As some of you might know, I grew up in Hawaii. I’m super white, before you ask. And a while back, when talking about former
independent countries that became states, I said… But because of that, I know Hawaiian history
ad nauseum, ready? Be more excited please. Well I hope you’re excited now because we’re
about to- Eh, hui. Eh bruddah you try for make one video? Uh yeah. You bettah respect da aina or you get one
false crack! Okay, I’m pretty sure only like half of
that was English. F***in haole. What does that even mean, people have been
calling me that my entire life! Hawaii! This video is brought to you by Skillshare. Hawaii is an island chain located in the middle
of the Pacific, it’s the northern tip of the Polynesian Triangle, which also connects
to Rapa Nui, more commonly known as Easter Island, and Aotearoa or New Zealand. All of the people in this triangle share a
similar language and culture with small differences here and there. The first Hawaiians arrived around 300 BC,
most likely from the Marquesas Islands. The second wave arrived from Tahiti around
1000 AD and they brought their language and religion with them. And we’ll get to what those are in a bit. Old white historians dismiss the possibility
that the Polynesians knew where they were going and instead describe finding Hawaii
as an accident. Polynesians did know how to sail using celestial
navigation – but it’s not like they knew where Hawaii was and once they got there,
they never went back. We know that two waves arrived in Hawaii,
but we have no idea how many waves left Tahiti. There may have been dozens or even hundreds
of unsuccessful… lost voyages. So aside from that, Hawaii was pretty much
isolated for several thousand years. At least until 1778, when British explorer
Captain James Tiberius K – James Cook – “discovered” them. At least for the outside world. He named them the Sandwich Isles after the
Fourth Earl of Sandwich, but noted that the natives called it Owyhee – so take Hawaii
and like… He landed here, on the island of Kauai, and
here’s where we’re going to talk about the geography a bit. The Pacific plate is moving in this direction,
so the hot spot in the middle of the plate has been moving this way, creating new volcanic
islands every few thousand years. As you move down the chain, the newer the
islands are, until you get to this one, Hawaii, more commonly known as the Big Island, home
of the currently erupting volcano Kilauea. This is why all of the islands are called
Hawaii, after this one. Kinda like how New York state is named after
New York C – you get it. This also happens to be where Captain Cook
was killed in 1779. If you haven’t seen the Drunk History episode
on how it went down, you should. They take some comedic license with it, but
that’s pretty much how it happened. He’s kind of the Columbus of the Pacific
and is regarded in much the same way by the various natives he encountered – he even
“discovered” New Zealand and mapped the east coast of Australia. Just to put this into some historical perspective,
this all happened at the same time as the American Revolutionary War. James Cook landed in Hawaii at the same time
that George Washington was freezing in Valley Forge. The islands were divided up and ruled by various
chiefs known as ali’i. One of these districts was ruled by Kamehameha
– Kaaaaa- Stop! We don’t have time for that joke. Seriously it takes him like 20 minutes to
say it unless you speed it up. We all get the reference, haha. Kamehameha got two white advisors to provide
him with guns and ships and began conquering the islands in a campaign that would last
15 years. In Hawaiian history, it’s usually portrayed
as a peaceful unification but, it wasn’t. One of the battles on Maui is known as the
Damming of the Waters, because so many bodies piled up that they created an obstruction
on a river. Fiction often draws from historical fact. At the Battle of Nu’uanu on O’ahu, Kamehameha’s
army forced several hundred enemy soldiers off the back of a cliff at spear and gun point. Again, that actually happened. After this, the remaining islands joined peacefully,
creating the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. Kamehameha loved everything about the west
and especially Great Britain. So in 1816, when he ordered the first Hawaiian
flag to be made, it looked like this, with the Union Jack in the corner. Kamehameha considered himself to be a British
subject and believed the islands to be a British protectorate. And he set up the government in the same confusing
constitutional monarchy with a parliament system. The British never made any claim to the islands
and denied controlling them, but did express their continual friendship. Hawaiians believed that for chiefs and kings
to maintain the mana in their royal blood line, they needed to marry from within the
family. You know, like the Targaryens. Which caused all the same problems you would
