Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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‘Tennooe’ – William Kanui

“William Kanui, who had been placed at Kailua, having in a few short months violated his vows by excess in drinking (and) was excluded from Christian fellowship, but still performed some service for the chiefs for a time, then became a wanderer for many years.” (Bingham)

Let’s look back …

“He was born on the Island of Oʻahu, about the close of the last century. His father belonging to the party of a defeated chief, fled with his son to Waimea, Kauai, while there (1809,) an American merchant vessel … touched for supplies.” Kanui and his brother caught a ride on the ship and ended up in Boston. (The Friend, February 5, 1864)

By 1815, many divinity school students at Yale were fascinated with the prospect of evangelizing what were considered the “heathen” (a person who does not belong to a widely held religion) in far-off lands. Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia had been befriended by members of the church community, and was held up as an example of the intelligence and propensity for spirituality that could be found among the Hawaiian people. (Warne)

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’ (ABCFM) Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut opened in the spring of 1817. Kanui was among seven Hawaiians in the opening class. Three other “heathen” included two boys from Calcutta and one Native American.

“Soon after their arrival, they attracted the attention of the friends of foreign missions, and when the mission school was opened … they were received as pupils (Kanui, ʻŌpūkahaʻia, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i”.)) (The Friend, February 5, 1864)

The coming of ʻŌpūkahaʻia and other young Hawaiians to the continent had awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches. “The arrival in this country of several youth from the Sandwich Islands, and the leadings of Providence respecting them, have been viewed from the first, by those acquainted with the facts, as an indication of some important design…”

“… under this impression, several individuals undertook to assist and patronize these youth. Their efforts have been crowned with unexpected success.” (Five Youths from the Sandwich Islands, 1815)

The boys were taught to read and write, but the only available textbooks were in the English language – there was not yet an appropriate alphabet, nor was there a single printed page in Hawaiian. For 2 ½ years, Kanui was totally immersed in studies. (Warne)

In the fall of 1819, the brig Thaddeus, was chartered to carry the Pioneer Company of missionaries to the Islands. There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity (two Ordained Preachers, Hiram & Sybil Bingham and Asa and Lucy Thurston; two Teachers, Samuel & Mercy Whitney and Samuel & Mary Ruggles; a Doctor, Thomas & Lucia Holman; a Printer, Elisha & Maria Loomis; and a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain (and his family.))

Kanui was among four native Hawaiians selected to accompany the group. He, along with Hopu and Honoliʻi, had progressed in their Christian studies to the point of being accepted as “pious” and baptized into the church. The fourth was Prince Humehume. (Warne) (Unfortunately, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died suddenly of typhus fever in 1818 and did not fulfill his dream of returning to the islands to preach the gospel.)

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US set sail on the Thaddeus for the Islands.

After 164-days at sea, on April 4, 1820, the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Hawai‘i’s “Plymouth Rock” is about where the Kailua pier is today.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished; through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho,) with encouragement by former Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother,) the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs.

In the Kailua mission at Kona Lucy Thurston noted, “In the morning the two Hawaiian youth walked away to see the gentry; and having an eye to influence, they put on their best broadcloth suits and ruffled shirts, their conspicuous watch chains, of course, dangling from the fobs of their pants.”

“Their hair was cut short on the sides and back of the head, but left long on top, to stand gracefully erect. Their style was the same as if again about to enter the capacious drawing rooms of Boston where they had been received with much éclat.” (Thurston, 1882)

After the Thaddeus departed, Kanui was severely put to the test. For the first time in years he was back in a culture that he had loved in his childhood – the dress, or lack thereof, the chants and dances, swimming in the ocean, fishing, games of bowling with the ‘ulu maika stones.

However, it was Kanui’s close association with Liholiho that posed the most serious temptation for the young Kanui. Liholiho “loved his liquor, and was often recorded as being extremely intoxicated. It was not long until Kanui began to drink with Liholiho and his court – an action that surely led to severe admonitions from the pastor, Asa Thurston.” (Warne)

July 23, 1820, Kanui was the first to return to the “old ways.” Bingham excommunicated Kanui from the church. Thus, a mere 4-months after his arrival home, Kanui was on his own – he served for a time in the court of Liholiho, worked in a Honolulu grog shop and signed aboard various whaling vessels.

