Foreign Contact With Hawai'i Before Captain Cook
Most of the History books and tourist pamphlets, about Hawaii, assert that Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, quite by accident, in January of 1778, encountering a people who had evolved in total isolation after communication with the rest of Polynesia had stopped some time in the distant past.
Hawaii's 19th century historians, however, credited the Spanish with the rediscovery and initial mapping of these islands. Hawaiian legends, too, support the idea of earlier European contacts, chronicling visitors, shipwrecks and castaways in ancient times. Indeed, when the officers and crews of Captain Cook's Resolution and Discovery first encountered the Hawaiian People, they immediately began to wonder if they were the first Europeans to visit these shores.
The opening comment on this subject was logged on January 19, 1778, by Cook himself, aboard the Resolution, the day before coming to anchor off Waimea, Kauai. While still off the east side of that island, about a half mile from shore he wrote, of the natives that came out in canoes,: "There was little difference in the casts of their color, but some considerable variation in their features, some of their visages not being unlike Europeans."
He continued by stating that the people he met on Kauai were not "aquainted with our commodities, Except iron; which however, it was plain, they had....in some quantity, brought to them at some distant period.... They asked for it by the name of Hamaite." It is interesting to note that a Spanish word for iron is "Hematitas".
The following day, with the ships safely anchored, Captain Cook, with a number of his officers and men, went on an excursion inland. It was at this time that Cook was formally greeted and given the official title or name of Lono. Later that afternoon, at a heiau on the western side of the Waimea Canyon, he was presented with what he called "a piece of hoop iron, about two inches long, fitted into a wooden handle,...which our people guessed to be made of the point of a broad sword."
On the morning of the 23rd, "one of the midshipmen purchased of the natives a piece of iron, lashed into a handle for a cutting instrument. It appeared to be a piece of the blade of a cutlass, and had by no means the appearance of a modern acquisition; looking to have been a good deal used and long in it's present state."
Following a summers search for a Northwest Passage the Resolution and Discovery returned to the Sandwich Islands. Knowing that there were islands to the east of Kauai, they sought harbor on Maui. Finding no anchorage, they stayed off shore and interacted with the Mauians while underway.
. At that time, Captain Clerk, of the Discovery, wrote : "One of the Ariis, or principle people, came on & made me a present of two small hogs; one of his attendants had 2 large, long iron skewers. I was not master enough of the language to learn the proper history of them...I should have been glad to know, but it was pretty well clear from them having them at all...that Europeans have sometime or other been in the neighborhood". On the Resolution, Lt. King wrote that " One of the indians held his two forefingers across each other and pointed to the land; which we construed into the Spaniards having set up a cross on shore. These circumstances, however fell far short of proof."
A few weeks later, safely anchored at Kealakekua the crews had much more time to interact with the Hawaiians. Again they found iron. The flattened out breechpin of a gun and an iron dagger, which had been beat out by the natives, were seen in the village before Captain Cook was killed. The travelers also discovered that the Hawaiians played a board game, much like our checkers.
. In August of 1798, a trader named Ebenezer Townsend wrote that "It is very much in doubt whether Capt. Cook was the first discoverer of these islands, it appears pretty evident that he was not....There is at Mowee the ring and part of the shank of an anchor of about seven hundred weight.... where there is no recollection of their ever having been a vessel, and for it's appearance it must have been there many years....They have a tradition that a couple of white men came on shore and remained there about a hundred and fifty years ago." His Hawaiian Majesty, David Kalakaua, published his Legends and Myths of Hawaii in 1888. In that volume he tells us that during the reign of Kamaluohua on Maui there was another shipwreck there, from which there were five survivors, two women and three males. Magnetometer, diving and shoreline searches, conducted by the Sandwich Islands Shipwreck Museum, for this vessel have so far been inconclusive. The site is along a rocky cliff-side and reef that is exposed to the huge winter swell of the North Pacific Ocean.
Very few artifacts remain today that are certain to have come from pre-Cook European ships. Two, that have surfaced, were interred with the bones of an ancient chief, inside of woven casket called "Ka'ai". A piece of metal attached to a wooden handle, that appears to be a dagger, was found along with a piece of flaxen sailcloth, which dates to the 1600s.
