Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And Sarah was
Speaker 1: in the mood for a little hot weather history this week,
Speaker 1: so he decided to take on Hawaii and today's subject
Speaker 1: is Kamehameha the Great, And have to start with a
Speaker 1: little disclaimer. We had asked for some help with Hawaiian pronunciations,
Speaker 1: so listener Jody was kind enough to call me and
Speaker 1: give me her expertise. But any mistakes in this podcast
Speaker 1: are mine and not hers or mine. So Kama was
Speaker 1: born sometime around seventy eight, but he actually had a
Speaker 1: different name, and it was Pie, which meant hard shelled
Speaker 1: crab as a cancer I can sympathize. But his birth
Speaker 1: carried an omen with it, and that's because there was
Speaker 1: this bright star shining in the sky right before he
Speaker 1: was born and it may have atually Ben Haley's comment,
Speaker 1: and that's how we put his birth year sometime around
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty eight because that's when the comment was around
Speaker 1: um but some seers said that it pretended a conqueror
Speaker 1: and the baby was almost killed because as we know,
Speaker 1: most rulers don't like to hear that there's a little
Speaker 1: baby being born. He might be the new king as Karen,
Speaker 1: so it seemed like a good idea to get rid
Speaker 1: of him before anything happened. But he was snuck away
Speaker 1: and raised by another family and grows up and he
Speaker 1: got his new name, Kamamea, which means the lonely one.
Speaker 1: But eventually he was able to come out of hiding.
Speaker 1: He'd made it very clear that he wanted to be
Speaker 1: of service to the people who are in power, and
Speaker 1: the higher ups to recognize that. And there were other
Speaker 1: omens of his greatness. According to stories and not necessarily
Speaker 1: to history, reminiscent of the sword and the stone, there
Speaker 1: is something called the Naja stone, which weighs two and
Speaker 1: a half tons, and the story went that if you
Speaker 1: could move bit, you would be the person to unite
Speaker 1: the islands, and supposedly Command Maya did. But in the
Speaker 1: meantime we have a lot of other events going on,
Speaker 1: and Europe had finally discovered Hawaii in seventeen seventy eight
Speaker 1: when Captain James Cook arrived and he brought glass and
Speaker 1: metal and nails and buttons and muskets and cannons, which
Speaker 1: are two very importantly important things, and in return, Hawaii
Speaker 1: had food like sweet potatoes and coconut and pork and
Speaker 1: Comma Maya was actually one of the first people to
Speaker 1: board Cook's ship, and Cook mentions him in a journal
Speaker 1: He's really impressed with this intelligent, observant, inquisitive young man
Speaker 1: and a fairly peaceful introduction of Europeans two Hawaiians. But
Speaker 1: theft became a problem fairly early on, and after an
Speaker 1: incident of a stolen boat, Cook and some of his
Speaker 1: men tried to kidnap a chief for its ransom on
Speaker 1: February fourteen, seventeen seventy nine, and they were killed with
Speaker 1: daggers that they had given to the people, and the
Speaker 1: Hawaiians took their weapons for their own. And these muskets
Speaker 1: changed warfare for the Hawaiians, and merchants aided and abetted
Speaker 1: the arms race because they could sell to one group,
Speaker 1: and then they could sell to their enemies, and though
Speaker 1: those groups might kill each other, the merchants would be
Speaker 1: making a profit. Yeah, and Kamayama has really want to
Speaker 1: realize the game changing importance of these weapons, and his
Speaker 1: enemies realize it too, but it's it's his key to
Speaker 1: ultimately unifying the islands, and he will ambush and steal
Speaker 1: and kidnap to get these weapons. Kamama wasn't destined to
Speaker 1: be king of anything, or at least that's not how
Speaker 1: people thought of him. When King Colonio Poo died in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty two, Kamayama, his nephew, wasn't the first in
Speaker 1: line to succeed. His cousin Kiela Oh was with his
Speaker 1: cousin Koa also taking some lands and some power, and
Speaker 1: instead Kamama was the guardian of the family war god,
Speaker 1: which says something for how he was viewed. Of course,
Speaker 1: the war god is not just any god, but this
Speaker 1: is where the trouble really starts. There's a rebel chief
Speaker 1: who dies, and it was Kayla's responsibility to offer his
Speaker 1: body to the gods. But during the middle of the ceremony,
Speaker 1: Kamameha stepped in and did it himself, and that was
Speaker 1: very shocking. And it either was a really bold move,
Speaker 1: like a bold power grab, or it was a major
Speaker 1: sign of disrespect. But we don't know his motives. We
Speaker 1: do know the result because from then on it's him
Speaker 1: versus his two cousins. Ko makes the first move against him,
Speaker 1: cutting down the coconut trees of Kamamea, which was a
Speaker 1: big sign of disrespect, and Kamamea has to fight back.
