Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma

Image: Stained glass at St. Andrew's Cathedral (King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma)

The Kanrin Maru, having departed San Francisco, sailed smoothly across calm seas—a stark contrast to its outward journey—and arrived at Honolulu Harbor in the Kingdom of Hawaii on May 23, 1860 (April 4, the first year of Man'en). On May 25, the day before their scheduled departure for Japan after finishing coal loading, Kimura Settsu-no-kami, the Magistrate of Warships, was encouraged to visit the King at the Hawaiian Royal Palace. On that day, as Captain Katsu Rintaro and other key officers were absent on Oahu, Kimura went to the palace accompanied by four others, including the interpreter Nakahama Manjiro (John Man) and his attendant, Fukuzawa Yukichi. Thus, Fukuzawa, who was merely an attendant, gained the opportunity to have an audience with a head of state.

The local Hawaiian newspaper, The Polynesian, covered the audience of the Japanese envoys in its May 26 issue, recording Fukuzawa, who was present, as "Hookosoya Ukeokei." In his autobiography, "The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi," Fukuzawa recalled the scene as follows:

"I also met the King. While the title 'His Majesty the King' sounds grand, there was nothing surprising about it once I went there. The couple came out together; the King was simply wearing woolen clothes. The house was what we would call a medium-sized Western-style building in Japan. When they said they would show us their treasures, I wondered what they were, but they brought out a mat made of bird feathers and said it was their greatest treasure. I wondered if that man was the King's brother; he looked like he was going shopping with a basket, appearing much like the head of a fishing village."

The royal couple who appeared before Fukuzawa at this time were King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.

The Kingdom of Hawaii was born half a century before the Kanrin Maru's port call, in 1810, when Kamehameha (I), an Ali'i (noble) of the island of Hawaii, unified the Hawaiian Islands.

Kamehameha IV was born on February 9, 1834, as the grandson of Kamehameha, and was named Alexander Liholiho Iolani. Alexander Liholiho, along with his older brother Lot, became the Hanai (adopted child) of his uncle, Kamehameha III, and was raised receiving education in both English and Hawaiian as a future king.

At the age of 15, Alexander Liholiho, along with Lot, accompanied Dr. Judd, an envoy of Kamehameha III, on an official visit to the United States and Europe. According to his diary, there were pleasant events such as riding a sled in Halifax, Canada, and experiencing fencing in Paris, but he also had experiences that would greatly influence his politics after his accession. One was deepening his friendship with Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and the other was an incident that occurred in Washington, D.C., on the return journey. While on a train, Alexander Liholiho was told by a conductor that he was not suited for that carriage and should move to another. The conductor's racist remarks and attitude were deeply etched into his mind, leading him to write, "I am disappointed in Americans."

Popular among Hawaiians for his intelligent and outgoing personality, Alexander Liholiho was expected to be the successor to Kamehameha III from an early age, despite being Lot's younger brother. In December 1854, following the death of Kamehameha III, he ascended the throne and became Kamehameha IV. At that time, while the Polynesian indigenous (Hawaiian) society was weakening, American missionaries were gaining control over politics and society. The King's first official act was to stop the annexation negotiations with the United States that Kamehameha III had begun. Kamehameha IV did not want Hawaii to become part of America.

On June 19, 1856, Kamehameha IV married Emma Naea Rooke, who had attended the same school as a child, at Kawaiaha'o Church. Her lineage included a grandfather, John Young, a British sailor who became a military advisor to Kamehameha, and a grandmother whose father was Kamehameha's younger brother. Raised by a British physician as her foster father, Emma was pro-British, much like the King. Eventually, a son was born to them, and the prince was named Albert Edward, after Prince Albert of Great Britain. Hawaiians called the long-awaited child born to the House of Kamehameha "Ka Haku o Hawai'i" (The Prince of Hawaii). The family of Kamehameha IV represented a bright hope for the future of the Hawaiian people.

In a report titled "1860 Report on Observations in America and Hawaii," which is believed to have been submitted to the Nakatsu Domain after his return to Japan, Fukuzawa briefly described Hawaiian customs. According to the report, both men and women went barefoot; men wore tight-sleeved clothes, and women wore muumuus (according to Fukuzawa's drawings). Their staple food was "something like water taro" (taro) that was heated and mashed (poi). Fukuzawa also observed and recorded that the shops on the island were run by Europeans, Americans, and Chinese, with not a single Hawaiian-run shop, and that many Hawaiian children attended school carrying English books.

