Facing the Spears of Change by Marie Alohalani Brown

Author:Marie Alohalani Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

FIGURE 3.1. John Papa ‘Ī‘ī’s letter to G. P. Judd informing him of Lord Paulet’s imminent arrival on O‘ahu and his intentions. Hawai‘i State Archives. Photo by author.

After five months of personal and national stress, August should have been a welcome relief for ‘Ī‘ī, but he did not take time off to recover. Days after the liberation of the kingdom, the treasury board began the daunting task of tallying up the financial damages Paulet’s occupation had caused. Ī‘ī, Judd, and Kānoa (the replacement for Ha‘alilio, who was still abroad), finished the report on August 4. The damages amounted to twenty-nine thousand dollars—sixteen thousand of them due to a decrease in business and the government’s inability to collect taxes and interests on loans. As it was unable to pay its debts, interest had also accrued.156

That same evening, the commander of the USS Constellation held a ball.157 Along with Judd, ‘Ī‘ī accompanied the mō‘ī, even though balls were not a social activity he usually participated in, probably because there would be drinking and he was a teetotaler. Perhaps he went because the event celebrated the liberation of the kingdom, or perhaps the mō‘ī had made a special request. At any rate, six days later, ‘Ī‘ī, in far more comfortable surroundings, offered a sermon at church. His theme was “No peace to the wicked”; his presentation was excellent, and the sermon was well received.158 On August 14, Cooke and ‘Ī‘ī went to church, but discovered the pastors, Rowel and Smith, were not there.159 Cooke took charge and began the service, but after two prayers, he asked ‘Ī‘ī to take over. He preached for fifty minutes;160 and on August 21, he delivered another sermon to a crowd of about five hundred people.161

The Paulet affair and the demands on his time afterwards took its toll on ‘Ī‘ī’s health. He was forty-three years old and in the prime of life, but he was also overworked and exhausted. On August 30, he fell ill, and the next morning, though he insisted on getting up, he fainted while participating in the prayer service.162 By September 4, he was much better,163 but he was beginning to realize that his workload was excessive and dangerous. By the end of the year, he had stepped down as superintendent of O‘ahu schools, because on March 26, 1844, during a public meeting, he confessed that, although “he loved the work of superintendent” he had known that “he could not attend to it as he should” and that he “was glad to have Keikenui take it up.”164 But ‘Ī‘ī continued his frequent inter-island travel on government business.165 And he and the other ali‘i had barely had a chance to recover from the Paulet affair when the cases of Charlton and Ladd & Co. dropped onto them. After five months of diplomatic hell, they entered what amounted to a political purgatory from 1844 to 1846 because they feared a repeat of the Paulet affair.

In the spring of 1845, a devastating influenza epidemic hit the nation. ‘Ī‘ī and others suffered personal losses because of it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.