July 7, 2010 • 18 mins
Born shortly after the appearance of Halley's comet over Hawai'i in 1758, Kamehameha was hailed as the king who would unite the Hawai'ian islands. But how did he turn this prophecy into reality, and what happened to him in the end? Tune in and learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And Sarah was
in the mood for a little hot weather history this week,
so he decided to take on Hawaii and today's subject
(00:24):
is Kamehameha the Great, And have to start with a
little disclaimer. We had asked for some help with Hawaiian pronunciations,
so listener Jody was kind enough to call me and
give me her expertise. But any mistakes in this podcast
are mine and not hers or mine. So Kama was
born sometime around seventy eight, but he actually had a
(00:46):
different name, and it was Pie, which meant hard shelled
crab as a cancer I can sympathize. But his birth
carried an omen with it, and that's because there was
this bright star shining in the sky right before he
was born and it may have atually Ben Haley's comment,
and that's how we put his birth year sometime around
seventeen fifty eight because that's when the comment was around
(01:07):
um but some seers said that it pretended a conqueror
and the baby was almost killed because as we know,
most rulers don't like to hear that there's a little
baby being born. He might be the new king as Karen,
so it seemed like a good idea to get rid
of him before anything happened. But he was snuck away
and raised by another family and grows up and he
(01:32):
got his new name, Kamamea, which means the lonely one.
But eventually he was able to come out of hiding.
He'd made it very clear that he wanted to be
of service to the people who are in power, and
the higher ups to recognize that. And there were other
omens of his greatness. According to stories and not necessarily
to history, reminiscent of the sword and the stone, there
(01:53):
is something called the Naja stone, which weighs two and
a half tons, and the story went that if you
could move bit, you would be the person to unite
the islands, and supposedly Command Maya did. But in the
meantime we have a lot of other events going on,
and Europe had finally discovered Hawaii in seventeen seventy eight
when Captain James Cook arrived and he brought glass and
(02:17):
metal and nails and buttons and muskets and cannons, which
are two very importantly important things, and in return, Hawaii
had food like sweet potatoes and coconut and pork and
Comma Maya was actually one of the first people to
board Cook's ship, and Cook mentions him in a journal
He's really impressed with this intelligent, observant, inquisitive young man
(02:40):
and a fairly peaceful introduction of Europeans two Hawaiians. But
theft became a problem fairly early on, and after an
incident of a stolen boat, Cook and some of his
men tried to kidnap a chief for its ransom on
February fourteen, seventeen seventy nine, and they were killed with
daggers that they had given to the people, and the
(03:02):
Hawaiians took their weapons for their own. And these muskets
changed warfare for the Hawaiians, and merchants aided and abetted
the arms race because they could sell to one group,
and then they could sell to their enemies, and though
those groups might kill each other, the merchants would be
making a profit. Yeah, and Kamayama has really want to
(03:22):
realize the game changing importance of these weapons, and his
enemies realize it too, but it's it's his key to
ultimately unifying the islands, and he will ambush and steal
and kidnap to get these weapons. Kamama wasn't destined to
be king of anything, or at least that's not how
(03:43):
people thought of him. When King Colonio Poo died in
seventeen eighty two, Kamayama, his nephew, wasn't the first in
line to succeed. His cousin Kiela Oh was with his
cousin Koa also taking some lands and some power, and
instead Kamama was the guardian of the family war god,
which says something for how he was viewed. Of course,
(04:05):
the war god is not just any god, but this
is where the trouble really starts. There's a rebel chief
who dies, and it was Kayla's responsibility to offer his
body to the gods. But during the middle of the ceremony,
Kamameha stepped in and did it himself, and that was
very shocking. And it either was a really bold move,
(04:27):
like a bold power grab, or it was a major
sign of disrespect. But we don't know his motives. We
do know the result because from then on it's him
versus his two cousins. Ko makes the first move against him,
cutting down the coconut trees of Kamamea, which was a
big sign of disrespect, and Kamamea has to fight back.
