News from Molokai
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News from Molokai News from Molokai Letters between Peter Kaeo & Queen Emma 1873-1876 Edited with Introduction and Notes by Alfons L. Korn The University Press of Hawaii • Honolulu The photographs of Peter Kaeo and Queen Emma, and Emma’s letter to Peter of May io, 1876, are reproduced herein by permission of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Peter’s letter to Emma of July 7, 1874, is reproduced herein by courtesy of the Archives of the State of Hawaii. The pen-and-ink drawing, Honolulu Harbor, 1871, by Alfred Clint is reproduced on the endsheets by courtesy of The Hawaiian Historical Society. Copyright © 1976 by The University Press of Hawaii All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Manufactured in the United States of America Composition by Asco Trade Typesetting Limited, Hong Kong Book and jacket design by Steve Reoutt Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kaeo, Peter, 1836-1880. News from Molokai, letters between Peter Kaeo and Queen Emma, 1873-1876. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Kaeo, Peter, 1836-1880. 2. Emma, consort of Kamehameha IV, King of the Hawaiian Islands, 1836- 1885. I. Emma, consort of Kamehameha IV, King of the Hawaiian Islands, 1836-1885, joint author. II. Korn, AlfonsL. III. Title. DU627.17.K28A44 996.9'02'0922 76-16823 ISBN 0-8248-0399-X To Laura Contents Preface ix Introduction xi THE CORRESPONDENCE Part One. A Long Farewell, 1873 5 Part Two. Torches in a Cloud, 1874 161 Part Three. The Release, 1875-1876 275 Epilogue 321 Appendix 325 Indexes 333 Preface his is not a history book, but it is nevertheless about Hawaiian history: the three critical years, from 1873 to 1876, that marked T the end o f the reign o f King Lunalilo and saw the beginning— the uncertain beginning— o f the reign o f King Kalakaua. As the title indicates, the volume is made up o f a bundle o f old letters exchanged between Peter Kaeo, a leprosy victim of Molokai, and his cousin Kaleleonalani, Queen Emma. If one is seeking a label, the book might be described as a biographical study. The correspondence that resulted from Peter’s anxious exile to Kalaupapa, and from Emma’s devotion to his welfare and hoped-for recovery, constitutes a com- pellingly authentic record o f their personal lives during this three-year period. In addition, as an account o f the affairs o f the Hawaiian Kingdom during the same interim, as viewed through the writers’ Hawaiian eyes and as expressed in their own words— a reflection o f island politics, dynastic intrigues, interethnic rivalries and animosities, American- Hawaiian diplomatic strains and frustrations during a time o f grave national crisis— the 122 letters surely have no close counterpart else where in Hawaiian historical archives. I have described in the Appendix how a visitor from New York City, back in the 1930s, while rummaging in a Honolulu pawnshop in search of old sheet music, discovered a mass of Queen Emma’s private cor respondence and family papers. I have likewise relegated to the Appendix the complicated story o f how this hoard of manuscript materials, including the Peter Kaeo-Queen Emma letters, after being lost sight of, came finally into the possession o f the Archives o f Hawaii. Here I must thank a number o f persons as well as several institutions for their assis tance in making this book possible. M y chief indebtedness is to the State Archives and its staff, as acknowl edged further in the Appendix. I am very grateful also to the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum for allowing me access to several indispensable manuscript collections at an early stage o f my study; also for permission to publish Queen Emma’s important letter to Peter Kaeo o f May 10, 1876, the final letter o f the Molokai correspondence. M y thanks go also to Mr. and Mrs. W. Thomas Davis, o f Beverly Hills, California, X • PR EFA C E for their kind permission to publish nine letters from Peter Kaeo to Queen Emma now deposited at the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society Library. For help especially in connection with newspaper sources and other references, I am greatly indebted to the past and present staff o f the Hawaii and Pacific Collection, Gregg M. Sinclair Library, University of Hawaii. Acknowledgments and special thanks are also due the following for their help o f various sorts and at important stages, from first to last: Janet Azama, Dorothy B. Barrere, Janyce Blair, Agnes Conrad, Gavan Daws, John Paul Engelcke, L. L. Langness, Elizabeth