Joy Schultz is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, specializing in U.S. foreign policy and comparative politics in the Pacific region. Schultz is the author of two books. “When Women Ruled the Pacific: Women’s Political Power in 19th Century Hawaii and Tahiti” and “Hawaiian from Birth: Children of Missionaries, Bicultural Identity, and U.S. Colonialism in the Pacific” were published in 2018. It won the Best Book Award. A book about the history of the Pacific West by the Western Historical Society, a US-based nonprofit organization.
You have extensively researched women’s political power in the Pacific, particularly in 19th-century Hawaii and Tahiti. How did you become interested in this topic and why do you think it is important to focus on the role of women in Pacific political history?
There are two ways to answer your question. First, when I was researching my first book about children who grew up under the Kingdom of Hawaii and were born on the islands to American parents, I found Queen Liliuokalani to be a fascinating figure. Although she was a Christian based on the American missionary movement in Hawaii, she was also a Native Hawaiian who sought to blend both cultures. I wanted to continue researching her life in more detail after that first book.
The second way to answer your question is through indigenous studies. There are (frequent) references to the fact that indigenous communities allow women a greater political role, but I have never seen it fleshed out in the literature. I have never seen any kind of manuscript or detailed description of what it was actually like in a comparative setting in a very industrial time and space. While researching Liliuokalani and some of the women who had previously visited Hawaii, I also came across some of the queens of Tahitia. I thought this would be a great book to talk about women in this particular part of the world. Because they are so unique and different from women exercising their rights in other parts of the world.
How did you choose the four women you have focused on in your previous work (Purea, Aimata, Kaahumanu, and Liliuokalani), and what aspects of their leadership stood out to you?
The fact that British, French, Spanish and American men encountered these women at certain points in history (is significant). The American and European men who first “discovered” these islands were in contact with female rulers, and the same nation-states later established themselves on these islands at exactly the same time that women entered politics. That you have decided to manage or take over independence. It was a great story to tell about power. Just the fact that gender played such a huge role in Pacific geopolitics.
How did these dynamics develop over periods of colonization?For example, we have patriarchal imperialism as well as forces of patriarchal imperialism. How did these gender dynamics interact more specifically in the development of imperialism?
As a historian of American foreign policy, I’m interested in its religious elements, so the fact that 19th century Americans and British people were very much in agreement in what they believed (d) the world Their theological role in the world. That understanding led to further controversy in gender dynamics among missionaries and even among sympathetic political leaders in Congress and the Presidency who actually supported religious elements of foreign policy. In the nineteenth century Protestant Christian tradition, gender ideology was very dominant and restrictive in terms of women’s equality. The fact that these missionaries had such a large role before the government in both Hawaii and Tahiti suggests that these gender roles were culturally imposed before they were actually militarily imposed. means.
How do you see these cultural and religious influences transcending the colonial era and persisting today and even in subsequent decades?
If you look at today’s political climate, there are some really positive points. To date, women have held high positions in the national cabinet, including a woman as speaker of the House of Representatives and a woman as vice president. However, there still exists some debate among American voters about women holding high political positions, but more importantly, they (still) have a significant impact on our political process. It is a debate within the traditions of religious beliefs that exist. We are still behind where Hawaii and Tahiti were 300 (or even 500) years ago. As someone who wants people of faith (especially women) to be accepted as true equals, that’s concerning. We cannot ignore our country’s history. Gender politics in Polynesian society was by no means perfect, but it was different and criticized in that women were treated politically as equal to or superior to men.
What do you think will happen if these differences begin to be reconciled now? Looking back, what lessons can we learn today?
One of my goals in writing When Women Rule the Pacific was to write it in a way that students at all levels, including college, high school, and graduate school, could easily read it. I wrote this with students in mind because I think there is great power and pride in knowing your own history. My goal is for every student in Hawaii, (Tahiti) and beyond, the French Empire (and) American Empire that still exists today, to become familiar with the names of these women. Let’s start there. We have Purea and Aimata (and) no one even knows who they are. We know the first, second, and third generations of Kamehameha. But do we know Kaahumanu? We do that in Hawaii. This is something children can be proud of and learn about their own history as a source of information and guidance for the rest of the world. Whether the world accepted it at the time or not,[Indigenous communities]were ahead of the curve. They were far ahead of the Western tradition, which had more military power, which not only lends itself to conversations about cultural imperialism, but also what we consider moral today. It is also the enduring power of the cultural tradition that is its antithesis.