(04:50):
So all other factions on the island pick sides, and
there was a battle in two kila Oh was killed
at this battle, and kamame A one over ka Hua,
but it wasn't over there. These fights would continue for
nine years with Hawaii locked in civil war, and we
have an interesting story that emerges that is a major
(05:12):
part of the Commameha legend. In a strike against a rival,
he kills women and children and innocent followers, and commandman
himself falls during this fight, and a fisherman hits him
over the head with a paddle and he doesn't die,
but he takes away a lesson from it, and that's
that you shouldn't attack peaceful people. And it ultimately leads
(05:34):
to a law in seventeen seven, the Law of the
Splintered Paddle, appropriately enough, which gave a certain amount of
protection to innocent civilians from their brutal overlords. But seventeen
ninety seven is skipping ahead a bit, So we're going
to go back near the beginning of our Civil War
in seventeen ninety, a ship called the Fair American arise
(05:56):
in Hawaii, and unbeknownst to the people on it, one
of the Hawaiian chiefs had had an altercation with the
occupants of a different European ship and vowed revenge on
the next one that came in, and Fair American, you
are that unlucky one. Everyone on the ship was beaten
to death after being thrown overboard, except a man named
Isaac Davis. But Davis wasn't alone on this rescue boat.
(06:20):
There had been another white man, captured, John Young, earlier
from another ship. So there are two of them, and
Cama Maya claims the rescue boat and the two men
and Davis and Young try to escape, but eventually they
become his advisers and his interpreters, and they teach him
about um muskets and cannons and foreign military strategy and
(06:41):
pass on these lessons to his men too. And this
gives Command Maha a huge leg up on the competition,
because if you're going to be fighting with European weapons,
you need to understand not only how to use them,
but understand European strategy comames next military engagement came Curtis
see of Kahi Kile arrival who may have been his father,
(07:04):
and he ruled Oah Who, Maui and Molokai, and he
wasn't someone to mess with. He got oah Who in
the first place by killing his foster son, torturing the
chiefs and then making a house frame of their bones.
In her outline Katie actually a skeleton of a house
with in parentheses ha ha an idea of our process there.
(07:27):
So this guy supports Koa, who is commands enemy on
the island of Hawaii, and Kamomea reaches a decision he
can beat Koa if he can just get rid of
this possible father figure and the support that he's giving
to his number one enemy. On his side, Kamama has
(07:48):
cannons and muskets, well trained men, and his own military genius,
so his prospects are good. And in sevent Kahekile leaves
Maui to visit Oah who perfect perfect opportunity, Chameamea invades
Maui and according to an article in military history, and
I'm going to quote his strategy better known in Hawaiian
(08:10):
chronicles than in Western history books predates the island topping
campaigns employed by General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea and
by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and the Central Pacific by
more than one hundred and fifty years. So he's using
very modern techniques and ultimately he conquers. But there's one problem.
While he was gone, Koa started causing trouble back home
(08:34):
on Hawaii. That's why you don't leave your island to
go attack someone else's, and the lesson we learned. So
they fight and Koa ends up giving up this round,
but while he's headed home, a volcano erupts and kills
a third of his men, which could not have been
a good omen, but he remains obstinate in his quest
(08:56):
for Hawaii. So it keeps going on and on for years,
and you have to wonder how it's going to resolve itself.
Kamehameha invites him to a meeting. You know, let's let's
get the two rival factions together. So Kayoa gets dressed
up and brings his canoe and his men to meet him,
But right after he arrives, he's blocked in the bay
(09:19):
and kamam As men are on the beach with muskets
and cannons. So Kamehameha asked Kayoa to step forward to
be greeted, and when he does, he's killed with a
spear by an ally of Kamamas and then his men
are killed. So we don't know whether it was Kamama's
idea or an independent action by his ally, but civil
(09:42):
war has now been quelled on the island of Hawaii
and Kamehameha has it all. So with the two original
heirs to the two cousins, Kamamea is finally in possession
of Hawaii, but he has some unfinished business, and that's
what we're going to get to next. So if you
remember Kamehamea's defeat of Maui, which you should because it
(10:03):
was about thirty seconds ago, Kaye Kile is not pleased
and he hatches a plan with the men of the
island of Kawaii to team up and strike against him
and Kahekile has canons now too, and his own white
European military adviser, so perhaps he has a chance, and
they engage in battle on the water. There are many deaths,
(10:26):
but neither side one, which you know, that's war for you.
