University of New England

Historian Paul Burlin explores American imperialism  through Maine figures who fostered the Americanization of Polynesian culture

Imperial Maine. Sounds like an oxymoron. Add Hawaii and the juxtaposition of words seems even more absurd. How, in any sense, could the state of Maine be "imperial"? And what does Hawaii - more than 5,000 miles away - have to do with anything related to Maine, imperial or otherwise?

But that is the topic of Paul Burlin's new scholarly but highly readable book titled Imperial Maine and Hawai'i, Interpretative Essays in the History of Nineteenth-Century American Expansion (Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers). On the surface, the book chronicles a number of fascinating people either native to or associated with Maine who played major roles in the religious, cultural, political and economic absorption of a Polynesian culture into an Americanized, western culture. They were missionaries, sugar barons, diplomats, presidents and lesser public officials. For better or worse, many were visionaries.

Burlin, professor of  history, says "the book is not really about Maine or Hawaii, but about what they and their connections might suggest about the United States as an imperial power."

Maine People
The book is filled with Maine people, however, some famous and some obscure.

Harold Marsh Sewell of Bath and Sanford Ballard Dole, whose family roots lay in the Kennebec River towns of Hallowell, Gardiner and Skowhegan are leading characters. They appear in the book's cover photograph taken at the 'Iolani Palace (the former palace of the deposed Hawaiian monarchy) on August 12, 1898 at the annexation ceremony of Hawaii by the United States of America. Sewall was the American minister to the "conquered" archipelago and Dole was Hawaii's first and only president. Dole’s parents had originally come to the Hawaiian islands as missionaries nearly 60 years before.

Other Maine characters who played key roles include Elisha Hunt Allen of Bangor (state legislator, U.S. Congressman), Elias Bond of Hallowell (missionary), James G. Blaine of Augusta (U.S. Congressman and Senator, Secretary of State and presidential candidate) and John L. Stevens of Mt. Vernon  and Augusta (Minister to the Kingdom of Hawaii).

"True believers," "pious merchants"
"True believers" and "pious merchants," who believed they could be good capitalists and good Christians, teamed up to bring the glory of God hand-in-hand with all the "superior" accoutrements of modern, Western culture and civilization. In the end, Burlin believes, everyone lost.

He says the impetus for the book was his experience in the Peace Corps, when he spent two years on the island of Yap in Micronesia. "I went into the Peace Corps with the best intentions," he relates, "and unwittingly participated in the undermining of a culture."

The epiphany that set him to writing occurred when he was doing research in Hawaii. It was a lovely Sunday morning, and Burlin walked up the Manoa Valley on Oahu to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks, right next to a Congregationalist Church.

"I looked in the church," Burlin remembers, "and it was barely full. Of course, Starbucks was packed! A Hawaiian politician was going through the place shaking hands and I suddenly realized that both peoples lost here. The native Hawaiians lost almost everything. But the missionaries had lost too, because the modern world is nothing they envisioned or hoped for. And in some ways it's morally diminished world. That's kind of the big, background issue in the book."
 
Paradise lost, then recreated, barely recognizable to its native inhabitants, by an alien, imposing culture.

While American imperialism in the 19th century, as illuminated by a host of fascinating Maine characters, is the book's complex subject matter, Burlin's personal motive for writing the book was simple: "I was trying to make sense of my own experience," he says.

Paul Burlin
Professor Burlin’s specialty is 19th-century American diplomatic history. In addition to Imperial Maine and Hawai'i, he has  published a number of articles in this field.  He also has an interest in the perceptions and insights “foreigners” have about U.S. history, culture and society, particularly  Brazilian observations about the United States. In addition, he has an interest in questions dealing with contemporary American culture. He received an A.B. in philosophy from Heidelberg College and his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University.

(Press release issued June 12, 2006)