King Kalākaua of Hawaii became the first monarch to circumnavigate the globe in 1881 with his 285-day trip which traversed over a dozen countries where he was received by many heads of state. One of the main reasons for his trip was to import a labor force from abroad to replace the dwindling Hawaiian population primarily for Hawaii’s growing sugar industry. Accompanying Kalākaua on the trip was his newly appointed Royal Commissioner of Immigration William Nevins Armstrong, his Chamberlain Charles Hastings Judd, and his personal chef turned valet Robert von Oelhoffen.
Most of the travel on the King’s trip was booked through steamship starting with the City of Sydney, which sailed from Honolulu, Hawaii on January 20th, reaching his first destination of San Francisco, California on January 29. After arriving at the Port of San Francisco to a 21-gun salute in response to the King’s royal standard being flown on the main mast, he lodged at the Palace Hotel (shown on Sanborn map below) in San Francisco and visited the California State Legislature in Sacramento meeting with Governor George Clement Perkins.
On February 8th, King Kalākaua next headed west to Japan on the RMS Oceanic and arriving at the Port of Yeddo (Tokyo) on March 4th to numerous 21-gun salutes and the playing of the Hawaiian national anthem (written by King Kalākaua) by Emperor Meiji’s military band. The King was provided lodging at the Palace of the Enryoukan (the large white trapezoid shaped island on the coast southwest of the mouth of the Sumida River on the Bunken Edo ōezu, kan map below and current site of Hama Rikyu Gardens) and was hosted by the Emperor Meiji at the Imperial Palace at the center of the city (surrounded by a moat on the Bunken Edo ōezu, kan map below).
Although the King failed at an attempt to offer his niece, Princess Kaʻiulani to Price Sadamaro for marriage to strengthen ties with Japan, an agreement was met to remove extraterritoriality claims from their treaty, which eventually paved the way toward Japanese labor immigration to Hawaii. Robert Walker Irwin, Kalākaua’s Counsel General to Japan and great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was appointed Hawaiian Minister to the Japanese Court by the King on this visit and subsequently negotiated the Government Kanyaku Imin immigration system and oversaw the legal immigration of nearly 30,000 Japanese nationals to Hawaii by 1894.
After a brief visit to Kobe and Nagasaki, the King transferred to the steamer Tokio-maru headed for Shanghai, China on March 22nd.
Two days later, he traveled to Tientsin (Tianjin) near the capital of Peking (Beijing) on the steamship Pautah and brokered a deal with Chinese Viceroy Li Hung Chang for additional Chinese migration to Hawaii.
This was followed by a trip on the steamship Thibet to British Hong Kong April 12th to the 21st where the King was hosted at Government House (shown in profile print image below) by Governor John Pope Hennessy.
Between April 21st and May 24th the King toured Southeast Asia meeting with King Chulalongkorn of Siam (Thailand) in Bangkok, British Governor Frederick Weld in Singapore, Abu Bakar, the Maharaja of Johore in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, British Lieutenant-Governor Colonel John Frederick Adolphus McNair in Penang, Malaysia, and Mr. Barnard, the British Commissioner in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar).
After reaching Calcutta (Kolkata) on May 28th on the steamer Pemba and continuing through India overland via train to Bombay (Mumbai), King Kalākaua left for Egypt on the steamer Rosetta on July 7th stopping in Aden, Yemen along his route through the Red Sea.
After arriving at Suez on June 20th, he boarded a train to Cairo and was invited by the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, Mohamed Tewfik Pasha, to stay at the Palace of Kasr-el-Moussa, after which he was given a tour of the Citadel Saladin as well as the pyramids and Great Sphinx on the Giza Plateau, ending in a state ball in Alexandria on June 24th, where according to William Armstrong the King glimpsed in the harbor from the Ras-el-Tin Palace the HMS Resolution (ship Capt. Cook sailed during his discovery of Hawaii) which had turned into a coaling hulk.
The King left Alexandria on the steamer Asia on June 25th to Naples, Italy where he had an audience with Italian King Humberto I and Queen Margherita, and later to Rome where he had an audience with Pope Leo XIII on July 3rd. After 16 days in London where he met with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, he continued a tour of Europe from July 24th which included a trip to Brussels, Belgium where he met King Leopold II, Cologne and Berlin, Germany where he met the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, Vienna, Austria where he met with the Duke of Teschen Archduke Albrecht, Paris, France, Lisbon, Portugal, Madrid, Spain, and wrapping up with Glascow, Scotland. While in Lisbon, King Kalākaua met with King Luís I at the Palace of Ajuda to negotiate an extended treaty that would result in more Portuguese immigration to Hawaii.
King Kalākaua left Liverpool, England on Sept. 13th for America, arriving in New York City on Sept. 23rd where he met Thomas Edison who demonstrated with light bulbs the electricity the King would later utilize to light the streets of Honolulu in 1888. He subsequently visited Philadelphia, then Washington D.C. where he met with President Chester A. Arthur. Seven years earlier, Kalākaua was the first head of state to attend a White House state dinner with then President Ulysses S. Grant while in Washington to negotiate a treaty. He completed his U.S. tour with visits to Norfolk, Virginia, Cincinatti, Ohio, Lexington, Kentucky, Chicago, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Ogden, Utah, and sugar baron Claus Spreckles summer home in Aptos, California.
The King left San Francisco on October 22 aboard the Australia bound for Hawaii and arrived at Honolulu Harbor on October 29th to a homecoming that lasted several days.
Further Reading and Sources Consulted:
Armstrong, William N. (1904). Around the World with a King. New York, NY: F. A. Stokes Company.
Source: https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2024/08/have-crown-will-travel-the-circumnavigation-of-king-kalakaua/