But European influence is growing on these battle fields, and
the big example of this happens in about seventeen ninety
two when the Englishman William Brown offers to trade military
help military assistance to kah Kile for the island of Oahu.
(10:47):
So now Kamehameha's enemy has his own frigate, so he's
starting the skills are starting to tip a little here.
If Kamehameha looked like he was on the top at first,
it's not looking so great anymore. So he needs something
similar to face his rival, and he allies himself with
Captain George Vancouver, getting a ship in exchange for Hawaiian harbors,
(11:09):
but Vancouver won't give him any guns and tries to
get chiefs to reconcile, which is not the William Brown approach,
as we will see. Then we have a twist. Ka
Kile dies in sevente and now his sons take his place.
Kolonnikopola has Oahu and kaya Kulani has Kawaii, Molokai and Lenai.
(11:31):
But the two brothers fight as people tend to do
over their inheritances, and kaya Kulani decides to go to
war and attack his brother's island Oahu, but Kolonikpola gets
wind of this plan and waits for his brother, and
he has the advantage of Brown ship backing him up
with all that European weaponry, so he stays pretty nearby,
(11:54):
and so kaya Kulani loses and he's actually killed in
part because of Brown's cannons. And we learn another big
lesson in this podcast, which is not to wear bright
colors in battle because when you do, it makes it
a lot easier to hit you with a cannonball. Yeah, exactly.
So Kalona cap is not very grateful though about Brown's
(12:19):
helped all his great weaponry his vote, and he kills
Brown and puts his body on a pole, which is
interesting because this is kind of contemporary to a friend
revolution revolution style. But um next he takes all of
Brown's men and enlist them in his next cause, which
is to attack Kammeha. He's probably thinking he's on top
(12:42):
of the world right now, he's just killed his brother,
He's about to take over. No, no, he's not. It
doesn't last long. The Englishman take over the ship and
throw him overboard, and still ticked off, they make their
way to Hawaii and hand over all of the weapons
and Ammune to Kamamea. So everyone's angry at Kilanik. He
(13:04):
wasn't dead from getting cost overboard, asked repeatedly during this
is he dead? Is he dead? No? He never is this.
This guy is like a zombie or something in this podcast.
He has no European support, he has no weapons, and Kamama,
on the other hand, has all of these things along
with two ships. So Kamamea attacks in short order Maui,
(13:26):
Molokai and Lenai. But there is treachery afoot. His High
Chief Kayana is on the outs with the big guy,
so he isn't invited to key meetings, which displeases him greatly.
That's partly because he slept with kamame as wife, so
don't do that either. And he takes fifteen hundred of
(13:46):
his men and meets up with Kilanni Kopul and this
engagement is known as the Battle of New Uanu and
it happens in April sev and Kayana, who is you know?
He's been the high he has the number two. Yeah,
he has all this military knowledge. He knows what he's doing.
He's familiar with weaponry, he's familiar with how Kamehameha thinks
(14:09):
and how he fights, the places he might attack, how
he might do it. So he picks very strong physicians,
and for a while it seems like his defense is unbreakable.
But he too makes the fatal mistake of wearing bright
colors in war, and a cannon ball hits him too,
and when he dies, everything completely falls apart. Colonni copulas.
(14:32):
Men get their women and children to a safe place
before they face off with kamame As warriors, and they
have no chance. They lose badly, and while some escape,
most were driven off a seven hundred foot cliff. But
Klonipa does escape. Like I said, this guy does not die. Supposedly, Yeah,
(14:53):
he goes off to live as a disgraced person in
the mountains. So all that we have now for Commandma
to win is Kawaii, and that takes a little while.
There's a storm, there's a revolt, an epidemic, and so
it takes until about eighteen ten before the chief of
Kawaii actually gives it over to him. But that set
(15:15):
then the Hawaiian islands are unified, and he's king of
them all. Some call him Hawaii's strongest ruler because he
unified the islands. He managed to keep Hawaii's independence for
quite a long time, and he made his rule an
era of peace. And he was really a strong ruler,
especially compared to some of the rulers who followed him.
