This is the second of a four part series on the history of Waikiki. Read Part 1 of this 4-part series. AHA will provide a depiction of the history of Waikiki, from ancient to modern times, at Chabot College in Hayward on November 21, 2009. Buy tickets today
Although our present day impression of Waikiki is as a spot exclusively for sun and fun, major events in Hawaiian history have also been played out at this enchanted place.
The Royal Connection
Waikiki was where one of the most historic battles Hawai'i's past took place. In 1795, an armada of thousands of men in canoes landed on the shores of Waikiki, under the direction of the future king of the unified Hawaiian islands, Kamehameha the Great. He gathered his forces and his generals there to defeat Chief Kalanikupule of O'ahu. The battle for O'ahu began at Kuhio Beach and proceeded to Punchbowl Crater. In the end, Kamehameha I succeeded in driving Kalanikupule and his army over the Pali cliffs at Nu'uanu, a victory which is still spoken of today, in memory of the fierceness of those O'ahu warriors who preferred to leap to their deaths rather than be taken captive.
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of Waikiki's lo'i (taro fields) in the early 1900's. |
After the victories in the battles in Nu'uanu Valley, Kamehameha and his army returned to Waikiki and settling there, made it the first capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Hawai'i.
In the area known as Pua'ali'li'i (which included the area now known as the Fort DeRussy Military Reservation east to Lewers and Helumoa Streets), Kamehameha later built a Western-style stone house. It was often occupied by his favorite wife Ka'ahumanu, and her retainers. In 1812, however, Kamehameha ended Waikiki's nearly 400-year reign as the capital of O'ahu – and its brief reign as the capital of the unified Hawaiian Kingdom – when he transferred his royal court from Kailua-Kona on Hawai'i Island to Honolulu in part because of the superior harbor there, but also because of the ready access it provided to foreign trade and goods.
The first elected king in Hawaiian history, King William Kana'ina Lunalilo (1835-1874), had a summer residence in the Waikiki area known as Kaluaokau (north of Pua'ali'li'i), where he reportedly enjoyed "the quiet life of Waikiki... living simply on fish and poi with his native friends." Lunalilo was called ke ali'i lokomaika'i or "the kind chief" because of his deeds on behalf of the Hawaiian people, such as establishing the leper colony at Kalaupapa, Moloka'i.
King Lunalilo left his house and property in Waikiki to his great friend, the Dowager Queen Emma, widow of King Kamehameha IV, who died in 1863.
Tourism Begins
The first hotels in Waikiki were bathhouses: the Long Branch Baths began to offer rooms for overnight stays in the 1880s. This bathhouse had a 40-ft. high toboggan slide which sent its riders one hundred feet over the water, like skipping stones. The first Waikiki beachfront hotel, the Park Beach, opened in 1888 and was actually a converted residence which offered 10 rooms for rent, each with a private bath and – a novelty for those days – a telephone.
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| Bathers
at Kawehewehe come to be healed of their ills (photo early 1900's). |
In 1893, famed Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson spent five weeks convalescing at the newly-opened hotel Sans Souci on the strand at the end of Waikiki. He praised the hotel for its "lovely scenery, quiet, pure air, clear sea water, good food, and heavenly sunsets... " Stevenson was also a frequent visitor to 'Ainahau, the Waikiki home of Governor Archibald Scott Cleghorn, and Chiefess Miriam Kapili Likelike, described as "the most beautiful estate in the Hawaiian Islands." Stevenson was fond of reading poetry to Princess Ka'iulani, Cleghorn and Likelike's beautiful daughter, at this expansive 10 acre estate which was filled with gardens, and included three lily ponds, 500 coconut trees, 14 varieties of hibiscus, 8 kinds of mango trees, as well as a giant banyan tree.
Just as the days of guest houses, hotels, and foreign visitors were beginning, the days of the opulent estates and beachside homes for Hawai i's royalty were coming to an end. On January 17, 1893, Hawai'i's last Queen, Lili'uokalani, was deposed in a coup instigated by a group of American businessmen as the U. S. Navy and Marines landed in Honolulu. Within a year, the Kingdom of Hawai'i was proclaimed a Republic, and the rule of the Hawaiian monarchs was brought – by force and under protest by the Hawaiian people and their monarch – to an end.
- by Patricia Ravarra
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