Speaker 1: So all other factions on the island pick sides, and
Speaker 1: there was a battle in two kila Oh was killed
Speaker 1: at this battle, and kamame A one over ka Hua,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't over there. These fights would continue for
Speaker 1: nine years with Hawaii locked in civil war, and we
Speaker 1: have an interesting story that emerges that is a major
Speaker 1: part of the Commameha legend. In a strike against a rival,
Speaker 1: he kills women and children and innocent followers, and commandman
Speaker 1: himself falls during this fight, and a fisherman hits him
Speaker 1: over the head with a paddle and he doesn't die,
Speaker 1: but he takes away a lesson from it, and that's
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't attack peaceful people. And it ultimately leads
Speaker 1: to a law in seventeen seven, the Law of the
Speaker 1: Splintered Paddle, appropriately enough, which gave a certain amount of
Speaker 1: protection to innocent civilians from their brutal overlords. But seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety seven is skipping ahead a bit, So we're going
Speaker 1: to go back near the beginning of our Civil War
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety, a ship called the Fair American arise
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, and unbeknownst to the people on it, one
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian chiefs had had an altercation with the
Speaker 1: occupants of a different European ship and vowed revenge on
Speaker 1: the next one that came in, and Fair American, you
Speaker 1: are that unlucky one. Everyone on the ship was beaten
Speaker 1: to death after being thrown overboard, except a man named
Speaker 1: Isaac Davis. But Davis wasn't alone on this rescue boat.
Speaker 1: There had been another white man, captured, John Young, earlier
Speaker 1: from another ship. So there are two of them, and
Speaker 1: Cama Maya claims the rescue boat and the two men
Speaker 1: and Davis and Young try to escape, but eventually they
Speaker 1: become his advisers and his interpreters, and they teach him
Speaker 1: about um muskets and cannons and foreign military strategy and
Speaker 1: pass on these lessons to his men too. And this
Speaker 1: gives Command Maha a huge leg up on the competition,
Speaker 1: because if you're going to be fighting with European weapons,
Speaker 1: you need to understand not only how to use them,
Speaker 1: but understand European strategy comames next military engagement came Curtis
Speaker 1: see of Kahi Kile arrival who may have been his father,
Speaker 1: and he ruled Oah Who, Maui and Molokai, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't someone to mess with. He got oah Who in
Speaker 1: the first place by killing his foster son, torturing the
Speaker 1: chiefs and then making a house frame of their bones.
Speaker 1: In her outline Katie actually a skeleton of a house
Speaker 1: with in parentheses ha ha an idea of our process there.
Speaker 1: So this guy supports Koa, who is commands enemy on
Speaker 1: the island of Hawaii, and Kamomea reaches a decision he
Speaker 1: can beat Koa if he can just get rid of
Speaker 1: this possible father figure and the support that he's giving
Speaker 1: to his number one enemy. On his side, Kamama has
Speaker 1: cannons and muskets, well trained men, and his own military genius,
Speaker 1: so his prospects are good. And in sevent Kahekile leaves
Speaker 1: Maui to visit Oah who perfect perfect opportunity, Chameamea invades
Speaker 1: Maui and according to an article in military history, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote his strategy better known in Hawaiian
Speaker 1: chronicles than in Western history books predates the island topping
Speaker 1: campaigns employed by General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea and
Speaker 1: by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and the Central Pacific by
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and fifty years. So he's using
Speaker 1: very modern techniques and ultimately he conquers. But there's one problem.
Speaker 1: While he was gone, Koa started causing trouble back home
Speaker 1: on Hawaii. That's why you don't leave your island to
Speaker 1: go attack someone else's, and the lesson we learned. So
Speaker 1: they fight and Koa ends up giving up this round,
Speaker 1: but while he's headed home, a volcano erupts and kills
Speaker 1: a third of his men, which could not have been
Speaker 1: a good omen, but he remains obstinate in his quest
Speaker 1: for Hawaii. So it keeps going on and on for years,
Speaker 1: and you have to wonder how it's going to resolve itself.