(15:36):
And we're going to talk a little bit about that
in another podcast. But he stood up to European influence
actually used it to his advantage. I mean, that's what
made him the strong ruler he was. But he didn't
give way at all. Now, he kept his islands wealthy
with a monopoly on sandalwood and on port duties. And
(15:57):
as far as his own rule, there were some laws,
but he also outlawed human sacrifice and let the islands
have their own governors. And we can't forget the rest
of his military legacy. According to one article we read,
he assembled the largest mobile force of warriors ever organized,
which is saying something. And he also developed some pretty
(16:19):
cool military technologies like artillery on double canoes, which sounds awesome.
And while we missed it this year, we're hoping to
catch this next year. Cama Maya Day June eleven, is
a state holiday in Hawaii, so that is your chance
to celebrate him, and as for the future of Hawaii's monarchy,
(16:40):
you'll have to wait for our next installment. And that
brings us to listener mail. So this message comes from
listener Auto and it was in response to our Emperor
Norton podcast, and he wrote, I very much enjoyed your
wreath of podcast about Joshua Norton, but was surprised as
there was no mention of his widow quote. Jose Syria
(17:04):
Syria was a drag queen working in San Francisco in
the nineteen fifties and sixties, and was an early proponent
of LGBT rights at a time when advocating for homosexuals,
much less being openly gay, was almost unheard of. He
specialized in performing parodic operas, with a particular favorite being
a parody of Buzz's Carmen. He was known as the
(17:25):
Nightingale of Montgomery Street, and he actually goes on to
proclaim himself her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose
the first the widow of Norton, which is pretty awesome
and we loved that. I'm sorry we didn't run into
that fact while we were researching and if you'd like
to email us with some extra little tidbits to that
(17:46):
A podcast we've done our email is History Podcast at
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(18:10):
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home page
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And Sarah was
in the mood for a little hot weather history this week,
so he decided to take on Hawaii and today's subject
(00:24):
is Kamehameha the Great, And have to start with a
little disclaimer. We had asked for some help with Hawaiian pronunciations,
so listener Jody was kind enough to call me and
give me her expertise. But any mistakes in this podcast
are mine and not hers or mine. So Kama was
born sometime around seventy eight, but he actually had a
(00:46):
different name, and it was Pie, which meant hard shelled
crab as a cancer I can sympathize. But his birth
carried an omen with it, and that's because there was
this bright star shining in the sky right before he
was born and it may have atually Ben Haley's comment,
and that's how we put his birth year sometime around
seventeen fifty eight because that's when the comment was around
(01:07):
um but some seers said that it pretended a conqueror
and the baby was almost killed because as we know,
most rulers don't like to hear that there's a little
baby being born. He might be the new king as Karen,
so it seemed like a good idea to get rid
of him before anything happened. But he was snuck away
and raised by another family and grows up and he
(01:32):
got his new name, Kamamea, which means the lonely one.
But eventually he was able to come out of hiding.