He left the Islands and joined the California gold rush in 1848; he was successful in gold digging, but lost all (about $6,000) when the bank where he had his deposits, Page, Bacon & Co, of San Francisco, failed. He reconnected with the church, joining the Bethel Church in San Francisco, under the charge of the Rev. M. Rowell. (The Friend, February 5, 1864)

Kanui later returned to the Islands and the first person he looked up was Hiram Bingham. Kanui was welcomed back, but told he would be treated as an outsider for a considerable period until he proved to the missionaries he was truly “pious.”

But Kanui, now 45-years of age, was a changed man. He obtained permission from local Chiefs to establish a school on a small plot of land at the foot of Palolo Valley and called it “William Tennooe’s English School.” (Although the newly-standardized alphabet would spell his name as “Kanui,” he retained the old anglicized spelling, “Tennooe.”)

It was a subscription school, charging parents were 12 ½ to 25 cents per week. Textbooks included the Bible in English, Webster’s Spelling Book and Adam’s Arithmetic. After a slow start the school grew to about 50-students. (Warne)

“Of the fourteen pioneers, I gratefully record it, after twenty-seven years, four men and the seven women are still living to praise God for his faithfulness to them, and for his surpassing favor to that mission and that nation. Wm. Kanui, after wandering twenty years, has returned to his duty as a teacher.” (Bingham)

Kanui died at Queen’s Hospital, January 14, 1864, at the age of about 66 years. “(H)e departed this life leaving the most substantial and gratifying evidence that he was prepared to die. His views were remarkably clear and satisfactory. Christ was his only hope, and Heaven the only desire of his heart.”

“It was peculiarly gratifying to sit beside his bedside and hear him recount the ‘wonderful ways’ in which God had led him. He cherished a most lively sense of gratitude towards all those kind friends in America who provided for his education … a stranger in a foreign land.” (The Friend, February 5, 1864)

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William_Tenooe-Tennooe-(Kanui)
William_Tenooe-Tennooe-(Kanui)
Kanui Headstone
Kanui Headstone
Henry_Opukahaia,_ca. 1810s
Henry_Opukahaia,_ca. 1810s
Four_Owyhean_Youths-Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree
Four_Owyhean_Youths-Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree
Foreign Mission School (CornwallHistoricalSociety)
Foreign Mission School (CornwallHistoricalSociety)
Drawing_of_Mr._Bingham
Drawing_of_Mr._Bingham
Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835
Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Children of the Missionaries

The children of nineteenth-century American missionaries … Hawaiian nationality by birth, white by race and American by parental and educational design.  (Schultz)

There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity in this Pioneer Company.  These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy.

Joining them were two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; and a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife Jerusha and five children (Dexter, Nathan, Mary, Daniel and Nancy.)

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)  For the most part, the couples were newlyweds; here is a listing of their wedding dates:

Hiram and Sybil Bingham were married October 11, 1819
Asa and Lucy Thurston were married October 12, 1819
Samuel and Mercy Whitney were married October 4, 1819
Samuel and Mary Ruggles were married September 22, 1819
Thomas and Lucia Holman were married September 26, 1819
Elisha and Maria Loomis were married September 27, 1819
(Daniel and Jerusha Chamberlain, with five children, were the only family in the Pioneer Company.)

After 164-days at sea, on April 4, 1820, the Thaddeus arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi.  Hawai‘i’s “Plymouth Rock” is about where the Kailua pier is today.

Starting a few short months after their arrival, the new missionary wives became mothers.

