Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii (7 page)

Now the
kahunas
directed that he build a grand
luakini heiau
for sacrifices to the war god and dedicate all his victories to him. This Kamehameha did, at Kawaihae, on the coast some thirty-five miles north of Kona, at a place called Pu‘ukohola, the Hill of the Whale. He delegated the work to his popular brother, Keli‘imaika‘i, who organized a human chain of thousands to pass red lava rocks from the Pololu Valley, fourteen miles east of there. The gargantuan platform was completed in less than a year. Kawaihae had been old Alapa‘i’s capital; Kalaniopu‘u had located himself further north in Kohala, and now Kamehameha determined to anchor his own kingdom here. In mid-1791 he sent emissaries down to the disaffected Keoua Kuahu‘ula to come north, meet, and discuss their differences.

He was suspicious of Kamehameha’s motives, but with his own army sapped by years of battle and then the eruption of Kilauea, he accepted. Keoua arrived at Kawaihae in state befitting a high chief, with retainers in a great double-hulled canoe. From the harbor he could not miss seeing the colossal new
heiau
surmounting the Hill of the Whale, which was perhaps his first inkling that his end was at hand. Keoua gashed himself, thinking to make himself unacceptable as a sacrifice, but it did him no good, for
mana
resided in the bones that survived decomposition. Nor was it necessary that the victim be taken alive to the temple; the offering of a dead body was equally efficacious. At the last he hesitated, but was coaxed ashore. “Rise and come here,” Kamehameha greeted him, “that we may know each other.”
22
Cut down as soon as he landed, Keoua was the first
ali‘i
whose body was laid on the altar of Kuka‘ilimoku, followed by those of his slaughtered retainers.

In good part American-armed, Kamehameha was now undisputed king of Hawai‘i Island, and he could stand in his birthplace of Kohala and gaze with confidence across the thirty-mile-wide channel at Maui.

2.
“Disobey, and Die”

Young and Davis adjusted to their captivity. They proved their loyalty, and with Kamehameha never certain when his own chiefs might turn on him, he entrusted the Englishmen with crucial administrative posts, which came with land and
kanaka
tenants. Young built a comfortable stone house, probably the first on the island, on the coast at Kawaihae, within sight of the sanguine temple on the Hill of the Whale. The Conqueror gave him his niece, Kaoana‘eha, for his wife,
1
and created him governor of Hawai‘i Island. Not entirely marooned, Young found many opportunities to visit with English sailors, as on the visits of Capt. George Vancouver, who had first come with Captain Cook, and returned on the first of March, 1792. Tellingly, everywhere he landed the Hawaiians wanted guns, but he refused to arm any faction and departed as quickly as he arrived. He came back the following spring, having looked after British interests on the western coast of America; he was pleased to think that Kamehameha had grown into his role as king, and that “his riper years had softened that stern ferocity which his younger days had exhibited, and had changed his general deportment to … an open, cheerful, and sensible mind, combined with great generosity and goodness of disposition.” To reciprocate his hospitality Vancouver made a gift of cattle from America, which Kamehameha turned loose, protected by his
kapu
that they not be disturbed for ten years, to allow the herd to increase.

Modern scholars typically prefer to emphasize Kamehameha’s generous treatment of Davis and Young after they proved their loyalty, rather than dwell on the unpleasant terms of their cooperation—service or death—which might be seen as somewhat coercive. In any event his actions prove the sophistication of Kamehameha’s governing style, of pairing punishment with reward, of the ability to maintain his focus on a distant objective that he perceived to be important to his goals. Shrewd and patient, he grew his strength. Kahekili died midway through 1794, and similarly to Kalaniopu‘u, he sought to keep the peace by dividing his kingdom: His son Kalanikupule was already lord of O‘ahu; Maui he left to his brother, Ka‘eo. Thinking to swiftly dispatch his nephew, Ka‘eo invaded O‘ahu and put him to flight; the outcome seemed all but decided when Kalanikupule managed to rearm from the trading ships
Prince Lee Boo
and
Jackal
, and then also
Lady Washington
, which came on the scene. The tables were suddenly turned, and Kalanikupule lured Ka‘eo into battle along the eastern loch of the Pearl River estuary, where English sailors in boats could support him with impunity. Ka‘eo was killed, and Kalanikupule found himself king of both O‘ahu and Maui. On New Year’s Day 1795, his own ambition now afire, Kalanikupule’s warriors swarmed
Jackal
and
Prince Lee Boo
, killed their captains, and made forced labor of their crews (
Lady Washington
escaped to Canton after an errant cannon shot from
Jackal
killed her captain and several others).

