Kingdom of Hawaii - Kamehameha Period

  General Description   Hawai’i, also known as the Big Island, is the largest island of the Hawaiian archipelago. Here, we consider the period of its history from 1778 to 1819. 1778 is the date of first European contact ‒ the arrival of Captain Cook ‒ while 1819 is the year of King Kamehameha I’s death. ^{[1] [2]} Kamehameha was a war chief and keeper of the war god Kūka’ilimoku who, in 1782, rose against King Kīwala’ō and managed to seize power over the Kohala and Kona districts of the Big Island. ^[3] Over the next three decades, Kamehameha waged several military campaigns, eventually unifying the entire archipelago (minus Kaua’i and Ni’ihau) in 1804. ^[4]
Population and political organization
In this period, Kamehameha I sat at the top of the political hierarchy. He was advised on secular affairs, including war, by the kālaimoku, who also oversaw the royal storehouses, while the kahuna nui was in charge of the king’s sacred duties and oversaw his temples and main gods. ^[5] Kamehameha did not introduce many changes to the traditional hierarchies, but he did appoint a number of governors to be his representatives on the other islands. ^[6] Each island was divided into districts under the control of high-ranking chiefs, the ali’i ’ai moku. These districts were in turn subdivided into territories ruled by lesser chiefs, the ali’i ’ai ahupua’a. Below this level, there were the konohiki, who were in charge of the small and largely self-sufficient ahupua’a territories. ^[7]
The population of the entire Hawaiian archipelago by Cook’s arrival was certainly very large, but there is a long-standing debate regarding exact numbers. Estimates range between 250,000 and 800,000. ^[8] The ’reasonably accurate’ first census of 1832 puts the archipelago’s population at around 130,000 people. However, we cannot project this figure backwards in time because the kanaka maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) population fell drastically after Europeans introduced diseases, such as smallpox, syphilis and measles, to which they had no immunity. ^{[9] [8]}

[1]: (Kirch 2010, 170, 174) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[2]: (Kirch 2000, 300) Patrick V. Kirch. 2000. On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[3]: (Kirch 2010, 118-19) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[4]: (Kirch 2010, 116) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[5]: (Kirch 2010, 50, 57) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[6]: (Kuykendall 1938, 51) Ralph S. Kuykendall. 1938. The Hawaiian Kingdom, 1778-1854: Foundation and Transformation. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

[7]: (Kirch 2010, 48-49) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[8]: (Kirch 2010, 129-130) Patrick V. Kirch. 2010. How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai’i. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[9]: (La Croix and Roumasset 1990, 835) Sumner J. La Croix and James Roumasset. 1990. ’The Evolution of Private Property in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii’. The Journal of Economic History 50 (4): 829-52.