Big Island A History

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The Island of Hawai‘i, also known as the Big Island, was the first to be settled by early Polynesians. It was where Kamehameha proceeded to create a kingdom of Hawai‘i. It was where Captain Cook was killed and where the kapu system was overthrown. The Big Island was the cradle of Hawai‘i’s paniolo culture, where coffee was first cultivated, and where hula began its modern revival though the Merrie Monarch Festival. It is the only island with active volcanoes, and the island most devastated by natural disasters. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, explorers, traders, adventurers, and missionaries arrive along with Western diseases that devastate the original inhabitants of the land. In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, sugar becomes king and thousands of immigrant workers arrive whose future generations will lead to a multiethnic society. In the first half of the twentieth century, a tourist industry develops around Kīlauea’s eruptions. Sugar workers strike. Marines train in Waimea, and earthquakes and tsunamis destroy coastal towns. In the second half of the twentieth century, the tourist industry becomes resort-oriented, the Hawaiian Renaissance evolves into the sovereignty movement, and astronomy and science become a significant part of the island’s economic future. Now in the twenty-first century, the Big Island faces climate change, volcanic eruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic, a renaissance of Native Hawaiian ways focused on the environment, and a reckoning with land ownership and a changing demographic. The Big Island: A History is a fascinating read for anyone who wants to learn more about the people and towns that shaped the island.