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2min chapter
167. Paradise Lost: The Taking of Hawaii
Empire
Demographic Transformation and Treaty Impacts in Hawaii
This chapter examines the impact of European settlement on Hawaii's population, particularly through the lens of introduced diseases that caused a dramatic decline in the native populace. It also explores the influx of immigrant workers and discusses key historical treaties alongside the background of Queen Liliʻuokalani.
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Speaker 2
The other thing that's happening, which I think is important, is that at this point, it's not just pineapples and sugar going out. You've got lots of workers coming in to work this. Plus, as with the stories we've heard in North America, diseases brought by Europeans, including incredible scourge of venereal diseases.
Speaker 1
But also smallpox, which is devastating. So when Cook lands on Hawaii, the population of Hawaii is 300,000 Hawaiians. 300,000,
Speaker 2
as much as that?
Speaker 1
300,000. 75 years later, the population is 71,000. And that is a population that has been ravaged by sicknesses that people have no natural defence against.
Speaker 2
And then to take the numbers forward, thanks to the influx of workers in these plantations coming from Japan, China, the Philippines, Korea, and Portugal, the proportion of the native Hawaiians that originally made up 100% initially, then 97% as late as 1853. By 1923, the native Hawaiians have dropped only 16% of the population.
Speaker 1
So
Speaker 2
you've had a complete re-peopling of these islands in that time.
Speaker 1
Right. So against this backdrop and this treaty of reciprocity that we were talking about, that America and Hawaii sign, which actually will become, although nobody knows it at the time, the first step towards annexation. Nobody saw it at the time. They thought it's get rich quick. We'll all make money. Everyone will be happy, happy, happy, joy, joy. Lilloo Kalani. So she's born actually in a traditional grass house on September the 2nd, 1838. And her parents were, they're not royalty. They're not of the royal family, but they are nobles. So, you know, I suppose you'd put them down to, if we have the equivalent here, you know, lords and ladies. Let's say that way. They're not blood relatives of the crown.
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