Speaker 1: Kamehameha invites him to a meeting. You know, let's let's
Speaker 1: get the two rival factions together. So Kayoa gets dressed
Speaker 1: up and brings his canoe and his men to meet him,
Speaker 1: But right after he arrives, he's blocked in the bay
Speaker 1: and kamam As men are on the beach with muskets
Speaker 1: and cannons. So Kamehameha asked Kayoa to step forward to
Speaker 1: be greeted, and when he does, he's killed with a
Speaker 1: spear by an ally of Kamamas and then his men
Speaker 1: are killed. So we don't know whether it was Kamama's
Speaker 1: idea or an independent action by his ally, but civil
Speaker 1: war has now been quelled on the island of Hawaii
Speaker 1: and Kamehameha has it all. So with the two original
Speaker 1: heirs to the two cousins, Kamamea is finally in possession
Speaker 1: of Hawaii, but he has some unfinished business, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're going to get to next. So if you
Speaker 1: remember Kamehamea's defeat of Maui, which you should because it
Speaker 1: was about thirty seconds ago, Kaye Kile is not pleased
Speaker 1: and he hatches a plan with the men of the
Speaker 1: island of Kawaii to team up and strike against him
Speaker 1: and Kahekile has canons now too, and his own white
Speaker 1: European military adviser, so perhaps he has a chance, and
Speaker 1: they engage in battle on the water. There are many deaths,
Speaker 1: but neither side one, which you know, that's war for you.
Speaker 1: But European influence is growing on these battle fields, and
Speaker 1: the big example of this happens in about seventeen ninety
Speaker 1: two when the Englishman William Brown offers to trade military
Speaker 1: help military assistance to kah Kile for the island of Oahu.
Speaker 1: So now Kamehameha's enemy has his own frigate, so he's
Speaker 1: starting the skills are starting to tip a little here.
Speaker 1: If Kamehameha looked like he was on the top at first,
Speaker 1: it's not looking so great anymore. So he needs something
Speaker 1: similar to face his rival, and he allies himself with
Speaker 1: Captain George Vancouver, getting a ship in exchange for Hawaiian harbors,
Speaker 1: but Vancouver won't give him any guns and tries to
Speaker 1: get chiefs to reconcile, which is not the William Brown approach,
Speaker 1: as we will see. Then we have a twist. Ka
Speaker 1: Kile dies in sevente and now his sons take his place.
Speaker 1: Kolonnikopola has Oahu and kaya Kulani has Kawaii, Molokai and Lenai.
Speaker 1: But the two brothers fight as people tend to do
Speaker 1: over their inheritances, and kaya Kulani decides to go to
Speaker 1: war and attack his brother's island Oahu, but Kolonikpola gets
Speaker 1: wind of this plan and waits for his brother, and
Speaker 1: he has the advantage of Brown ship backing him up
Speaker 1: with all that European weaponry, so he stays pretty nearby,
Speaker 1: and so kaya Kulani loses and he's actually killed in
Speaker 1: part because of Brown's cannons. And we learn another big
Speaker 1: lesson in this podcast, which is not to wear bright
Speaker 1: colors in battle because when you do, it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot easier to hit you with a cannonball. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So Kalona cap is not very grateful though about Brown's
Speaker 1: helped all his great weaponry his vote, and he kills
Speaker 1: Brown and puts his body on a pole, which is
Speaker 1: interesting because this is kind of contemporary to a friend
Speaker 1: revolution revolution style. But um next he takes all of
Speaker 1: Brown's men and enlist them in his next cause, which
Speaker 1: is to attack Kammeha. He's probably thinking he's on top
Speaker 1: of the world right now, he's just killed his brother,
Speaker 1: He's about to take over. No, no, he's not. It
Speaker 1: doesn't last long. The Englishman take over the ship and
Speaker 1: throw him overboard, and still ticked off, they make their
Speaker 1: way to Hawaii and hand over all of the weapons
Speaker 1: and Ammune to Kamamea. So everyone's angry at Kilanik. He
Speaker 1: wasn't dead from getting cost overboard, asked repeatedly during this
Speaker 1: is he dead? Is he dead? No? He never is this.
Speaker 1: This guy is like a zombie or something in this podcast.
