My professor briefly talked about how The U.S. originally took over Hawaii, and I’ve heard several other people talk about how badly the natives were treated when that happened. That subject has numerous resources, but I’m curious about something I’ve never heard discussed.
How the heck did natives get to Hawaii in the first place?! Given it’s out-of-the-way location, it seems unlikely that early navigators would have been able to access the islands. When and how did Hawaii come to have natives? Anybody knowledgeable on the subject?
You may be interested to this answer that I gave a while ago. Its not really that unlikely when you figure just about every single inhabitable island in the Pacific was found by Pacific navigators and settled. Islands such as Hawaii maintained contact for centuries with related populations in the Society Islands with oral traditions in both discussing travel, contact, political intrigue, etc. With good wind, Hawaii is only about two weeks sail from Tahiti, even with poor wind around the equator (getting trapped in the doldrums) its about a month voyage.