By Lisa Asato - Ka Wai Ola

Prevailing scholarship on the Hawaiian Kingdom in the years leading up to the 1893 overthrow suggests that it was a colonial institution. But new research by University of Hawai'i doctoral candidate Kamana Beamer challenges that idea.

After a year of full-time work on his dissertation, including a trip to London to sift through the national archives and present his research at Royal Holloway, University of London, Beamer's findings led him to conclude that Hawai'i's ali'i were not agents of foreigners, but rather agents of change.

“Sometimes you get the impression that there's a foreigner whispering in their ear, and they were just dictating what that particular foreigner wanted them to do, but they weren't doing that,” Beamer said. “They were taking existing ways of governance, land management, existing tradition and modernizing them in the kingdom through codification of laws (and) those types of things for the betterment of the country and the people as a whole.”

Kamana Beamer at the national archives in     London. - Photo: Courtesy of Kamana Beamer

“I'm calling it 'selective adaptation,' ” added Beamer, whose $45,000 'Ōiwi Ake Akamai fellowship, a pilot program for Native Hawaiian research funded by UH-Mānoa, Kamehameha Schools and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, allowed him to concentrate full-time on his studies and complete his dissertation in one year. He will defend his dissertation this month and plans to graduate in December.

Six other students also received the fellowships: Stephanie Dunbar, Sydney Iaukea, Malia Kaaihue, Peter Moore, David Sai and Stephen Vogeler. Their research ranges from native plant restoration to Hawaiian language education

Beamer said that by modernizing traditions through “selective adaptation,” ali'i were trying to create “a government that would be recognized by the powers of the world.” He pointed to examples of an 1838 map by S.P. Kalama that shows traditional moku and ahupua'a divisions, royal trips abroad to France and Britain, and Hawaiian-language newspapers publishing “traditional mo'olelo and expressing political views all in our own language.”

Beamer said previous scholars, including Haunani Trask, Lilikalā Kame'eleihiwa, Jon Osorio and Noenoe Silva examined history through the lens of colonialism, although to lesser degrees through the years. Beamer tested that notion after researching maps and land records for his master's thesis, which tried to use colonial theory to explain how the Hawaiian Kingdom was mapped. “I realized that it wasn't making sense,” he said. “So my dissertation is sort of a reinterpretation of how we understand the kingdom.”

One of those scholars, Osorio, encouraged him to re-analyze existing work. “That was very much encouraged by kumu Jon Osorio,” Beamer said. Beamer has digitized more than 18,000 pages of archival material from the kingdom era, including ali'i journals and letters. During his trip to London, he retraced the steps of Lot and Liholiho, found an 1894 petition in the archives from Queen Lili'uokalani to the British government asking them to deny recognition to the provisional government, and found evidence that Hawaiians active with the annexation petition “went and met with British officials and delivered to them copies of memorials against annexation.”

“There's vast amounts of materials that needs to be collected from the United Kingdom archives and brought back so we can better understand what was happening in this time,” he said, adding that they offer a valuable perspective of events that is neither Hawaiian nor American.

Beamer, the 30-year-old son of musician Kapono Beamer and grandson of the late educator Winona Beamer, said he hopes his work sparks further research, which could have political implications in sovereignty and regaining ceded lands. What he learned has significance for all Hawaiians, he said. “It speaks of the brilliance of our people and of our leaders and the significance of their actions in trying to create a better system for their people. And like them, in today's times we're facing those same issues – we're trying to figure out, 'How do we continue to move forward in this modern world while maintaining our identities as Hawaiians?' And I think that that's empowering to see our ali'i, our traditional leaders, were dealing with the same issues. Maybe we can learn from some of their experiences.”