Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck, Brian over there aloha.
Speaker 1: Uh and Jerry's out there somewhere aloha. And um, this
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. How Melaka laki laka that's announced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's actually a little known fact. That's the Hawaiian way
Speaker 1: to say Merry Christmas to you. I didn't know the story,
Speaker 1: by the way, this is pretty interesting. Um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to say, Chuck. Before we get started. We
Speaker 1: have to give a huge shout out huge to a dude.
Speaker 1: I don't know his name, but he's on Instagram as
Speaker 1: people Kanaka Kai. Okay, well maybe that's his name, so
Speaker 1: what maybe so? Or it could be Kai Kanaka who knows.
Speaker 1: He calls himself the Hawaiian Hillbilly, but he had is
Speaker 1: every time we post an episode, he goes on and
Speaker 1: comments Hawaiian overthrow episode please. He's been doing it for
Speaker 1: like years, So Kanaka Kai, this one is for you man,
Speaker 1: and that long last and now he doesn't have to
Speaker 1: jump into the big woo right. So what I'm hoping though,
Speaker 1: is that he's not like super well versed in this
Speaker 1: is just going to be inevitably disappointed. Hopefully, it's just
Speaker 1: something he wants to know more about, so he's been
Speaker 1: asking for it for that one. Well, I'm glad he
Speaker 1: trolld us for years because this is a really interesting
Speaker 1: and not at all surprising story. No it's not. And um,
Speaker 1: basically what we're talking about today is the overthrow of Hawaii.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that Hawaii one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful states in the Union, probably the most beautiful state
Speaker 1: in the Union, the state where you me and I
Speaker 1: got married. In fact, sure, sure, if you're into tropical paradise,
Speaker 1: is there's not much better. Somebody for Montana might be like,
Speaker 1: you can have it with these mountains. Although I could
Speaker 1: see Montana people going to Hawaiian being like, I've been wrong,
Speaker 1: so wrong all my life and these boots are really uncomfortable. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: it is a beautiful state. But if you go back
Speaker 1: not too very far, you will find that, um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of arguments you could make that it should
Speaker 1: not be a state in any way, shape or form. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about the about the current temperature of
Speaker 1: native Hawaiian people and how they feel about that now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well we'll get to that eventually. Do you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know about the temperature of the Hawaiian people, but
Speaker 1: I know about some some proposals to help kind of
Speaker 1: reverse r undo some of the damage. I understood. That's
Speaker 1: for the end. Well, I guess we should go back
Speaker 1: some many thousands of years and talk about the settling
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian islands by the Polynesian people about you know,
Speaker 1: years ago, maybe a thousand years ago, somewhere in there.
Speaker 1: And for many, many hundreds of years there were the
Speaker 1: control of of Hawaii was by chiefs and then sub chiefs,
Speaker 1: and these chiefs claimed that they were divine in origin,
Speaker 1: and they said, we have a set of very strict
Speaker 1: religious um rules that we should follow, called the cop Who,
Speaker 1: And that you know wasn't so popular over the years.
Speaker 1: Well it depends. I mean, like if you were born
Speaker 1: into that society and that was what you knew, that
Speaker 1: was just what you knew. But I get the impression
Speaker 1: that over the centuries some chiefs and sub chiefs enforced
Speaker 1: the cop Who more than others. And um. One of
Speaker 1: the big bases of the cop Who laws, is that
Speaker 1: there was a strict separation of men and women, and
Speaker 1: men were divine and women were profane, and that they
Speaker 1: represented kind of like light and dark and you have
Speaker 1: to have you can't have one without the others, so
Speaker 1: they need each other. But also men were still definitely
Speaker 1: favorite and respect. But then if you also go look
Speaker 1: through Hawaiian history, there are also plenty of female rulers
Speaker 1: as well, so it's a it's really interesting. Kapu could
Speaker 1: probably get its own episode, and I'm sure now we
Speaker 1: know what Kanaka Kai will be commenting on all on.
Speaker 1: But it was so they had their own like very
Speaker 1: strict social um stratification and religious laws for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think if Emily heard that, she would say, Chuck
Speaker 1: is not divine, but I am profane, So we're halfway there, right.
Speaker 1: Non profane women rarely make history. So speaking of making history,
Speaker 1: this is where a man named James Cook enters the picture.
Speaker 1: In the late seventeen hundreds, the very famous British explorer.
Speaker 1: He was the most notable. Uh, some people say the
Speaker 1: first European to visit Hawaii. UM, definitely the most notable
Speaker 1: because there is some um. You could make an argument
Speaker 1: that the Spanish were there before him at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have maps that appear to be Hawaii from like
Speaker 1: the sixteenth country. Yeah, so the Japanese as well. But um,
Speaker 1: Cook was the first person to go as an Englishman,
Speaker 1: which was a big deal as a colonizer and say,
Speaker 1: I'm charting this island or these islands, are going to
Speaker 1: name them the Sandwich Islands. Not a great name now,
Speaker 1: because well James Cook was well known for loving sandwiches,
Speaker 1: so sure he was so crazy actually that it was
Speaker 1: named for the Earl of Sandwich, John Montague. It's the
Speaker 1: very same Earl of Sandwich though the sandwiches are named for,
Speaker 1: So that guy was really he was an influencer in
Speaker 1: Hawaii's known for their sandwiches. Yeah, poise sandwiches. So Cook visits, Uh,
Speaker 1: he visits a few times, um, and kind of did
Speaker 1: a lot of traveling while he was there. So he
Speaker 1: he makes one visit and then just starts sort of
Speaker 1: exploring the islands around Hawaii. Eventually comes back kind of
Speaker 1: on that same trip and gets really aggressive at that point. Um,
Speaker 1: not a nice fellow, trying to do sort of the
Speaker 1: the colonizer thing here. Let me make a deal with you. Um,
Speaker 1: let me trade something that isn't very valuable for something
Speaker 1: that is very valuable, which is to say, your land, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he was just basically doing the standard euro
Speaker 1: explorer thing, which trash explorer exploitation, trying to get everybody
Speaker 1: into Kraftwick, that whole thing, right. So um, so cook,
Speaker 1: I guess he overstepped his bounds finally and he was
Speaker 1: actually killed in a major battle, um after some of
Speaker 1: his his men kidnapped um a Hawaiian chief. Well, he
Speaker 1: he did it personally from what I saw, was that right,
Speaker 1: okay said by his own hand. Not a good move,
Speaker 1: not a good not a good move, um. Because one
Speaker 1: thing about the Hawaiian islands, they were ruled by those
Speaker 1: chiefs and sub chiefs, like you said. But I get
Speaker 1: the impression that, um, they were, they were united largely
Speaker 1: when it came to the kidnapping of any Hawaiian chief
Speaker 1: by a European outsider. Yeah. Like, you can fight with
Speaker 1: your brother, but if someone else picks on your brother,
Speaker 1: then you gotta you gotta join forces. Who would ever
Speaker 1: pick on Scott? Well? I was thinking of you and me,
Speaker 1: But sure, brother like real brothers too, write well and
Speaker 1: bloods I still have that scar on my palm. I
Speaker 1: actually mine was a squib. I faked it. I thought
Speaker 1: that tasted like a high fruit toast corn. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like chuck his sweet blood so sweet like Scott.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Cook is uh kidnaps this guy. They they
Speaker 1: did not respond very kindly to that, so they sent
Speaker 1: a faction down there too attack him in his boats.
