Precedents Hawaiian historians, such as Reginald Yzendoorn and Richard W. Rogers, defended the possibility of the first European discovery of the
Hawaiian Islands by
Spain, especially by the Spanish sailor
Juan Gaetano, since several 16th-century documents and maps detailed islands in the same geographical position that received the name: "La Mesa" in the case of
Hawaii, "La Desgraciada" to refer to
Maui, "Ulloa" to
Kahoʻolawe, and "Los Monges" to
Lanai and
Molokai. In addition, other logbooks, such as those of the
corvettes
Descubierta and
Atrevida, make these islands coincide at the same point in the
Pacific Ocean. Likewise, geographers who had access to privileged information about the Spanish expeditions, such as
Abraham Ortelius, did not fail to locate islands called “Los Bolcanes” and “La Farfana” at those same coordinates.
Early immigration Perhaps the first Spanish immigrant to take up residence in
Hawaii was
Francisco de Paula Marín (1774-1837), a self-promoting adventurer who knew several languages, and served King
Kamehameha I as an interpreter and military advisor. Then there was also the issue of the plantation overseers. These men, the Field Bosses, were tasked to see that the laborers did the “proper amount of work” even if they had to be “tough.” In California the Andalucians established communities in the orchard towns and settled down. Over the years, the next generation of Hawaiian Spaniards gradually left the orchards and started new occupations in the Santa Clara Valley and other California regions. Although the majority of Spanish immigrants found themselves to still be day laborers until at least the 1940’s, when the war industries provided a chance for many families to find more lucrative opportunities.
Voyages to Hawaii Six ships between 1907 and 1913 brought over 9,000 Spanish immigrants from the Spanish mainland to Hawaii. Although many of the Portuguese immigrants who preceded them to Hawaii arrived on small wooden
sailing ships of less than a thousand
gross tonnage capacity, all of the ships involved in the Spanish immigration were large, steel-hulled, passenger
steamships. ==Cultural cooperation==