Native Hawaiians

Native Hawaiians (Hawaiian: kānaka ʻōiwi, kānaka maoli and Hawaiʻi maoli) are the Aboriginal Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaiʻi. In total, 527,000 Americans consider themselves Native Hawaiian. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 371,000 people who identified themselves as being 'Native Hawaiian' in combination with one or more other races or Pacific Islander groups. 156,000 people identified themselves as being 'Native Hawaiian' alone. The majority of Native Hawaiians reside in the state of Hawaii (two-thirds) and the rest are scattered among other states, especially in the American Southwest and with a high concentration in California. The history of Native Hawaiians, like the history of Hawaii, is commonly classified into four major periods: One theory is that the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii in the 3rd century from the Marquesas by travelling in groups of waka, and were followed by Tahitians in AD 1300, who then conquered the original inhabitants. Another is that a single, extended period of settlement populated the islands.Evidence for a Tahitian conquest of the islands include the legends of Hawaiʻiloa and the navigator-priest Paʻao, who is said to have made a voyage between Hawaii and the island of 'Kahiki' (Tahiti) and introduced many customs. Early historians, such as Fornander and Beckwith, subscribed to this Tahitian invasion theory, but later historians, such as Kirch, do not mention it. King Kalakaua claimed that Pa'ao was from Samoa. Some writers claim that other settlers in Hawaiʻi were forced into remote valleys by newer arrivals. They claim that stories about the Menehune, little people who built heiau and fishponds, prove the existence of ancient peoples who settled the islands before the Hawaiians ; but similar stories exist throughout Polynesia. At the time of Captain Cook's arrival in 1778, the population is estimated to have been between 250,000 and 800,000. Some Hawaiians left the islands during the period of the Kingdom of Hawaii like Harry Maitey, who became the first Hawaiian in Prussia. Over the span of the first century after first contact, the native Hawaiians were nearly wiped out by diseases introduced to the islands. Native Hawaiians had no resistance to influenza, smallpox, measles, or whooping cough, among others. The 1900 U.S. Census identified 37,656 residents of full or partial native Hawaiian ancestry. The 2000 U.S. Census identified 283,430 residents of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, showing a dramatic growth trend since annexation by the U.S. in 1898. The Hawaiian language (or ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) was once the primary language of the native Hawaiian people; today, native Hawaiians predominantly speak the English language. A major factor for this change was an 1896 law that required that English 'be the only medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools'. This law prevented the Hawaiian language from being taught as a second language. In spite of this, some native Hawaiians (as well as non-native Hawaiians) have learned ʻŌlelo as a second language. As with others local to Hawaii, native Hawaiians often speak Hawaiian Creole English (referred to in Hawai'i as Pidgin), a creole which developed during Hawaiʻi's plantation era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the influence of the various ethnic groups living in Hawaii during that time.