Larsen, Mary Kawena Pukui, Jane Silverman, Nancy Sutterfield, Margaret Titcomb. August 1975 Alfons L. Korn Honolulu Introduction hen Isabella Bird, the Victorian lady-traveler, was strolling along the beach at Lahaina, Maui, one blazing day in late W March o f 1873, she happened to glance across the water to where the mountainous island o f Molokai “ floated like a great blue morning-glory on the yet bluer sea.” Her sudden vision, Isabella Bird instantly realized, was an illusion, enchanting only at a distance: “ for its blue petals enfold 400 lepers doomed to endless isolation, and 300 more are shortly to be weeded out and sent thither.” Among that desolate company o f new arrivals at the Kalaupapa settlement was one Hawaiian of whose existence Miss Bird at that time probably had not yet heard. He was Peter Kaeo, a descendant o f ancient kings of Kauai and a great-grandson of Keli‘imaika‘i, a younger half- brother of Kamehameha I (175 ?-1819), the founder of a united Hawaiian Kingdom. He arrived at Kalaupapa in late June o f 1873, at the age o f thirty-seven, in the same year though not in the same month as Father Damien. In the newspapers o f Sydney and San Francisco, Molokai in the 1870s had already achieved geographical distinction as the “ Leper Island o f the Pacific.” Meanwhile, in the weekly press o f Honolulu, in English as well as Hawaiian, the Honorable Peter Young Kaeo (1836- 1880) won a modest local fame. People sometimes spoke o f him as the alii, the high chief or prince, among the inmates o f the settlement. It is characteristic o f Peter Kaeo, especially during his stay on Molokai, that he preferred to think of himself by the name o f an aristocratic ancestor, Kekuaokalani, a sacerdotal chief who had been chosen by Kamehameha I to be one o f his two heirs to the Kingdom. Not long before his death, Kamehameha had assigned to his nephew, Kekuao kalani, the guardianship of the war-god, Kuka'ilimoku. The old con Queror wanted Kekuaokalani, in a priestly and military capacity, to rule jointly over the islands with his son, Liholiho, who would bear the dynastic title o f Kamehameha II. However, because o f a dispute with Liholiho over an ancient tabu— the ‘ai kapu, regulating the eating cus toms o f the sexes— Kekuaokalani became a rebel. He fiercely opposed the revolutionary innovations embraced by his cousin, and especially by their sacrilegious female relations, that women should be allowed to eat freely o f the same food and at the same tables as the men. In 1819, on xii • INTRODUCTION the Kona Coast o f the island o f Hawaii, the conservative o f the old order who was Peter’s granduncle died bravely in battle for the sake o f the traditional Hawaiian religion. Peter was allied also by differing and in some instances tenuous degrees o f family relationship with most o f the other high chiefs and chiefesses of his own generation: King Lunalilo, David Kalakaua, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, and Lili'u Kamaka'eha Paki Dominis, better known as Lili'uokalani. Queen Lili'uokalani’s short tormented reign, which ended in her overthrow in 1893, marked the final decline and fall of the century-old Hawaiian monarchy. But perhaps Peter’s prime claim to historical notice is that since their earliest days together in Honolulu, when they had been neighbors and schoolmates, Peter was ever after a favorite companion and protege o f his cousin, Queen Emma, the consort o f Kamehameha IV. Social oblivion followed by a harrowing form o f death, sooner or later, was the common lot o f Molokai lepers during the later nineteenth century. The fate o f Peter Kaeo, however, turned out to be an exception to the rule. The Hawaiian Board o f Health, reconsidering earlier and more pessimistic conclusions, suddenly decided in 1876 that Peter Kaeo’s case had been successfully arrested: just how or why, none o f the records today actually reveal. At any rate, the board straightway granted Peter a release and he was permitted, under certain tolerant restrictions, to return to his home in Honolulu. After his astonishing release from the settlement, he lived very Quietly for four more years in the capital city o f the Kingdom, near Queen Emma. He died on November 26, 1880, after only a few days o f unspecified illness, not necessarily the con sequence o f his leprosy, and was buried at the Royal Mausoleum in the company o f various earlier kings, queens, chiefs, chiefesses, and other dignitaries o f the nation. During the term o f his segregation on Molokai, Peter wrote numerous letters to his friends and relations, especially to those in Honolulu.