Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1845 - 1924 (Creation)
Level of description
Series
Extent and medium
12.5 linear inches in 3 boxes
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Sanford Ballard Dole was born i ka ʻāina (land) o Punahou, ahapuaʻa (district) o Honolulu, moku (district) o Kona, mokupuni (island) o Oʻahu, Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina (Hawaiian Archipelago) on April 23, 1844 to Daniel Dole (1808-1878) and Emily Hoyt Ballard Dole. His parents were part of the ninth company of Protestant missionaries from the Boston-based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) that arrived in Hawaiʻi on May 21, 1841. Daniel became a teacher, and later principal, at Oʻahu College (Punahou School), a school established for the educating of missionary children. Sanford’s mother, Emily, died four days after his birth from complications and on April 27, 1846 his father married Charlotte Close Knapp, a fellow American Protestant missionary. In 1855, when Sanford was eleven, the family moved to Kōloa, Kauaʻi.
Sanford was educated for one year at Oʻahu College and then sent to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated in 1867 and went to work in a nearby Boston law office. Sanford returned to Hawaiʻi in 1868 and practiced law. In 1873, he married Anna Prentice Cate. In 1879, the couple adopted the 13yr-old Lizzie Napolean. They had no biological children.
Sanford ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Hawaiian Kingdom Legislature in 1874. His career in politics would begin in 1886 when he was elected as a representative of Kauaʻi in the Hale Poʻe Koho ʻIa (House of Representatives). In December of that year Dole would join the executive committee of a secret hui (group) known as the Hawaiian League. This hui of white businessmen, church leaders, and politicians sought the end of native rule in the Kingdom and plotted a military takeover of government that resulted in the July 6, 1887 coup d etat in which the Native monarch, Mōʻī David Laʻamea Kalākaua, remained in the position of chief executive but was stripped of most powers. In 1893 Dole would head a group of mostly the same men under a different name--Committee of Safety--in another coup that ended rule by the Hawaiian monarchy. Dole would go on to head the following three iterations of government in Hawaiʻi; provisional government, republic, and territory of the United States.
Repository
Archival history
The Sanford Ballard Dole Manuscript Collection consists of personal and professional papers, including: correspondence; land documents—Palapala Sila Nui (Royal Patents), Palapala Moraki (Mortgage Deeds); government proclamations; receipts; and more. These items are part of a larger collection of “seven boxes” that were collected from the residence of Sanford Dole by his estate after his death in 1926. In 1932, Mrs. Clorinda Low Lucas [executrix of Dole estate] and Mrs. Ethel M. Damon, co-trustees of the Dole paper deposited the contents of these Dole papers at the Archives of Hawaiʻi under a loan agreement. A small number of other pieces were added to the collection by the estate over the next few years. In 1939, a majority of the collection was transferred by the estate to the Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society—the Archives of Hawaiʻi retained a relatively small but important portion of the collection. During Ralph Kuykendall’s work on the three volume history Hawaiian Kingdom—approx. 1930-1963, he was allowed to borrow documents from the archives. He conducted his work mainly at the Hamilton Library at UH Mānoa and in 1986 materials believed to be from the Dole Collection were discovered at the library. A memorandum of 21 April 1986 from Eleanor C. Au, Head, Special Collections UH Mānoa to Ruth Itamura, State Archivist with the subject line, “Material borrowed by Prof. Kuykendall,” said, “I found these when cleaning up some material packed away in the University Archives and I believe that they belong to the State Archives.” These materials were transferred to the HSA and were added to M-43 Sanford Ballard Dole Manuscript Collection as the sub-series 43.02, titled Dole Papers – Kuykendall. In 1990, approx. eighty publications from the collection were transferred to UH Hamilton and other libraries.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The Sanford Ballard Dole Manuscript Collection consists of personal and professional papers, including: correspondence; land documents—Palapala Sila Nui (Royal Patents), Palapala Moraki (Mortgage Deeds); government proclamations; receipts; and more.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
None
Conditions governing reproduction
none
Language of material
- English
- Hawaiian