|
The history of Hawaii includes both natural and human history. After the creation of the islands by volcanic forces, the islands began developing their flora and fauna. Sometime around 1 CE, the earliest Polynesian settlers began to populate the islands. Around 1200 CE Tahitian explorers found and began settling the area as well. This became the rise of the Hawaiian civilization and would be separated from the rest of the world for another 500 years until the arrival of the British. Within five years of contact with Great Britain, a single ruler would conquer a majority of the islands for the first time in its human history. The Kingdom of Hawaii would become important for its agriculture and strategic location in the Pacific. Euro-American immigration began almost immediately after contact by Captain Cook. American style, plantation farming required extensive labor. Several waves of workers immigrated from China and Japan in large numbers. Eventually the Hawaiian monarchy would be overthrown after outside business interests organized against the kingdom through the legislature, weakening the King's rule. After the coup d'état a brief period would see a Republic of Hawaii organized by the same forces that took the islands and led to annexation as a territory and then as the state of Hawaii within the United States. ==Discovery and settlement== The earliest settlements in the Hawaiian Islands are generally believed to have been made by Polynesians who reached Hawaii using large double-hulled canoes. They brought with them pigs, dogs, chickens, taro, sweet potatoes, coconut, banana, sugarcane, and other plants and animals. Several theories describe migration to Hawaii. The "one-migration" theory suggests a single settlement. A variation on the one-migration theory instead suggests a single, continuous settlement period. Several "multiple migration" theories exist. One variation suggests that the original migration could have been followed by settlers from the Marquesas Islands, and then later by Tahitians. Numerous accounts describe landings by Europeans, Chinese and others long before the arrival of Captain Cook; however, none have been documented with certainty until recently. On January 18, 1778 British Captain James Cook and his crew, while attempting to discover the Northwest Passage between England and Asia, encountered the islands and were surprised to find a Polynesian island so far north in the Pacific. He named them the "Sandwich Islands", after the fourth Earl of Sandwich. Members of this expedition described the population of the islands as abundant, handsome and healthy. Unfortunately the British brought many new infectious diseases to the islands, in particular tuberculosis and venereal diseases that quickly propagated through the locals. In 1786, seven years after Cook, a French frigate arrived in Hawai'i and reported that most of the islanders were very sick. By 1832 only 130,000 remained.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Hawaii」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|