To watch the story of Captain Cook and the Unification of the Hawaiian Kingdom watch from 11:00 to 39:00
European Discovery, and Unification
The English explorer and discoverer Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy made land fall on the island of Kauai on January 18, 1778. Meeting the local native Hawaiians at the peak of their civilization, Cook was welcomed as a great chief with gifts and a bountiful feast. As a witness to the devastation venereal disease has had on other unexposed aboriginal people, Cook took measures to prevent the spread of at the time deadly diseases like syphilis. Unfortunately, Cook failed from preventing his men from spreading the disease, and thus began the original thinning of the native Hawaiian population. On a return trip to the islands, Cook found himself on the wrong side of a misunderstanding, and then thusly on the wrong side of one of his own knives. In this skirmish Cook was killed, and two of his seamen, Isaac Davis and John Young were captured by the Chieftain soon to be known as Kamehameha the Great.
Shortly after Cook had been killed, Captain William Brown became the first European to sail in Honolulu harbor in 1794. By the time, Davis and Young had taught Kamehameha about western military tactics, technology, and how to trade effectively with the British to receive the necessary guns and cannons to lay waist to his fellow chieftain opponents. With the acquisition of a western arsenal, Kamehameha went on a 15 year rampage through the islands of Hawaii until by 1810 he had unified (aka conquered) the entire archipelago. This saw the birth of the united Hawaiian Kingdom, and beginning of the westernization of its people.