Foreign Contact With Hawai'i Before Captain Cook

European Influences in Ancient Hawaii ^ | 2001 or before (the date of the saved file) | Captain Rick

[SunkenCiv]

[Captain Cooke] continued by stating that the people he met on Kauai were not "aquainted with our commodities, Except iron; which however, it was plain, they had....in some quantity, brought to them at some distant period.... They asked for it by the name of Hamaite." It is interesting to note that a Spanish word for iron is "Hematitas"... No Spanish map has yet been found which shows the location of a shipwreck in the mid-Pacific., However, many maps show these islands. In fact most charts of the Pacific printed in Europe after 1570 show a group of Islands in this vicinity named "La Mesa, Los Monges, and La Desgraciada". "The Table, The Monks, and The Unfortunate One" are surely the Hawaiian Islands. Captain Cook had charts with him that showed these islands.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Just an oldie, which is why this is in chat (along with most things I post). The map shows the northern current route probably used long before the Age of Discovery.

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[SunkenCiv]

Just missed ya.

[blam]

I was looking at maps just last night, specifically the Cantino Map

[CobaltBlue]

The Spanish instituted the Manila Galleon, sailing the eastward route from Mexico to Manila, circa 1565, after they conquered the Philippines in the name of Phillip II. And of course Magellan was there (Philippines) in 1521.

[wildbill]

Entirely possible that the Spanish found the Islands before Cook. After all, they considered the Pacific their private lake and took great painst to keep information about it out of the hands of other mariners.

[SunkenCiv]

Vincent H. Gaddis wrote a fascinating article, "Vanishing Islands" (plus a sidebar or two) for Strange Magazine, issue 16, 1995. I'll have to dig that out and type up a particular quote. It concerns a small group of islands which were discovered by a Spanish ship sailing due west from Panama. An American captain out of SF learned of the islands from an ecclesiastic (yeah, seems farfetched I guess), and decided to visit the islands. He got to the right area, but didn't find them, only some plant matter, as if from a newly submerged or otherwise lost island. S'cool.

[blam]

Ah, the Chinese guy, Zheng He went by there in his travels and left some iron in the early 1400's. (That's the ticket.)