Horses in Hawaii

Today -- August 9th -- is the generally accepted date that horses first arrived in the Hawaiian islands back in 1803. (We says "generally accepted" because dates of May and June 1803 are also seen in older literature.)

The horses were brought by Captain R.J. Cleveland aboard the ship Lelia Byrd; two were landed in Kawaihae and presented to the king, Kamehameha. Another pair of horses were taken to Lahaina, Maui, and given to John Young. Cattle had been brought to the island by Captain Vancouver in 1793 and the king had put a 10-year kapu (taboo) on them to allow the cattle to breed and multiply. That kapu ended up lasting until 1830, by which time the cows had gotten completely out of control. Two years later John Palmer Parker hired the first Mexican cowboys--who would come to be known as paniolo (a variant of Hispaniolo or "Hispanic person")--to help him on his Big Island ranch with the cattle problem. Presumably, those first horses from 1803 had also multiplied in subsequent generations and were already waiting when the paniolo arrived.

Meanwhile, the ship that brought those first horses, the Lelia Byrd, was acquired by King Kamehameha for his ultimately unsuccessful attack on Kauai.