Beyond Hawai'i

In the century from the death of Captain James Cook in 1779 to the rise of the sugar plantations in the 1870s, thousands of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) men left Hawai‘i to work on ships at sea and in na ‘aina ‘e (foreign lands)—on the Arctic Ocean and throughout the Pacific Ocean, and in the equatorial islands and California. Beyond Hawai‘i tells the stories of these forgotten indigenous workers and how their labor shaped the Pacific World, the global economy, and the environment. Whether harvesting sandalwood or bird guano, hunting whales, or mining gold, these migrant workers were essential to the expansion of transnational capitalism and global ecological change. Bridging American, Chinese, and Pacific historiographies, Beyond Hawai‘i is the first book to argue that indigenous labor—more than the movement of ships and spread of diseases—unified the Pacific World.

Gregory Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of History at Roanoke College.

Maps vi
Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1
1 • Boki’s Predicament 16
Sandalwood and the China Trade
2 • Make’s Dance 48
Migrant Workers and Migratory Animals
3 • Kealoha in the Arctic 82
Whale Blubber and Human Bodies
4 • Kailiopio and the Tropicbird 105
Life and Labor on a Guano Island
5 • Nahoa’s Tears 132
Gold, Dreams, and Diaspora in California
6 • Beckwith’s Pilikia 166
“Kanakas” and “Coolies” on Haiku Plantation
Epilogue 203
Legacies of Capitalism and Colonialism

Appendix 209
Notes 211
Glossary 267
Bibliography 271