Lincoln in American and Hawaiian History and Memory (James Oliver Horton Lecture)

Photo courtesy of Alejandro Bárcenas

In keeping with his conviction that the presentation of public history (because it is the primary way that the average Americans learn history) needs to be done well, famed American Historian and Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission member, James Oliver Horton gave a public lecture today on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus on “Lincoln in American and Hawaiian History and Memory,” which I attended and report on below.

Mentioning Lincoln in conjunction with Hawaiʻi, as I stated in a previous post, is not something most Lincoln scholars do. According to Horton, Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Co-Chair Harold Holzer (author or editor of 31 books--and counting--on Lincoln) was baffled and intrigued about the connection. The nexus is not immediately obvious or ample. During his talk, Horton covered some of the same ground about the tangible links of Lincoln to Hawaiʻi which can be found in his article, “Hawaiʻi and the Lincoln Bicentennial: Remembering a Special Relationship.” However, it is the unique history of Hawaiʻi and concepts of race which Horton discussed which make the subject of his lecture pertinent not only for the memory of Lincoln but also for discourses about public history and memory on the mainland United States.

Horton narrated the story of Anthony Allen to elucidate this point of making a connection between American and Hawaiian history and memory. Allen was an ingenious African American born into slavery in New York in 1774. After being freed from slavery in the early 1800s, Allen joined the crew of a whaling ship in Boston which travelled to various locations in the Americas, China and finally Hawaiʻi where Allen disembarked in 1810. Allen became a steward to King Kamehameha I (aka Kamehameha the Great) who granted Allen six acres of land. According to Allen’s letter to his former master’s son which Horton cited, Allen married two Hawaiian women, “as is the custom.” Allen also had a keen eye for business and owned among other things, a hospital (quite possibly the first in Hawaiʻi in 1823) and a bowling alley. One can hardly imagine such a success story for Allen had he remained in the USA. While Allen was making a fortune in Hawaiʻi, the then former President James Madison (who bequeathed his slaves to his wife in his 1835 will) wrote in 1819 to Robert J. Evans: “To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the United States freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by, or alloted to, a White population”. James Monroe who became President directly after Madison supported African colonization of blacks (Lincoln was also in favor of colonization before he became known for his role in emancipation, as one can see from his reverence for the American Colonization Society in his 1852 eulogy for Henry Clay).

During the Civil War, the Hawaiian Kingdom declared its neutrality. Despite that fact, some Hawaiians fought for the Union in the Civil War. A Union General, Samuel Chapman Armstrong (born and raised in Hawaiʻi by his missionary parents), who was in command of a regiment of black troops found “several Hawaiian soldiers among the Negro regiments.” This identification should not come as a surprise given the ideas of race in the US in the middle of the 19^th century. Confused Americans mustering Hawaiians into the ranks assigned descriptions such as “copper,” “mulatto,” “yellow” and “black” to the complexions of the Hawaiians. Indeed, in 1850, the Hawaiian Prince Alexander Liholiho, who would later become King Kamehameha IV, experienced American racism first hand on a trip in New York when he was thought to be black and nearly removed from a train car. Horton also related a story that an American who met Prince Alexander felt that the prince would fetch $1,000 at a slave auction in South Carolina.

It is these kinds of stories, and there are more to tell, which force us to engage elements of both American and Hawaiian history and memory that are often overlooked, forgotten or are generally unknown. As James Horton attempted to show, the commemoration of Lincoln and the issues of his day through the history and memory of the USA and Hawaiʻi is still relevant to us during the presidency of another President with a connection to Hawaiʻi, Barack Obama, whose term in office coincides with the upcoming sesquicentennial of the American Civil War (2011-2015).