Speaker 1: They were on the beach and that's where he died,
Speaker 1: faced down in in shallow water. He was bonked on
Speaker 1: the head by one chief I think, and then stabbed
Speaker 1: by that chiefs um kind of attendant, right right, So um,
Speaker 1: this is a This is a huge battle, a momentous
Speaker 1: battle in the history of of Hawaii. It was very important,
Speaker 1: and not just because James Cook died, but because there
Speaker 1: was a one of the I guess low level warriors
Speaker 1: there or middle middle class warriors I guess by the
Speaker 1: name of Camea Maya fought quite bravely in that battle,
Speaker 1: and Camea Maya actually went on to become the first
Speaker 1: genuinely influential Hawaiian chief, maybe the most significant Hawaiian chief
Speaker 1: of all time, because while he was there fighting the Europeans,
Speaker 1: He's like man, these guns, they they work really well.
Speaker 1: And you know, these Europeans are willing to sell him
Speaker 1: to you. And he figured out that if he could
Speaker 1: amass some European UM support and European weapons, he could
Speaker 1: get all of Hawaii basically under himself. And that's what
Speaker 1: he said about doing over the course of a couple
Speaker 1: of decades. Yeah, reading this stuff, this was the Grabster
Speaker 1: that helped us with this one. It seems I'm sorry, No,
Speaker 1: it was James Mishner. Oh really, no, you remember James
Speaker 1: Mischner would write those thousand page epics about like I
Speaker 1: think he wrote went on Hawaii basically. But this this crabs.
Speaker 1: So James misterrs this author could write these exhaustive historical fictions, um,
Speaker 1: and one of them was why. But they would be
Speaker 1: like a thousand pages easily. And I was making a
Speaker 1: jokey comment on Grabster's research skills. Yeah, English major over
Speaker 1: here flew right over my head. And by the way,
Speaker 1: a little quick side note that I wanted to mention,
Speaker 1: I am speaking of epic tones. I'm reading the Beatles
Speaker 1: biography from Bob Spitz that's like a thousand pages, and uh,
Speaker 1: one thing I wish we could have mentioned. I know
Speaker 1: you hate the Beatles, but one thing I wish we
Speaker 1: could have mentioned in the pirate radio thing was Radio Luxembourg.
Speaker 1: There would have been no Beatles without them because independently, Paul,
Speaker 1: George and John we're all on their own listening to
Speaker 1: Radio Luxembourg and that's what turned them onto that's cool,
Speaker 1: turn me on Radio Luxembourg. And uh wow, I did
Speaker 1: not see the Beatles making an appeance in this episode.
Speaker 1: So where are we now? Oh? I know what I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, was um a thread through this I
Speaker 1: found is that back then, uh Hawaiians were largely under armed.
Speaker 1: In most cases, that's a big thing. And then also,
Speaker 1: just like with all other um colonizations from outside European forces,
Speaker 1: disease basically paved the way for imperialism. Sure where even
Speaker 1: even if they were under armed and they didn't typically
Speaker 1: have standing militaries, um, I should say the Hawaiians didn't
Speaker 1: even if they had. There was like a plague that
Speaker 1: came around in eighteen oh three that killed off half
Speaker 1: of the population. They think it was yellow fever. Um.
Speaker 1: There was another measles outbreak about fifty years later that
Speaker 1: killed off another quarter of the population. So when you're
Speaker 1: dying off in like numbers like this, how could you
Speaker 1: possibly defend yourself, especially against people who have these superior
Speaker 1: weapons like guns, germs, and steel. As Jared Diamond put it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the it's the same story as as
Speaker 1: America and the native population here. You know, it's like, Hi,
Speaker 1: we're outsiders and we have guns, and here's some smallpox.
Speaker 1: But but God decreed that this this should be our
Speaker 1: land because he killed all of you off with these
Speaker 1: small pox right because you have no immunity. It's the
Speaker 1: same depressing story over and over again. It is. Um.
Speaker 1: So when Kameya was was ruling Hawaii, which was really
Speaker 1: he was firmly entrenched by the almost turn of the century,
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. Uh, he was pushing and you know,
Speaker 1: so much of this boils down to money and class,
Speaker 1: and he was really pushing for trade with Europe. Um.
