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Today, we want to share the ways in which people of Africana heritage have helped shape the culture and character of Hawaii for centuries. To recount the history of Black people in the Islands is to recount the history of Hawaii itself.
The stories of the earliest settlers of African descent who arrived as maritime labors in the Hawaiian islands as early as 1769. The earliest known Black settler arrived in 1769 from Mauritius, Africa. King Kamehameha I gave him land. They also came from Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa, Brazil, Caribbean, South America, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and later, the American West.
The oceans served as their underground railroad to freedom. These settlers became citizens in the kingdom of Hawaii. They were welcomed by the Hawaiian people and joined King Kamehameha’s army to unify the islands.
African people have contributed significantly to Hawaiian history. In the early 1800s, 25% of settlers in Hawaii were Black people. Another Black man called Mr. Keakaeleele “Blackjack,” whose legal name was Joseph Hodges, was a maritime trader and sail master chief to King Kamehameha in 1795. Keakaeleele helped to build a red stone house for Queen Kaahumanu in Lahaina.
Little is known about the early life of Anthony D. Allen, who was an adviser to King Kamehameha I, and established the first Waikiki Resort in 1810 on land given to him by the king. Allen operated a hotel where the royal family dined and held their meetings. In his Waikiki Resort, he built a hospital to treat captains and crewmembers, a tavern, bowling alley and a farm ranch with a stable for horses.
On Aug. 25, 2021, the National Park Service Underground Network for Freedom installed Anthony D. Allen Wayside Signage on the property of Washington Middle School, the site that King Kamehameha I gave Allen 211 years ago.
In 1823, another Black settler, Betsey Stockton, became the first known Black woman arriving in Hawaii. She was a former slave from Princeton, N.J., who arrived in the islands with the second group of missionaries. She learned the Hawaiian language quickly and began to teach Hawaiian women how to treat for health purposes their sores and skin scratches. Afterward, she established the first school for commoners and taught them English, Latin, history and algebra.
The first Royal Hawaiian Band was formed by King Kamehameha III in 1834. George Hyatt was the band leader along with musicians David Shattuck, David Curtis and Charles Johnson, all Black men.
Additionally, Black leaders were prominent business members of the community, operating many different establishments in the city of Honolulu.
Thomas McCants Stewart, a civil rights attorney, was the first Black to practice law in Hawaii. He defended Queen Liliuokalani’s land rights before the Hawaii Supreme Court; assisted Chinese people in immigration cases, including challenging the Chinese Exclusion Act; and helped draft the State Charter. Stewart’s daughter, Carlotta Stewart Lai, was 18 years old when she arrived in 1898 to join her father. She graduated from Punahou School, and was a refined, cultured professional Black woman who was highly regarded. Carlotta lived on Kauai for many years, and met her husband, Yun Kim Lai, who was from a well-known Chinese family on that island. She became the first Black principal at Koolau Elementary School in Honolulu before statehood. She moved to Kauai and became principal of Anahola School there until her retirement in 1932.
Additionally, other Black contributions to Hawaii include:
>> The Buffalo Soldiers, who built the 18-mile trail to the summit of Mauna Loa in 1913.
>> Alice A. Ball, a chemist who was the first woman to earn a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and discovered the first treatment for leprosy (the “Ball Method”).
>> Dr. Donnis Thompson, the University of Hawaii’s first women’s athletics director, who established the Rainbow Wahine athletics program and successful Wahine volleyball program.
>> Helene Hale, first African American mayor in Hawaii and first Black woman to be elected to the Hawaii Legislature. To revitalize the County of Hawaii’s economy, Hale helped to establish the Merrie Monarch Festival.
>> And of course, President Barack Obama — the first African American and first Hawaii-born elected president of the United States.
Ashton Cudjoe is chairman and Deloris Guttman is museum director/historian of the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum.
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