The first child was Levi Loomis, son of the Printer, Elisha and Maria Loomis; he was the first white child born in the Islands.  Here is the order of the early missionary births:

July 16, 1820 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Levi Loomis
October 19, 1820 … Waimea (Kauaʻi) … Maria Whitney
November 9, 1820 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Sophia Bingham
December 22, 1820 … Waimea (Kauaʻi) … Sarah Ruggles
March 2, 1821 … Waimea (Kauaʻi) … Lucia Holman
September 28, 1821 … Honolulu (Oʻahu) … Persis Thurston

More missionaries and more children came, later.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period,”) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

The missionaries established schools associated with their missions across the Islands. This marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of Chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

In 1820, missionary Lucy Thurston noted in her Journal, Liholiho’s desire to learn, “The king (Liholiho, Kamehameha II) brought two young men to Mr. Thurston, and said: “Teach these, my favorites, (John Papa) Ii and (James) Kahuhu. It will be the same as teaching me. Through them I shall find out what learning is.”

Interestingly, as the early missionaries learned the Hawaiian language, they then taught their lessons in the mission schools in Hawaiian, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English‐speaking Hawaiians.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built over 1,100‐schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 53,000‐students. (Laimana)

By 1853, nearly three-fourths of the native Hawaiian population over the age of sixteen years was literate in their own language. The short time span within which native Hawaiians achieved literacy is remarkable in light of the overall low literacy rates of the United States at that time. (Lucas)

This was fine for the Hawaiians who were beginning to learn to read and write, but the missionary families were looking for expanded education for their children.

“During the period from infancy to the age of ten or twelve years, children in the almost isolated family of a missionary could be well provided for and instructed in the rudiments of education without a regular school …  But after that period, difficulties in most cases multiplied.” (Hiram Bingham)

Missionaries were torn between preaching the gospel and teaching their kids.  “(M)ission parents were busy translating, preaching and teaching. Usually parents only had a couple of hours each day to spare with their children.”  (Schultz)

From 1826, until Punahou School opened in 1842, young missionary parents began to make a decision seemingly at odds with the idealizing of the family so prevalent in the 19th century; they weighed the possibility of sending them back to New England.  The trauma mostly affected families of the first two companies, and involving only 19 out of 250 Mission children.  (Zwiep)

“(I)t was the general opinion of the missionaries there that their children over eight or ten years of age, notwithstanding the trial that might be involved, ought to be sent or carried to the United States, if there were friends who would assume a proper guardianship over them”.  (Bingham)

“This was the darkest day in the life history of the mission child.  Peculiarly dependent upon the family life, at the age of eight to twelve years, they were suddenly torn from the only intimates they had ever known, and banished, lonely and homesick, to a mythical country on the other side of the world …”

“… where they could receive letters but once or twice a year; where they must remain isolated from friends and relatives for years and from which they might never return.”  (Bishop)

The parents in the first company demonstrate the range of options available: going home with all the children (as did the Chamberlains and Loomises;) keeping all the children to be educated by the mother (the Thurstons’ choice;) or sending some or all of the children home, not knowing when or if they would be reunited (the course taken by the Binghams, Ruggleses and Whitneys.)

In 1829, Sophia Bingham was sent back to the continent.  Mail was so slow that her mother Sybil waited a year and a half for her first letter from Sophia. “This poor, waiting, anxious heart,” she confessed, “has been made so glad by your long, crowded pages, that it would not be easy to tell you all its joy.”  (Zwiep)

Sophia, the first white girl born on Oʻahu (November 9, 1820,) is my great great grandmother.  The image shows Sophia Bingham.

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Instructions from the ABCFM

“It is for no private end, for no earthly object that you go. It is wholly for the good of others, and for the glory of God our Saviour.”

“You will never forget Opukahaia.  You will never forget his fervent love, his affectionate counsels, his many prayers and tears for you, and for his and your nation.”

“You saw him die; saw how the Christian could triumph over death and the grave; saw the radient glory in which he left this world for heaven. You will remember it always, and you will tell it to your kindred and countrymen who are dying without hope.”

On October 23, 1819, a group of northeast missionaries, led by Hiram Bingham, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)  With the missionaries were four Hawaiian students from the Foreign Mission School, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

The Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in giving instructions to the pioneers of 1819 said:”

“Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high.”

