Preface
The Hawaiian National Bibliography is intended to be a comprehensive, annotated record of all printed works on some aspect of the political, religious, social, cultural, and scientific history of the Hawaiian Islands from 1780 to 1900. That is, from the first printed notice mentioning the Islands in a German periodical of January 10, 1780, to the beginning of the twentieth century.
The inclusion of "National" in the title alerts the reader that this bibliography covers the period when the Islands were a politically distinct entity. Materials from the period of first Western contact by Captain James Cook, the monarchy, the Provisional Government, and the Republic of Hawaii are all examined in depth. Although sovereignty was relinquished upon annexation to the United States of America on August 12, 1898, there was yet a period of transition, as all government offices and functions were being restructured, and the laws were being modified to bring them into conformity with those of the United States. For this reason, a concluding date of 1900 seemed logical, neatly ending 120 years of dramatic, often tragic history.
This first volume covers the period of 1780 to 1830. This latter year was a year of transition. The exploratory voyages of the North Pacific had largely concluded. The monarchy was slowly achieving a stability that it had not enjoyed previously, and laws and regulations were being issued as printed documents. Even the old chiefly rule was coming to a conclusion. Kaahumanu, who had dominated the political history of the Islands for more than a decade, would live less than two more years and was by 1830 withdrawing from power as the young King Kamehameha III assumed majority. With the arrival of a new press and better equipment, 1830 marks commencement of publication of a large number of works from the Mission Press in Honolulu.
The inclusion of seemingly ephemeral items marks something of a departure from the usual limits of a subject bibliography of this extent. This inclusion seemed necessary because many of these fugitive sources of information represent (as, for example, the infamous "Olowalu Massacre") the only eyewitness or contemporary account of an important event, a voyage, or an individual important in history, and their exclusion would seriously disadvantage the researcher. Newspaper and periodical accounts, single-sheet publications such as broadsides, circulars, playbills, and handbills are therefore included as found through this early period. The inclusion of these is on a selective basis, and after 1830, as information on Hawaii increased dramatically, inclusion of these will be kept to a minimum. If there was a question whether to include or exclude items of this nature, I have favored their inclusion.
The serious researcher, as well as the casual browser, will immediately realize that accounts of Captain Cook's Third Voyage dominate the entries through the first 20 years covered in this first volume. While I did not intend to compile a Cook bibliography per se, I could not ignore the impact his Third Voyage had on the Hawaiians he encountered or the effect the voyage itself and the death of Cook at Kealakekua in 1779 had on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European thinking. Versions of the voyage in the form of books and pamphlets and plays about Cook's demise were produced almost continuously in England and most parts of Europe for almost 40 years. Some of these differ only in small ways; others have dramatic and even astonishing literary departures from the more considered primary accounts of the voyage. All of these works were read by an avid audience, and the plays were well attended. Few events have had quite the same impact. Fascination with the Pacific in general and Hawaii in particular has continued.
While I am aware that no subject bibliography issued to date is complete, and this work is no exception, I hope that regardless of whatever omissions this work may have, its virtues will outshine its faults and that it will prove valuable to the investigator of any aspect of pre-1900 history of Hawaii.