By the second half of the 19th century, missionaries already had made an indelible mark on the Hawaiian culture.
The early missionaries created Western-style schools, which became a catalyst for change, and were the first to turn Hawaiian into a written language.
They brought with them the notion of just one God, countering the Hawaiian beliefs of many gods and goddesses.
Early Congregationalists planted not only Christianity, but their sensibilities as well: more clothing, more hymns, no more hula.
Under missionary influence, the first of the laws based on the Ten Commandments were put into place, and two government declarations had already laid the groundwork for the missionaries to make headway: the dismantling of the kapu system in 1819 and the Laplace Manifesto of 1839, more commonly called the Edict of Toleration. The latter proclaimed religious freedom in Hawai'i.
Congregationalist missionairies, sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, were the first to arrive, in 1820. That first missionary company was 17 strong, led by Hiram Bingham.
Bingham's goal was "to aim at nothing short of covering those Islands with fruitful fields and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, of raising up the whole people to an elevated state of Christian civilization."
Seven years later, the first Roman Catholic mission, made up of French priests who were members of the Congregation of the Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, arrived. The group included the Revs. Abraham Armand and Alexis Bachelot.
Both priests were ordered by Queen Ka'ahumanu to leave on the ship on which they had arrived. They ignored her order, rented rooms in Honolulu and began learning Hawaiian, only to be greeted with persecution by those in power. That ended only when the French government sent a warship to the Islands in response to an ordinance issued by King Kamehameha III rejecting the Catholic religion. Kamehameha backed down, leading to the Laplace Manifesto.
The Mormons were the third major missionary group to reach the Islands, arriving in 1850. Unlike earlier missionaries, they appointed native converts to various offices in the church, thus giving them some responsibility.
And by 1861, King Kamehameha IV was instrumental in the establishment of an Episcopal church in Hawai'i. Land for a cathedral (St. Andrew's) was bestowed, as well as $1,000 for a clergyman.
The first Buddhist priest in Hawai'i came in 1889. Soryu Kagahi, a priest of the True Pure Land sect, was here only briefly. But before he left, he built the Hilo Hongwanji. By 1897, Hawai'i was incorporated into the Honpa Hongwanji foreign missions program.
In 1899, Yemyo Imamura, who was then 33, took over as bishop of Honpa Hongwanji and held that position for the rest of his life. He was to become one of the most influential religious leaders in the Islands.
By the end of the 19th century, the Buddhists (mostly Japanese, who made up 40 percent of the population) by then were seeing tremendous growth, soon to be followed by the sprouting of temples on nearly all islands.