expect, including miscarriages, stillbirths, and even sterility. So when Kamehameha died in 1819, he was the
first and last King of Hawaii to have any children. You can’t have a family tree that looks
like this and expect your dynasty to rule forever. His son, Liholiho or Kamehameha II is important
because he abolished the Hawaiian religion six months into his reign. It was known as the Kapu System and it governed
everything from what women were allowed to eat to which fish you were allowed to catch
to even what happens to you if you touch a chief. All of which were punishable by death by the
way. Unless you could get to a Pu’uhonua, which
was a special temple that… was kind of like base in tag. If you made it there, you were safe and absolved
of breaking the kapu. Kamehameha II broke this with the simple act
of eating with his mother, what were they going to do, kill him? It’s not like they chipped away at it over
time, it was just poof, gone overnight. The only thing that kind of remained was the
caste system, much like the one you know of from India, except there were no untouchables
and now anyway, no more priests. This opened the door to missionaries because
Hawaii literally had no religion. They still had a mythology, complete with
their own little version of leprechauns called menehune, but look, this isn’t like some
white guy talking about the uncivilized savages, they literally abolished the religion. And killed the priests and anyone else who
refused to give it up. The missionaries arrived after all of this,
they didn’t cause it; the Hawaiians willingly gave it up and westernized. It wasn’t forced on them, just keep that
in the back of your mind. The first missionaries arrived from Boston
in 1820 and were sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
and were mostly Presbyterian. Mormons arrived later in 1850 on the island
of Lanai, and later moved to Laie on Oahu, founding BYU Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural
Center. But let’s follow that first group, since
they’re the ones who had the most difficult task. In order to teach the bible, you first have
to teach language – which is even more difficult when you consider the fact that Hawaii didn’t
have a written language yet. So before everything else, they had to invent
that too. The Hawaiian language has twelve letters. All five of the vowels, A, E, I, O, and U. And just seven consonants, H, K, L, M, N,
P, and W, which doubled as both a U sound and a V sound. There’s also another important character
that you’ll see everywhere, the apostrophe. Which signals a vocal break between vowel
sounds. Like oo-ah instead of ua. So the official name of Hawaii is Hawai’I,
bu tin practice no one calls it that, it’s Hawaii. Only haoles pronounce it Hawaii, Butters. Right so, let’s talk about that word as
well. Everyone knows aloha, it’s the traditional
greeting and also means goodbye. It means the breath of life or the presence
of breath, ha meaning breath. Haole means without breath and it’s typically
used for foreigners – not just white people, all foreigners. It’s unclear if it was meant as a derogatory
term at first, it just meant those who don’t participate in the traditional Hawaiian greeting. But it’s definitely derogatory now. You don’t want to be a haole. And there’s no quicker way to make yourself
look like one than to go around trying to pronounce the words in traditional Hawaiian. We have many customs and traditions to keep
our culture alive. We drink chi-chis from the coconut. Right, maybe things have changed, but when
I lived in Hawaii chi-chis were something very different. Man she had the biggest chi-chis I had ever
seen. Which the missionaries did convince everyone
to cover up because they were immodest. And outlawed the hula in 1830 for being too
suggestive. In 1841, they founded the Punahou School mostly
for their own children, separate from the natives. It has somewhat of a reputation for being
the rich kids’ school and went on to educate a future president. Kamehameha II was only king for five years
before dying and passing the throne to Kamehameha III, who was the longest reigning monarch. It was under his reign that the first constitution
was written in 1840 and the watershed, defining moment in Hawaiian history took place. It’s the Irish Potato Famine and American
Civil War of Hawaii and is known as the Great Mahele. What Kamehameha II did for the ancient religion
and culture, Kamehameha III did for land division. Prior to this, land was divided up into ahupua’as,
which stretched from the mountains to the sea and was ruled by an ali’i or chief. It was kind of a feudal system. These are actually pretty close to the current-day
city boundaries, now that I look at it. I went to high school right here, on the boundary
between “Two Seas” and “Bamboo Boy.” Anyway, the Great Mahele undid all of this
