Ali'i Selective Appropriation of Modernity: Examining Colonial Assumptions in Hawaii Prior to 1893

Abstract

Accounts of the Hawaiian Kingdom (1810–1893) have typically argued that since the “discovery” of 1778, the islands have been progressively colonized—as if the first footfall of Captain James Cook set off a sequence of inevitable events that led to the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 and annexation by the United States in 1898. The Hawaiian Kingdom has been categorized as a colonial institution, where ali'i (native Hawaiian chiefs) were steadily duped by the invasion of Western people, ideas and institutions. This paper challenges such interpretations through a situated study of the first large-scale body of written law authored entirely in the Hawaiian language and passed by Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) in June 1839. This paper also challenges a colonial analysis of the Hawaiian Kingdom prior to 1893, and argues that ali'i such as Kauikeaouli selectively appropriated aspects of Euro-American legal frameworks and used them for their own means.