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A NARRATIVE OF FIVE YOUTH FROM THE SANDWICH ISLANDS NOW RECEIVING AN EDUCATION IN THIS COUNTRY. PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE AGENTS APPOINTED TO ESTABLISH A SCHOOL FOR HEATHEN YOUTH.
1816réf. 68845New York: Printed by J. Seymour 1816. Inspiration for the First Mission to Hawaii A rare account of the lives of the five Hawaiian youths who would come to form a core of initial students enrolled at the new Foreign Mission School established at Cornwall Connecticut in 1816. The school formed under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ABCFM would serve to educate foreign students in preparation for missionary work in their native lands and elsewhere. Published in 1816 A Narrative of Five Youth from the Sandwich Islands was the first of many publications intended to raise funds and stir up popular support for the new school as well as for the first Christian mission sent to the Hawaiian Islands three years later. As such it served as part of the early efforts to bring Hawaii within the cultural and commercial orbit of the United States. By the second decade of the 19th century Hawaii had become an integral part of America's burgeoning China trade serving not only as a crucial resupply hub and convenient stopover for Yankee ships sailing between North America and China and around Cape Horn but also as a lucrative source of sandalwood which American merchants traded in exchange for Chinese silk tea and porcelain. Where American merchants saw commercial possibilities however Protestant missionaries saw opportunities for Christian conversion. In April 1809 two Hawaiian youths Henry Obookiah and Thomas Hopoo arrived in New York aboard the China trade ship Triumph in the hope of receiving an education in the United States. Shortly after their arrival the two took up residence in the New Haven home of the ship's captain Caleb Brintnall. There Obookiah quickly came to the attention of several Yale students who offered to tutor him. Soon he was invited to join the household of Yale president Timothy Dwight. As John Demos explains in his history of the Foreign Mission School where Obookiah became the star student and "the most famous Hawaiian emigrant of his time" "Dwight's home was the starting point" of an eight-year odyssey "that would take Obookiah into three states eight different towns and at least a dozen separate families scattered across the New England countryside" and which culminated in his conversion to Christianity and admission to church membership in 1814. Obookiah and Hopoo were eventually joined by three other Hawaiian youths William Tennooe John Honoree and George Prince Tamoree the son of a Hawaiian king. The stories of these five youths shared "a number of common elements. All had spent time as sailors on American trade ships. Three had served at sea in the War of 1812. Most had experienced periods of extreme hardship after reaching New England.All had sooner or later found sponsors teachers and spiritual guides. All had been moved through a kind of missionary pipeline centered in New Haven but reaching out well across the Connecticut countryside" Demos. Together the five Hawaiian youths would "become the founding nucleus of an institution unlike any previously seen on American soil" Demos. The Narrative was part of a publicity campaign designed to raise funds for the new school and for an eventual mission to Hawaii. As Demos explains the Narrative originated as "a 'manuscript account'" of the "lives and prospects" of the five Hawaiian youths "written some months before by parties unknown and circulated by hand in the interim; the agents of the school were eager to arrange its publication "for the information and excitement of the Christian public.'.it was printed in New York in the last weeks of the year 1816." Such publications "capitalized on the interest in the Sandwich Islands and the islands of the Pacific that had begun gradually with the first sales of the journals and logs from the voyages of Captain Cook the much-performed pantomime of his death and the ubiquitous commercial news that related the daily comings and goings of ships from New England to the Pacific" Arista. A New Jersey issue of the Narrative appeared in the same year; it is not known which preceded the other. The text gives biographies of each of the five youths discusses their activities and experiences in America and prints various letters written by them. According to the authors the Narrative offered "a simple and authentic statement of facts respecting the youth now under the care of the agents; with specimens of their ability and improvement." The final pages discuss the establishment of the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall and include the text of the school's constitution. As the constitution states the object of the school would be "the education of heathen youth in such a manner as that.they may be qualified to become missionaries schoolmasters interpreters physicians or surgeons among heathen nations and to communicate such information in agriculture and the arts as shall tend to promote Christianity and civilization." The Narrative Demos explains "was perfectly timed to catch a rising wave of public interest in 'heathens' abroad.Not coincidentally donations to the ABCFM would soar—from just over $12000 to nearly $30000—in the year of the Mission School's founding." Tragically in 1818 two years after the publication of the Narrative Obookiah died of typhus. His Memoirs edited by Edwin Dwight were published shortly thereafter and the success of that book inspired a wave of interest in the islands which culminated in the sailing of the first missionary bark Thaddeus for Hawaii on October 23 1819. Over the course of nearly a decade from 1817 to 1826 some 100 students from around the world passed through the doors of the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall. They included Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders; Native Americans including Cherokees Choctaws Creeks and others; students from East Asia including China India and the Malay Peninsula; and others from Europe Mexico and throughout the United States. A rare and significant piece of Hawaiiana and part of some of the earliest efforts to bring Hawaii under the cultural influence of the United States. Dbd. Stitched gathering. A few leaves loose but holding. Text lightly foxed and toned. Small section along upper edge of final leaf torn away not affecting text. Library stamp of Union Theological Seminary Richmond Virginia in blue ink to titlepage. Good. FORBES 456. SABIN 51790. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 36725 38355. John Demos The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2014 pp.22 29 31-32 38-39. Noelani Arista The Kingdom and the Republic: Sovereign Hawai'i and the Early United States Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2019 pp.61-62. unknown
William Reese Company · États-Unis3 000,00 $US≈ 2 680,25 €