Speaker 1: He wanted the elite landholders of Hawaii to kind of
Speaker 1: remain in that position. Um. He was traditionally religious with
Speaker 1: the Kapu and supported that. But he was very much
Speaker 1: you know, like let's let's enrich ourselves as sort of
Speaker 1: the ruling class. For for sure, but he also and
Speaker 1: he was also very open to the idea of exploiting
Speaker 1: European influence for you know, to strengthen his his kingdom,
Speaker 1: his house, I guess, is what it's called. He actually
Speaker 1: had two advisors, Isaac Davis and John Young, uh englishman
Speaker 1: and a Welshman um who were his closest advisors. And
Speaker 1: apparently I can't remember which one it was, but when
Speaker 1: one of them, whenever they would part company, Kamahomyo would
Speaker 1: just begin sobbing because he just knew one day that
Speaker 1: they he was going to leave, and he just loved
Speaker 1: him that much. Yeah, it is very interesting. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you know, we were raised as
Speaker 1: like Anglo Euro American boys in the eastern seaboard of
Speaker 1: the United States, right in the Midwest. So when you
Speaker 1: research history like this, it's just like Hawaiian chief did this,
Speaker 1: and then this Hawaiian chief came along. But when you
Speaker 1: start to look into him as we were older, it's
Speaker 1: it's just always so fascinating to me just how complex
Speaker 1: and complicated history really is, you know, and just how
Speaker 1: boiled down typically is presented as Yeah, totally, that's because
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think teachers do a good job
Speaker 1: as they can. But when we were in school, the
Speaker 1: history we were taught was pretty, uh, pretty simplified. It is.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's also like a real um advantage to
Speaker 1: dehumanizing the people that you've done wrong to over the centuries,
Speaker 1: especially when they live in a state of yours. Still
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So, uh, under his rule, he
Speaker 1: managed to sort of sort of unify the Kingdom of Hawaii. Um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like everyone was completely on board with what
Speaker 1: was going on, especially with the kapu and human sacrifice
Speaker 1: and some of that stuff that happened, but they did
Speaker 1: live under his rule whether they liked it or not.
Speaker 1: He was a very strong king, yeah, because he had
Speaker 1: guns finally, and people didn't and so they couldn't rise
Speaker 1: up against him. But after he died, as when things
Speaker 1: got really complicated, because then you had Hawaiian landowners, you
Speaker 1: had white people that owned land, and then you had
Speaker 1: this third group, this really large working class. Even though
Speaker 1: many were killed off, still a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: that really complicated the whole situation. And maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a break there. We should all right, we'll take
Speaker 1: a break and we'll talk about what complicated that even
Speaker 1: more right after this, So, Chuck, we have this this
Speaker 1: kind of like a brief sketch of what's going on here.
Speaker 1: We have a native group, the native Hawaiians who live here,
Speaker 1: and they are autonomous and running their own show. But
Speaker 1: then the European explorers have showed up and they are
Speaker 1: trying to make headways in exploiting this area as best
Speaker 1: they can commercially. Um for agriculture, at first it was
Speaker 1: sandal wood, and then it moved on to I think cattle,
Speaker 1: and then finally like sugarcane um. And then those European
Speaker 1: white landowners in Hawaii started bringing in tons and tons
Speaker 1: of migrant workers in basically like slave labor conditions. So
Speaker 1: you have these three groups kind of coming together in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: only one of which was originally there. Yeah, And another
Speaker 1: thing came in, which was missionaries from Europe, Protestant missionaries
Speaker 1: for the most part, and they did what missionaries do,
Speaker 1: which was say, hey, you should be Christian and not
Speaker 1: worship whatever, uh you know, Hawaiian God you worship. And
Speaker 1: this was a big deal because there were you know,
Speaker 1: Hawaii had a long, rich tradition, um, a very sacred
Speaker 1: tradition of religion and this was not that at all,
Speaker 1: but like they do, they um were pretty forceful in
Speaker 1: making sure Christianity took hold among some of the people,
Speaker 1: and it became a pretty big deal in Hawaii by
Speaker 1: like the sort of mid eighteen hundreds, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So and just like with other places where the missionaries
Speaker 1: were kind of like the leading edge of the spear
Speaker 1: as far as imperialism goes. So they just were the
Speaker 1: first to kind of brave this and bring Christianity and
Speaker 1: a you know, air quote civilization to the area. So
Speaker 1: after they started to make headway and started to change
Speaker 1: the culture it made, it allowed greater entree for for
Speaker 1: more like commercial interest to have definitely to do with religion.
Speaker 1: They were just coming to to work the land kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah. And forty this is when Kamayama's grandson,
Speaker 1: Kamaama the third UM wrote the first real legit Hawaiian constitution.
Speaker 1: There would be many more to follow, don't worry, right,
Speaker 1: this is just the first one. And this one basically
Speaker 1: kind of kicked Kapu law to the side. Was a
Speaker 1: little more Christian, a little more western for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, and basically said all right, um, you
Speaker 1: can now vote over here, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: the first entree of what democracy would look like there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it created a judicial branch, a legislature like it.
Speaker 1: It sounded awfully familiar really as far as constitutions go.
Speaker 1: And it was a huge watershed moment because, like you said,
Speaker 1: it replaced Kapu with like you said, Western style democracy
Speaker 1: basically or some version of at the beginnings of it,
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah. And it also would would establish this
Speaker 1: this framework, this foundation for people to point to and
Speaker 1: be like, oh no, no, we want to we want
Speaker 1: to go further and further towards the constitution, not back
Speaker 1: toward the old ways. So it was like a goal
Speaker 1: post that was set there that could be pointed to
Speaker 1: as we don't want the monarch anymore. Remember, we want
Speaker 1: this legislature in the judicial branch and all this this
Speaker 1: stuff that Americans and Europeans are accustomed to working within. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also money was a big complicating factor. Um. Like
Speaker 1: we said, anytime money is introduced and there's very valuable land,
Speaker 1: it's going to get pretty gravy. And that's what happened
Speaker 1: when the white Europeans and Americans said, Wow, this soil
Speaker 1: over here in the climate of here is great for
Speaker 1: growing stuff and we're not there. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: have workers uh rights laws here, so we can really
Speaker 1: really get cheap cheap labor if not um, like you said,
Speaker 1: basically enslaved people essentially uh from Asia to work over
Speaker 1: here and not really paying much money, like bring them
Speaker 1: over under false pretense, say how great it is, how
Speaker 1: much money they're going to make, and then kind of
Speaker 1: build them back. Is it's sort of like signing a
Speaker 1: record contract and build you back for all the expenses
Speaker 1: of getting over there and overcharging for their living quarters,
Speaker 1: which were terrible. But it's you know, it's exploitation that
Speaker 1: we've seen time and time again. Um yeah, if it's
Speaker 1: still going on today, you know, like that it's basically
Speaker 1: human trafficking, is what they were doing. Yeah. So, um
Speaker 1: one thing about Kamehameha, the House of Kamehameha when the
Speaker 1: first Kamayo Maya, which is an awesomely fun word to
Speaker 1: say and also just reminds me of Magnum p I
Speaker 1: because that was the club that Rick managed, the King
Speaker 1: Kamayama Club. Wo remember that? Oh man? Uh So, anyway,
Speaker 1: I would just kill to like bee hanging out at
Speaker 1: the bar, the beach bar in that club. But anyway,
Speaker 1: um Kamayama, despite their being like up people, basically every
Speaker 1: time it's successor died, UM he managed to establish a
Speaker 1: dynasty that lasted until the eighteen seventies, I believe, UM.