and introduced the idea of private land ownership. Anybody could file a claim for their own little
homestead. But doing so required you to be literate,
to be able to pay the fee, and pay for someone to survey the land that you were trying to
claim. Most commoners weren’t able to do so, but
you know who was? Rich, white, foreigners. The Great Mahele passed in 1848 and there
was a two year moratorium on any foreigners claiming land in order to allow the natives
time to stake their claim. In the end, less than one percent of the land
went to Native Hawaiians and two-thirds of it to foreign sugar plantations. It’s important to note that unlike during
previous European conquests, this land wasn’t stolen. It was legally purchased from the native government. Before European arrival, Hawaiians mostly
relied on taro, a root vegetable that would be mashed up into poi. If it helps, taro was to Hawaii what the potato
was to Ireland, analogies are fun. But once trade opened up to the outside world,
Hawaii became known for its sandalwood and as a whaling station. A whaling expedition would take 3-4 years
and would anchor in Hawaii to refit and participate in all sorts of tomfoolery and skullduggery. Much to the dismay of the missionaries. Whaling went into decline when people discovered
that you could burn fossil fuels, which happened to coincide with the rise of sugar. And to a lesser extent pineapples, but mostly
sugar. Hawaii became the primary exporter of sugar
to America. Especially during the Civil War when the North
had trouble getting it from the Caribbean. Almost all of the arable land, and even some
of the non-arable land, was converted into sugar plantations. Unfortunately, with the rise of sugar, came
the rise of rats. The rat population exploded and severely damaged
the sugarcane crop and costing enough money that getting rid of them became a priority. But in the time before commercially available
pesticides, their only real option was biological control. So which animal would you party up with if
you’re trying to control rats? The Europeans chose the mongoose, because
its high mobility and damage stat made it a great candidate for dealing with smaller
builds like the rat. They wasted no time importing mongooses from
Jamaica. But they failed to ask the question: How will
this affect the meta? Adding a new predatory class to an island
server is a classic recipe for destabilizing the metagame. The new mongoose playerbase quickly became
top tier in the region and had no losing matchups in the entire Hawaiian server, BUT to the
dismay of the human players the rats actually were mostly unaffected by their introduction. Why? Well, because the mongoose playerbase is most
active during the daytime, while the rats opt for a nocturnal playstyle. Even though mongooses could indeed body rats
in combat, they hardly ever get the chance. Instead, mongoose players griefed the native
bird playerbase super hard, in some cases completely invalidating certain builds like
the o’o and mamo. Mongooses can be an effective party member
for dealing with certain matchups, just not rats. If snakes were ever the issue, they'd present
an effective counter. But for rats, I’d suggest a nocturnal build
with similar stats and abilities to the mongoose. Like, for example, ferrets! That is why these were domesticated after
all… Ow! But while they converted the land into a sugarcane
monoculture, the labor needs of the plantations resulted in an extremely diversified human
culture. The Native Hawaiians suffered the same decline
due to disease as other native groups. Small pox, measles, influenza, even leprosy
took the lives of 90% of the native population In 1866, they had to establish a leper colony
on the Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai, which lasted until 1969. So, much like the railroads, they had to import
labor in from elsewhere, mainly the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and even Portuguese. These people mixed their cultures together
which resulted in this breakfast that you can get at McDonald’s in Hawaii, complete
with two scoops of rice. As in ice cream scoop scoops of rice. Portuguese sausage – which is just regular
sausage but kind of spicier – and spam. Because there’s nothing more Hawaiian than
spam. If there’s one thing I miss about Hawaii,
it’s the food. If someone can figure out a way to get me
a kalua pork school lunch, I’ll marry you… email me or something. But it’s also pretty apparent in the language. These people from all over the world learned
to communicate using Hawaiian Pidgin, which is a creole of broken English, Filipino-
Ey that’s why we all kine talk like dat ah? Yeah… the pineapple’s right there how
are you- Shoots… That’s not how works bruh. What? You like beef? Who are you? I’m your Uncle Try Know Bettah. No! No… we’re not doing characters, especially
not racist ones. I just got a whole bunch of new subs-