“You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.”  (The Friend)

The points of especial and essential importance to all missionaries, and all persons engaged in the missionary work are four:
• Devotedness to Christ;
• Subordination to rightful direction;
• Unity one with another; and
• Benevolence towards the objects of their mission

To this high and holy service you are solemnly designated; to this arduous and momentous work you are henceforth to hold yourselves sacredly devoted. You go to the Sandwich Islands as the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ.

But it is an arduous enterprise, a great and difficult work. To obtain an adequate knowledge of the language of the people; to make them acquainted with letters; to give them the Bible with skill to read it; to turn them from their barbarous courses and habits; to introduce the arts; above all, to convert them from their idolatries and superstitions and vices, to the living and redeeming God, his truth, his laws, his ways of life, of virtue, and of glory.

To effect all this must be the work of an invincible and indefectible spirit of benevolence – a spirit which is not to be turned from its purpose, by any ingratitude, or perverseness, or maltreatment, or difficulties, or dangers; which, in the true sense of the first missionary, will become all things unto all men; which will give earnest heed to the counsels of, wisdom, and be studious in devising the best means and methods of promoting its great object; and which, most especially, and as its grand reliance, will, humbly and thankfully avail itself of the graciously proffered aid of Him in whom all fulness dwells.

Beloved members of the mission, male and female, this christian community is moved for you, and for your enterprise.  The offerings, and prayers, and tears, and benedictions, and vows of the churches are before the throne of everlasting mercy. They must not be violated; they must not, cannot be lost.

But how can you sustain the responsibility? A Nation to be enlightened and renovated; and added to the civilized world, and to the kingdom of the world’s Redeemer and rightful sovereign! In his name only, and by his power, can the enterprise be achieved. In him be all your trust. To Him, most affectionately and devoutly, and to the word of His grace, we commend you.

In the Islands, the kapu system was the common structure, the rule of order, and religious and political code.  This social and political structure gave leaders absolute rule and authority.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived, Kamehameha I had died and the crown was passed to his son, Liholiho, who would rule as Kamehameha II.  Kaʻahumanu recruited Liholiho’s mother, Keōpūolani, to join her in convincing Liholiho to break the kapu system which had been the rigid code of Hawaiians for centuries.

When the Pioneer Company of missionaries arrived, the kapu system had been abolished; the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs – and effectively weakened belief in the power of the gods and the inevitability of divine punishment for those who opposed them.

Christianity and the western law brought order and were the only answers to keeping order with a growing foreign population and dying race.  Kamehameha III incorporated traditional customary practices within the western laws – by maintaining the “land division of his father with his uncles” – which secured the heirship of lands and succession of the throne, as best he could outside of “politics, trade and commerce.” (Yardley)

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863) (the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.  (The information here is mostly from the initial instructions given to the missionaries in the Pioneer Company – those were included in 15-pages of instructions, summarized into about a page, here.)

The Annual Meeting of the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society begins at 10 am, today (April 12;) at about 11 am, there is the “Cousins” Annual Roll Call (a competitive counting of the descendents of the respective missionary families who were called to serve in the Islands.) From 1 – 4 pm, there is a free open house at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives.

The image shows the Mission Houses in a drawing by James P. Chamberlain (LOC) ca 1860.

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ʻŌpūkahaʻia Leaves Hawaiʻi

Hostilities of Kamehameha’s conquest on Hawai‘i Island supposedly ended with the death of Keōua at Kawaihae Harbor in early-1792 and the placement of the vanquished chief’s body at Puʻukoholā Heiau at Kawaihae.

The island was under the rule of Kamehameha.  However, after a short time, another chief entered into a power dispute with Kamehameha; his name was Nāmakehā.

In 1795, Kamehameha asked Nāmakehā, who lived in Kaʻū, Hawai‘i, for help in fighting Kalanikūpule and his Maui forces on O‘ahu, but Nāmakehā ignored the invitation. Instead, he opted to rebel against Kamehameha by tending to his enemies in Kaʻū, Puna and Hilo on Hawai‘i Island.

