Kamehameha: An Amazing American?

[Miulang]

Yup. That's what a story in the Library of Congress calls the ali'i who brought the 'aina together. Kamehameha is lumped together with Buffalo Bill Cody, Merriwether Lewis & William Clark, Harry Houdini, John Philip Sousa and others.
Boy did the historians get that wrong! The kanaka maoli should lodge an official protest with the Library of Congress about the gross misrepresentation of King Kamehameha has an American. He was Hawaiian. Period. :mad:

Kamehameha was born and died well before Hawai'i was annexed by the United States in 1898. From that point forward, anyone born in Hawai'i was considered an American; not before.

Here's a portion of an editorial that appears in this month's edition of the Northwest Hawai'i Times, which is distributed around the state for local expats who live in the area:

"For Hawai'i's people, June is the month to celebrate King Kamehameha. Those of us from the islands whether or not we are native Hawaiian, know all about this great man. From the time we were children, we have made lei to decorate his statues, learned songs to remember his accomplishments and every June 11th, celebrate him with parades and other festivities. There are schools, highways, hotels and even a drive-in on O'ahu named for him! All of us from his home island of Hawai'i are surrounded by Kamehameha's history, from the Naha stone in front of the Hawai'i County Library in Hilo that reminds us of his strength, to heiau on the Kohala and Kona side of the island that show us his resolve.

So when I stumbled onto the Library of Congress website that listed King Kamehameha as "An Amazing American", I sat straight up. Kamehameha an American! While everyone born in Hawai'i since 1898 has American citizenship, I had never in my life thought of King Kamehameha as..an American.
I took the time to read over the website, and the more I read, the more I noticed the gaps and negative connotations in the story of this famous Hawaiian as presented by the Library of Congress. As I dwelled on "America's Story of Amazing Americans", I became uncomfortable, not only because of its historical inaccuracies, but because of the political implications....

"go to the website to see what the Library of Congress as written about King Kamehameha for young people with web access from all around the world....

"My reaction to America's Story has nothing to do with the Akaka bill or Hawaiian sovereignty; it is, instead, about misrepresentation and not telling the whole story. Does anyone think Queen Lili'uokalani thought of herself as American? So why the King? While I would never presume to speak for Kamehameha, my guess is that he would not have considered himself anything other than Hawaiian....

"Do me a favor. Go to the Library of Congress website (www.americaslibrary.gov) and read for yourself about King Kamehameha, "An Amazing American." Then tell me what you think...

--Rochelle delaCruz, Editor, Northwest Hawai'i Times (rochdelacruz@msn.com)

[DaveNSoKona]

Reported error as "Other" Report Error (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/about/error.html)

[kimo55]

"Do me a favor. Go to the Library of Congress website (www.americaslibrary.gov) and read for yourself about King Kamehameha, "An Amazing American." Then tell me what you think...


direct URL, if you would, please?

[Miulang]

direct URL, if you would, please?
Ho, da lazy buggah you, yeah? :p
Only because you said, "please", start here (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/aa/leaders/kamehameh).

Miulang

[kimo55]

Ho, da lazy buggah you, yeah? :p
Only because you said, "please", start here (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/aa/leaders/kamehameh).

Miulang
aaack!
no not at all lazy.
Spent all of ten minutes wading through the returned links after I typed in "Kamehameha amazing american". All for naught.

There were 775 pages with these three words, and I'll prefer to have the direct url which you found, rather than waste any more time slogging through the site. Thank You, very much.

[Miulang]

aaack!
no not at all lazy.
Spent all of ten minutes wading through the returned links after I typed in "Kamehameha amazing american". All for naught.

There were 775 pages with these three words, and I'll prefer to have the direct url which you found, rather than waste any more time slogging through the site. Thank You, very much.
Heh. And can you imagine if an elementary school aged kid tried to navigate that website? Eesh. Who designed it anyway, a (hehheh) monkey??? It's the most convoluted site I've seen in quite a while.

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

But hey Miulang...you did it...Kimo...well at least you get an "A" for effort :D
I think I'd have gotten an "F" because I stay one lazy buggah.

[Miulang]

But hey Miulang...you did it...Kimo...well at least you get an "A" for effort :D
I think I'd have gotten an "F" because I stay one lazy buggah.
Eh Craig, I wen give Kimo credit, yeah? At least he wen try...not like you. Good ting your sons go Kam School. Ask 'em if Kamehameha was one American and see what they going say. ;)

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

Eh Miulang...one ting about my family...I'm the only non-native in it being 100% Japanese. My KSBE kids tell me not to say Kam School cuz it ain't Chinese!

Ho! Pardon me! :eek:

Funny da kids at Kamehameha won't say Kam school but will say Keku Gym instead of Kekuhaupio. I tell them: What now da gym one Japanese place?

[Miulang]

Eh Miulang...one ting about my family...I'm the only non-native in it being 100% Japanese. My KSBE kids tell me not to say Kam School cuz it ain't Chinese!