Speaker 1: He has no European support, he has no weapons, and Kamama,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, has all of these things along
Speaker 1: with two ships. So Kamamea attacks in short order Maui,
Speaker 1: Molokai and Lenai. But there is treachery afoot. His High
Speaker 1: Chief Kayana is on the outs with the big guy,
Speaker 1: so he isn't invited to key meetings, which displeases him greatly.
Speaker 1: That's partly because he slept with kamame as wife, so
Speaker 1: don't do that either. And he takes fifteen hundred of
Speaker 1: his men and meets up with Kilanni Kopul and this
Speaker 1: engagement is known as the Battle of New Uanu and
Speaker 1: it happens in April sev and Kayana, who is you know?
Speaker 1: He's been the high he has the number two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has all this military knowledge. He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He's familiar with weaponry, he's familiar with how Kamehameha thinks
Speaker 1: and how he fights, the places he might attack, how
Speaker 1: he might do it. So he picks very strong physicians,
Speaker 1: and for a while it seems like his defense is unbreakable.
Speaker 1: But he too makes the fatal mistake of wearing bright
Speaker 1: colors in war, and a cannon ball hits him too,
Speaker 1: and when he dies, everything completely falls apart. Colonni copulas.
Speaker 1: Men get their women and children to a safe place
Speaker 1: before they face off with kamame As warriors, and they
Speaker 1: have no chance. They lose badly, and while some escape,
Speaker 1: most were driven off a seven hundred foot cliff. But
Speaker 1: Klonipa does escape. Like I said, this guy does not die. Supposedly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes off to live as a disgraced person in
Speaker 1: the mountains. So all that we have now for Commandma
Speaker 1: to win is Kawaii, and that takes a little while.
Speaker 1: There's a storm, there's a revolt, an epidemic, and so
Speaker 1: it takes until about eighteen ten before the chief of
Speaker 1: Kawaii actually gives it over to him. But that set
Speaker 1: then the Hawaiian islands are unified, and he's king of
Speaker 1: them all. Some call him Hawaii's strongest ruler because he
Speaker 1: unified the islands. He managed to keep Hawaii's independence for
Speaker 1: quite a long time, and he made his rule an
Speaker 1: era of peace. And he was really a strong ruler,
Speaker 1: especially compared to some of the rulers who followed him.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk a little bit about that
Speaker 1: in another podcast. But he stood up to European influence
Speaker 1: actually used it to his advantage. I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: made him the strong ruler he was. But he didn't
Speaker 1: give way at all. Now, he kept his islands wealthy
Speaker 1: with a monopoly on sandalwood and on port duties. And
Speaker 1: as far as his own rule, there were some laws,
Speaker 1: but he also outlawed human sacrifice and let the islands
Speaker 1: have their own governors. And we can't forget the rest
Speaker 1: of his military legacy. According to one article we read,
Speaker 1: he assembled the largest mobile force of warriors ever organized,
Speaker 1: which is saying something. And he also developed some pretty
Speaker 1: cool military technologies like artillery on double canoes, which sounds awesome.
Speaker 1: And while we missed it this year, we're hoping to
Speaker 1: catch this next year. Cama Maya Day June eleven, is
Speaker 1: a state holiday in Hawaii, so that is your chance
Speaker 1: to celebrate him, and as for the future of Hawaii's monarchy,
Speaker 1: you'll have to wait for our next installment. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to listener mail. So this message comes from
Speaker 1: listener Auto and it was in response to our Emperor
Speaker 1: Norton podcast, and he wrote, I very much enjoyed your
Speaker 1: wreath of podcast about Joshua Norton, but was surprised as
Speaker 1: there was no mention of his widow quote. Jose Syria
Speaker 1: Syria was a drag queen working in San Francisco in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and sixties, and was an early proponent
Speaker 1: of LGBT rights at a time when advocating for homosexuals,
Speaker 1: much less being openly gay, was almost unheard of. He
Speaker 1: specialized in performing parodic operas, with a particular favorite being
Speaker 1: a parody of Buzz's Carmen. He was known as the
Speaker 1: Nightingale of Montgomery Street, and he actually goes on to
Speaker 1: proclaim himself her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose
Speaker 1: the first the widow of Norton, which is pretty awesome
Speaker 1: and we loved that. I'm sorry we didn't run into
Speaker 1: that fact while we were researching and if you'd like
Speaker 1: to email us with some extra little tidbits to that
Speaker 1: A podcast we've done our email is History Podcast at
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