Hawaii! What am I going to do with two pineapples?! That diversity is still evident today, which
is why white people only make up about 25% of the state’s population. But by the end of the sugar rush, they owned
90% of the land – all thanks to the Great Mahele. When Kamehameha III died, the throne went
to his nephew, Kamehameha IV. He only lasted eight years, then it passed
to his brother Kamehameha V, who only lasted nine. Then, thanks to all the incest, they had to
elect someone from the extended family – Lunalilo, also known as The People’s King. He was Kamehameha the Great’s grandnephew
and step son and only reigned for 13 months. I can’t imagine why. This was the end of the Kamehameha dynasty,
after him they had to hold an election open to all of the upper class, and David Kalakaua
won in 1883. He’s known as the Merrie Monarch, and yes,
it is spelled that way, and his coronation lifted the ban on hula. Which is why there is an annual hula competition
known as the Merrie Monarch Festival. He also built Iolani Palace, the only actual
royal palace on US soil Kalakaua was also notoriously corrupt – like
Grant-level corrupt. He’d buy votes with gin, took kickbacks
on the opium trade – just a generally all around corrupt guy. So behind the scenes, many descendants of
missionaries and sugar plantation owners created the Hawaiian League. They identified themselves as Hawaiian, not
American or British or anything else. Hawaii had gone through several constitutions,
but the Hawaiian League forced Kalakaua to sign yet another one in 1887 known as the
Bayonet Constitution. This cut back on the monarchy’s power in
the hope of reducing the corruption. When Kalakaua died in 1891, the throne passed
to his sister, Liluokalani, who wanted to write a new constitution to take back that
power… which resulted in the complete overthrow of the monarchy in 1893. This was a very complicated situation that
resulted in many crossed wires and misunderstandings. The parliament, made up mostly of rich foreigners,
seized control of the government and asked the United States to help. Queen Liluokalani told the United States that
she would temporarily yield control to the US until the situation was sorted out. The United States took that to mean she was
ceding power to the parliament, so they sent US Marines to help them. There were a few in parliament who wanted
to be part of the United States, but annexation wasn’t the primary goal yet and they declared
themselves to be the independent Republic of Hawaii. They changed the stripes on their flag to
this and appointed Sanford Dole, of pineapple fame, as its president. In order to secure power, they made a lot
of shady rules about who can vote, like requiring an English literacy test – Gee, where have
we seen that before… In fact, the republic’s constitution plagiarized
a lot of Mississippi’s Reconstruction era constitution, just aimed at natives and Asians
instead. The United States didn’t have much interest
in Hawaii as anything other than a trading partner, at least until the Spanish American
War. They needed a forward naval base and coaling
station to help with their invasions of the Philippines and Guam. They already had the rights to use Pearl Harbor,
but they didn’t fully control it. Near the end of the war, the United States
lifted tariffs on sugar and was soon going to possess several tropical islands capable
of growing it. So in order to keep Hawaiian sugar competitive,
they applied for annexation and as we all know, got it in 1898. American military presence in the islands
grew and became the largest employer on the island, second only to the state government
itself. So let’s talk about Pearl Harbor. Yesterday, December sev- I’m just kidding,
I’ve already talked about that enough, but Pearl Harbor wasn’t the only place in Hawaii
that was attacked that day. While one of the Japanese planes was returning
to the fleet, it was damaged, and crash landed on the island of Ni’ihau. The entire island is privately owned by the
Robinson family – that’s just one of those facts that you learn while growing up in Hawaii. A Japanese family working on the island immediately
flipped sides and helped the Japanese pilot fight against the locals. This became known as the Ni’ihau Incident
and was one of the justifications used for Japanese internment. The fear being that any Japanese people living
on the west coast might also flip sides. The entire Territory of Hawaii was put under
martial law during World War 2, bunkers and lookout points were placed all around – you
can still hike to them today. But what about this island, the only one I
haven’t talked about yet? This is Kaho’olawe and it was used as a
test range for bombers and naval ships during World War 2 and for decades afterwards. It’s completely uninhabited and will likely
stay that way for a long time due to all the unexploded ordnance. Sugar and pineapple went into decline as the
