The Lives of Men
Before they appeared as signs of Christian providence that inspired calls for the establishment of a school for heathen youth in America, before their names were popularized in newspaper articles or reports and sermons, Henry Obookiah (‘Ōpūkaha‘ia), Thomas Hopoo (Hopu), George Prince Tamoree (Kaumuali‘i), William Tennooe (Kanui), John Honoree (Honoli‘i), and George Sandwich worked as sailors or cabin boys on New England merchant ships. The many different paths which brought these Hawaiian men to the classrooms and dormitories of the Foreign Mission School were obscured by the ways in which the Connecticut Agents of the School and the ABCFM produced and then promoted them as objects of interest for the patronage of the Christian public. As native elites securing alliance and advantage at home, as sailors on ships or marines fighting in the war, as servants or farmers, the lives these men made alongside Americans were barely fleshed out. What was of supreme significance to the mission press was the distance they managed to put between themselves and their heathen pasts through their residence in a civilized nation. What mattered was the promise of what could be done through these educated few once they received instruction paid for by Christian benevolence and once they were returned to their own homelands—within the confines of an American foreign mission.
The concern for Hawaiians in America was connected to the long colonial settler project of regenerating the heathen through Christian education and a process of civilization. This undertaking could claim ancestry in a deeper New England history that reached all the way back to John Eliot’s work with the American Indians in the seventeenth century. However, this project never grew significantly in scope, nor did its nineteenth-century progeny often seem to reflect on the possible pasts of their present endeavor. Instead, news of these Hawaiian men in New England capitalized on the interest in the Sandwich Islands and the islands of the Pacific that had begun gradually with the first sales of the journals and logs from the voyages of Captain Cook, the much-performed pantomime of his death, and the ubiquitous commercial news that related the daily comings and goings of ships from New England to the Pacific. The new American foreign mission movement was progressive, future oriented, and aiming to convert natives in a far-removed field, but first they had to stoke the public’s interest in their enterprise in order to raise the money to train teachers and send them halfway across the globe.
In 1816, the forty-four-page promotional pamphlet “A Narrative of Five Youth from the Sandwich Islands, Now Receiving an Education in This Country” would set the reader back twenty-five cents. For the first time the public could read in extended accounts about the lives and accomplishments of Henry Obookiah, Thomas Hopoo, William Tennooe John Honoree, and George Prince Tamoree.22 Designed by the ABCFM for the consumption of a Christian audience, the narrative’s purpose was to provide a “simple and authentic statement of facts” respecting the men, along with “specimens of their ability and improvement.”23 The production of the lives of these men made them into both fund-raising tool and product—they were embodied as produced by the mission while also serving as its ultimate outcome and aim. Obookiah was clearly made to appear as the outstanding pupil of the bunch and the star of this pamphlet, as its first twelve pages were devoted to him, his writing, his composition of prayers, and a listing of his phenomenal accomplishments in his educational endeavors.
That same year, the Religious Intelligencer ran an article entitled “Honourable Munificence” that was extensively reprinted in both secular and religious newspapers.24 Those people who were unfamiliar with the progress of the men of Owhyhee were gently chided, since “the Christian public are extensively acquainted with the fact, that several young men, natives of the Owhyhee, are now in Connecticut,” suggesting that the story of these Hawaiian men was widely covered and followed by many Americans. The Christian public would have become familiar with these Hawaiians through pulpit sermons, official published reports, Christian magazines and newspapers, and membership in the many auxiliary missionary societies that had begun to spring up in towns all throughout New England.25
The subject of “Honourable Munificence” was a woman from Savannah, Georgia, who mobilized a circle of her friends to raise funds for the education of the Hawaiian men. Brief information on the Hawaiian students studying at the Cornwall Foreign Mission School was provided, and the accomplishments of one Henry Obookiah, a sometime resident of Torringford and Andover, where he was “instructed by the students of the Theological Seminary,” were especially touted. Obookiah had “not only learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, but grammar and geography.” However, what was of most importance was his familiarity with “the principles and doctrines of Christian Religion.”26
The accomplishments of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia were set in contrast to the lingering heathen beliefs of his friend Thomas Hopoo (Hopu). Hopu had left Hawai‘i at the age of fourteen and served as a cabin boy aboard the ship that brought ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia to New Haven. In a well-circulated story, Hopu fell overboard and was saved when a fellow sailor tossed a hen coop overboard for him to grasp. Struggling fiercely to catch up to the ship, Hopu promised his akua (gods)27 that if his life were spared he would give them his most prized possession: a pea jacket that the captain had given him. When the ship turned around and he was plucked from the open sea still clutching the hen coop, Hopu had resolved to treat the pea jacket with the utmost care and respect. He never wore it again for the duration of the voyage, or allowed others to touch it, and it was “not until he became fully convinced” that his akua were “no God(s)” that he felt he could release himself from his vow. Even years after he had turned to the Lord, Hopu’s past history of heathen devotion could still be used as a prod to the struggling Christian. “This instance of native conscientiousness in a heathen boy discharging his vow to an imaginary god, ought to raise a blush on the cheek of many a Christian, for his own neglect of paying his vows to the ‘Lord that bought him.’ ”28 The carefully chosen words of this admonishment might also inspire a guilt-ridden Christian to pay out a decent donation. While the article lauded the accomplishments of the older Obookiah, who had “already begun a translation of a part of the New Testament into the language of Owhyhee,”29 Hopu’s story froze him in time as a fourteen-year-old lately arrived in the country. The distance between Obookiah and Hopu was now a pocket example of the progress that a heathen could make if subjected to the correct program of Christianization and civilization.
The woman from Savannah was persuaded by the poignancy of these stories; heathens could be educated, and they could use this education to carry the Christian message to the Sandwich Islands. In the fall of 1815, she visited her friends in New Haven and was transfixed by the story of these men, “particularly as the future missionaries of Owhyhee.” On her return home, she enlisted the assistance of her female friends and collected $335, to be “given for the purpose of educating Henry, Thomas, and William, as missionaries to Owhyhee.”30 The authors of the essay urged readers to consider that “this example of Christian liberality is highly honourable to the citizens of Savannah; and ought to be known, that others may go and do likewise.”31
Answering the call, the ladies of Charleston, South Carolina, also “imitated” the example of their female counterparts from Savannah by contributing their own “liberal donation” to the effort of educating these men.32 Whether through word of mouth, the press, or through networks of missionary societies, how the ladies from South Carolina got wind of the charity of the Georgia ladies may never be revealed. However, what is clear is that the mission’s supporters held these men up as examples of their own work, a work that all American citizens should interest themselves in. “Honourable Munificence” connected the capacity of American women to do their Christian duty for young Hawaiian men currently residing in their country in the hopes that by giving monetary support to these prospective missionaries, Americans would both transform their own souls and those of an entire foreign people.33
For two years, until the death of Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia, the activities of the Hawaiians were promoted by the American Board in order to raise the public’s interest and concern for foreign missions. Stories of the educational progress of the men of Owhyhee, their internal struggles, and their speeches, prayers, and letters were produced and reproduced by the ABCFM and its supporters in both the secular and religious press. These