![]() The advent of literacy among Hawaiians also affected the way they were governed. Newspapers were published in Hawaiian, government documents were put into writing, and, important to this discussion, Hawaiian songs and chants were written down for the first time. He established the first high school in 1831 and encouraged all Hawaiians to learn to read. King Kamehameha III (1813-1854), the second of Kamehameha I's sons to rule the islands, took up literacy as a cause. He died in 1818 without returning to Hawai'i, but missionaries adopted his writing system to convert Hawaiians and bring literacy to the islands. He also translated the Book of Genesis into Hawaiian. He developed a system for writing the Hawaiian language, as well as beginning a grammar book. Īn orphaned boy, Henry 'Ōpūkaha'ia, was taken to New England in 1807 and schooled there by missionaries. With increasing contact with Europeans and Americans, and with European governments and the United States seeing Hawai'i as a strategic port and source of sugar and other goods, the nineteenth century was a period of tremendous change for the Hawaiian people. Sugar cane, brought to the islands by Captain Cook in 1778, began to become a commercial crop in the early 1800s. A French Catholic mission was established in 1827. ![]() Although the King continued to practice and support the traditional religion, this period of change paved the way for Christian conversion with the arrival of American protestant missionaries, mainly from New England, in 1820. One of the King's goals was to abolish the "kapu system" of forbidden acts, a set of religious laws that restricted many aspects of life and government. King Kamehameha I (1758-1819) unified the Hawaiian Islands in 1809. She also translated into English the Kumulipo chant, which tells the Hawaiian creation story and lineage of kings. Her most famous song, "Aloha oe," continues to be a favorite today. ![]() Queen Lili'uokalani, Hawai'i's last monarch, was a prolific songwriter. ![]()
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