William Richards

William Richards (August 22, 1793 – November 7, 1847) was a missionary and politician in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Family life William Richards was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts, on August 22, 1793. His father was James Richards and mother was Lydia Shaw. He was schooled under Moses Hallock in Plainfield, attended Williams College 1815 through graduation in 1819 and Andover Seminary. His brother James had also gone to Williams College and became a missionary. He was ordained September 12, 1822. He married Clarissa Lyman (1794–1861) on October 30, 1822. Her distant cousin David Belden Lyman would also come to Hawaii to serve as a missionary 9 years later.

Missionary

They sailed on November 19, 1822, on the ship Thames under Captain Clasby from New Haven, Connecticut, in the second company from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Hawaii. They arrived to the Hawaiian Islands April 24, 1823, and landed in Honolulu April 27.

On May 28, 1823, he and shipmate Charles Stewart sailed on the Royal Yacht Cleopatra's Barge to Lahaina and on May 31 founded the mission in on Maui inside thatched huts. However, he did not speak the Hawaiian language fluently enough for people to understand his sermons. In September Queen Mother Keōpūolani became ill and requested Baptism, but the missionaries wanted to make sure she fully understood the ceremony. English missionary William Ellis had just arrived with Tahitian interpreters, and the language was similar enough that they were used for the baptism just before the Queen Mother's death. In December 1823, the young King Kamehameha II sailed to England in an attempted state visit, and the government was left in the hands of Queen Regent Kaahumanu and Prime Minister Kalanimoku who were both accommodating to the mission.

By January 1824, the Richards and Stewarts moved back to Honolulu and set up a school with the families there that went both ways: the Americans were taught Hawaiian while Hawaiians (at least the chiefs) were taught English. A standardized orthography was developed and some simple texts were printed.

In 1825, Richards published a biography of Queen Keōpūolani. Some time in 1825, the Richards moved back to Maui to establish a mission. Whaling ships had been visiting the port, expecting women to greet the ship and offer themselves to the sailors. In October 1825 the crew of the British whaleship Daniel threatened Richards in front of his wife and children unless they relaxed restrictions on the town. Tensions escalated, and the ship's master William Buckle refused a request to control his crew.

Near the end of 1827, word got back to the islands that the 1825 incident with William Buckle had found its way into American newspapers. The papers accused the captain of purchasing a woman for 10 doubloons and taking her on board his vessel, what would now be called human trafficking. British Consul Richard Charlton demanded that Richards be arrested and taken for a libel trial in Honolulu. The story had probably been sensationalized along the way, and many agreed that these were inflammatory charges with only hearsay evidence. On November 26, 1827, with Queen Regent Kaahumanu presiding, Richards was released. Buckle pointed out that the woman named Leoiki had come willingly, and they were now officially married. There were precedents at the time for English of high rank and Americans to marry Hawaiian noble women. For example, the respected John Young had taken a Hawaiian bride much earlier.

In 1828, Maui island Governor Hoapili supported the building of a stone and wood structure for Richards' church. The Christian church was built adjacent to a pond surrounding an island called Mokuula, which had been a sacred to the Hawaiian religion. The first stone building was dedicated on March 4, 1832, and called Wainee Church.

When the arrived in 1829 Richards received a visit from its ship chaplain, his former colleague Charles Stewart who now worked for the Navy. He would host officers of the Vincennes again later during the United States Exploring Expedition with Richards serving as interpreter for the King. Richards wrote a long letter to Charles Wilkes, the commander of the expedition describing aspects of the Hawaiian culture that has proven valuable to historians.

In June 1831, he and Lorrin Andrews were assigned to investigate opening a school on Maui. The land above the town was donated by Hoapili and called Lahainaluna School, with Andrews as first principal.

Legal reform The king had asked Richards to send back an American lawyer to help the Kingdom of Hawaii draft a set of formal laws. The mission board, already accused of political meddling, did not think it appropriate to support the effort. Since he could not find any willing to take such a long journey, Richards himself took on the task. He helped draft a Hawaiian Declaration of Rights with assistance from Boaz Mahune, Jonah Kapena and other students at Lahainaluna. After several round of changes by the king and his councilors, it was published June 7, 1839. The declaration was meant to secure property rights for all people. Before then, land could be taken by the king whenever he pleased. However, land could still not be owned in the fee simple sense; it was always leased. This became more important as the business of sugarcane cultivation for shipment abroad arose.

Richards met Sir George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company while Sir George was traveling from the Northwest Territories through Hawaii in February 1842. Sir George had heard from his cousin Alexander Simpson that Charlton argued that Britain should just annex the islands to counter the American domination of the government. Sir George instead favored Hawaiian independence, having seen the advantages of free trade in Canada.

Diplomat April 8, 1842, Richards was appointed special envoy to U.S. and Great Britain with native Hawaiian Timothy Haalilio. Richards had sent a proposed treaty to the U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Butler in 1838, but the letter was quietly filed away. Missionary doctor Gerrit P. Judd replaced Richards as government translator, and continued the American influence on Hawaiian government. Judd resigned from the mission and also became the first Finance minister, effectively one of the most powerful positions in the kingdom. On March 17, 1843, they met François Guizot who was the French Foreign Minister. Both verbally accepted Hawaiian independence, and so did Lord Aberdeen on another visit on March 25. Confident in their success, Sir George Simpson returned to Canada, thinking Richards and Haalilo could wrap up the details through April and May 1843.

On June 30, 1843, Marshall arrived with the letters of Judd, while Richards and Haalilo were in Paris. Seven days earlier Alexander Simpson had arrived with letters presenting Paulet's case at the British the Foreign office. Paulet claimed that the islands were voluntarily ceded. This confused and embarrassed the British government.

When news of the treaty got back to the islands, November 28 became a holiday known as Lā Kūokoa o Hawaii Nei ("beloved Hawaii independence day").

On their way back, the new American Secretary of State John C. Calhoun was invited to also sign the agreement, but said he would wait for a treaty that could be ratified by the Senate. The USA appointed a diplomatic commissioner in 1843, but would not officially recognize the Kingdom until 1849. Although previously all schools had been strictly Protestant, he took one step to religious freedom by working with Catholics to accommodate them in public schools. A namesake was William Richards Castle (1849–1935).