An often repeated (and unfounded/incorrect) statement is, “The missionaries came to do good, and they did very well.” (Suggesting the missionaries personally profited from their services in the Islands.)
A simple review of the facts show that the missionaries were forbidden to, and didn’t “engage in any business or transaction whatever for the sake of private gain,” and they did not, and could not, own property individually.
To supply the mission members, a Common Stock system was initiated, a community-based economic system designed to enable the missionaries to accomplish their goals without having to worry about finding sustenance and shelter. It was a socialistic, rather than capitalistic, economic structure.
The missionaries were constantly reminded of Matthew Chapter 6, verse 24: “No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money.)” (Woods)
So missionaries could devote their entire energies to developing a written language for the Hawaiian people, translating the Bible into Hawaiian and teaching native men, women and children to read it, the ABCFM supplied all the Hawaiian mission’s domestic needs through a Common Stock system administered by appointed secular agents for the mission.
The Minutes of a meeting of the Pioneer Company on their way aboard the Thaddeus note, “That the property furnished by the Christian public, either in money or other articles of any kind, for the purposes of the Mission shall be at the disposal of the members jointly and subject to their vote.”
“The property acquired by the members jointly or by individuals of the body either by grant, barter, or earnings shall also be subject to the disposal of the members jointly.”
“The property thus furnished or acquired, either divided or undivided, shall be devoted to the general purposes of the mission, according to the tenor of our Instructions from the A. B. Com. F. M. and according to our own regulations, not incompatible with those instructions.”
“No member of this mission shall be entitled to use or allowed to appropriate such property divided or undivided, in bying [sic], selling, giving, or consuming, etc. in any manner incompatible with our general Instructions, or contrary to the voice of a majority of the members.” (Minutes of the Prudential Meeting of the Mission Family, November 16, 1819)
Mission family members were allowed to keep personal gifts from family and friends as private property, but those gifts were subtracted from what they would otherwise be entitled to receive from the Depository. (Woods)
In essence, except for the gifts of individuals to individuals, virtually no private property was actually held by the individual missionaries.
The Mission’s secular agent, Levi Chamberlain, kept track of everything mission families received from the Depository, gifts from mainland friends or family members, and any presents from Native Hawaiians. Everything was counted against the equal distribution of goods.
By 1832 the Hawaiian missionaries were already discussing a move from the common stock system to fixed salaries. Realizing the increased expense the Board would incur from such a measure, the missionaries resolved that each family should estimate not only their current expenses but what their expenses were “likely to be in (the) future.”
In 1842, the ABCFM aided the missionaries by transitioning to a salary system. The Board allotted each couple $450 per year and granted children under 10 an additional $30 and children over 10, $70 annually.
The Board abolished the common stock system but retained the depository at which missionaries could now purchase goods. Missionary parents could now give their children a New England education in the islands and save their personal incomes for their children’s futures.
In 1863, the ABCFM withdrew financial support for the mission and the Missionary Period ended.