Kamehameha the Great

Happy Kamehameha Day!  In the state of Hawaii, June 11th is celebrated as Kamehameha Day, honoring  Kamehameha the Great, the king who unified the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1810.  The holiday was established in 1871 by King Kamehameha V, Kamehameha’s great grandson.  On this Kamehameha Day, it seems worthwhile to remember an Englishman and a Welshman, who became trusted advisors to the king and who helped him unite the island nation. Just as the Polynesian nobleman, Tupaia, advised Cook on navigation, so these two sailors, John Young and Isaac Davis, taught European gunnery and tactics to the famous king.

In 1790, the Eleanora under the command of Simon Metcalfe and the Fair American, commanded by his son, Thomas Metcalfe, arrived in the Hawaiian islands. The Metcalfes were fur traders in the China trade.  John Young, a British sailor, was the boatswain on the Eleanora,  while Isaac Davis, from Wales, was a seaman on the Fair American.

Simon Metcalfe’s approach to diplomacy was, literally, murderous. Shortly after arriving in the islands, he had a local chief whipped for some sort of slight.  When a ship’s boat was stolen and a sailor killed near the village of Olowalu, at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii, Metcalfe used the ship’s gun’s to kill roughly 100 Hawaiians.  When the Eleanora sailed to at Kealakekua Bay for supplies, Hawaiians attacked the Fair American and killed everyone aboard, except Isaac Davis, who was seriously wounded.  Later when Metcalfe sent his boatswain, John Young, ashore to try to learn what had become of the Fair American, Young was also taken prisoner.

The capture of the Fair American, Isaac Davis and John Young changed Hawaiian history.  The ship, with its guns, gun power and muskets were finally turned over to Kamehameha, a local king. Just as important, Davis and Young learned to speak the language and became translators and military advisors to Kamehameha.  Both Davis and Young became high chiefs and lived the rest of their lives in Hawaii.

John Young became King Kamehameha’s chief gunner. In the battle of Nuʻuanu, when the army of Kamehameha conquered Oʻahu, Young had charge of the cannon and is credited with firing the shot that killed Kaʻiana, a rival warlord.  After the battle  Young administered the island of Oʻahu on behalf of Kamehameha and later was appointed the Royal Governor of the island of Hawaii. The Hawaiians gave Young the name ʻOlohana based on Young’s typical command “All hands.”  Young died in Hawaii in 1835, at the age of 93.

Isaac Davis also became a trusted advisor to King Kamehameha. He married into the royal family and severed both militarily and diplomatically for the king. He was was known to the Hawaiians as the High Chief ʻAikake.  The Hawaiian islands were finally united in 1810 when the king of Kauaʻi, Kaumualiʻ, accepted Kamehameha’s rule.  Isaac Davis foiled a plot to murder the Kauaʻian king, but was himself murdered just as the united  Kingdom of Hawaiʻi came into being.