Background
Goto was born in Kokufu-mura, Naka District, Kanagawa Prefecture. He was the eldest son of Izaemon Kobayakawa.
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Katsu Goto
Edit Profile後藤濶
General interpreter leader merchant
Career
He was the leader of a fledgling Japanese community in Honokaa. After receiving an education, Goto worked as a city employee at the Portuguese of Yokohama. lieutenant is here that he learned the English language.
On February 8, 1885, he came to the Kingdom of Hawaii as a government contract laborer aboard the Steamship City of Tokio, being the first shipload of Kanyaku Imin, with 25 other shiploads arriving subsequently.
Goto was contracted to a ʻŌʻōkala plantation that had been organized and managed by John Harris Soper prior to his 1884 appointment as marshal of the Hawaiian Kingdom. After working for three years in the sugarcane fields, Goto he opened a general merchandise store on the Big Island.
Because of his English language fluency and his intolerance at seeing field workers being exploited, he often went to court in defense of the Japanese immigrant laborers. Unpopular with the plantation managers, Goto was hung by four mentor
Joseph R. (JR) Mills, a local hotel and mercantile store owner, Walter Blabon a drayman, Thomas Steele a luna or overseer on Robert Overend"s plantation and William Watson a drayman who worked for J. R. Mills.
The four ambushed Goto on his way from Overend"s Plantation after he met with Japanese workers regarding conditions on Overend"s Plantation, hog tied and hung Goto from a telephone pole in December 1889. After Deputy sheriff Rufus Anderson Lyman informed Edward Griffin Hitchcock of Goto"s murder in Honokaʻa, the suspects were caught, tried and found guilty of manslaughter: J.R. and Steele in the 2nd degree, to serve 9 years, and Blabon and Watson in the 3rd degree to serve four. Steele and Blabon escaped from prison to Australia and California respectively, Watson served out his time, and J. R. Mills was pardoned in 1894 after four years in prison by the new government of Hawaii.
The episode became the subject matter of a 2001 play, Another Heaven.
At least two biographies about Goto have been written, Katsu Goto: the first immigrant from Japan (1988) by Fumiko Kaya, and Hamakua Hero: a true plantation story (2010) by P. Y. Iwasaki. The Katsu Goto Memorial Committee from Honokaa Hongwanji Mission is producing a film about Goto"s life and the humanities aspect of his story.
Membership
In 2010, a memorial in celebration of the 125th anniversary of Goto"s arrival to Hawaii was erected in Honokaʻa. The Memorial Service Committee was composed of several people, including a Hawaii State Senator, Hawaii State Representative, members of the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus, and the Hiroshima-Hawaii Sister State Committee.
