The First Multiracial Ballgame
Not in Philadelphia in 1869 but in Hawaii, two years earlier
By Bruce Allardice
Historians, and by now increasingly the general public, know that the racial integration of baseball didn’t start with Jackie Robinson. In fact, the first African-American major leaguer was the otherwise obscure William Edward White, who played one game for the Providence (RI) Grays in the National League of 1879. On the amateur level, all-Black teams existed as early as 1855. African-American Luther Askin is credited as “integrating” the Eagle Baseball Club of Florence, Massachusetts in 1865, and the first credited game between “white” and African-American teams was played in Philadelphia in 1869.[i]
Overlooked in this focus on baseball’s African-American heritage is the parallel, and in some cases preceding, racial integration of baseball in Hawaii. The first recorded baseball game between teams of different races was not in Philadelphia in 1869, but rather in 1867, in the then independent kingdom of Hawaii.
American protestant missionaries, most of them from New England, had first reached Hawaii in 1820. The missionaries, and the whaling ships that followed, brought with them American religion and customs, along with the bat-ball games common in New England. Some form of “base ball” had been played in Honolulu since at least 1859, and the “natives” had played bat-ball games as early as 1840.[ii] In the 1850s, students at the prestigious, multiracial Punahou School played bat-ball games such as wicket (aipuni).[iii] Undoubtedly, these games involved students of all races, although the names of the players are unknown.
On August 24, 1867, in Honolulu, a baseball team of “natives” (the Pacifics) played a team of Caucasians (the Pioneers). The match was the result of a public challenge issued some weeks earlier by Charles H. Rose, Secretary of the Pioneer Club. The Pacific Club featured two Polynesian-Hawaiians, six part-Polynesians, and one haole (“foreigner”).[iv] Many of the “native” team were members of prominent island families. Several had attended Punahou, and been exposed to bat-ball games there. The one Anglo-Hawaiian on the “native” team was its pitcher, Charles T. Gulick, a Punahou graduate whose uncle edited a Hawaiian-language newspaper — which perhaps accounts for his playing with the “natives.” The Pioneer team was Caucasian, many Hawaiian-born, the sons of some of the most prominent Anglo-Hawaiian families. Several had attended Punahou, and others played on the local cricket clubs. The game was played “at Punahou, where Dillingham’s house now stands.”[v]
As can be seen, the two teams seem to have been on the friendliest terms, typified by the picnic after the match game. Most knew each other quite well, and lived middle to upper class lives They even played an extra, exhibition, game, for the benefit of the crowd.
But even this 1867 game may not have been the earliest interracial ball game. Indirect evidence suggests an 1866 game involving many of the same players. In 1929, Reverend G. P. Goto, a historian of Hawaiian baseball, recounted the story of the earliest Hawaiian games under the New York rules, a July 4, 1866 game between the “natives and “foreigners,” and the August 24, 1867 game between the Pacific and Pioneer Base Ball Clubs. Goto hadn’t played in these games, but he was recounting what had been told him by Captain James H. Black, a childhood friend who claimed to have brought the New York game to the islands.[vi]
In a 1906 account (which Goto borrows from), Black himself recounted the 1866 game:
“BASEBALL PLAYED FORTY YEARS AGO
…Well,” continued Captain James H. Black, “I wonder if any of them know that I brought the game of baseball to Honolulu. For that I did. It was in 1866 and out of the eighteen boys who played the first match there are only three now living that I know of — John E. Bush, the court interpreter; William Wond, down at Waialua; and myself. I think they ought to give me a pension.
“Yes, I brought the constitution and rules of the game from New York, and I taught the boys down on the esplanade. The first match was played on July 4, 1866, at Punahou where Dillingham’s house now stands. It was between foreigners and natives. And would you believe it, for those days, the score was 2 to 1. Charlie Gulick was the only foreigner on the native team. He pitched for it. The native nine won.
“Thousands of dollars changed hands on that game. Old Capt. Jim Smith[vii] lost $500. I played shortstop for our side and disfigured these two fingers with a hot ball from the bat. It knocked me over but I stopped it and held my hands up with the ball to show it.
“Billie Allen[viii] was a very active player, as well as Charlie Gulick. …”[ix]
It should be noted that this 1866 game was not reported in any of the contemporary Honolulu newspapers. The lack of contemporary confirmation of Black’s reminiscences leaves the 1867 game as the first confirmed multiracial game.
While we have only indirect evidence that the 1866 game was played under the existing New York rules, the 1867 game was played under the California Convention rules, which had adopted the New York rules.[x]
In short, the first baseball game between two teams of different races was not in Philadelphia in 1869. The 1867 (and if verified, the 1866) Hawaii game predate this. And the first racially integrated baseball games were, in all probability, played at the Punahou School in Hawaii in the 1850s.
Appendix
1. Players on the 1867 “Pacifics” team:
Pitcher of the “native” team was Charles Thomas Gulick (1841–1897), who captained the 1866 team. Attended Punahou 1855–62. Of an old missionary family. Book keeper. Hawaii Minister of the Interior 1883–86. Opposed the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.
William Saffery Wond (1841–1932), who captained the 1867 team. Later a police captain and harbor master. Attended Punahou School 1854–55. Married to a daughter of Privy Councilor Jonah Piikoi.