Speaker 1: And the problem was that there were no strong succession laws.
Speaker 1: So when the monarch died in a few instances, there
Speaker 1: were these periods called the interregnums, which is basically like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, the government, it doesn't actually exist technically right now.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a free for all while we figure
Speaker 1: out what comes intact. We gotta we gotta get this
Speaker 1: together and decide how to move forward. And in this case,
Speaker 1: they would have the legislature vote for the ruler and UM,
Speaker 1: this wasn't super popular. It led to rioting. UM. Hawaiians
Speaker 1: were like, no, we we need uh we kind of
Speaker 1: didn't mind the monarchy and we need these succession laws
Speaker 1: to be kind of ingrained. I think that that's a
Speaker 1: real um, a real telling, revealing tell about how the
Speaker 1: Hawaiians felt that They were like, no, we don't forget
Speaker 1: the legislature, we just need better law is to say
Speaker 1: who succeeds who as far as the monarchs are concerned,
Speaker 1: because I think that's what they were used to and
Speaker 1: that's what they wanted, you know. Yeah, but what this
Speaker 1: ended up doing was kind of there was a real
Speaker 1: divide here when um, eighteen seventy four, I think was
Speaker 1: when uh kala ka oh, calliko call ka I practiced
Speaker 1: a million times Kaleika kalika ua. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: these words are so much fun to say, um, even
Speaker 1: though we're probably butchering them. But no, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's kaleika Ua alright. Kalaika Ua was the new king
Speaker 1: voted on in eighteen seventy four, and this was the
Speaker 1: first real wedge because he had this faction that supported
Speaker 1: Queen Emma and a real like opposition party was in place.
Speaker 1: Like people were very, very divided at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Queen Emma was the wife of Comma the fourth, so
Speaker 1: she had a pretty alid claimer on the throne. But
Speaker 1: the legislature said, no, kalika who is definitely our guy.
Speaker 1: He's now your your king and your monarch. And he
Speaker 1: was an interesting cat too. He was known as the
Speaker 1: Merry Monarch. He was a bit of a bomb avant
Speaker 1: um hula had been banned by the big buzz killed
Speaker 1: missionaries for decades, I mean hula dancing. Yeah, So so
Speaker 1: kalika Ua said, hey, it's my birthday, let's bring hula back.
Speaker 1: So he was kind of beloved for that. He played
Speaker 1: the ukulele, but he was also very corrupt, like he
Speaker 1: took a hundred and thirty thousand dollar bribe from some
Speaker 1: Chinese businessmen who wanted an opium license, and very importantly
Speaker 1: his whole jam was little by little, the power of
Speaker 1: the monarch has been eroded to well, now it's finally
Speaker 1: my turn, and I'm basically is a figurehead here. I
Speaker 1: want the power back, so I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1: And instead, there was some white interests that had formed
Speaker 1: a group known as the Hawaiian League, and they were
Speaker 1: basically made up of landowners, businessmen, people who had but
Speaker 1: who were all like white European and American people who said,
Speaker 1: we actually don't like that idea, and in fact, we're
Speaker 1: going to make you form sign a new constitution into law,
Speaker 1: um and where you're gonna do it basically at the
Speaker 1: at the at gun point, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: called the Bayonet Constitution. Historically speaking, yes, the Hawaiian League.
Speaker 1: They were. They had a bunch of different names. Initially
Speaker 1: they were the um the Missionary not in the Missionary League,
Speaker 1: the Missionary what the Missionary Party. The Missionary thought that
Speaker 1: was too sexy, right, So Missionary Party became the Hawaiian League,
Speaker 1: eventually became the Reform Party because who doesn't like reform?
Speaker 1: And they eventually became because as we'll see, they pushed
Speaker 1: more and more towards annexation. Uh. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was were they officially called the Annexation Party?
Speaker 1: Was that sort of like a I I I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know the way that they were introduced. I think
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well either way, what they did was
Speaker 1: they said, all right, we um know that not many
Speaker 1: people we were an under armed society, so if we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this, we're gonna get um the guns on
Speaker 1: our side. And that was where they got the support
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian Rifles, which was a volunteer military unit
Speaker 1: um all white people. And like you said in in
Speaker 1: July seven is when those Hawaiian Rifles got involved and
Speaker 1: said signed this new constitution. They did, and so it
Speaker 1: basically said, you know how you thought you were a
Speaker 1: figurehead before. Now you are a genuine, bona fide figurehead.
Speaker 1: Your power is completely at the um pleasure of the legislature,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is no longer appointed by you,
Speaker 1: but elected. And also further, by the way, um we
Speaker 1: Europeans and Americans now have voting rights because you have
Speaker 1: to be a landowner in literate to vote. So not
Speaker 1: only do we have voting rights now to elect the
Speaker 1: legislature to basically do whatever we want, but we've also
Speaker 1: just excluded all of those migrant Asian labors that we
Speaker 1: just brought over because they don't own any land and
Speaker 1: probably a lot of them can't read. So it's so facto.
Speaker 1: You go play some ukulele for a while, kalika uha,
Speaker 1: and thank you very much for Hawaii. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I got the impression that it was under the guise of, hey,
Speaker 1: democracy is great and voting is how things should go,
Speaker 1: but like, but we're going to be the ones voting,
Speaker 1: by the way, exactly. Yeah, And I mean it definitely
Speaker 1: was presented like that, like they were trying to liberalize
Speaker 1: the island. But yeah, ultimately it was for their own interests.
