Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Hawaiian History in Northern California (April 2004) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: Hank Meals Publisher: Sutter County Historical Society Published: April 2004 # of Pages: 24 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2015-12-10 12:19:54 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:18:10 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:18:10

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 24  

control of all the Islands. Kamehameha . named his kingdom Hawai’i, after his home island. Pacific Trade Before Kamehameha’s unification of the Islands, chiefs were already involved in trading sandalwood to obtain Asian and western goods such as nails, cloth, tools and weapons. Sandalwood was in short supply by the late 1820s because of over harvesting. Due to its strategic location, Hawai’i became a center of activity for Pacific maritime trade. In the early 19"" century the Russians, English and American fur trade was flourishing on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America while hides and tallow were being shipped from California. Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders were highly valued as crewmembers on the ships that transported trade commodities. As early as 1787 there were Kanakas working in the maritime fur trade on the Northwest coast of America. That puts Kanakas in northern California 45 years before the discovery of gold on the American River. The Hudson’s Bay Company typically offered Kanakas a three-year contract that paid $10 a month. They employed over 500 Kanakas in 1838over half of the population at Fort Vancouver was Kanaka. Richard Henry Dana worked on boats transporting hides from the California coast in the 1830s. he told of his experiences in his very popular 1840 book, Two Years Before the Mast. Many of Dana’s fellow seamen were Kanakas whom he described as hard working, affectionate, intelligent and civilized. Sutter County Historical Society News Bulletin . would have trusted my life and my fortune in the hands of any one of these people; and certainly had . wished for a favor or act of sacrifice, . would have gone to them all, in turn, before . should have applied to one of my own countrymen. At about the same time vaqueros from Mexican California traveled to Hawai’i where they introduced cattle ranching. Whaleships from New England entered Hawaiian waters in 1819 they were the first of thousands to follow. Pacific whaling grew so rapidly that in 1846 there were 596 whaling ships docked in Hawai’i, mostly at Lahaina Bay, Maui. Bavarian merchant Edward Vischer was a passenger on the schooner California in 1842 when he made these observations: Kanakas have become almost indispensable for the ships along the coast of California. They are superior when it comes to the difficult task of handling boats. They row uniformly, steadily and untiringly and are extremely dexterous in bringing a sloop safely and undamaged through breakers which no European would dare to cross. These men are modest, supple and easily led by fairness and kindness. One of the unanticipated effects of foreign trade on the Hawaiian Islands was the devastation caused by infectious diseases. Formerly isolated, the Hawaiian people were unusually susceptible to infectious diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, April 2004