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  

mumps, measles, whooping cough, venereal diseases and influenza. Their population decreased from an estimated 200,000 in 1778 to 54,000 by 1876. Royalty was not spared eitherwhen King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu traveled to England in late 1823 they both contracted measles and died in July of the following year. At the same time that disease was ravaging the general population, Hawaiian men were being offered employment on foreign vessels where they traveled far from home for long periods of time. To stem the flow of emigration from the Islands the Hawaiian legislature passed a law on May 4, 1841 requiring written consent and a $200 bond for employment at sea. Under the terms of the agreement Hawaiian sailors were supposed to return to Hawai’i within two years or the employer was subject to a $400 fine in practice the law was unmanageable. The Kanakas Who Accompanied John Sutter John Sutter was the first European to settle in what we now call the Sacramento Valley. Originally from Switzerland, he came to the Mexican province of Alta California in 1839 after spending five months in Hawai’i. Mataio Kekuanoa, the Governor of Oahu, gave Sutter permission to take ten Kanakas, one of whom was an Ali’i, to California. The Ali’i were a class of chiefs and it was unusual for one to travel and work with ordinary Kanakas. The Hawaiians were to be paid $10 a month and after three years Sutter was obligated to send them back to Hawai’i, if they so desired. Sutter arrived in Yerba Buena (San Francisco) in 1839 after a visit to Sutter County Historical Society News Bulletin the capital in Monterey where the Mexican Governor of Alta California gave Sutter a land grant of eleven square leagues (about 48,000 acres) in the Sacramento Valley. Regarding his companions, Sutter said, “I have brought with me five White men and eight Kanakas, two of them married.” Sutter’s Fort, completed in 1846, was considered an outpost of civilization and it was the first destination of those who came to California by way of Oregon or across the plains. With the labor of local Indians, Sutter planned to create a vast agricultural empire that he would call New Helvetia. Sutter’s enslavement and harsh treatment of the indigenous people is well documented. Governor Alvarado, himself, had to persuade Sutter to stop “the kidnapping operations” in order to prevent “a general uprising of Indians within the Northern District under Sutter’s jurisdiction as a Mexican Official.” Sutter’s plans were dashed in an era of lawlessness that began in 1848 when gold was discovered on his land on the American River. The Hawaiians who accompanied Sutter to California included his foreman, and right-hand man, Kanaka Harry, and a man called Maintop who was the helmsman aboard Sutter’s Pinnacle, purchased in Yerba Buena. Also in the group were Harry’s brother, who later drowned in Suisun Bay, Sam Kapu and his wife Elena, and a man named Manaiki. Coincidentally there was also a woman named Manaiki (also spelled Mannawitte or Manauiki) among the group. According to Heinrich Lienhard, who lived at Sutter’s Fort from 1846 to 1850, Manaiki spent “many years” with Sutter and bore him several children, none of whom lived April 2004