Hawaiian by Birth

Missionary Children, Bicultural Identity, and U.S. Colonialism in the Pacific

Joy Schulz

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781496202352
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

2018Sally and Ken Owens Award from the Western History Association Twelve companies of American missionaries were sent to the Hawaiian Islands between 1819 and 1848 with the goal of spreading American Christianity and New England values. By the 1850s American missionary families in the islands had birthed more than 250 white children, considered Hawaiian subjects by the indigenous monarchy and U.S. citizens by missionary parents. In Hawaiian by Birth Joy Schulz exploresthe tensionsamongthe competing parental, cultural, and educational interests affecting these children and, in turn, the impact the children had on nineteenth-century U.S. foreign policy. These children of white missionaries would eventually alienate themselves from the Hawaiian monarchy and indigenous population by securing disproportionate economic and political power. Their childhoods—complicated by both Hawaiian and American influences—led to significant political and international ramifications once the children reached adulthood.Almost none chose to follow their parents into the missionary profession, and many rejected the Christian faith.Almost all supported the annexation of Hawai'i despite their parents' hope that the islands would remain independent. Whether the missionary children moved to the U.S. mainland, stayed in the islands, or traveled the world, they took with them a sense of racial privilege and cultural superiority. Schulz adds children's voices to the historical record with this first comprehensive studyof the white children born in the Hawaiian Islands between 1820 and 1850 and their path toward political revolution.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Birthing Empire
• 2. Playing with Fire
• 3. Schooling Power
• 4. Cannibals in America
• 5. Crossing the Pali
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Joy Schulz
• Series List