History of Hawaii

Island Life 101: A Newcomer's Guide to Hawaii

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The history of Hawaii is rich and fascinating, and understanding it is vital to understanding life in the Islands today. Here's a sample from Island Life 101 about the great chief who united the islands, Kamehameha I.

In 1790, Kamehameha invaded Maui, at a time when Maui Chief Kahekili was on Oahu and his son in charge of the island. In the famous battle of Kepaniwai, the invaders defeated Maui’s warriors through the use of Western cannon Kamehameha had acquired, along with two Western sailors who knew how to use them.

So many of the Maui warriors were killed that their bodies clogged the Iao Stream. The site of the battle to this day is known as Kepaniwai, “the damming of the waters.”

One prize of this battle was the divine chiefess Keopuolani, Kahekili’s great-niece. This young girl was at the pinnacle of the kapu system, and Kamehameha’s union with her would produce children of the high rank desirable to a chief with dynastic ambitions.

Keopuolani is known as Kamehameha’s Sacred Wife, because her rank was so high as to be considered divine. It is said her husband had to approach her on hands and knees. The two produced three children.

Their two sons, Liholiho and Kauikeauoli, became Kamehameha II and III. A daughter, Nahienaena, was caught in the cultural upheaval as the Western world brought radical changes to Hawaii. Reared to be her brother Kauikeauoli’s wife, she was torn between the old ways and those of the newly introduced Christianity, which forbade such pairings. Nahienaena died young, after giving birth to a short-lived child that may have been her brother’s.

Kamehameha had twenty-one wives, of whom the most famous is his Favorite Wife, Kaahumanu. Like Keopuolani, she was born on Maui, the child of a Romeo-and-Juliet union. Her father was from Hawaii Island, and her mother from the Maui royal family. After a battle with Kahekili, Kaahumanu’s parents fled to Hana, on East Maui, where their baby was born in a cave.

Kaahumanu’s father was a close ally of Kamehameha and gave his daughter to the rising chief when she was ten years old and he was thirty. The girl grew to be tall, beautiful, and brilliant, an appropriate match for the great Kamehameha. Politically well connected on both islands, she held unusual influence for a woman in Hawaiian society, yet still had to obey the restrictive rules of the kapu.

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