the excellent portrait of his father, Mr. Charles Brewer, one of the pioneers in the Hawaiian trade. The later chapters, which deal with the diplomatic and political phases of the "Hawaiian Question," a question with which this country has been concerned for the better portion of half a century,— have been drawn from published public documents of the two governments. For very many Hawaiian documents of the greatest value the author is indebted to the Hon. Henry E. Cooper, of Honolulu, late Minister of Foreign Affairs ; and the cheerfulness with which the Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, a senator of the United States for Massachusetts, has met his requests for copies of similar documents published at Washington, has made it a pleasure even to apply to him for them. To the trustees of the Boston Atheneum both author and publishers are indebted for permission to reproduce from the original painting in their possession the portrait of Kamehameha I which adorns the volume. CHAPTER I. PRIMITIVE HAWAII. THE long period of relations between the government of the United States and that of the Hawaiian Islands, culminating in the summer of the year 1898 in the political union of the two nations, is as unique as it is one of the most remarkable episodes in our American history. The origin of the brown-skinned Polynesian race, the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, has not been satisfactorily traced by ethnologists. The time of the settlement of the Islands by these people is not fixed by the traditions, but it is believed to date as early as the year 500 A.D. When, on the 18th of January, 1778, Captain James Cook, the English navigator, having set sail from Bolabola, one of the Society Islands, came in sight of the island of Oahu, he found this group of islands thickly inhabited by this gentle yet warlike people. This event must be regarded as the turning-point in the history of the Hawaiian Islands; for now for the first time the people came in contact with the white race. |