military presence in Hawaii continued to grow, especially during Korea and Vietnam. And this is why there are interstates in Hawaii. I’ve talked about this before, but interstates
connect military bases – going through cities is just a side benefit. So on the main island of O’ahu, there are
three interstate highways. H1 connects Hickam Air Force Base to the now
closed Barber’s Point Naval Air Station. H2 connects Pearl Harbor to Schofield Barracks
and Wheeler Army Air Field. And H3 connects Pearl Harbor to Marine Corps
Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay. I grew up in Hawaii because my dad was in
the navy. It was an interesting multicultural experience,
white people are the minority, even with the military presence. But it also meant I was on the cutting edge
of everything you enjoy about Japan. This was before the internet, you couldn’t
just stream whatever anime you wanted, so they would use Hawaii as a test market before
introducing it to the rest of the United States. Pogs, Power Rangers, Pokemon, even anime,
back when it was still called Japanimation. I grew up watching Sailor Moon every morning
before school. Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by
d- ahem. Sailor Jupiter was my favorite. So if you happen to visit Hawaii and stay
at Waikiki, you’re going to see a total mix of cultures and probably be shocked to
find that most of the island is just a big city. If you want the real tropical experience,
you’re going to have to go to one of the outer islands. Please don’t make yourself look too much
like a tourist. Don’t take disrespectful selfies in front
of sacred Hawaiian temples. Take fancy DSLR photos in front of sacred
Hawaiian temples, one of the many skill you can learn at Skillshare. There are a number of classes about how to
take professional photos on your trip for every skill level, whether you’re a beginner
wanting to take candids, instead of a tacky selfie, or you want to learn how to frame
a landscape or monument. Or if you want to stay in Waikiki and take
pictures at the International Marketplace, they’ve got you covered. If you’ve been watching me for a while or
you’re a new subscriber going through my back catalog, you’ve probably noticed a
big change in the way I film. I wish I had access to Skillshare before,
instead of figuring it all out myself. So if you use go to skl.sh/knowingbetter you
can get 2 months of Skillshare’s premium membership for free. Don’t be like these guys. C’mon freakin tourists… Geez buy a postcard. There is still a native sovereignty movement
in Hawaii. But it’s also worth asking how much of what
happened was brought on by their own monarchs. The land was legally purchased from the native
government, it wasn’t stolen. But the native government was overthrown in
a rather shady manner. There was no formal treaty of annexation,
instead it was passed through a joint resolution of Congress. It is a state though, you don’t need a passport
to go visit. And it really is an interesting experience,
Hawaii is a cultural melting pot like no other. So at least now if you plan to go visit, you
won’t look too much like an ignorant haole, because now, you know better. I’d like to introduce my two new friends,
Atlas and Peabody, yes I know it’s spelled different in the game, but I don’t want
to have to explain the stupid spelling to normies. If you’re new here, I used to have my previous
ferret, Wheatley, doing something cute in the outro cards, so be on the lookout for
that from now on. I’d like to give a shout out to my two new
legendary patrons, Jeremy and Mike. Make sure to overthrow that subscribe button,
follow me on twitter and facebook and join us on the subreddit.
This guy seems to usually go a step above a lot of educational youtubers in terms of his level of analysis. When I watch others, I usually hear mostly stuff that I already knew, but when I watch this guy I genuinely learn things.
That was a smooth segway into his sponsor material.
The word "haole" is not directly pejorative. It can be simply descriptive like in the following manner.
Two people are talking to each other and one wants to distinguish a person of caucasian background from another person of native/other background.
Person 1: You know that haole guy Steve?
Person 2: Oh yeah that one who lives over on the Wailuku side?
It can be racist negative if a negative is added to it. Like, "That f'in haole Steve!"
It is dependent upon the context and intention.
Needs more Runescape music for that cherry on top.
I read Overthrowing a Klingon and was confused to how someone made a 20 minutes video about overthrowing a Klingon.
I've been binging his videos the past few days.
Love the time he puts into these.
that man is not "super-white" by any means
give me a minute and I can make a Kaiserreich joke out of this I swear
When I first watched ya, you had maybe 6k, now it’s over 100k, insanely impressive and welll deserved