Walter M. Gibson

Walter M. Gibson
Photo of Walter M. Gibson
Prime Minister of Hawaii
In office June 30, 1886 – October 13, 1886
Monarch	Kalākaua
Preceded by	Celso Caesar Moreno
Succeeded by	William C. Wilder
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office May 20, 1882 – June 30, 1886
Monarch	Kalākaua
Preceded by	William L. Green
Succeeded by	Robert J. Creighton
Minister of the Interior
In office June 30, 1886 – October 13, 1886
Monarch	Kalākaua
Preceded by	Charles T. Gulick
Succeeded by	Luther Aholo
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office October 13, 1886 – July 1, 1887
Monarch	Kalākaua
Preceded by	Robert J. Creighton
Succeeded by	Godfrey Brown
Personal details
Born	March 6, 1822 Southern United States or England
Died	January 21, 1888 San Francisco, California
Resting place	Hawaii
Nationality	Kingdom of Hawaii, American
Political party	National
Spouse	Rachel Lewis Gibson
Children	3
Signature

Walter Murray Gibson (March 6, 1822 – January 21, 1888) was an American adventurer and a government minister in the Kingdom of Hawaii prior to the kingdom's 1887 constitution.

Early life

Gibson was generally thought to be born March 6, 1822, in the southern United States, though he sometimes claimed to have been born in England. He spent his young adulthood in Anderson District, South Carolina. He was the captain of a ship and became involved in gunrunning in the Caribbean. Later, he was jailed in the East Indies by the Dutch on charges of fomenting rebellion, was sentenced to death, but managed to escape from Weltevreden Prison in Java. He claimed receiving a vision while in prison to "build up a kingdom in these isles, whose lines of power shall run around the earth." In 1859, he went to Utah Territory and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), persuading church president Brigham Young to allow him to establish a Mormon colony in the Pacific.

LDS Church colony

Gibson arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1861, and founded a colony among members of the LDS Church who were already in the islands. He purchased land on the island of Lanai with funds from the colony in his own name, but was excommunicated after an investigation by the church regarding accusations of preaching false doctrine, maladministration of the colony, and embezzlement of church funds. The proceedings leading to his excommunication were initiated by letters from Jonathan Napela and other Native Hawaiian church leaders to church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Upon excommunication, he expelled those who did not support him from his colony and church and began angling for secular political office and power.

Political career

Hawaiian envoys and Samoan authorities on board the Kaimiloa in 1887.

In 1873, Gibson started his own newspaper to extol his virtues in English and Hawaiian called the Nuhou. He successfully ran for the House of Representatives in 1878 as a candidate of the King's Party, allying himself with King Kalakaua and portraying himself as the "voice of Hawaiians". In 1880 he bought the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (now the Honolulu Advertiser).

In 1882, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then on June 30, 1886, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaii by King Kalākaua. He also served on various boards, as Attorney General, Minister of the Interior, and Secretary of War. He often held several cabinet positions simultaneously, and at one point, the cabinet consisted of only him and Minister of Finance John Mākini Kapena, resulting in newspapers labeling him the "Minister of Everything".

Gibson was widely credited with encouraging Kalākaua to make rash political moves, which eventually led to the imposition of the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii. One of his bolder plans included an attempt to build a Pacific empire, which drew the ire of both the international and local Hawaiian communities. Sending the "homemade battleship" Kaimiloa to Samoa in 1887 resulted in suspicions from the German Navy and embarrassment for the conduct of the crew.

Personal life

On July 10, 1838, the sixteen-year old Gibson married the twenty-year old Rachel Margaret Lewis (1818–1844), daughter of Jesse and Hannah Lewis. Prior to their marriage, Gibson had been a boarder with the Lewis's in their home in Sandy Springs, outside of Pendleton, South Carolina. They had three children: John Lewis (1838–1877), Henry (died 1893) and Tallulah (later changed to the Hawaiianized Talula, 1843–1903), who married Sheriff of Maui Frederick H. Hayselden. Rachel died in 1844, possibly from the cold conditions of the family's cabin floors or complications from her last pregnancy.

Death

Gibson's fortunes fell dramatically after being removed from power in 1887. He fled the islands for fear of his life and died penniless in San Francisco on January 21, 1888. His body was returned to Hawaii for a funeral and burial.

In film

Sam Neill played Gibson in the 1999 film Molokai: The Story of Father Damien.

Bibliography

• Adler, Jacob; Kamins, Robert M. (2019) [1986]. The Fantastic Life of Walter Murray Gibson: Hawaii's Minister of Everything (PDF). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-8366-9. OCLC 1126516674.
• Andrade, Ernest (1996). Unconquerable Rebel: Robert W. Wilcox and Hawaiian Politics, 1880–1903. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-87081-417-4. OCLC 247224388.
• Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson (1967). The Hawaiian Kingdom 1874–1893, The Kalakaua Dynasty. Vol. 3. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-87022-433-1. OCLC 500374815.
• Hamilton, Richard F. (July 5, 2017). America's New Empire: The 1890s and Beyond. Routledge. ISBN 9781351532174.

Further reading

• Walter M. Gibson (1855). The prison of Weltevreden: and a glance at the East Indian Archipelago. J. C. Riker.
• Walter M. Gibson (1881). Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians.
• Tate, Merze (1960). "Hawaii's Program of Primacy in Polynesia". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 61 (4). Oregon Historical Society: 377–407. JSTOR 20612586.

External links

• Media related to Walter M. Gibson at Wikimedia Commons
• All about Hawaii. The recognized book of authentic information on Hawaii, combined with Thrum's Hawaiian annual and standard guide ((original from University of Michigan)). Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 1891. pp. 92–97 – via HathiTrust.

"A List of All the Cabinet Ministers Who Have Held Office in the Hawaiian Kingdom"

• Woods, Roberta. "LibGuides: Hawai'i Legal Research: Attorney General Opinions". law-hawaii.libguides.com.

Includes a list of Attorneys General for the Kingdom of Hawaii, their salaries and budgets