Sandwich IslandsA Closer LookCaptain James Cook of the British Navy accidentally landed on the Islands on January 18, 1778, and named them the Sandwich Islands in honor of his good friend and patron, the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Natives of the Islands called them Hawaii. Another American who visited the Sandwich Islands about the same time George and Mary Whipple lived there was Mark Twain, who spent four months there in 1866. For Twain’s satiric views on the islands and the role of missionaries, read “Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands,” notes from a speech he gave in 1873.
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