Hostilities erupted between the two. The battle took place at Hilo.  Kamehameha defeated Nāmakehā; his warriors next turned their rage upon the villages and families of the vanquished. The alarm was given of their approach.

A family, who had supported Nāmakehā, the father (Ke‘au) taking his wife (Kamohoʻula) and two children fled to the mountains. There he concealed himself for several days with his family in a cave.  (Brumaghim)  The warriors found the family and killed the adults.

A survivor, a son, ʻŌpūkahaʻia, was at the age of ten or twelve; both his parents were slain before his eyes.  The only surviving member of the family, besides himself, was an infant brother he hoped to save from the fate of his parents, and carried him on his back and fled from the enemy.

But he was pursued, and his little brother, while on his back, was killed by a spear from the enemy. Taken prisoner, because he was not young enough to give them trouble, nor old enough to excite their fears, ʻŌpūkahaʻia was not killed.

He was later turned over to his uncle, Pahua, who took him into his own family and treated him as his child. Pahua was a kahuna at Hikiʻau Heiau in Kealakekua Bay.

When Captain Vancouver visited the islands in the 1790s, he provided the following description of Hikiʻau:
“Adjoining one side of the Square was the great Morai (heiau,) where there stood a kind of steeple (‘anu‘u) that ran up to the height of 60 or 70 feet, it was in square form, narrowing gradually towards the top where it was square and flat; it is built of very slight twigs & laths, placed horizontally and closely, and each lath hung with narrow pieces of white Cloth.”

“… next to this was a House occupied by the Priests, where they performed their religious ceremonies and the whole was enclosed by a high railing on which in many parts were stuck skulls of those people, who had fallen victims to the Wrath of their Deity. …. In the center of the Morai stood a preposterous figure carved out of wood larger than life representing the … supreme deity… .”

John Papa ʻI‘i wrote that in ca. 1812-1813, shortly after Kamehameha’s return to Hawai‘i, the king celebrated the Makahiki and in the course of doing so he rededicated Hikiʻau, “the most important heiau in the district of Kona”.

This is the same place where Captain Cook landed on the Island of Hawaiʻi, across the bay from Hikiʻau Heiau is where Cook was later killed.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s uncle, wanting his nephew to follow him as a kahuna, taught ʻŌpūkahaʻia long prayers and trained him to the task of repeating them daily in the temple of the idol. This ceremony he sometimes commenced before sunrise in the morning, and at other times was employed in it during the whole or the greater part of the night.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia was not destined to be a kahuna.

He made a life-changing decision – not only which affected his life, but had a profound effect on the future of the Hawaiian Islands.

“I began to think about leaving that country, to go to some other part of the globe. I did not care where I shall go to. I thought to myself that if I should get away, and go to some other country, probably I may find some comfort, more than to live there, without father and mother.”  (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

In 1807, he boarded an American a ship in Kealakekua Bay, the Triumph, under the command of Captain Brintnal; also on Board was Thomas Hopu.  They set sail for New York, stopping first in China (selling seal-skins and loading the ship with Chinese goods.)

Also on Board was Russell Hubbard, a son of Gen. Hubbard of New Haven, Connecticut.  “This Mr. Hubbard was a member of Yale College. He was a friend of Christ. Christ was with him when I saw him, but I knew it not.  ‘Happy is the man that put his trust in God!’  Mr. Hubbard was very kind to me on our passage, and taught me the letters in English spelling-book.”  (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

In 1809, they landed at New York and remained there until the Captain sold out all the Chinese goods.   Then, they made their way to New England.

“In this place I become acquainted with many students belonging to the College. By these pious students I was told more about God than what I had heard before … Many times I wished to hear more about God, but find no body to interpret it to me. I attended many meetings on the sabbath, but find difficulty to understand the minister. I could understand or speak, but very little of the English language. Friend Thomas (Hopu) went to school to one of the students in the College before I thought of going to school.”  (ʻŌpūkahaʻia)

ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s life in New England was greatly influenced by many young men with proven sincerity and religious fervor that were active in the Second Great Awakening and the establishment of the missionary movement.  These men had a major impact on ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s enlightenment in Christianity and his vision to return to Hawaiʻi as a Christian missionary.

