David L. Gregg to Abraham Lincoln

David L. Gregg to Abraham Lincoln

Hawai’i
Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Dryer
politics
commissioner
Monarchy
President
King

This is a letter to Abraham Lincoln from David L. Gregg who served as the United States minister to Hawai’i from 1853 to 1858. This source is very much a private notice as Gregg expresses his feelings of deep embarrassment over Thomas Dryer’s incompetence as an American commissioner in Hawai’i. He tells the President that Dryer is often drunken and unprofessional, and that his vulgar behaviour has even got him banned from the Palace, with little respect from the King. Though this letter was written more than thirty decades before the ultimate annexation of Hawai’i, it is clear that Americans wanted to make a good impression. Amongst this plea to replace Dryer, a line that sticks out is that Gregg refuses to ‘give countenance to the idea that we are inferior in this Kingdom’ which reinforces the notion that Western people wanted to impose their superiority as people of ‘civilisation’.

David L. Gregg, Hawai’i

The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mal&fileName=mal1/213/2134100/malpage.db&recNum=0

24 January 1863

Emma Azid

The Library of Congress, Abraham Lincoln Papers Collection.
https://www.loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/about-this-collection/

English

Textual - handwritten

19th century Hawaii