Edward Patridge: Making the Case for Generational Blessings

Part one of this post is a must before reading the rest. Gives you some context!

Edward Partridge was the maternal great great great grandfather of Patria. Why am I even concerned about who her grandfather is?

Well, just read part one of this post to find out! Pleeeeeeze! (I've found this type of begging quite effective . . . is it working? are you clicking??)

As indigenous to a country in the Pacific, I have been quite astounded (and grateful) at the sensitivity and reverence Patria has for Kanaka Maoli of this land. So being a believer in ancestral influence and having found out who her grandfather is, I had to dig.

Yeah, I'm curious like that.

And oh, did all the pieces ever come together. Here was the process and some of the findings!

I emailed Cynthia Compton, a historian, whose dissertation (parts of it) addressed various mission presidents' relationships with Kanaka Maoli. I asked her about Edward Partridge and this is some of what she wrote back:

"Partridge was one of [my] favorite of the mission presidents. He lacked social skills--with just about everyone and he was ethnocentric in many ways. Yet he saw things that many missionaries did not. He understood that Hawaiians were hard workers and I believe he tried to be fair in many ways. . . There was definitely a labor shortage while he was on the plantation and we have a record that he hired non-member Hawaiian women to work and paid them in cash. Both of those events--Hawaiian women working on a sugar plantation and being paid in cash were fairly unusual at the time."

Fascinating to me. She goes on to write in her dissertation "Partridge showed himself to be among the least patronizing of the mission presidents. While he often was frustrated with his inability to synchronize work on the plantation, he also was able to simultaneously accept differences with little need to either diminish or glorify Hawaiians or Haoles ." She sites an example of this in an excerpt of his journal. Any descendant of Edward Partridge should read the dissertation.

Or his journal for that matter. It's at the Utah State University archives.

Also, the church owned land (yeah, problems with that, I know) would only employ Hawaiians under his leadership and he advocated for Hawaiians to speak in church settings where only haole had spoken previously.

When reading all this information, it became clear to me why my friend thinks about the people of Hawaii and her place on their land. I imagine generational patterns starting with Edward Partridge may be informing her self-reflexivity.

I also love this example as an opportunity for all of us to reflect on our own ancestors and how we are able to affirm their lives through the choices we make today.

Go fam hx!