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Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor was originally an extensive, shallow embayment called Wai Momi (meaning "harbor of pearl") or Pu'uloa by the Hawaiians. Pu'uloa was regarded as the home of the shark goddess Ka'ahupahau and her brother (or son) Kahi'uka. In Hawaiian legends, Keaunui, the head of the powerful and celebrated Ewa chiefs, is attributed the honour of having cut a navigable channel near the present Puuloa saltworks, by which the great estuary, now known as "Pearl River," was in all subsequent ages rendered accessible to navigation. Making due allowance for legendary amplification of a known fact, the estuary doubtless had an outlet for its waters where the present gap is; but the legend is probably correct in giving Keaunui the credit of having widened it and deepened it, so as to admit the passage of canoes, and even larger vessels, in and out of the Pearl River estuary. The harbor was teeming with pearl-producing oysters until the late 1800s.

During the years following the arrival of Captain James Cook, Pearl Harbor was not considered a suitable harbor due to its shallow water. The interest of the United States Government in the Sandwich Islands followed the adventurous voyages of its whaling and trading ships in the Pacific. As early as 1820, an "Agent of the United States for Commerce and Seamen" was appointed to look after American business in the Port of Honolulu. These commercial ties to the American continent were accompanied by the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. American missionaries and their families became an integral part of the Hawaiian political body.

The affair of Lieutenant John Percival[3] in 1826 illustrates some of the high-handed tactics of employed by colonizers of the islands at this time. When Percival's ship, USS DolphinTemplate:WP Ships USS instances, arrived in Honolulu, an ordinance had just been passed, inspired by the missionaries, placing restrictions on the sale of alcoholic liquors and the taking of...