Speaker 1: When you when you really got down to brass tacks,
Speaker 1: which is Cockney rhyming slang for facts as we went.
Speaker 1: So I didn't think that was gonna show up either.
Speaker 1: So in one that is when he died the aforementioned Kalakaua,
Speaker 1: right Cali Kaleikaa, and he was succeeded by someone Keito's
Speaker 1: his sister. How are you gonna make me queen Lily
Speaker 1: Uoh Kalani? Yeah, man, all right, I think that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, and so she if if Kaleika had a
Speaker 1: problem with being a figurehead, Lily Oh Koalani was definitely
Speaker 1: um opposed to the idea of just being like Queen Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just showing up for um state functions
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. Like she was. She considered
Speaker 1: herself the ruler of Hawaii. She was the monarch who
Speaker 1: who was meant to succeed um kaleika Ua fair and square,
Speaker 1: and had a real problem with this. And but by
Speaker 1: the problem was that within the four years that Kaleika
Speaker 1: who assigned the Bayonet Constitution, the doors have been thrown
Speaker 1: so far open for Western intra business interests in Hawaii
Speaker 1: that she basically faced an insurmountable challenge and undoing just
Speaker 1: the changes that had come in in the last four years.
Speaker 1: It had been slowly creeping up over the decades, but
Speaker 1: from that Bay and that constitution forward over those four
Speaker 1: years between then and when she took over, the changes
Speaker 1: were insurmountable. Basically, Yeah, married to an American too. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: Well that that that shows you, like just how how
Speaker 1: intermarried American politics in European politics were with Hawaiian politics. Literally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't think we mentioned like this whole time.
Speaker 1: There are both American and British warships in Honolulu Harbor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like they've been there the whole time there the military,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get the idea that they were active
Speaker 1: at that point. They were just there kind of parked there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think just more to send a signal, but also
Speaker 1: to keep other interlopers out. I think the British and
Speaker 1: the Americans basically considered Hawaii There's right, unofficially, but moving
Speaker 1: toward officially, because when you said the door was thrown
Speaker 1: wide open and change was afoot, it was the Hawaiian
Speaker 1: League that was really um you know, they had flirted
Speaker 1: with annexation a little bit, but by this point they
Speaker 1: were really uh, and this is where they took on
Speaker 1: the name the Annexation Club. Like I mentioned earlier, they
Speaker 1: were really really headed towards annexation, which is where we
Speaker 1: have to kind of go back over to America and
Speaker 1: talk about the Terriff Act of eighteen ninety or the
Speaker 1: McKinley Tariff, which was basically a very protectionist thing. Um, Hey,
Speaker 1: we need US goods to be an industry here to
Speaker 1: be ramped up, so we're gonna charge huge tariffs on
Speaker 1: goods imported into the US, and that meant Hawaiian goods
Speaker 1: and um, landowners in Hawaii said this is not good
Speaker 1: for us because this is gonna make us raise prices.
Speaker 1: Sales are gonna go down, our profits are gonna go down.
Speaker 1: And um, while they were you know, the annexation was
Speaker 1: making hay about democracy being a good thing, it really
Speaker 1: kind of came down to money. Yeah, that's exactly right
Speaker 1: with that. That in that McKinley tariff like really kind
Speaker 1: of forced everyone's hand. Um, because like you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: Hawaii was a sovereign nation and so there were tariffs
Speaker 1: on the import. Didn't matter that they were American companies
Speaker 1: and stuff was being produced in Hawaii, so when it
Speaker 1: came into America, there was a huge tax slapped on it.
Speaker 1: So they started saying, Okay, we need to figure this out,
Speaker 1: like we need to we need to get Hawaii and
Speaker 1: next and the so I get the impression that the
Speaker 1: um the Hawaiian League kind of went from There were
Speaker 1: some people in there that have been saying the whole time, annexation, annexation,
Speaker 1: it's definitely the way to go to. Where that was
Speaker 1: like the point of the Hawaiian League from that moment
Speaker 1: forward was getting annexed um fortunately for them. Uh lially
Speaker 1: Huo Kalani, whose name just flits in and out of
Speaker 1: my capability to pronounce she um. She said, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't like all this. I don't like
Speaker 1: where this is going. I'm going to rewrite the constitution.
Speaker 1: I'm going to restore the power of the monarchy. And
Speaker 1: you know, your legislature, your legislature can go sit on
Speaker 1: it because I'm passing this by royal fiat, just by
Speaker 1: me decreeing that it's true. It's true. And when that
Speaker 1: came out, that news came out that she was planning
Speaker 1: on doing that, the Hawaiian League said it's go time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And as far as the US goes, you know, they um,
Speaker 1: they didn't outright say they wanted to annex. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky situation for them. They didn't want
Speaker 1: anyone else to get in there in front of them,
Speaker 1: of course, but they also didn't and they didn't want to.
Speaker 1: I feel like they didn't want to be too aggressive
Speaker 1: with it, like well, hey, if you're open to it,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it, but we're not gonna ask you
Speaker 1: to dance, right, But it wasn't out of any respect
Speaker 1: or deference necessarily to Hawaiian. It was because they didn't
Speaker 1: want to tick off the British. So um so yeah.
Speaker 1: So when Lilio man So, when Lily Uo Kalani said,
Speaker 1: um that she was going to to rewrite the constitution
Speaker 1: and this came out, the opposition was really strong, and
Speaker 1: she actually backed down and she announced, Okay, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not going to do it by royal fiat, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it through normal channels and and really kind
Speaker 1: of took the any hostility out of the move. But
Speaker 1: it was it was too little, too late as far
Speaker 1: as the Hawaiian League was concerned. And like I said
Speaker 1: they decided it was go time, and Chuck, I say,
Speaker 1: it's go time for us to go to commercial. Let's
Speaker 1: do it, alright, So it's go to time in Hawaii. Uh,
Speaker 1: Queen Lily Okolani has drawn a line in the sand.
