Reviews for Early Mapping of Hawaii

The average rating for Early Mapping of Hawaii based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-10-14 00:00:00 Julie Cavaliero Noenoe K. Silva, a professor of political science and Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii, successfully unearths the veiled history of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) resistance to colonialism. Within Aloha Betrayed, critical interpretation of native Hawaiian newspapers, petitions, mele (chants), and poetry accurately deconstruct the myth that the Kanaka Maoli "passively accepted the erosion of their culture and the loss of their nation." These sources, long overlooked or grossly misinterpreted, narrate a story of resistance while also contesting native Hawaiian misrepresentation by both colonists and colonial historians of Hawaii. Silva cites severe "gaps" and "erasures" in the current historiography of colonial Hawaii, which "justifies the continued occupation of Hawaii by the United States today." Thus, in neglecting native Hawaiian sources, and misinterpreting the Hawaiian language, a one-sided sense of colonial Hawaii emerges. Silva traces Kanaka Maoli resistance from Captain James Cook's landing in 1778 to Hawaii's official annexation to the United States in 1898. From mass death to the destabilizing forces of capitalism, Silva characterizes the pervasive nature of colonialism, and its effects on the indigenous population. In particular, this discursive struggle is highlighted in the print media, specifically within newspapers. Silva presents disregarded texts from the independent Hawaiian newspaper, the Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika, in order accentuate a key medium in Kanaka Maoli cultural preservation and colonial resistance. According to Silva, this colonial struggle was often "fought with paper and ink", as indigenous Hawaiians sought to inform their peers and preserve their traditions through the printing press. Silva continues to detail the preservationist and resistance efforts of King Kalakaua, Queen Lili'uokalani, and key political organizations during the late nineteenth century. In preserving the genealogy of the kingdom and the heritage of the hula and mele, these key actors fostered a collective identity among native Hawaiians as independent from their colonizers. Additionally, as leaders from the ruling class, their authority directly challenged colonialism, racism, and the misrepresentation of their culture. Yet through these specific agents of resistance Silva neglects reference to the broader indigenous population. Apart from the petition signed by a substantial portion of the Kanaka Maoli, the opinions and opposition efforts of the lower indigenous classes are left in question. Furthermore, in Silva's endeavor to inject Kanaka voice within the narrative, the structural cohesion of Aloha Betrayed falls short. Long discourses in native Hawaiian, frequently interposed within the larger chronicle, are both indecipherable and impractical to the average reader who is illiterate in the language. Thus, in an attempt to reinforce the Kanaka voice and promote continued analysis of sources, Aloha Betrayed often makes for a disjointed read. Yet despite these criticisms, Silva successfully chronicles a history long distorted and ignored. Through thoughtful analysis of native Hawaiian sources, a nuanced understanding of Kanaka Maoli history as one of resistance emerges, while also providing substantial groundwork for future analysis and reinterpretation of colonial Hawaiian history.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-04-24 00:00:00 Aron Timur Historians and scholars have written much about the colonization and annexation of Hawaii. In this book, however, Silva considers the role of native resistance throughout the process by reading and including Hawaiian language poems and publications. This book is not just about history, but about the historiography of colonization. Things I learned: 1. The Hawaiian people suffered a huge population loss due to disease directly following first contact with Europeans. Although I knew this was the case, I hadn't considered just how massive the loss of life was and how it began the process of dissolving the native social structures. 2. Bisexuality was common among native Hawaiians before contact with missionaries. 3. The missionaries (and their children) did more than just dismantle the Hawaiian ways of life by enforcing the replacement of Hawaiian spirituality and language; they intentionally became plantation owners and politicians specifically to make a bunch of money and subjugate the native Hawaiians. Silva shows several examples of missionaries who came to Hawaii under the pretense of spreading Christianity only to realize they could make more money taking land and setting up sugar plantations.