Day 5

After decades of reading about it I finally made it inside the Iolani Palace ! We saw the outside yesterday but today it was open to the public . Built in 1882 for King David Kalakaura to replace the earlier royal residence the "Palace of the Heavenly Hawk" was the centrepiece of the monarchy until its fall in 1893. Here were held the Coronation, the Court Balls, grand receptions for visiting dignitaries, here Robert Louis Stevenson chatted with King Kalakaua and here Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned.

The building is small and elegant, very much in European style so it is hard to believe it stands on a Pacific Island until you look out of the windows and see the palm trees and mountains. King Kalakaura was well-travelled and fascinated by modern inventions so his new palace had electric light before Buckingham Palace or the White House (but no light switches – the King just sent a note when he wanted the generator turned off !).

The glory days were short-lived. The 19th century was saw the Hawaiian population decimated (literally) by foreign diseases and the intervention by missionaries and foreign businessmen also had a huge effect and led to tensions between the two groups.

In 1893 Queen Liliuokalani tried to introduce a new constitution to replace the one forced on her brother king David by foreign businessmen. It would have restored some of her powers and protected the rights of the native Hawaiians in the face of foreign exploitation. So a group of the latter supported by American troops deposed her. Two years later a royalist revolt to restore her to the throne failed and she was imprisoned in her former palace for 8 months.

If there is such a thing as “Spirit of Place” then Iolani has it. I defy even the stoniest-hearted republican not to be moved by it.