In October 1819, two New England ships, Balaena and Equator, cruising off the coast of Hawai‘i’s Kealakekua Bay, harpooned and killed a whale. They were the first American whalers to do so in Hawaiian waters, but they were certainly not to be the last. And it was only the beginning. That same year brought New England missionaries on the brig Thaddeus. Their destinies converged with the whalers in shaping Hawai‘i’s future. This was an era when whaler lawlessness and missionary law clashed again and again, racking the land with violence and causing Hawai‘i’s king many a weary and many a worried hour. No storyteller could have invented a drama with more conflict than the one played in Hawai‘i during her wild, whaling days. Riots, burnings, shootings…sailors armed with pistol, club and knife, threatening missionaries and native Hawaiians alike. Ships firing cannon on missionary homes. Police trying in vain to quell riots. Seamen demanding island girls like so much merchandise—and willing to pay the price. Gambling, drunkenness, theft, venereal disease… It was all a part of the colorful whaling history of Hawai‘i.
