Ando Taro

Andô Tarô was the first Japanese Consul General appointed to the Kingdom of Hawaii (though not the first Consul; he was preceded by Nakamura Jirô). He arrived in Hawaii on February 14, 1886, aboard the City of Peking, the third ship carrying officially authorized contract laborers immigrating to Hawaii. A Japanese consulate had been operating in Honolulu since 1884, but Andô acquired a new building in 1886 and moved the consulate there at that time. He also delivered to the Hawaiian government, upon his arrival, the Convention of Japanese Immigration, signed by Inoue Kaoru and Robert Walker Irwin in Tokyo earlier that year, to be formally signed in Hawaii.

Andô served as Consul General from 1886 until 1888. A convert to Christianity, he was known as a heavy drinker before turning to lead the temperance movement in Hawaii, seeking too to reform and improve the Japanese community in other respects. He was particularly disheartened by the prevalence of gambling and prostitution by Japanese in the islands.

References

• Franklin Odo and Kazuko Sinoto, A Pictorial History of the Japanese in Hawaii 1885-1924, Bishop Museum (1985), 27, 39, 75-76.