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1 Haw. J.L. & Pol. 1 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/hawjolp1 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S NOTE If a big wave comes in large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean, and when they see the small fishes of the shallows they will eat them up. David Malo1 The evidence was all around the Pacific and, by April 1842, His Majesty King Kamehameha III saw it clearly-large and unfamiliar fishes coming up from the dark ocean. Great Britain had taken Australia and made it a penal colony and a dependency. Catholic priests had been expelled from Tahiti in 1836 leading to French gunboats in 1838. In 1840, the British had settled into Aotearoa by way of the Treaty of Waitangi that guaranteed the Maoris some still to be fully understood status in exchange for British sovereignty.2 The French took the Marquesas and Society islands in 1842 en route to declaring Tahiti a Protectorate and triggering a three- year war of independence by Queen Pomare IV. In 1842, French and British naval vessels visited Hawaii to demand equal status for their nationals. The Hawaiian Islands' strategic mid-Pacific position made it a likely next target. Invasion, overthrow and occupation seemed imminent. In the face of this threat, His Majesty commissioned and dispatched three Ministers Plenipotentiary -two Westerners and a trusted childhood friend-to secure the recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom's independence and its membership in the family of nations. His Majesty's goal was to obtain the protection of public international law that accompanied recognition as a member state in the family of nations. In April 1842, Timoteo Ha'alilio, William Richards and Sir George Simpson received their commissions. Simpson left soon for England. Ha'alilio and Richards departed in July for the United States. By December 1842, the United States had recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom. Ha'alilio and Richards left to meet Simpson in Europe where all three secured formal recognition from Great Britain and France. On April 1, 1843, Lord Aberdeen, on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation that: Her Majesty's 1 Gavan Daws, Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1968), 106, quoting Hawaiian scholar David Malo. 2 See F.M Brookfield, Waitangi and Indigenous Rights: Revolution, Law, and Legitimation, (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999); See also Peter Cleave, The Sovereignty Game: Power, Knowledge and Reading the Treaty, (Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1989).

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