Old Spanish charts and a
1613 Dutch globe suggest that explorers from Spain had sighted Hawai'i long
before Captain Cook.
When Cook arrived in 1778, galleons laden with
silver from the mines of Mexico and South America had been passing south of
Hawai'i for two centuries on annual round trip voyages of 17,000 miles between
Acapulco and Manila.
Page 72, Voyagers
Words and Images excerpted from
Voyagers by Herb Kawainui
Kane.
Note:
In 1820 a
missionary recorded a story told by Hawaiians in the area of Honaunau on the
Big Island. The story tells of two fair-skinned people, a young man and young
woman arriving in a boat with a canape over it, many years before Captain Cook.
They landed at Kulou, a location near Kealakekua Bay. The story is corroborated
by a similar story told and recorded in Kohala, on the north end of the island.
This pair could have been survivors of a storm wreaked galleon that was headed
west on the typical route to Manila. The prevailing winds and/or a storm could
have carried a small boat north to Hawaii.
Link to on-line publication of Ancient Hawai'i