In his "Guide to travel in the western world," published in 1867 (Keio 3) immediately after his third overseas voyage, Fukuzawa included "Sandwich" (the name James Cook gave the Hawaiian Islands after his superior) in the chapter "Stopover Places for Pacific Mail Steamships." Fukuzawa introduced the kingdom, saying, "There is a king on the island. His family name is Kamehameha. His residence is in a port called Honolulu. He maintains the status of a king and has already concluded treaties with Western countries." However, his description was harsh, much like in his autobiography, stating, "The customs of the islanders are extremely unsightly." Fukuzawa's descriptions, written while the excitement of his first direct contact with Western civilization in San Francisco had not yet cooled, should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

The USS Powhatan, which headed to America along with the Kanrin Maru, entered Honolulu on the outward journey to repair damage from a storm and to load coal. For the embassy members aboard the Powhatan, this was their first encounter with a foreign land, and it was a series of surprises. Muragaki Awaji-no-kami, the vice-ambassador who had an audience with the royal couple, wrote of Emma in his diary that he "almost wondered if she were a living Amida Buddha." Furthermore, seeing the epaulettes on the King's shoulders and Emma's formal dress, Muragaki composed a poem: "The husband wears a sash / while the wife meets rare guests / with her shoulders bared."

The palace to which Fukuzawa was invited, described as a "medium-sized Western-style building by Japanese standards," was a ceremonial building called Hale Ali'i. The Iolani Palace that exists today was built about 20 years later. Incidentally, the name Iolani was taken from the name of Kamehameha IV. The bird feathers Fukuzawa saw were symbols of royalty in Hawaii. Feathers from a bird native to Hawaii called the "'O'o" (now extinct) were bundled and tied to poles called Kahili. Each royal family member had their own unique Kahili, and because making them required precious materials and an enormous amount of time and skill, they were treated with the same respect as the royalty themselves.

Kimura Settsu-no-kami evaluated Kamehameha IV, saying, "The King's name is Kamehameha, aged about 34 or 35; though of native stock, he naturally possesses a dignified appearance." In reality, the King was 26 at the time, and Emma was 24. Fukuzawa wrote that he saw the "King's brother," but the King had no younger brother; he may have been referring to his older brother, Lot.

What pained Kamehameha IV the most was the health of the Hawaiian people. Westerners had brought infectious diseases to Hawaii along with modern goods. Hawaiians, who had no immunity, became seriously ill even from mild diseases. The Hawaiian population, which Cook estimated at 300,000, had plummeted to 73,000 by 1855. The King and Emma decided to build a hospital, but since they could not obtain a budget from the legislature, the two personally raised funds and finally managed to open the hospital. The cornerstone-laying ceremony for the hospital was held on July 15, shortly after Fukuzawa and the others had their audience.

In August 1862, tragedy struck the House of Kamehameha and the Hawaiian people. Prince Albert fell ill and passed away at the age of only four. After the prince's death, the royal couple took an even stronger interest in the Anglican Church. To build an Anglican church—which did not yet exist in Hawaii—they requested Queen Victoria of Great Britain to send a bishop and donated land for the church's construction. However, having lost hope for life due to deep despondency, Kamehameha IV passed away on November 30, 1863, without seeing the completion of the church.

The widowed Emma continued to focus on social activities after the King's death, working tirelessly to raise funds for the hospital and the church. The church was named St. Andrew's Cathedral because November 20 falls on St. Andrew's Day. In part of its beautiful stained glass, King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma are depicted, with Prince Albert below them. The House of Kamehameha subsequently had no more children and ended with the generation of the King's older brother, Lot (Kamehameha V). From the sixth monarch onward, the King was chosen by election. The election for the seventh Hawaiian monarch was contested between Kalakaua (who was also present during Fukuzawa's audience), who came from an Ali'i family different from the Kamehamehas and promoted pro-American policies, and Emma, who felt a sense of crisis that America would eventually annex Hawaii by force. Although Emma received overwhelming support from the Hawaiian people, the vote in the legislature, where white Americans held power, ended in a landslide victory for Kalakaua.

In his later years, Fukuzawa wrote in his autobiography, "Hawaii 30 years ago and now have probably not changed," but just three months after finishing the manuscript, on August 12, 1898, exactly as Emma had feared, the flag of the United States was raised over Iolani Palace, and the Kingdom of Hawaii ceased to exist.

The hospital that Kamehameha IV and Emma worked so hard to build became The Queen's Medical Center, named after Emma. Today, it continues to support the health of the people living in Hawaii as the state's premier general hospital.