“In 1820, the first Americans, mostly Christian missionaries, arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. The missionaries taught the natives how to read and write, as well as develop their own alphabet. In the coming years, American and European whalers, merchant seamen, traders, and sugar planters settled in Hawaii. The foreigners, also known as “Haoles,” brought diseases with them (smallpox, mumps, measles, and tuberculosis), which devastated the native population.”