He'd made it very clear that he wanted to be
of service to the people who are in power, and
the higher ups to recognize that. And there were other
omens of his greatness. According to stories and not necessarily
to history, reminiscent of the sword and the stone, there
(01:53):
is something called the Naja stone, which weighs two and
a half tons, and the story went that if you
could move bit, you would be the person to unite
the islands, and supposedly Command Maya did. But in the
meantime we have a lot of other events going on,
and Europe had finally discovered Hawaii in seventeen seventy eight
when Captain James Cook arrived and he brought glass and
(02:17):
metal and nails and buttons and muskets and cannons, which
are two very importantly important things, and in return, Hawaii
had food like sweet potatoes and coconut and pork and
Comma Maya was actually one of the first people to
board Cook's ship, and Cook mentions him in a journal
He's really impressed with this intelligent, observant, inquisitive young man
(02:40):
and a fairly peaceful introduction of Europeans two Hawaiians. But
theft became a problem fairly early on, and after an
incident of a stolen boat, Cook and some of his
men tried to kidnap a chief for its ransom on
February fourteen, seventeen seventy nine, and they were killed with
daggers that they had given to the people, and the
(03:02):
Hawaiians took their weapons for their own. And these muskets
changed warfare for the Hawaiians, and merchants aided and abetted
the arms race because they could sell to one group,
and then they could sell to their enemies, and though
those groups might kill each other, the merchants would be
making a profit. Yeah, and Kamayama has really want to
(03:22):
realize the game changing importance of these weapons, and his
enemies realize it too, but it's it's his key to
ultimately unifying the islands, and he will ambush and steal
and kidnap to get these weapons. Kamama wasn't destined to
be king of anything, or at least that's not how
(03:43):
people thought of him. When King Colonio Poo died in
seventeen eighty two, Kamayama, his nephew, wasn't the first in
line to succeed. His cousin Kiela Oh was with his
cousin Koa also taking some lands and some power, and
instead Kamama was the guardian of the family war god,
which says something for how he was viewed. Of course,
(04:05):
the war god is not just any god, but this
is where the trouble really starts. There's a rebel chief
who dies, and it was Kayla's responsibility to offer his
body to the gods. But during the middle of the ceremony,
Kamameha stepped in and did it himself, and that was
very shocking. And it either was a really bold move,
(04:27):
like a bold power grab, or it was a major
sign of disrespect. But we don't know his motives. We
do know the result because from then on it's him
versus his two cousins. Ko makes the first move against him,
cutting down the coconut trees of Kamamea, which was a
big sign of disrespect, and Kamamea has to fight back.
(04:50):
So all other factions on the island pick sides, and
there was a battle in two kila Oh was killed
at this battle, and kamame A one over ka Hua,
but it wasn't over there. These fights would continue for
nine years with Hawaii locked in civil war, and we
have an interesting story that emerges that is a major
(05:12):
part of the Commameha legend. In a strike against a rival,
he kills women and children and innocent followers, and commandman
himself falls during this fight, and a fisherman hits him
over the head with a paddle and he doesn't die,
but he takes away a lesson from it, and that's
that you shouldn't attack peaceful people. And it ultimately leads
(05:34):
to a law in seventeen seven, the Law of the
Splintered Paddle, appropriately enough, which gave a certain amount of
protection to innocent civilians from their brutal overlords. But seventeen
ninety seven is skipping ahead a bit, So we're going
to go back near the beginning of our Civil War
in seventeen ninety, a ship called the Fair American arise
(05:56):
in Hawaii, and unbeknownst to the people on it, one
of the Hawaiian chiefs had had an altercation with the
occupants of a different European ship and vowed revenge on
the next one that came in, and Fair American, you
are that unlucky one. Everyone on the ship was beaten
to death after being thrown overboard, except a man named
Isaac Davis. But Davis wasn't alone on this rescue boat.
(06:20):
There had been another white man, captured, John Young, earlier
from another ship. So there are two of them, and
Cama Maya claims the rescue boat and the two men
and Davis and Young try to escape, but eventually they
become his advisers and his interpreters, and they teach him
about um muskets and cannons and foreign military strategy and
(06:41):
pass on these lessons to his men too. And this
gives Command Maha a huge leg up on the competition,
because if you're going to be fighting with European weapons,
you need to understand not only how to use them,
but understand European strategy comames next military engagement came Curtis
see of Kahi Kile arrival who may have been his father,
(07:04):
and he ruled Oah Who, Maui and Molokai, and he
wasn't someone to mess with. He got oah Who in
the first place by killing his foster son, torturing the
chiefs and then making a house frame of their bones.
In her outline Katie actually a skeleton of a house
with in parentheses ha ha an idea of our process there.
