Kamehameha I

Kamehameha I

 orig. Paiea known as Kamehameha the Great

Kamehameha I, detail of a coloured lithograph by D. Veelward, 1822, after an engraving by Louis …

(credit: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu)

(born November 1758?, Kohala district, Hawaii island—died May 8, 1819, Kailua) Hawaiian conqueror and king who united all the Hawaiian Islands. His birth came soon after the return of Halley's Comet (1758), whose appearance led seers to prophesy the coming of a great conqueror. As a young man, he fought his cousin over control of the island of Hawaii; by 1795 he had defeated his cousin and conquered all but two of the Hawaiian Islands, and in 1810 the remaining islands were ceded to him. He retained the harsh traditional legal system but protected the common people from the brutality of powerful chiefs and outlawed human sacrifice. He enriched his kingdom through a government monopoly on the sandalwood trade and through port duties imposed on visiting ships and maintained its independence throughout the difficult period of European discovery and exploration of the islands. He founded the most enduring and best-documented line of rulers of Hawaii.

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Kamehameha I (“the one set apart,” his adopted name) (b. Paiea) (?1758–1819) Hawaiian unifier and king; born on Kohala, District of Hawaii, then known as the Sandwich Islands. Following the death of the chief of Hawaii, his uncle Kalaniopu'u (1782), Kamehameha conquered the island. After other victories on Maui, Oahu, Kauai, and the other islands, he formed the Kingdom of Hawaii by 1810. He stimulated Hawaiian trade but kept intact the customs and the religion of his people. Hawaii placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol.