Suzanne Johnson, age 9, of Williamsport, Pa., for her question:
Who discovered the Hawaiian Islands?
In June of the Year l959 the Hawaiian Islands became our 50th state. This was many years ago. A young person knows just how to welcome new members into the family. One good way is to take an interest in them and learn all we can about them.
These lovely islands lie like happy sunbathers in the midst of the sea. A globe or a world map helps us imagine the vastness of the Pacific Ocean that washes their shores. This big Ocean covers one third of the whole world. Its blue waters are dotted with many clusters and strings of lonely little islands. The scattered island groups in the southwestern ocean are called Polynesia, a word that means many islands.
The Polynesian people have lived there for countless ages. They are tall, strong People with golden skins and dark hair who have always loved the sea. No one knows how long ago they started out in big canoes to explore their tremendous ocean. soma found themselves a new island and settled there. About 2,000 years ago a group of Polynesian explorers found our Hawaiian Islands and made themselves at home. These first discoverers were rather small and very friendly.
About 800 years later the islands were discovered again. These explorers wert tall and handsome Polynesians. Their chief was the hero Hawaiiloa and they are the ancestors of the later Hawaiian people. These Hawaiians looked down on the first settlers and called them the common folk. And later the neglected common folk became scarce and hard to find.
Ships from Europe and the Old World roamed the oceans but did not find the lonely little islands for another 300 years. Then Hawaii may have been visited by trading ships from Spain, Holland and perhaps Japan, but none of them bothered to report these discoveries to the world.
On January l8, l778, the islands were discovered for the last time. The ship of Captain James Cook arrived and this famous explorer reported his discovery to all the world. He spent a happy visit there and traded with the Hawaiians. But he did not use their own name for their islands. He called them the sandwich Islands to honor the earl of sandwich who was then First Lord of the British Admiralty.
After Captain Cook's discovery, trading and whaling ships began to visit the islands. settlers arrived from China, Japan and other lands. Merchants and planters, teachers and missionaries from far away made Hawaii their homeland. Captain Cook paid a last visit to the islands and, sad to say, he lost his life there. In l928 the Hawaiians built a monument on the spot Where he died. He was not the first discoverer of Hawaii, but he was the last.