(07:27):
So this guy supports Koa, who is commands enemy on
the island of Hawaii, and Kamomea reaches a decision he
can beat Koa if he can just get rid of
this possible father figure and the support that he's giving
to his number one enemy. On his side, Kamama has
(07:48):
cannons and muskets, well trained men, and his own military genius,
so his prospects are good. And in sevent Kahekile leaves
Maui to visit Oah who perfect perfect opportunity, Chameamea invades
Maui and according to an article in military history, and
I'm going to quote his strategy better known in Hawaiian
(08:10):
chronicles than in Western history books predates the island topping
campaigns employed by General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea and
by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and the Central Pacific by
more than one hundred and fifty years. So he's using
very modern techniques and ultimately he conquers. But there's one problem.
While he was gone, Koa started causing trouble back home
(08:34):
on Hawaii. That's why you don't leave your island to
go attack someone else's, and the lesson we learned. So
they fight and Koa ends up giving up this round,
but while he's headed home, a volcano erupts and kills
a third of his men, which could not have been
a good omen, but he remains obstinate in his quest
(08:56):
for Hawaii. So it keeps going on and on for years,
and you have to wonder how it's going to resolve itself.
Kamehameha invites him to a meeting. You know, let's let's
get the two rival factions together. So Kayoa gets dressed
up and brings his canoe and his men to meet him,
But right after he arrives, he's blocked in the bay
(09:19):
and kamam As men are on the beach with muskets
and cannons. So Kamehameha asked Kayoa to step forward to
be greeted, and when he does, he's killed with a
spear by an ally of Kamamas and then his men
are killed. So we don't know whether it was Kamama's
idea or an independent action by his ally, but civil
(09:42):
war has now been quelled on the island of Hawaii
and Kamehameha has it all. So with the two original
heirs to the two cousins, Kamamea is finally in possession
of Hawaii, but he has some unfinished business, and that's
what we're going to get to next. So if you
remember Kamehamea's defeat of Maui, which you should because it
(10:03):
was about thirty seconds ago, Kaye Kile is not pleased
and he hatches a plan with the men of the
island of Kawaii to team up and strike against him
and Kahekile has canons now too, and his own white
European military adviser, so perhaps he has a chance, and
they engage in battle on the water. There are many deaths,
(10:26):
but neither side one, which you know, that's war for you.
But European influence is growing on these battle fields, and
the big example of this happens in about seventeen ninety
two when the Englishman William Brown offers to trade military
help military assistance to kah Kile for the island of Oahu.
(10:47):
So now Kamehameha's enemy has his own frigate, so he's
starting the skills are starting to tip a little here.
If Kamehameha looked like he was on the top at first,
it's not looking so great anymore. So he needs something
similar to face his rival, and he allies himself with
Captain George Vancouver, getting a ship in exchange for Hawaiian harbors,
(11:09):
but Vancouver won't give him any guns and tries to
get chiefs to reconcile, which is not the William Brown approach,
as we will see. Then we have a twist. Ka
Kile dies in sevente and now his sons take his place.
Kolonnikopola has Oahu and kaya Kulani has Kawaii, Molokai and Lenai.
(11:31):
But the two brothers fight as people tend to do
over their inheritances, and kaya Kulani decides to go to
war and attack his brother's island Oahu, but Kolonikpola gets
wind of this plan and waits for his brother, and
he has the advantage of Brown ship backing him up
with all that European weaponry, so he stays pretty nearby,
(11:54):
and so kaya Kulani loses and he's actually killed in
part because of Brown's cannons. And we learn another big
lesson in this podcast, which is not to wear bright
colors in battle because when you do, it makes it
a lot easier to hit you with a cannonball. Yeah, exactly.
So Kalona cap is not very grateful though about Brown's
(12:19):
helped all his great weaponry his vote, and he kills
Brown and puts his body on a pole, which is
interesting because this is kind of contemporary to a friend
revolution revolution style. But um next he takes all of
Brown's men and enlist them in his next cause, which
is to attack Kammeha. He's probably thinking he's on top
(12:42):
of the world right now, he's just killed his brother,
He's about to take over. No, no, he's not. It
doesn't last long. The Englishman take over the ship and
throw him overboard, and still ticked off, they make their
way to Hawaii and hand over all of the weapons
and Ammune to Kamamea. So everyone's angry at Kilanik. He
(13:04):
wasn't dead from getting cost overboard, asked repeatedly during this
is he dead? Is he dead? No? He never is this.
