American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Controlling temporality has a tremendous political and social force. Many of the “facts” about Indians are implemented through received Histories-with-a-capital-H, and thus Indians and indigenous people come to be defined by a performance of temporality. This article complicates the historical grand narrative of Hawaiian colonization and problematizes the ongoing renditions of Hawaii as paradise. It addresses the historic performances of Native Hawaiians as they sought to maintain sovereignty and control in Hawaii from 1796 to 1826 and analyzes not only the performances of the historical moment but also how the history of Hawaii is written in such a way as to enact a settler performance. The article moves beyond English-only documents to examine Hawaiian- language documents, which disrupt settler histories and contest the circulating images that continue to picture Hawaii as a discovered paradise and exotic land. Native Hawaiians’ kapu, or spoken law that is localized and specific to situations, provides us with a narrative that accounts for complex personhood and Native Hawaiian desires in relation to dealing with various foreign entities. Rather than just refute the stereotype or assert that the colonial historians “just got it wrong,” this essay provides an account of a complex political moment, in which gendered performances became key to the ways in which Hawaii still performs in the role of US empire.