Today—28 June—in Hawaiian History [1894]: Ka ʻEkalesia o Waineʻe (Waineʻe Church) in Lāhainā, Maui burns to the ground. Founded in 1823 by order of Queen Keōpūolani as the first Christian house of worship on Maui, this historic church regularly drew crowds of 3,000 or more at sabbath services. The Queen, and many other important aliʻi nui are buried there today. One of the many truly exciting things about the field of Hawaiian history today is how the relatively recent inclusion of Hawaiian-language primary sources has both broadened our knowledge of, and given deeper context to, so many events and people in Hawaiʻis rich past. The story of the Wainee Church fire of 1894 is a great example. For over one hundred years, the universally accepted story of the fire was that an angry mob of Royalists, in support of Queen Liliuokalani, had set fire to the church. That story came from a single letter, written two years after the fire, from a staunch pro-annexation advocate. New research in the Hawaiian-language newspapers and other archives has revealed over a dozen sources, written by witnesses the day of the fire and soon after, that all reveal the presence of an accidental fire, started by the caretaker of the church who was burning rubbish in the church yard. After an ember alighted on the churchʻs thatched roof, he could only watch as the halepule was engulfed. By the time the sheriff and others arrived, it was too late. The proponents of the minority provisional government that had overthrown the Hawaiian monarchy were greatly outnumbered and had little support among the general populace. In six days, on 4 July, 1894, they would be declaring a Republic of Hawaii and when the main church in town burned, they took the opportunity to assign blame to the Queens supporters. Their story remained the only one known until recently. To find more interesting stories pulled from the Hawaiian-language newspapers, with English-language summaries, check out the Nūpepa blog: nupepa-hawaii/ For access to Hawaiian-language newspapers, check out Ulukau: nupepa.org/gsdl2.5/cgi-bin/nupepa?l=hawww
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:40:04 +0000
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