CAPTIVE PARADISE: A
History of Hawai’i. James L.
Haley. St. Martin’s Press. 405 pages. $29.99
Reviewed by: Michael
L. Ramsey
President, Roanoke Public Library Foundation
(published 21 DEC 2014 in The Roanoke Times)
James Haley’s Captive Paradise is a narrative history of Hawai’i, the fiftieth
member of the United States. He follows
the dramatic changes from the 1778 visit by England’s Captain Cook until it
became a state in mid-twentieth century.
In that relatively short time, the island nation moved from a feudal
system ruled by King Kamehameha I (The Conqueror) to a democratic society.
When Hawai’i was first visited by Captain
Cook, the islanders would make lopsided trades for anything containing
iron. They had no iron on the islands,
but they did have a relatively sophisticated system of government which King
Kamehameha I used to consolidate the separate chieftains under his central
rule. Soon he was collecting iron, too,
to manufacture cannon for his ships.
When New England’s Congregational
Church sent its first company of missionaries to Hawai’i in 1820, it was the
first of eight companies of American missionaries who would facilitate the
rapid evolution of the indigenous leadership class by introducing them to
Christianity, educating their children, and giving them a written version of their
language.
It took less than a century for the
inhabitants of Cook’s Sandwich Islands (named for his patron the Earl of
Sandwich) to abandon their traditional feudal economy, abandon their
traditional religion and create a representative government. By 1839, King Kamehameha III issued the
Declaration of Rights and soon thereafter produced a constitution that
formalized the sharing of power among his former subjects. Recognition as an independent nation soon
followed.
Along the way, Hawai’ians were
forced to deal with the empire-building politics of France, the
on-again-off-again help from the British and the steadfast support of the
United States. Haley notes that much has
been written of “…American avarice in annexing Hawai’i … much less has been
written of the fact that…it was French thuggery and British vacillation that
drove Hawai’i into American arms.”
Haley provides a dispassionate,
although sympathetic, history of the Hawai’ian islands. He uses the indigenous language liberally,
and introduces the reader to the rich traditions that helped Hawai’ians to
adapt to the changes that were often forced upon them. They not only adapted to those changes, but
also leveraged the change to their advantage.
[One word familiar to Caucasian
mainlander is haoli, meaning “without
breath, i.e. unable to speak the language.]
America was not always the best
ally, and some Hawai’ians struggle with that today, especially the history of
economic exploitation and the diluting of the native culture. According to Haley, they “…have often
struggled to maintain the spirit of aloha
– the ‘face of breath’ from the ancient greeting of inclining close in greeting
and sharing the air.”
Another Hawai’ian concept,
according to Haley, is “…Ho’oponopono
– reconciling, the making right of a bad situation…” and in that Haley sees the
opportunity “…to come together earnestly and in good faith to rectify and
satisfy.”
Haley’s narrative is certainly
satisfying. In addition to the rich
detail about the culture and the three-dimensional portraits of historical
figures, the pace is quick and conveys the rapidity with which Hawai’i became a
powerful part of the Pacific.
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