He was taken into the family of the Rev. Dr. Dwight, President of Yale College, for a season; where he was treated with kindness, and taught the first principles of Christianity.  At length, Mr. Samuel J. Mills, took him under his particular patronage, and sent him to live with his father, the Rev. Mr. Mills of Torringford.

By 1817, a dozen students, six of them Hawaiians, were training at the Foreign Mission School to become missionaries to teach the Christian faith to people around the world.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia improved his English by writing; the story of his life was later assembled into a book called “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah” (the spelling of his name based on its sound, prior to establishment of the formal Hawaiian alphabet.)  ʻŌpūkahaʻia, inspired by many young men with proven sincerity and religious fervor of the missionary movement, had wanted to spread the word of Christianity back home in Hawaiʻi; his book inspired 14-missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaiʻi.)

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from the northeast United States, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)

There were seven couples sent to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity.   These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

Along with them were four Hawaiian youths who had been students at the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall Connecticut, Thomas Hopu (his friend on board the ship when he first left the Islands,) William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaiʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i and also known as Prince George Kaumuali‘i.)

Unfortunately, ʻŌpūkahaʻia died suddenly of typhus fever in 1818 and did not fulfill his dream of returning to the islands to preach the gospel.  (The bulk of the information here is from ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah” and Papaʻula, 1867 in Brumaghim)

The image shows ʻŌpūkahaʻia. In addition, I have added some other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Henry Opukahaʻia’s Influence on Missionaries Coming to Hawaiʻi

The history and growth of Christianity in Hawaiʻi include Henry Opukahaʻia, a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi.
In 1809, at the age of 16, after his parents had been killed, he boarded a sailing ship anchored in Kealakekua Bay and sailed to the continent.
On board, he developed a friendship with a Christian sailor who, using the Bible, began teaching Opukahaʻia how to read and write.
Once landed, he traveled throughout New England and continued to learn and study.
Opukahaʻia’s life in New England was greatly influenced by many young men with proven sincerity and religious fervor that were active in the Second Great Awakening and the establishment of the missionary movement.
These men had a major impact on Opukahaʻia’s enlightenment in Christianity and his vision to return to Hawaiʻi as a Christian missionary.
By 1817, a dozen students, six of them Hawaiians, were training at the Foreign Mission School to become missionaries to teach the Christian faith to people around the world.
He improved his English by writing the story of his life in a book called “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah” (the spelling of his name prior to establishment of the formal Hawaiian alphabet, based on its sound.)
Opukahaʻia died suddenly of typhus fever in 1818.  The book about his life was printed and circulated after his death.
Opukahaʻia’s book inspired 14 missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Sandwich Islands. 
On October 23, 1819, a group of missionaries from the northeast United States, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)
There were seven couples sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity.
These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.
Along with them were four Hawaiian youths who had been students at the Foreign Mission School, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauaiʻi’s King Kaumuali‘i and also known as Prince George Kaumuali‘i.)
After 164 days at sea, on April 4, 1820 (192-years ago, today,) the Thaddeus first arrived and anchored at Kailua-Kona on the Island of Hawaiʻi.
Hawai‘i’s “Plymouth Rock” is about where the Kailua pier is today.
The Thurstons remained in Kailua-Kona, while their fellow missionaries went to establish stations on other Hawaiian islands.
Hiram Bingham, the leader of the group, went to Honolulu to set up a mission headquarters; Whitney and Ruggles accompanied Prince Kaumuali‘i on his return to Kaua‘i.  (Hiram is my great-great-great grandfather.)
By the time the missionaries arrived, Kamehameha I had died, Liholiho (his son) was king and the kapu system had been abolished.
I have added a folder of like name in the Photos section of my Facebook page of images from Hiram Bingham’s book, “A Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands” and other related images.  Several of the illustrations show missionary work across the islands.