O'ahu - Hawaii - page 7

Around AD 1450, Maʻilikukahi, the ancient moʻi (king) of Oʻahu, moved his capital to
Waikiki, a coastal wetland known for its fertile farmlands and abundant fishing, as well
as being a place of recreation and healing. Oʻahu's fall to Kamehameha the Great in 1795
signaled the beginning of a united Hawaiian kingdom. Kamehameha later moved his roy-
al court to Honolulu ('Sheltered Bay').
In 1793 the English frigate Butterworth became the first foreign ship to sail into what
is now Honolulu Harbor. In the 1820s, Honolulu's first bars and brothels opened to inter-
national whaling crews just as prudish Protestant missionaries began arriving from New
England. Honolulu replaced Lahaina as the capital of the kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1845.
Today Hawaii's first church is just a stone's throw from ʻIolani Palace.
In the 1830s, sugar became king of Oʻahu's industry. Plantation workers from Asia
and Europe were brought to fill the island's labor shortage. The names of some of
Honolulu's richest and most powerful plantation families - Alexander, Baldwin, Cooke
and Dole - read like rosters from the first mission ships. The 19th century ended with the
Hawaiian monarchy violently overthrown at Honolulu's ʻIolani Palace, creating a short-
lived independent republic dominated by sugar barons and ultimately annexed by the
USA.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Oʻahu was placed under
martial law during WWII. As many civil rights were suspended, a detention center for
Japanese Americans and resident aliens was established on Honolulu's Sand Island, and
later an internment camp was built in the Honouliuli area of central Oʻahu. The US fed-
eral government didn't apologize for these injustices until 1988.
After WWII, modern jet-age travel and baby-boom prosperity provided Oʻahu with a
thriving tourism business to replace its declining shipping industry. In the 1970s, the
Hawaiian renaissance flowered, especially on the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa cam-
pus and after the successful wayfaring voyage of the Hokuleʻa canoe to Tahiti, first
launched from Oʻahu's Windward Coast.
By the 1980s, rampant tourist development had overbuilt Waikiki and turned some of
Oʻahu's agricultural land into water-thirsty golf courses and sprawling resorts. The is-
land's last sugar mills closed in the 1990s, leaving Oʻahu more heavily dependent on
tourism than ever. Debates about economic diversification and the continuing US milit-
ary presence continue today.

OʻAHU'S TOP OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY DESTINATION