Sharks upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health, and Culture in Hawai‘i,1778–1855 by Seth Archer (review)

when alfred crosby introduced the term “virgin soil epidemics” in 1976, he elevated germs to the role of causative agents in European colonization of the Americas. It was not, he argued, any European superiority over American cultures and societies that caused widespread depopulation but rather biology. Since then, scholars have debated how best to incorporate biology into histories of contact without surrendering to a deterministic narrative or absolving colonizers of their violence against Native people.

Seth Archer’s Sharks upon the Land is a welcome addition to the conversation, as it wrestles with the lasting effects of demographic collapse within the particular historical circumstances of late eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Hawai‘i. Archer argues that Hawai‘i’s health crises influenced responses to other pressing issues, including labor shortages, land tenure, and threats to Hawaiian sovereignty. Beginning in 1778 with James Cook’s arrival on the archipelago, Archer traces Hawaiian history through the lens of disease, death, infertility, and infant mortality—more broadly defined as health. Health, he points out, is at the center of better-known histories of Hawai‘i, namely, the political, cultural, economic, and religious changes that accompanied extended contact and conflict with European American traders, missionaries, and colonizers. Without looking closely at the effects of newly introduced infectious diseases (and new forms of medicine) on Native Hawaiians, Archer argues, we fail to see the mesh that held together and enabled these historical events. The physical experience of feeling ill and the psychic and emotional toll of depopulation were consequential parts of Hawaiian daily life. And these tolls created openings for foreigners to gain power on the islands.

In some instances, though, disease prevented conquest. Most notably, this was the case in 1804, when an epidemic of ‘ōku‘u (squatting sickness) delayed King Kamehameha I’s invasion of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau for a decade. Here and elsewhere Archer labors to translate historical accounts of disease into twenty-first-century medical terms (in the case of ‘ōku‘u, was it cholera, typhoid, or dysentery?). Forensic diagnosis is a challenging undertaking, and the payoff here is not entirely clear.

Archer is at his finest when describing the baseline health struggles Native Hawaiians faced as they coped with endemic diseases (e.g., TB, venereal diseases, skin ailments), malnutrition, and infertility. He paints a vivid picture of sick but not passive people, many of whom utilized Native and foreign healers, gods, and partners to stay alive and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Archer consistently reminds his audience that demographic collapse happened to human beings, not to numbers. It seems an obvious point but one that is often lost in stories of population loss where the scale is impossible for many to comprehend.

It was likely also difficult for islanders to cope with the relentless waves of death. Archer writes that disease and death engendered fatalism among Native Hawaiians, leading some to more readily accept Christianity than they might otherwise have. Fatalism was particularly evident, Archer tells us, among Hawaiian ali‘i (nobility), whose family records are replete with premature deaths and infertility. In some instances, infertile couples observed the large families of newly arrived U.S. missionaries and hoped that by incorporating a Christian god into their pantheon they too might bear children. Fatalism, then, in tandem with an unstable royal lineage and some chiefs’ willingness to protect their own wealth at the expense of the maka‘āinana (commoners), led to greater foreign (U.S.) influence over Hawai‘i.

Alongside amplifying the consequences of poor health to Hawaiian history, Archer claims to emphasize change over persistence. His study is actually far more nuanced than that. There is change to be sure, but in the adaptations he describes, one finds ample evidence of Hawaiian resilience, of an unrelenting desire to protect ‘ohana (family) and ‘āina (land). This is a complex history thanks to Archer’s careful reading of cultural change and...