Ho! Pardon me! :eek:

Funny da kids at Kamehameha won't say Kam school but will say Keku Gym instead of Kekuhaupio. I tell them: What now da gym one Japanese place?
Good one, Craig! ROFLMAO. :D

Miulang

[DaveNSoKona]

FYI - I got a reply back from Library of Congress web site:

"Thank you for visiting the Library of Congress web site.

It appears that you are correct. King Kamehameha I was born in Hawaii and
reigned before it became the 50th state. We have forwarded this
information to the staff working with the America's Library web site. Any
changes or corrections will be made as soon as possible.

Best wishes,

The Digital Reference Team/am"

[craigwatanabe]

OH YEAH!!!! Score one for the Gipper!!


Let's just hope they'll actually do something about it now!! Right on man...YOU DID GOOD! :)

[Glen Miyashiro]

If King Kamehameha I is an amazing American, then so is Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas' daddy, who didn't want his little girl to have anything to do with that lousy English colonist John Smith.

[pzarquon]

It appears that you are correct. King Kamehameha I was born in Hawaii and reigned before it became the 50th state. We have forwarded this information to the staff working with the America's Library web site. Any changes or corrections will be made as soon as possible.Good on you, Dave. It's fun and frustrating to point out gross misunderstandings of island history and culture, but a lot of times those errors and that ignorance is not malicious. Go right to the source and see what's up.

I'm confident that King Kamehameha was selected with the best of intentions. Even if the current entry stands with a prologue that notes that he never was an American, that's progress to me.

[waioli kai]

... the gross misrepresentation of King Kamehameha as an American. He was Hawaiian.

Kamehameha: An Amazing Hawaiian? Amazing like? many Euro-American militarist, territorial aggressors of his time in history, except that he warred upon his own race, killing his own kind in order to aggrandize his own personal wealth and power.

Meet Amazing Americans (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/aa/leaders) americaslibrary.gov
Leaders & Statesmen
They led this country to greatness in many ways.
King Kamehameha I was a smart ruler who amassed a fortune and made Hawaii a desirable prize for foreign explorers. He was the one who united all the Hawaiian islands and founded the royal dynasty that ruled them for years. He established a government monopoly in the sandalwood trade, and he collected duties (charges) from visiting ships. Kamehameha was a strong and able king, but his successors were not as strong as him and ultimately were not able to resist foreigner efforts to control the islands.

"Kamehameha I ... a smart ruler who amassed a fortune and made Hawaii a desirable prize for foreign explorers. " Kamehameha I amassed his fortune and power at the expense of virtually all other native islanders in the island chain, thereby creating only a semblance of cultural and social strength, when in fact Kamehameha's warring upon and subjugation of his own race of people weakened the native populations of the islands.

[craigwatanabe]

Waioli Kai's got a point there. Amazing is the fact that Kamehameha the Great did in fact kill off the leaders of the neighboring islands either thru war or by misleading them into fanciful feasts. His conquering of the island of Oahu was thru the help of the white man himself with their mighty cannons that put the Oahu warriors on the run up to the Pali with Kamehameha's warriors in quick pursuit.

His sandlewood trade put the monarchy in debt to the white man all the while enslaving the common Hawaiian to a life of hard labor to bring in this high commodity from the mountains to the shores. The lifestyle of the common Kanaka Maoli wasn't the pristine values that most seem to embrace, it was a life of misery under a dictator with the help of the white man.

Kamehameha the Great really should be likened to the Huns where they pillaged villages and overpowered their adversaries thru brute force and merciless killings of any who stood in his path.

His ability to unite the islands came with a lot of bloodshed and brutal death to those who resisted. When it was all said and done, the white man with their military might and shrewd business tactics allowed the entire island kingdom to fall first thru economic failure then thru military power. The Kingdom of Hawaii didn't have a chance.

Right up to FDR when the Japanese sent the President of the United States of America before the bombing of Pearl Harbor a letter demanding their removal of U.S. presence in the Pacific to include Subic Bay and Pearl Harbor. FDR refused and for good cause. For if he did, Hawaii would be an extension of the Japan Empire and the fate of the world would have been much different today.

Hawaii's strategic location would have made Hawaii a battlezone for many countries to capture as their pawn.

This is where Kamehameha's vision to unite the islands under one rule probably saved these islands from various ownership by many nations thru bloodshed, and that's the only reason why I believe his ultimate vision was a good one for the sake of the islands as either way one nation or another would have assumed their might over the islands.

As much as I detest the way our government overthrew the Hawaiian Monarchy, I feel it was the most humane way as felt by Queen Liliokalani. If it were Japan, many would have been tortured as in the likes of the Phillipines. The Kanaka Maoli are survivors of these overthrows by virtue of the Queen's dictate to her people. As in the song Silent Running...Teach the children so that one day they may rise up. The keiki of the Monarchy of Hawaii have grown and have spoken and they will make their ancestors proud again.

To sum it up, it took a mighty man that sacrificed many lives for the sake of a united kingdom...it took a mighty woman that sacrificed her kingdom for the sake of preserving the lives of her people. One merciless...the other merciful. So who in fact is the greater person? Long live the Queen!