Many of these histories have been lost or forgotten, so what does it mean to revisit, remember, and learn from them today? How can we remember these forgotten histories? Is it possible?
For example, consider the (current) debate in K-12 schools surrounding critical race theory. Just think about how divisive it is and the hours state legislatures have spent debating this issue and crafting rules. If we take politics out of this and look at it from a broader perspective, it is undeniable that race has played a huge role in America’s foreign and domestic politics. Gender also plays a big role.
Early feminists simply asserted their right to speak out for their anti-slavery and abolitionist positions in churches and public squares. These are huge liberal questions that have racial and gender components. We’re talking about equality. That kind of prejudice that Western countries had was injected into Christianity because[prejudice]overrode the morality of the message. Those islands are still largely Christian in some way, shape, or form today. Tahiti is more secular, but there is (still) a minority that adheres to the Christian faith. Faith and equality can coexist. There was another way to learn about this history. Liliuokalani was modeling a different way of doing history, and she was right. We need to remember that just because she quotes or unquotes “losing the war” doesn’t mean she wasn’t right.
Can you tell us a little more about what this different history is or has been?
I’m looking for women in writing that isn’t about women. The archives are (mainly) written by naval officers (and) sailors who lived in Tahiti during its rebellious and glorious times. (They were) written by missionaries (mainly men), (and) there were (at that time) very few women missionaries writing, especially in the case of England. Men write about women and their encounters. And they rewrite (these stories) later to add this (glorified) aspect to what they achieved in their lives. (One) idea of the historian is to go beyond the archives and read what is not there. It was very interesting to try to imagine everything from (the point of view) of the chief, who is a woman. (A) A man is writing about an event, (and a female leader) giving birth on an island, and (another) ceding his island to France. What happens when you actually experience that as a woman? I did not write or publish anything that was not supported by sources. I really tried to write it from their perspective. While I was doing this, I became angry with some of the women. I was angry at the decisions they made. The fact that I tried to put myself in their shoes, in real time and space, is what made this book work so well.
What do you think was the most difficult decision? Which one did you disagree with?
I empathize with Queen Pomare (IV). She was appointed Queen when she was a very young teenager and acted as a teenager. She loved parties. She liked playing with her friends. And she wasn’t always serious about doing what the British missionaries wanted her to do. I can imagine them tearing their hair out and thinking very seriously about the direction the Islands should go and how horrible she would have been as a ruler.
On the other hand, I could see[Pomare]going in a different direction and pushing forward like a rebellious teenager, when he could have been more thoughtful. On the other hand, we also see that all of her actions were a reaction to what she ultimately did not agree with: the power, politics, and culture that were being forced upon her. (Pomare) fought back. She didn’t always do it in the most visionary or long-term, thoughtful way. But she was a very young girl, devastated by her circumstances, but (at the same time) amazingly political and extraordinarily devoted to her people.
What role do you think women’s leadership plays in reshaping our understanding of power and governance, both historically and today in the Pacific?
Indigenous movements are not going away, in fact they are getting stronger (globally). The United Nations and some (other) international bodies and organizations have indeed embraced the idea of human and cultural rights from an indigenous perspective. Women’s roles and voices need to have a strong presence in these conversations. We tend to think of political leadership as a kind of monolith, or a straight line. In fact, women are largely unappreciated, even though they have disrupted the political trajectory of world history on many occasions. Consider (for example) Kaahumanu. She not only destroyed the country’s religious taboos, but also established a completely different order politically in her lifetime. Islands tend to change more rapidly because when two different cultures collide in a small space, the effects are immediate. It’s amazing that women were able to overturn hundreds of years of history through political will, and that Native American history is part of Hawaii’s larger history. Women are part of any solution. They have contributed to where we are today.
Mr. Black spoke with Mr. Schultz on October 21, 2024. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity, and italics have been added for emphasis.
Featured image courtesy of Metropolitan Community College YouTube.
The views expressed in this article are the interviewees’ own and do not reflect the views of HIR.