Speaker 1: H White men in Hawaii were super worried all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, and so that annexation club that has now
Speaker 1: changed names four times, changed their names again and said
Speaker 1: all right, now we're the Committee of Safety. And by
Speaker 1: Committee of safety, I mean we're going to lead a
Speaker 1: military coup, right, which are typically very safe. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: there was a a move basically to collect um arms,
Speaker 1: specifically to depose Liliu o'collani. Like that was the point
Speaker 1: that that this this um, this this group had I
Speaker 1: guess it was pretty if it wasn't like overt Basically
Speaker 1: everyone knew about it so much so that uh loyalists
Speaker 1: to um Liliuokolani. His name was Charles B. Wilson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a loyalist, which we should say, so his
Speaker 1: name sounds pretty um America, and that's for good reason,
Speaker 1: because he was American. And if you go back a
Speaker 1: couple of monarchs, um, you will start to see like
Speaker 1: Germans and Americans and British people in their cabinets like
Speaker 1: as like foreign minister or Secretary of Finance, like just
Speaker 1: just like it's just you know, some normal thing. Um,
Speaker 1: that's how intrenched everything was. So. Charles B. Wilson was
Speaker 1: to Liliuokalani um the Marshal of Hawaii, which, as ed put,
Speaker 1: is kind of like the head of the FBI and
Speaker 1: the head of the Department Offense all rolled into one.
Speaker 1: But he was in charge of the national police basically,
Speaker 1: and he found out about this plot and he wanted
Speaker 1: the plotters arrested for treason. Yeah, he called it out
Speaker 1: and said arrested the committee or whatever they're calling themselves today,
Speaker 1: And the American members of the cabinet said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna do that because this could break out in violence,
Speaker 1: so let's all chill out. Um. That all changed on
Speaker 1: January seventeenth, when there was a shooting. A Native Hawaiian
Speaker 1: policeman was shot trying to prevent a delivery of some
Speaker 1: weapons to the Annexation Club. Um, he didn't die, but
Speaker 1: he was shot, and there wasn't like a lot of
Speaker 1: I mean, James Cook obviously died pretty in a grizzly way,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of like actual violence and
Speaker 1: bloodshed that was riding and stuff over the years. But
Speaker 1: I get the feeling that this shooting was kind of
Speaker 1: a big, big thing at the time. It was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the only shooting in the entire overthrow of Hawaii,
Speaker 1: in this entire coup, which makes it significant. But I
Speaker 1: get the same impression that you had that Hawaiian society
Speaker 1: was generally rather peaceful, and so to shoot somebody was
Speaker 1: a very very big deal. Um. So much so that
Speaker 1: the cop got two hundred dollars for his his wounds
Speaker 1: collected by the local community. Pretty nice, pretty good scratch
Speaker 1: back then. Yeah, I don't I didn't look it up
Speaker 1: on West Egg. We should have. Uh. So the Committee
Speaker 1: of Safety goes to you know, mentioned the warships in
Speaker 1: the harbor. Uh They go to our the the USS
Speaker 1: Boston that's parked there, and go to Captain Wilts and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, um, they're American citizens on the island there. Now,
Speaker 1: you guys are having a good time, just kind of
Speaker 1: hanging out and playing cards, but there's property that's in danger.
Speaker 1: There's American citizens that are in danger and there are
Speaker 1: armed troops. UM like, we need you guys in your
Speaker 1: guns to come on the island. And he went, well,
Speaker 1: all right, uh, come on, guys, let's go. And they
Speaker 1: all put down their cards and a hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: two soldiers went ashore. And that was sort of the
Speaker 1: real turning point as far as an actual American military
Speaker 1: presence in their supposedly defending property and American citizens from danger.
Speaker 1: But it really ratcheted things up as far as conflict goes. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and particularly for Liliuokalani. To her, she saw American troops
Speaker 1: coming ashore, um establishing a full were like a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred yards away from the Imperial Palace and and
Speaker 1: basically creating a presence on native sovereign Hawaiian land. And
Speaker 1: this was at the same time that the UM the
Speaker 1: Committee for Safety, had run up on the steps of
Speaker 1: the Capitol building read a proclamation that the queen had
Speaker 1: been overthrown, that the monarchy didn't exist any longer, and
Speaker 1: that she had been deposed and that UM they were
Speaker 1: now in charge. And combine that, from her point of
Speaker 1: view with the presence of American troops, She's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess the Americans just overthrew me. She didn't know
Speaker 1: who was working with who. She just knew there were
Speaker 1: armed troops. She didn't really have any kind of standing
Speaker 1: army or anything like that. So she made a very
Speaker 1: wise and in my opinion, very noble decision to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I will. I will surrender for the
Speaker 1: moment because I don't want to. I want to avoid
Speaker 1: any unnecessary bloodshed, Like anybody who fights for me is
Speaker 1: going to get wasted by these American marines, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to see that happen. So I will surrender,
Speaker 1: but I'm not surrendering my position to the provisional government.
Speaker 1: All surrender to the United States of America temporarily until
Speaker 1: they can restore my position, because this is b S. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in in her statement, we won't read the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but at the end she essentially says I'm doing this
Speaker 1: for now, until which time I will be reinstated as
Speaker 1: the authority, at which point everyone just kind of patted
Speaker 1: her on the head and said, that's that's adorable that
Speaker 1: you think that's actually gonna happen. She said, ps B S.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we mentioned this new provisional government said,
Speaker 1: all right, we have a president now, and his name
Speaker 1: is Sanford Dole. Uh if that name sounds familiar, um.
Speaker 1: Sandford's brother James founded the Dole Fruit Company in Hawaiian
Speaker 1: So really no surprise how how that worked out, right,
Speaker 1: So so let's just recap real quick. Okay, So there
Speaker 1: was a group of American in Europe in white business interests, landowners,
Speaker 1: businessmen who overthrew like during this, during this, a little
Speaker 1: melee after a cop was shot, ran up onto the
Speaker 1: capital steps read a proclamation that they were in charge.
Speaker 1: John John Stevens, who hadn't mentioned he was the American
Speaker 1: Minister to Hawaii. He was very much in on this
Speaker 1: and in league with the Hawaiian League UM. And he said, I,
Speaker 1: as official representative the United States officially recognized you, the
Speaker 1: provisional Government, as the true government of Hawaii. I no
Speaker 1: longer recognized the monarch. And that was it. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this island kingdom of Hawaii that had been
Speaker 1: around for a thousand or more years and had been
Speaker 1: organized since for a couple of hundred years or a
Speaker 1: hundred or more years, UM, just didn't exist anymore. Poof
Speaker 1: because an American minister recognized a group of other Americans.