This guy is like a zombie or something in this podcast.
He has no European support, he has no weapons, and Kamama,
on the other hand, has all of these things along
with two ships. So Kamamea attacks in short order Maui,
(13:26):
Molokai and Lenai. But there is treachery afoot. His High
Chief Kayana is on the outs with the big guy,
so he isn't invited to key meetings, which displeases him greatly.
That's partly because he slept with kamame as wife, so
don't do that either. And he takes fifteen hundred of
(13:46):
his men and meets up with Kilanni Kopul and this
engagement is known as the Battle of New Uanu and
it happens in April sev and Kayana, who is you know?
He's been the high he has the number two. Yeah,
he has all this military knowledge. He knows what he's doing.
He's familiar with weaponry, he's familiar with how Kamehameha thinks
(14:09):
and how he fights, the places he might attack, how
he might do it. So he picks very strong physicians,
and for a while it seems like his defense is unbreakable.
But he too makes the fatal mistake of wearing bright
colors in war, and a cannon ball hits him too,
and when he dies, everything completely falls apart. Colonni copulas.
(14:32):
Men get their women and children to a safe place
before they face off with kamame As warriors, and they
have no chance. They lose badly, and while some escape,
most were driven off a seven hundred foot cliff. But
Klonipa does escape. Like I said, this guy does not die. Supposedly, Yeah,
(14:53):
he goes off to live as a disgraced person in
the mountains. So all that we have now for Commandma
to win is Kawaii, and that takes a little while.
There's a storm, there's a revolt, an epidemic, and so
it takes until about eighteen ten before the chief of
Kawaii actually gives it over to him. But that set
(15:15):
then the Hawaiian islands are unified, and he's king of
them all. Some call him Hawaii's strongest ruler because he
unified the islands. He managed to keep Hawaii's independence for
quite a long time, and he made his rule an
era of peace. And he was really a strong ruler,
especially compared to some of the rulers who followed him.
(15:36):
And we're going to talk a little bit about that
in another podcast. But he stood up to European influence
actually used it to his advantage. I mean, that's what
made him the strong ruler he was. But he didn't
give way at all. Now, he kept his islands wealthy
with a monopoly on sandalwood and on port duties. And
(15:57):
as far as his own rule, there were some laws,
but he also outlawed human sacrifice and let the islands
have their own governors. And we can't forget the rest
of his military legacy. According to one article we read,
he assembled the largest mobile force of warriors ever organized,
which is saying something. And he also developed some pretty
(16:19):
cool military technologies like artillery on double canoes, which sounds awesome.
And while we missed it this year, we're hoping to
catch this next year. Cama Maya Day June eleven, is
a state holiday in Hawaii, so that is your chance
to celebrate him, and as for the future of Hawaii's monarchy,
(16:40):
you'll have to wait for our next installment. And that
brings us to listener mail. So this message comes from
listener Auto and it was in response to our Emperor
Norton podcast, and he wrote, I very much enjoyed your
wreath of podcast about Joshua Norton, but was surprised as
there was no mention of his widow quote. Jose Syria
(17:04):
Syria was a drag queen working in San Francisco in
the nineteen fifties and sixties, and was an early proponent
of LGBT rights at a time when advocating for homosexuals,
much less being openly gay, was almost unheard of. He
specialized in performing parodic operas, with a particular favorite being
a parody of Buzz's Carmen. He was known as the
(17:25):
Nightingale of Montgomery Street, and he actually goes on to
proclaim himself her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose
the first the widow of Norton, which is pretty awesome
and we loved that. I'm sorry we didn't run into
that fact while we were researching and if you'd like
to email us with some extra little tidbits to that
(17:46):
A podcast we've done our email is History Podcast at
how stuff works dot com. It's not the only way
to keep in touch. We're on Twitter at missed in
History and we have a Facebook fan page. And if
you've like to check out a cool article that's related
to this podcast, look for the top ten game changing
military technologies on our shome page at www dot how
(18:10):
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com and
be sure to check out this dof you missed in
History glass blog on the how stuff works dot com
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