Cloth, in its symbolic form was another thing that caused the men of Cook's crews to wonder about possible western predecessors at these islands. The standard of the annual Makahiki, or harvest festival, was a tall cross, hung with long strips of cloth, somewhat resembling a ships mast and sails.
Another hint of prior contact were certain articles of chiefly attire. Captain Cook wrote :"Amongst the articles which they brought to barter.... we could not help taking notice of a particular sort of cloak and cap, which, even in countries where dress is more particularly attended to, might be reckoned elegant. The first were nearly the size and shape of the short cloaks worn by the women in England, and by the men in Spain." Nothing of the kind existed elsewhere in Polynesia.
Lt. King wrote; "The exact resemblance between this habit, and the cloak and helmet formerly worn by the Spaniards.....appears to me sufficient proof of it's European origin ....We are driven indeed...to a supposition of the shipwreck of some buccaneer, or Spanish ship, in the neighborhood of these islands."
Between 1565 and the 1800s, the Spanish maintained a colony in the Philippines. During most of those years, two ships would leave Acapulco, Mexico in the spring, sail down to about ten degrees north and then directly west towards Guam, which they would reach in about eight weeks. After a short stay to restock with food and water they would continue on to Manila. These ships carried the colonists, soldiers and priests as well as the supplies necessary to keep the colony comfortable. The primary cargo on this voyage was Mexican silver which was used to pay the wages of the people and administrators of the colony as well as purchase the silk, porcelain, spices and other Asian goods needed in Mexico and Europe.
Large galleons, loaded with these Asian treasures would depart Manila in July, sail up to the latitude of Japan and cross the North Pacific. Seeing land near San Francisco, they would then sail down the coast, not stopping until they reached the colonies in Mexico, usually in January. During the two centuries of galleon trade, nine vessels vanished without a trace. Could any of these have been wrecked in Hawaii ?
No Spanish map has yet been found which shows the location of a shipwreck in the mid-Pacific., However, many maps show these islands. In fact most charts of the Pacific printed in Europe after 1570 show a group of Islands in this vicinity named "La Mesa, Los Monges, and La Desgraciada". "The Table, The Monks, and The Unfortunate One" are surely the Hawaiian Islands. Captain Cook had charts with him that showed these islands
. Lieutenant Henry Roberts was the draftsman aboard the Resolution. It was his duty to draw up all the charts and update any new chartographical information. He was commissioned to draw up a map of the world on the basis of the best information available on board the ships. That work was nearly complete at the time of Captain Cook's death.
There was some discussion amongst the ship's officers as to whether the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands and the La Mesa and Los Monges group were one in the same. Captain Cook, not having time to investigate further eastward, decided that both groups should be depicted. Further investigation was left to later explorers.
Some of Cook's officers returned to the Pacific before the turn of the 19th century and looked in vain for the Los Monges Islands. Captains Portlock and Dixon came in 1786 on a fur trading mission. George Vancouver followed in 1793. The Frenchman, Laperouse was but a week behind Portlock and Dixon. He wrote, "I thought it would render an important service to geography if I could succeed in erasing from the charts those idle names, denoting islands which have no existence, and perpetuating errors extremely injurious to navigation."
Once anchored in the Bay that bears his name to this day, Laperouse and a number of his officers and men went ashore. The Frenchmen soon noticed that some of the people showed signs of the venereal disease, syphilis. The ship's surgeon, M. Rollin, examined a number of the people and found that they showed signs of having advanced cases of this disease, which, in Europe would have taken twelve to fifteen years to develop. The fact that Cook had visited these islands but eight years prior and never landed on Maui at all, led Laperouse to conclude that the venereal disease was introduced in the islands before Cook's time. Indeed, the men of Cook's ships wondered how the disease could have traveled so quickly, and spread so widely, amongst the Maui people, by the time of their arrival there, as they had left Kauai but nine months prior.
Modern archaeology supports the Frenchman's position. A few years ago, the remains of a young woman, known to have died before 1664, were unearthed on Oahu. Her bones showed signs of the congenital form of this disease.
