Hawaii History:
(from “History of the Catholic Mission in the Hawaiian Islands” by Father Reginald Yzendoorn, SS.CC., Honolulu Star-Bulletin Ltd., Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, 1927)
(continued from June 12th)
Having re-discovered the three northernmost islands of the Hawaiian Islands in January, 1778, Captain Cook left these islands for less agreeable fields of discovery. But when at the approach of the winter season, his explorations in the Arctic regions were arrested by the ice-fields, he determined to pass the winter in the sunny and hospitable islands he had recently discovered. He arrived off the northeast coast of Maui on the 26th of November and beating about for a considerable time, arrived finally at Kealakekua Bay on the Southwest coast of the Big Island, January 17, 1779. His adventures there have often been told; it hence suffices here to remark that on the 14th of February he received there the well deserved reward for his impiety, meanness, injustice and cruelty. He was killed by the natives in an attempt to capture their king.
However, the news of the discovery spread rapidly, and soon the “Sandwich Islands” as Cook had named the Hawaiian Archipelago, became the rendezvous of the fur-traders who about that time began to cross the North-Pacific.
(to be continued)
Blessings, pono and pule!
Fr. Brian Guerrini, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai