’ll have to read a book sometime—that the answer is that Honolulu had a really good natural harbor. Not Pearl Harbor—that took some dredging to make work—but Honolulu’s own harbor. There were a lot of whaling ships harboring there; there were a lot of missionaries…it was just where everyone was heading, and nothing ever pulled in any other city’s direction, so most things that came to the island (money, diplomats, Americans) came through Honolulu and then spread elsewhere, and now it’s seven times bigger than any city on any other Hawaiian island.
Come to think of it, how did Hawaii end up belonging to the United States? I’m assuming it was ugly. Either way: If anyone knows of a good book on the history of Hawaii, let me know. I don’t really read books these days, but I like to tell myself I’m going to.