Another notable find, made on Oahu, was a life-size carved stone image of a man in 17th century European dress, unearthed in Manoa Valley prior to the 1860s. Hawaiian Tradition is sometimes quite specific about certain events concerning foreigners. Thomas Manby, who was with Vancouver, befriended an old Hawaiian priest while at Kealakekua. He later stated that "This traditional historian informed me that a few generations back white men visited the Sandwich Islands, many of whom remained behind & were raised to the highest honors. From these visitors it is recorded that the present batch of Royalty are descended."
In 1804, a fur trader named Captain Shaler wrote that several years before Cook's appearance "a ship appeared off the south end of Owhyee; two girls went on board of her in a small canoe, which was stove alongside the ship, and after remaining a night on board, they returned in a small boat furnished them by the commander of the ship. This fact is so well averred (among the natives) that it cannot be doubted; and there is the greatest reason to suppose the ship was Spanish."
In 1823, the Reverend William Ellis made a circuit of the Island of Hawaii and spent some time with the Governor of that island. From him and other informants, Ellis was able to gather enough information on this subject to write the following: "They have three accounts of foreigners arriving at Hawaii before Captain Cook.... One tells of a priest who made changes in the Hawaiian religion, and of his son who spoke the same language as some other foreigners that came ashore later".
Another account states that in the reign of Kahoukapu, "seven foreigners arrived at Kearake'kua Bay, the spot where Captain Cook subsequently landed. They came in a painted boat, with an awning or canopy over the stern.....The color of their clothes was white or yellow, one of them wore a pahi, long knife.....at his side, and a feather in his hat. The natives received them kindly. They married native women, of Hawaii, which is said, was for some time governed by them."
It appears that this legend has a strong basis in fact and ties in with the only unquestionably documented European contact with the Hawaiian Islands before Captain Cook. In 1599 a fleet of five Dutch trading ships entered the Pacific bound for Japan. Two of these vessels, the Lefda and the Hope, reached the planned rendezvous off Chili. They then directed their course for Japan. The Lefda's pilot, and Englishman named William Adams (upon whose life the novel Shogun was based), chronicled highlights of the ensuing voyage in two letters, which eventually reached London. He writes :..."We took our course directly for Iapan...in our way, we fell with certain islands in sixteen degrees of north latitude...comming neere these islands, ...eight of our men....ran from us with the pinnesse."
The importance of cross-referencing legends with documents now allows us to state that Kahoukapu seems to have ruled in 1599.
In 1880 Abraham Fornander published his Account of the Polynesian Race. In that volume he wrote that " In the time of Kealiikaloa, king of Hawaii and son of Umi, arrived a vessel at Hawaii. Konaliloha was the name of the vessel, and Kukanaloa was the name of the foreigner who commanded .... His sister was also with him on the vessel. As they were sailing along, approaching the land, the vessel struck at the Pali, and was broken to pieces by the surf, and the foreigner Kukanaloa and his sister swam to shore and were saved, but the greater part of the crew perished....."
During July 1997, the University of Hawaii's Marine Option Program in conjunction with the Sandwich Island Shipwreck Museum and Panamerican Consultants (out of Memphis, Tnn.), conducting an underwater survey, in an attempt to locate the wreckage of the Konaliloha. That search was successful in locating significant magnetic anomalies.
A subsequent search, in September of 1999, indicated that the magnetism came from spots buried deep in live coral, and in sand and rock deposits near shore.

Staff and volunteers of the Sandwich Island Shipwreck Museum will return to Kealakekua Bay once the proper permits have been issued by the State of Hawaii allowing an archaeological excavation of the near-shore site, which would not disturb any living coral.
The evidence for Spanish and Dutch contact with Ancient Hawaii, is overwhelming, however conclusive physical proof, in the form of a shipwreck eludes us. In time, we hope to prove conclusively that the English ships of 1778 were not the first Europeans to visit these shores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For further reading on this subject, read "Shipwrecks of Hawai'i", by Captain Richard W. Rogers.

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