Ebook: Fourteen Years in the Sandwich Islands, 1855–1868

The reminiscences of Charles de Varigny, a Frenchman who in 1865 at the age of thirty-six became prime minister of the Hawaiian Kingdom, are unique among records of life in Pacific-island societies during the nineteenth century. Published in Paris in 1874 and written primarily for French audience of the time, Varigny’s account of his sojourn is an engrossing one, especially because of the novel manner in which he chose to tell his story.

Varigny’s book is an ingenious blend of travelogue, flashback Hawaiian history, and professional autobiography in the form of a political memoir. Part One, reflecting Varigny’s earliest years as secretary (chancelier) of the French Consulate in Honolulu, focuses on following the visits of Cook and Vancouver that resulted in the political unification of the Hawaiian Islands by King Kamehameha the Great and the establishment of the royal dynasty identified historically by his name. Part Two covers the years of systematic political reassessment and major constitutional reform when Charles de Varigny served in the government of Kamehameha V, young grandson of the conqueror, as finance minister and finally as minister of foreign affairs.

Although the ventral importance of Varigny’s memoir is its value as a political document, Varigny as writer and one-time statesman never loses sight of Hawaii’s spectacular Oceanic setting and landscape. Thus his book may be read not only for the sake of its pictorial charm but also for its penetrating understanding of Hawaiian geography and of the young country’s great potential.