John E. Bush (1842–1906). Later a court interpreter, newspaper editor and politician. Minister of the Interior, 1880, 1882–83.
George Nehalelaau Harbottle (1845–84), whose grandfather John Harbottle married a native chieftess.
J. Nakookoo. Perhaps the man of this name [John, an attorney?] who served in the House of Representatives in 1882.
J. N. Gilman — either Joseph Neddles Gilman (1836–94) or his brother James Neddles Gilman (1839–88), whose mother was Polynesian and whose father was part Chickasaw Indian.
John Kanipookalani Meek (1849–1879), son of Hawaiian pioneer Captain John Meek and a “native” woman. Pioneer native Hawaiian photographer, partnering with his brother in law Horatio Crabb (the scorer for the Pacifics in 1867). His sister Eliza was the mistress of King Lunalilo. Attended Punahou 1864–65.
J. Naone — Perhaps John K. Naone (1842–1906), whose brother headed the royal band.
G. Laanui — Gideon Kailipalaki Laanui (1840–71), a relative of the Hawaiian monarchs.
2. Players on the 1867 “Pioneers” team:
US-born James H. Black (1830–1910), later the publisher of the Hawaiian Gazette and the Pacific Commercial Advertiser.
Allan Wilkes Judd (1841–75), son of Interior Minister (1845–46) Gerrit P. Judd. Attended Punahou 1854–59.
George Roberts. A member of the same cricket team as A. W. Judd. Perhaps the George Roberts, born England, age 24, who came to Hawaii in 1865.
Edward Creamor MacFarlane (1848–1902), hotelier, rancher, and briefly (1892) Hawaiian Minister of Finance.
Samuel Nott (1840–1923), Civil War veteran and merchant who married the niece of Loren A. Thurston, author of the 1887 Constitution of Hawaii.
Frederick W. Wunderberg (1850–1918), son of the royal registrar of accounts. Postmaster General of Hawaii 1886–91. Attended Punahou 1864–68.
Harvey E. Whitney (1850–83), brother of the editor of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Book dealer. Attended Punahou 1862–67.
Alfred Wellington Carter (1840–1890). Merchant. Brother Henry was Hawaii’s Minister of the Interior 1880–82. Attended Punahou 1853–54.
Thomas G. Snow (1850–1925), Boston-born Merchant. Attended Punahou 1864–68.
Endnotes
[i] The timeline of Black-White racial integration of baseball is given by MLB historian John Thorn, in the Our Game blog, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/baseball-integration-timeline-b289bc04ca12. For an 1867 integrated (Caucasian and Inuit) team in Alaska, see the Protoball website (www.protoball.org).
[ii] See the Protoball website at http://protoball.org/In_Honolulu_on_9_February_1859 and elsewhere for more on early baseball in Hawaii. See also Monica Nucciarone, Alexander Cartwright: The Life Behind the Baseball Legend (Lincoln, U. of Nebraska Press, 2009). Michael Johnson, “Beyond the Baselines: Baseball in the Hawaiian Islands as a Transnational Sport, 1840–1945” (UH Manoa, PHD dissertation, 2014), contains a scholarly examination of early Hawaiian baseball.
[iii] Opened in 1842, and still in existence, Punahou’s students included a number of Hawaii’s “First Families” and members of Hawaii’s royal family. Punahou bat-ball games in the 1850s are recorded in the school’s records. See the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Jan. 17, 1953. According to the school’s website, in the 1850s “Boys play[ed] Prisoner’s Base, aipuni (a form of baseball), wicket, swimming, running and jumping matches.” See https://www3.punahou.edu/timeline175/. “Natives” were playing bat-ball games as early as 1840. See “Sports in Honolulu,” The Polynesian, Dec. 28, 1840.
[iv] The term haole is often translated as “foreigner,” but can also apply to any non-Polynesian white. The author is uncomfortable with such phrasings and categorizations, and uses them only because they were used at the time.
In 1872, the population of Honolulu consisted of roughly 11,000 “natives,” 1,000 “half-castes,” and 2,000 haoles.
[v] Honolulu Advertiser, May 14, 1906. The school is located at Beckwith and Punahou Streets.
[vi] See the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 11, May 12, May 13, 1929, January 17, 1953. Honolulu Advertiser, May 14, 1906, for later accounts of the 1866 and 1867 games. The 1867 game was reported at the time. See the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 31, 1867, for a lengthy account of the game, complete with box score. See also “Ka Hui Kinipopo,” Honolulu Ke Au Okoa, August 29, 1867 , “Na Ahahui Kinipopo,” Honolulu Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, August 31, 1867, and “A Brief History of Baseball in Hawaii and the Hawaii Winter League,” at http://www.hawaiiwinterbaseball.com/about_hwb;
[vii] Ship Captain James Francis Smith (1800–77).
[viii] William Fessenden Allen (1831–1906), whose father Elisha was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. A bookkeeper and naturalized Hawaiian citizen. Later a Privy Counciller and aide to Kings Kamehameha V, Lunalilo, and Kalakaua. In 1890 he formed the (multiracial) Hawaiian Base Ball Association.
[ix] The Honolulu Advertiser, May 14, 1906.
[x] The Hawaiian Gazette, August 28, 1867.
