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Settlement

Because of its remote geographic isolation, it is believed the Hawaiian islands were not settled until sometime around 500 to 600 AD. These original native inhabitants lived a rather peaceful life until, in 1000 AD, the Tahitians arrived and introduced their customs, religion and a strict social order.

Centuries later, in 1778, the first European visited the islands - Captain James Cook.  He began an enduring relationship between Hawaii and the UK that continues today, in the form of the Hawaiian State Flag.  This combined the British Union Jack with the stripes from the Union flag, reflecting the island's mixed historical connections.

Up until the arrival of the Europeans the tribes on the Hawaiian islands had been divided.  But after Cook's first visit the islands were unified by Kamehameha the Great, a tribal leader who established the Hawaiian monarchy.

Whaling and the sugar industry

In subsequent years American sea captains began a lucrative trade in timber from Hawaii's sandalwood forests.  By the 1820s, American whaling ships also began calling on Hawaiian ports for stores, and for the next 50 years Hawaii was the centre of the Pacific whaling industry.  As more ships found their way to this new port of call, a foreign presence began to establish itself in Hawaiian and it was they and their descendants who established Hawaii's sugar industry.  European settlement led to radical changes to the environment, with the clearance of large tracts of native forest, which led to considerable sedimentation of the near shore environment, destroying many reef communities.

Unfortunately with trade came disease and other cultural pressures that contributed to a declining native population.  Because of these labour pressures plantation owners soon began to look overseas to China, Japan, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and elsewhere for workers.  The resulting influx of different ethnic groups is what has created the cosmopolitan mixture of cultures found in Hawaii today.

As Hawaii's US dominated sugar industry grew the concerns of the plantation owners came increasingly to drive the affairs of the Hawaiian islands.  Eventually, as a means of eliminating tariffs, the plantation owners announced a provisional government, which eventually led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of Hawaii as a territory of the USA in 1900. 

Hawaii's importance to the USA continued to grow over the years as the US Navy established a huge military base at Pearl Harbour, and the strategic importance of Hawaii to the US was further reinforced during the the Second World War.

On 21st August 1959, Hawaii voted to become the 50th state of the USA.

Tourism

The following years saw the development of the Hawaiian islands as a major tourist destination, an industry which now dwarfs agriculture, but which has created it own threats to the islands' ecology and sustainability.  Hawaii is now one of the worlds top tourist destinations with this, the world's most isolated archipelago receiving about 6.5 million visitors a year, heavily focussed on locations on the larger islands.  Coastal tourism developments, including golf courses, are thought to be adding to the stresses caused by wider coastal development, effluent discharges, and the physical disturbance of near-shore reef communities.  Hana'uma Bay, the most popular snorkelling destination on Oahu, receives up to 10,000 visitors a day.

Reef area  -  1,180km²

Percentage of reefs at risk  -  57%

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