Speaker 1: We just said, we claim this place basically as our own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, we're voting for this now.
Speaker 1: Dole is president, like I said, but the Royalists are
Speaker 1: boycotting the elections. So the Annexation Party, which eventually became
Speaker 1: the American Union Party, they just were winning the elections
Speaker 1: because it was no contest basically, Yeah, which is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a problem. You're in such a pickle with that,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're like, I reject that these elections
Speaker 1: are even valid on their face. Um, but but then
Speaker 1: if they just keep pulling these elections and other people
Speaker 1: keep recognizing them as valid, then you're you're s o
Speaker 1: l you know it. It was a really sticky, terrible
Speaker 1: situation for the Native Hawaiians and their their monarch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Dole and and the gang are firmly entrenched at
Speaker 1: this point, and this is when they can really really
Speaker 1: start to go after annexation. Um. So over in America,
Speaker 1: you have Grover Cleveland in office and he's like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, this this all sounds very kinky and illegal,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna send an envoy. James Blunt to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: You put together a report and and report back to
Speaker 1: me and let me know what's going on. Blunt went
Speaker 1: over put together as report and he said, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was super illegal what happened. And so Cleveland said, all right, queen, um,
Speaker 1: if you want, will send troops in there to over
Speaker 1: overthrow the republic and UM put you back in in
Speaker 1: in a position of queen. But what you have to
Speaker 1: do is is you got to offer amnesty to that
Speaker 1: Committee of Safety that overthrew you kind of using our
Speaker 1: soldiers to begin with. And she probably had whip flash
Speaker 1: at this point, but she was like, uh, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do that, and actually those guys should
Speaker 1: be beheaded, um, if I'm really being completely honest. And
Speaker 1: so Cleveland kind of slunk down and said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we uh we're not going to do that. Then, yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, beheadings are gonna it's gonna be tough to
Speaker 1: get past Congress. So I guess we don't have anything
Speaker 1: to say here, but you have to kind of hand
Speaker 1: it to Lily uh Kolani that um, I mean, she
Speaker 1: stuck to her principles and she could she could have
Speaker 1: been restored as monarch maybe even back to like the
Speaker 1: pre figurehead version of the monarchy. And she said, nope,
Speaker 1: I'm cutting their heads off if if you put me
Speaker 1: back as as queen. Yeah. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: US Congress gets involved. They said, you know what, we're
Speaker 1: the ones who investigate people. So listen to over our guy,
Speaker 1: John Tyler Morgan. And Morgan went over and his report said,
Speaker 1: you know what, this was not some illegal coup. This
Speaker 1: was just Hawaii being Hawaii. This is their politics, this
Speaker 1: is how they do things. We didn't really do anything wrong.
Speaker 1: No blood on our hands. It's Hawaii. This is what
Speaker 1: they do. No big deal. So the Congress is like
Speaker 1: good enough for us. UM. By this time, also, UM,
Speaker 1: Cleveland had been replaced by who is Cleveland's successor? Mley? Okay,
Speaker 1: so the McKinley tariff came before all this, huh there
Speaker 1: came after all this. No. I got the idea that
Speaker 1: maybe it was as a senator or something. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: completely wrong though, No, but that would make way more sense.
Speaker 1: But the point is is that McKinley UM was much
Speaker 1: more in favor of annexation, uh than Cleveland was, and
Speaker 1: so the the United States officially annexed Hawaii as a
Speaker 1: territory in and this was exactly exactly what all of
Speaker 1: those American and European landowners wanted, because, especially in America,
Speaker 1: no longer were they subject to these high tariffs for
Speaker 1: the imported goods because Hawaii was an annexed territory. But Chuck,
Speaker 1: they also were in a state, which means that they
Speaker 1: weren't subject to US laws like immigration, which meant that
Speaker 1: they could continue up their their human trafficking, which meant
Speaker 1: that as an annexed territory, their profit margins were as
Speaker 1: wide as they've ever been. Basically, yeah, I mean those
Speaker 1: were uh, I mean, they were terror doble in reality,
Speaker 1: but those were the golden years if you're a plantation
Speaker 1: owner in Hawaii, because you're you're basically just making money
Speaker 1: hand over fist with no oversight. Right. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I just looked at real quick. McKinley was a House
Speaker 1: representative when that terrifact came out. Not thank you. That
Speaker 1: was a really great in show correction. We usually don't
Speaker 1: do this. Uh So, when does statehood come on the scene,
Speaker 1: Because Hawa I didn't become a state until nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: which was not that long ago. No, it was, and
Speaker 1: it was a full sixty plus years after it was annexed.
Speaker 1: And because they were just fat cats and they were
Speaker 1: loving it. That's that's exactly right. The powerful interests who
Speaker 1: basically ran the legislature said, hey, you know, we we
Speaker 1: were really like Chuck said, we're making money hand over
Speaker 1: fist and somebody said, who's Chuck. They said, just give
Speaker 1: it a couple of decades, you'll see it's gonna knock
Speaker 1: your socks off. But they had no, no desire to
Speaker 1: be a state, because then that meant that they're immigration
Speaker 1: laws would be imposed and they'd have to follow a
Speaker 1: lot more um, social and cultural more's that America had established, um,
Speaker 1: and it was going to be a bad jam for them.
Speaker 1: The other thing was here at home, and it was
Speaker 1: just straight up like racist xenophobia. Yeah, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I don't know if we said to put
Speaker 1: a pin in it, but we were talking about all
Speaker 1: these migrant workers who you know, had kids and stuff,
Speaker 1: and those kids were born there eventually became a non
Speaker 1: white majority in Hawaii, and they were like, you know
Speaker 1: what if we make this place of state, he said,
Speaker 1: they're gonna actually these microworkers are gonna gain real voting
Speaker 1: power and they have a non white majority, and we
Speaker 1: really don't want those people in our congress. In Congress,
Speaker 1: that was basically the reason that kept Hawaii from being
Speaker 1: a state until nine. People didn't want people of Asian
Speaker 1: or Native Hawaiian descent in in d C. And Congress,
Speaker 1: I guess. And that nuts. Yeah, So it took until
Speaker 1: March eighteenth nine to find become a state, and then
Speaker 1: it took until for Congress to pass an apology bill.
