Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787–1898

Jean Barman; Bruce McIntyre Watson

Published by University of Hawaii Press 2006

Leaving Paradise

Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787–1898

Jean Barman and Bruce McIntyre Watson

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824874537

Overview
Contents

About this book

Native Hawaiians arrived in the Pacific Northwest as early as 1787. Some went out of curiosity; many others were recruited as seamen or as workers in the fur trade. By the end of the nineteenth century more than a thousand men and women had journeyed across the Pacific, but the stories of these extraordinary individuals have gone largely unrecorded in Hawaiian or Western sources. Through painstaking archival work in British Columbia, Oregon, California, and Hawaii, Jean Barman and Bruce Watson pieced together what is known about these sailors, laborers, and settlers from 1787 to 1898, the year the Hawaiian Islands were annexed to the United States. In addition, the authors include descriptive biographical entries on some eight hundred Native Hawaiians, a remarkable and invaluable complement to their narrative history.

"Kanakas" (as indigenous Hawaiians were called) formed the backbone of the fur trade along with French Canadians and Scots. As the trade waned and most of their countrymen returned home, several hundred men with indigenous wives raised families and formed settlements throughout the Pacific Northwest. Today their descendants remain proud of their distinctive heritage. The resourcefulness of these pioneers in the face of harsh physical conditions and racism challenges the early Western perception that Native Hawaiians were indolent and easily exploited.

Scholars and others interested in a number of fields—Hawaiian history, Pacific Islander studies, Western U.S. and Western Canadian history, diaspora studies—will find Leaving Paradise an indispensable work.

Author / Editor information

Barman Jean :

Jean Barman writes about British Columbia history. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she is the author of, among other books, The West beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (University of Toronto Press).Watson Bruce McIntyre :

Bruce McIntyre Watson is a Vancouver, BC-based historian whose 3-volume biographical dictionary of the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest published in 2010. In 2000 he and coauthor Jean Barman received the Charles Gates Memorial Award for best article published in Pacific Northwest Quarterly from the Washington State Historical Society.Jean Barman (Author)
Jean Barman writes about British Columbia history. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she is the author of, among other books, The West beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (University of Toronto Press).

Bruce McIntyre Watson (Author)
Bruce Watson is completing a biographical dictionary of the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. In 2000 the authors, both of whom live in Vancouver, received the Charles Gates Memorial Award for best article published in Pacific Northwest Quarterly from the Washington State Historical Society.

Reviews

Lissa Wadewitz, Stanford University:
Barman’s and Watson’s extensive research in fur trade and missionary records is truly impressive and is especially evident in the eight hundred or so biographical entries that compile the second half of the book. . . . [T]he fascinating sections on how many Hawaiians married indigenous men and women and melted into Northwest Native communities demonstrates the fluidity of ethno-racial categories and identities in this period and signals an important issue in need of further exploration.

Sandra Wagner-Wright, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo:
Barman and Watson mined all extant sources to follow Hawaiian migration and subsequent settlement in the Pacific Northwest, including an extensive and exhaustive listing of individual arrivals, employment history, residence, and marriage and family patterns. The authors conclude that, despite racial discrimination in Canada and the United States, this is an immigrant success story, proof of ‘what might have been in the Hawaiian Islands themselves.’

Mike Evans, The University of British Columbia:
Leaving Paradise rescues a large and important Pacific Northwest community from relative obscurity. . . . The section entitled ‘Hawaiians and Other Polynesians in the Pacific Northwest’ [is] particularly noteworthy. This appendix takes up approximately half the volume, and consists of detailed entries of all the people that the authors were able to track. This section is a remarkable sharing of the authors’ database of the region, and though not primary source data, it is very close.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
1. Leaving Paradise Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Maritime Sojourners Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
3. The Astoria Adventure Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
4. In the Service of the Hudson’s Bay Company Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
5. Making a Life in the Fur Trade Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
6. Hawaiians in the Missionary Advance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
7. Boundary Making Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
8. North of the 49th Parallel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
9. Moving across the Generations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Hawaiians and Other Polynesians in the Pacific Northwest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	435
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	441
Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	467
General Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	491
Index of Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	497
About the Authors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	513

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 528
Illustrations
- Other: 44 illus., 5 maps

eBook

Published: May 31, 2006
ISBN: 9780824874537