As Kalanikupule indulged his dreams of glory, the first mates and crews of the captive vessels retook them and killed or ejected the natives. The king and a few chiefs, who had already boarded for the voyage of conquest, were put ashore and the ships made straight for Kawaihae. Leaving letters telling John Young all that had happened on O‘ahu, and by one native account disgorging the last of their armaments for the benefit of Kamehameha,
Jackal
and
Prince Lee Boo
made sail for Canton and left the Hawaiians to work out their mayhem for themselves.

*   *   *

Kamehameha was ready. When Vancouver returned for a third visit, Kamehameha “ceded” Hawai‘i to the British Crown, probably in his own mind for purposes of counting on their protection.
2
With Kahekili dead and Maui exhausted, he invaded in 1795, with ten thousand men in twelve hundred war canoes. The campaign was short but bloody, and Maui was soon his. Now lord of all the southern islands, Kamehameha turned his attention to O‘ahu, which was still ruled by intelligent, ruthless (as the captains of the
Jackal
and
Prince Lee Boo
discovered) Kalanikupule. Well aware of the growing threat from the south, the king of O‘ahu had laid in more firearms, including artillery, from traders. To help prepare his defenses he obtained the services of a turncoat chief from Kamehameha’s army, Ka‘iana, the same who had been to China and America. Although an important
ali‘i
in his own right and with ambitions of his own, Ka‘iana may also have been fleeing Kamehameha’s wrath for sleeping with the king’s wife—not the sacred Keopuolani, but his favorite recreational wife, Ka‘ahumanu.
3
Her relationship with the Conqueror continued devoted but tempestuous, and she took lovers when it pleased her—although they came to her at their own risk.

Kamehameha’s men stormed ashore at Honolulu, a fishing village with a natural harbor on the south shore, and at Waikiki several miles east of there, and Kalanikupule staged a fighting retreat to higher ground inland. Northeastward from Honolulu, the Nu‘uanu Valley rose higher and higher until it crested in a precipitous overlook, the Nu‘uanu Pali, more than a thousand feet high, commanding a view of the opposite side of the island. Here Kalanikupule had his men chip gunports into the high lava ridge, making a natural castle of the heights. Kamehameha pursued the retreating army of O‘ahu until the mountaintop cannons roared to life and stopped him in his tracks. Pinned down and taking losses, Kamehameha sent part of his army to the other side of the island, where they scaled the Pali—no mean feat in itself—and put the guns out of action. Resuming the attack, Kamehameha’s army cornered Kalanikupule’s at the precipice, and some four hundred of O‘ahu’s warriors were driven over the cliff, plunging to their deaths a thousand feet below. Later Kamehameha’s men moved through the bodies at the foot of the Pali, slicing off their heads so that the
mana
would accrue to him. Two generations later, American hikers at the foot of the Pali found skeletons in abundance, but no skulls; their burial place was discovered generations later during highway excavation. Kalanikupule himself escaped and lived for months as a fugitive, but was eventually captured, taken to the Big Island to Kuka‘ilimoku’s
heiau
on the Hill of the Whale, and sacrificed.

Present on O‘ahu during the Battle of Nu‘uanu Pali was Kamehameha’s captive child bride, Keopuolani, now old enough to fulfill her function, and the Conqueror consummated their relationship. Thereafter she lived out her life as the sacred royal wife, though little affection attended the title. The king was fastidious in respecting her prerogatives, but he chafed under her rank and they did not live together. He acquiesced that she could have her own lovers, and she accepted that his call, when he wanted her, took precedence over her other men. During her life Keopuolani bore fourteen children, four of them by Kamehameha, of whom three lived: two sons, Liholiho, born about 1797; Kauikeaouli, born probably in 1813; and a daughter, Nahi‘ena‘ena, born in 1815.
4