Speaker 1: And this is hysterical and it's so believable, but it
Speaker 1: points out that they were, uh, it was disputed because
Speaker 1: they were literally arguing about either the Blunt Report or
Speaker 1: the Morgan Report being more accurate, like a hundred years later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you do Clinton apologizing? Oh what do I have
Speaker 1: to apologize for? That was great. So so that bill
Speaker 1: actually said that Hawaii or the Native Hawaiians quote, never
Speaker 1: directly relinquished to the US their claims to their inherent sovereignty.
Speaker 1: The US said, in in some in in so many words,
Speaker 1: like the United States stole Hawaii. Hawaii is the state
Speaker 1: because we took it basically back in eighteen ninety. That
Speaker 1: or the eighteen eighties. Pretty great story. It is so
Speaker 1: that you were asking about the pulse of Hawaii today.
Speaker 1: There's a bill that was introduced in two thousand by
Speaker 1: Senator Daniel k Akaca, and he's since retired, I believe,
Speaker 1: but the Acaca Bill is still around, and it basically
Speaker 1: would extend sovereignty to Native Hawaiians and virtually the same
Speaker 1: way that um Native American tribes in the continental US
Speaker 1: have their own tribal nations. They have their own governments
Speaker 1: that make decisions for them, and they have their own
Speaker 1: laws and all that um and there's it's just never
Speaker 1: been passed. There's I don't think there's quite enough support
Speaker 1: for it or what the hold up is, but it's
Speaker 1: still languishing right now. I haven't been. I gotta go
Speaker 1: at some point. Oh dude, I would like to live
Speaker 1: there one day. Yeah. That's good. A place where you
Speaker 1: you and you meet to retire. It's a it's amazing.
Speaker 1: So uh and maybe I'll meet up with Kanaka Kai,
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian hillbilly while we're there. I think with your
Speaker 1: magnum obsession, you were destined to just while away with
Speaker 1: a coconut with a straw on it in your hand.
Speaker 1: Who do I have to kill the cu to refill
Speaker 1: his coconut? I used to be somebody. How do you
Speaker 1: think I got this rainbow helicopter? That's right, oh man,
Speaker 1: I've been to the Magnum house before you metok me,
Speaker 1: does not surprise me, it's neat Um. Well have you
Speaker 1: got anything else about the overthrow of Hawaii? Well, if
Speaker 1: you wanted more about the overthrow Hawaii, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more out there. It's pretty interesting story in Hawaiian culture
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting too, now that we dug into it.
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this anvils. And by the way, this
Speaker 1: um this is from Nolan. Nolan did not point this out,
Speaker 1: but we heard from many people who said that the
Speaker 1: Smithy was not the Blacksmith, but the place, uh their
Speaker 1: workshop is called the Smithy and I can't know that smithy,
Speaker 1: Like that's the Blacksmith. Yeah, that's what I thought. I
Speaker 1: think they're the smith Okay, not the Smith's. That's Morrissee
Speaker 1: and Johnny morn Company. That's right. Hey, guys, love the
Speaker 1: episode on Blacksmith thing. I've been to Blacksmith since I
Speaker 1: was nineteen when I bought my first anvil. I started
Speaker 1: listening stuff you should Know during grad school and my
Speaker 1: anvil was sadly packed away. I had no time to
Speaker 1: use it, but thankfully it isn't on the shelf any longer,
Speaker 1: and I found myself sitting next to it while listening
Speaker 1: to your episode. Uh. Seems silly, but these things have
Speaker 1: a real personality to them. They're like old friends. I
Speaker 1: met mine close to a decade ago, and it's a
Speaker 1: one dash, zero dash, sixteen and twenty eight pound Peter Wright.
Speaker 1: That means something to Smithy's. I was impressed by the
Speaker 1: Peter right. Yeah, he's He's a legendary anvil list Smithie.
Speaker 1: So Uh. One thing on the show I thought I
Speaker 1: mentioned is about anvil's Josh said, you want to attach
Speaker 1: the anvil to a stump to disperse the hammer strike
Speaker 1: to the earth, which is partially which is partially correct,
Speaker 1: but missed one beautiful thing about a good anvil, which
Speaker 1: is it's rebound. Uh. An anvil's quality can be measured
Speaker 1: by the rebound. This is how much force pushes back
Speaker 1: at you when you strike. Because this is a good anvil.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because of this, a good anvil hits back
Speaker 1: when you strike it, and a good blacksmith uses this
Speaker 1: to effectively forge both sides of a workpiece at the
Speaker 1: same time. I also one thing I also saw somebody
Speaker 1: else right in to say that that helps you um
Speaker 1: and swinging a ten pound hammer like like working the
Speaker 1: rebound to your advantage to totally. He said, you can
Speaker 1: tell if you have a good anvil by the rebound
Speaker 1: by dropping a ball bearing on it or lightly dropping
Speaker 1: a hammerhead and seeing how high it bounces. A dead
Speaker 1: anvil will have no bounce and only gives a soft thud.
Speaker 1: A good anvil bounces back a lot and leaves a
Speaker 1: ringing in the air. And this is actually where the
Speaker 1: phrase has a nice ring to it comes from. Oh
Speaker 1: really about that? I love that stuff. It was a
Speaker 1: blacksmith in phrase. So great job, guys, as always keep
Speaker 1: it up. I always love tuning into these shows. Can't
Speaker 1: wait hear more. And that is Nolan. Thanks Toland, you
Speaker 1: really quenched our thirst for etymology big time. Appreciate Nolan,
Speaker 1: Appreciate everybody, all of the smiths who wrote in to
Speaker 1: let us know all the stuff we got wrong, but
Speaker 1: also say, hey, you generally got it right. So in
Speaker 1: Farriors we heard from farriers. Yeah, tons of farriers out there,
Speaker 1: So we appreciate all of you and we're fascinated by
Speaker 1: the work you do. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can send us an email. Send
Speaker 1: it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
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Speaker 1: because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.