Volume 49, Number 4, Winter 2000
Review by David Park.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.
Hawaii became the 50th State of the Union in 1959. Its flag, with neat irony, incorporates the Union Jack, a successor to the one against whom the fledgling United States was fighting a war of independence even as James Cook made his discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in 1778.
A national bibliography is a serious matter, and although the Preface excuses the epithet with the assurance that it simply 'alerts the reader that this bibliography covers the period when the islands were a politically distinct entity', one assumes and expects something a bit special. This means money, vision, talent and, for a multi-volume project, grit. From the pantheon of Pacific bibliographies the publishing committee wisely chose the model of John Ferguson's Bibliography of Australia. Content aside, the Hawaiian National Bibliography has excellent paper, the luxury of the more ample margins bestowed by its quarto size, and is embellished by the printing in red of author's names and item numbers in red. The general presentation is friendly, in the sense that the non-specialist can see it as a book that can be read, rather than a bound set of index cards which cannot. This is definitely not a work in step with the move towards digital information displayed in the lifeless fonts we have all had to become familiar with, on or off screen.
A feature of this work is the admission of newspapers and periodicals, on a selective basis. 'Breaking news' is by definition the first announcement of an event, in this case the simultaneous report of the discovery of the Hawaiian islands in 1778 and the death of Cook on his return there in 1779. Bibliographers have been nervous about newspapers with good reason. With dozens of newspapers around the U.K. alone, it is not always easy to establish where a story originated, and any newspaper on the coast of Great Britain had its fair chance of a national 'scoop' when strange ships came into port.
The first announcement in England of Cook's discovery, and demise, was the official announcement in the London Gazette on 11 January 1780, following the arrival of Captain Clerke's despatches at the Admiralty, which had travelled overland from Kamchatka. In fact, the London announcement was pipped by Anton Büsching whose journal published in Berlin, carried the story on the previous day. Although Forbes follows Ferguson in listing publications alphabetically within years, he has with admirable bibliographical cunning, contrived that these items appear first, followed immediately by the first announcement in North America: The Boston Gazette, 24 April, which gained the information from newspapers taken for the prize Liverpool.
When Cook arrived, there were perhaps 300,000 Hawaiians in the islands. He agonised about the introduction of venereal disease, but this was merely the understood fraction of a cocktail of imported diseases which, assisted by hard liquor, devastated the population. By 1853 there were a mere 65,000 left, along with 2000 English or Americans, falling to 46,000 when American plantation interests began to really get underway in the 1870s. Imported labour was the answer: Japan the principal solution, so that by the eve of Pearl Harbour, and along with Chinese, Portuguese from the Azores and Madeira, and Filipinos (after 1898), Japanese numbered over one-third of the population while the Hawaiians and part Hawaiians together could muster no more than 10 per cent. Today Hawaii is a multi-ethnic society that identifies fully with its native Hawaiian past.
Inevitably works relating to Cook's Third Voyage and his death at Kealakekua Bay loom large, and indeed up until 1789 when both Dixon and Portlock published accounts of the voyage of the Queen Charlotte and the King George, there is nothing else. The story of Cook runs through to 1830 with a Leith edition of the Third Voyage and, no doubt, beyond. As soon as one begins to examine this barely-hidden bibliography of the Third Voyage, one senses the synergy of the bibliographer and the rare book seller. The current interest in Cook and other explorers of the Pacific is nothing new, but Hordern House and others have brought a new energy to the subject in recent years. David Forbes has therefore, in addition to his own work and extensive travels to libraries in London, Australia, New Zealand, North America and Hawaii, been able to distil the points and issues to be gleaned from bookseller's catalogues, but hardly to be found elsewhere, with the active support of those who made them. The entries have all the bibliographical information expected, but the colour comes from the notes. The first appearance of any work or voyage has an excellent synopsis of the context and facts, points relating to Hawaii getting the fullest treatment. Features of subsequent editions are carefully noted, often with bibliographical notes which are just as readable. You will find no better description of issues of the official accounts of Cook's Third Voyage, the legion of editions derived from them, as well as the narratives of Samwell, Rickman etc., the related works on conchology, auctions of artefacts, children's books, poems and plays all inspired by Cook's story.
There are probably many Pacific items in this work that have not been described so fully before, but one which caught my eye is the remarkable book by Alexander Shaw with its specimens of bark cloth, published in 1787, and of which no two copies are the same. I have come across this a couple of times, and on both occasions felt the want of solid ground on which to base a description. Forbes may not have said the last word on it (I know of two copies when the interleaving bore a watermark of 1805), but should a copy cross my path again, there is firm ground, given that the entry describes twenty copies to be found in twelve libraries
Similar lavish treatment is given to the other well-known voyages up to 1830, including those under Russian auspices which are particularly important for Hawaii in this early period, and that of Vancouver who made such an impression on the Hawaiians. He is perhaps more responsible than Cook for the special place that Great Britain had in the affections of the Hawaiian nobility well into the nineteenth century. Kamehameha I, who had forged the islands into a nation, died in 1819, and with him the traditional religion. This was fortuitous for the American missionaries from Boston who arrived in the following year. Printing at the Mission Press commenced in 1822. Many of its earliest productions were ephemeral and are only known because of entries in the Journal of the Sandwich Islands Mission. Most of its productions were in the Hawaiian language, but in addition to alphabets and other mission requirements it also printed the regulations governing unruly crews ashore in Honolulu, and other royal proclamations. One that I suspect Forbes clearly could not resist reserving for an illustration is the No Ka Moe Kalohe, a broadside of 1829, which translates as 'Concerning naughty sleeping', and was an early attempt by Kamehameha III to codify morality. The note explains that under the law, when divorce was the result of adultery, the offending party could not remarry during the lifetime of their former partner.
This most readable bibliography now moves towards a second volume, with many important voyages still to be recorded and chronicled. Sadly this means it will be some rime before David Forbes has the opportunity to consider the suggestion that he oblige us by treating the earlier Cook voyages in the same style that he has here.