From O‘ahu it was some sixty miles across the Kaua‘i Channel to the remaining prize. If Western muskets and cannons were superior to clubs and spears, Western ships must be superior to native canoes; basing himself in Honolulu, Kamehameha undertook construction of a forty-ton vessel. The ship and its vast flotilla of war canoes departed in about June of 1796, but soon returned in disarray. Kamehameha seems to have put it out for public consumption that his force was disabled by storms in the notoriously turbulent channel, but the story touted on Kaua‘i was that the vaunted Conqueror did land, and his warriors were defeated on the beaches. Early informants remembered a dozen of Kamehameha’s warriors, captured in the Battle of Koloa Beach (today’s Mahaulepa Beach), being taken to Kaua‘i’s Polihale
heiau
and sacrified to the war god.
5

Kamehameha was then recalled to Hawai‘i to suppress another rebellion, this one led by the incensed brother of the traitor Ka‘iana, who had been killed at the Pali. Learning from the behavior of restive
ali‘i
, the king left O‘ahu under the governance of Isaac Davis, who depended solely on him for favor and advancement, and who knew what would happen if he betrayed him. Davis had grown as content as Young in his new life, but with a different style; he “went native,” preferring grass house to stone and accepting the station of high chief. With residences at both Kailua Kona, on the west coast of the Big Island, and Waikiki, Kamehameha bided his time for seven years, strengthening his government and the economy, but never forgetting to continually build up his military might.

During this period Kamehameha concentrated on creating a centralized government for his kingdom, and as merciless as his conquest had been, the administration he installed was stable and farsighted. He tapped the services of an able and vigorous young chief, Kalanimoku, as second in command in all things; Westerners equated his office with that of a prime minister, and even named him “Billy Pitt” after his close interest in and regard for Britain’s then–prime minister, William Pitt the Younger. He probably became attached to Kamehameha’s court when the king married Ka‘ahumanu, who was Kalanimoku’s first cousin.
6
He was demonstrably as intelligent as she, quick and curious around the increasing number of foreigners, their languages, and their ways, and he became an invaluable conduit between them and the king, to whom he was intensely loyal.

Peace begat productivity among the people, and Kamehameha grew wealthy on the tribute handed up by the chiefs and high chiefs, rounded up from their
kanakas
, who now could at least tend their fish, pigs, dogs, and crops without fear of sudden terror and death. Although there was no written language or numerals, tax collectors had a witheringly accurate system of accounting: “a line of cordage from four to five hundred fathoms in length. Distinct portions of this are allotted to the various districts, which are known from one another by knots, loops, and tufts, of different shapes, sizes and colors. Each tax-payer in the district has his part on this string, and the number of dollars, hogs, dogs, pieces of sandalwood, quantity of taro, &c., at which he is rated, is well defined.”
7
With the bodies of his rivals baked and boned after lying on the altars of the war god, the king also sequestered the foreign trade to himself. While he personally preferred life on the west coast of the Big Island, foreign vessels needed a more sheltered anchorage and sought out the harbor at Honolulu. To be near the scene of the commercial action Kamehameha installed himself there for several years, ever gaining in power.

By 1803 Kamehameha was ready to mount a new assault on Kaua‘i. On that island King Kaumuali‘i prepared to repel the second invasion, but he also built a large modern ship to carry him to the western Pacific in case of defeat. Fate intervened, however, as Kamehameha’s swelling army, and the people of O‘ahu as well, were decimated by the
oku‘u
—an epidemic of what was probably Asiatic cholera brought by a foreign ship. Incapable of believing that the gods had deserted him, the king ordered the
kahunas
to open a search to discover who had broken a
kapu
and caused such a calamity. At length three men were found who had eaten forbidden foods; they were apprehended, their limbs snapped, their eyes gouged out, and then they were sacrificed at a Waikiki
heiau
.

It was an unusually gory offering, for human sacrifice in Hawai‘i was not generally as sanguine as it was, for instance, in Mesoamerica. The usual mode of dispatch was strangulation, often after the victim was tied to a tree. Occasionally, however, and particularly in older times, sacrifice could be much more vivid, depending on the nature of the ceremony. At the Mo‘okini
heiau
at Kamehameha’s birthplace in Kohala, a defeated chief might be strung upside down, so that the
kahunas
could anoint themselves in his sweat before he was bludgeoned and gutted.
8
The gruesome fate of these three hapless
kanakas
must have been a measure of Kamehameha’s wrath and determination to make an example.