Richards, William

▪ American missionary

born , Aug. 22, 1793, Plainfield, Mass., U.S.

died Nov. 7, 1847, Hawaiian Islands

      American missionary who helped to promote a liberal constitutional monarchy in the Hawaiian Islands.

      He graduated from Williams College (Massachusetts) in 1819 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1822. In the fall of 1822 he married and, with his bride, sailed for the Hawaiian Islands, where he resided (on Maui) for the next several years as a missionary. In 1838 the king asked him to become an adviser, and he thereafter spent his time urging the improvement of the political system, helping to transform Hawaii into a modern constitutional state, with a bill of rights (1839) and a constitution (1840). In 1842 he went abroad as a diplomat seeking British, French, and U.S. acknowledgment of Hawaiian independence. No treaties were signed, but verbal acknowledgments were extended. Subsequently he held other positions, notably minister of public instruction (1846–47).

      He wrote Memoir of Keopuolani, Late Queen of the Sandwich Islands (1825) and edited the Translation of the Constitution and Laws of the Hawaiian Islands (1842).

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