TMWeddle

When did people on the mainland stop calling Hawaii "the Sandwich Islands"? A friend of mine on Oahu says that the name "Oo way ee" was also used early on.

To be specific, what did mainlanders call Hawaii in 1860 - 1865?

Thank you very much!

TMWeddle

ttt

Rusty

Owhyhee - in places this name is defined as a Hawaiian word meaning homeland. In reality, it is the spelling that Captain Cook and other mariners wrote in their logs based on how their ears heard what the natives of the islands called them. It would later be written Hawaii. Since there was no written language in ancient Hawaii, either or neither might be "correct".

The Sandwich Islands was the name given to Hawaii by Captain James Cook on his discovery of the islands on January 18, 1778. The name was made in honour of one of his sponsors, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was at the time the First Lord of the Admiralty and Cook's superior officer. During the late 19th century, the name fell into disuse.

TMWeddle

Thanks!1 Any idea how late in the 19th C the "Sandwich Islands" monniker fell into disuse?

Cole2006

I don't know. But, in 1840 Richard Henry Dana knew this place as the Sandwich Islands.

PakePorkChop

Captain James Cook in 1778 became the first person known to report the existence of the Hawaiian Islands to European cartographers. He found a feudal society, where each individual island was ruled by collections of native chiefs, and he called these the Sandwich Islands after his financial sponsor, the Earl of Sandwich.

By 1810, the islands had been united by Kamehameha I as the Kingdom of Hawaii. I doubt very much that the term "Sandwich Islands" would have prevailed when a sovereign state came into existence in 1810.

The term "Sandwich Islands" may have fallen into disuse in the late 19th century, but its prevalence must have ended well before that.

Rusty

OK that's enough. If you have access to this forum you have access to Google.

DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!

sistahlou

Well then, any books regarding hawaii and its history that any of you could suggest?

TMWeddle

Sorry if this thread bothered you, Rusty. This was an arcane, esoteric question that is not easily answered through the normal means of research. Since the Fodorites are very knowledgeable on many, many subjects this was a place I thought I could get more than just the normal Google research! Mark Twain referred to the islands as the Sandwich Islands as late as 1873 but I am not sure he was not harkening back to an earlier name for literary reasons.

MelissaHI

you might want to check with www.bishopmuseum.org

PakePorkChop

An inquiry regarding books relating to the history of Hawaii would be almost irrelevant in relation to the initial question: "When did people on the mainland stop calling Hawaii 'the Sandwich Islands?"

How would we know? This was the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1810 to 1893.

If you want to know what people in Illinois or Kentucky were thinking, you have to inquire in Illinois and Kentucky, not in Hawaii.

Not to sound impatient, but there needs to be a little intellectual rigor here.

offlady

I have my uncle's old stamp collection book and the page for Hawaii stamps is listed as "Hawaii - The Sandwich Isles." The book was printed in 1940. So maybe it was used interchangeably possibly well into the 1930's in different parts of the world.

Helen_in_Hawaii

A terrific book on the history of Hawaii I like is "Shoal of Time" by Gavan Daws.

Waldo

The ABSOLUTE BEST book on Hawaii history, although it's a novel (historical), is "HAWAII", by James Michener. He's written several historical novels, and they are all great. The history is exact and concise. What is a novel about his stories, is that he weaves characters into the historical facts.