George Luther Kapeau

The Honourable George Luther Kapeau
Royal Governor of Hawaiʻi
In office 1846–1855
Monarch	Kamehameha III Kamehameha IV
Preceded by	William Pitt Leleiohoku I
Succeeded by	Ruth Keʻelikōlani
Personal details
Born	Maui, Hawaii
Died	October 1860
Nationality	Kingdom of Hawaii
Spouse(s)	Julia Hoa
Children	George, Jr.
Occupation	Politician

George Luther Kapeau (died 1860) was a noble and statesman in the Kingdom of Hawaii who served as Royal Governor of Hawaiʻi.

Early life

Born at Honolulu in the early 19th century, possibly around circa 1811,^[1] Kapeau's family background was of lower status and largely obscure. A chief of Maui descent, he was considered a kaukaualiʻi, lesser chiefs or nobles in service to the aliʻi nui (high chiefs). His names means "to crawl on one's knees before high royalty".^[2][3][4] Contemporary sources also differed on his status. Foreign visitors often called him a chief,^[5] especially during his capacity as royal governor, but most of his contemporaries like Samuel Kamakau, missionary Hiram Bingham I and even King Kamehameha III considered him a makaʻāinana or commoner. Kapeau was one of the first non-royal Hawaiians to receive a western education by the missionaries who arrived in Hawaii in 1820.^[6] Enrolled at the Lahainaluna Seminary in 1833, he graduated after four years in 1837.^[7]

Wailuku Female Seminary, drawn by Edward Bailey, engraved by Kapeau, ca. 1840.

In June 8, 1839, on the occasion that the cornerstone of Kawaiahaʻo Church, was laid, Kapeau personally played part in the ceremony. A copper plate, the first engraving ever done by a Hawaiian, was made by Kapeau, and was placed under the stone as a memorial to the Christian mission in Hawaii along with a copy of the newly translated Hawaiian Bible and two volumes on Mathematics and Anatomy.^[8][9] The copper plate read:

"This is a house for Jehovah the God of Heaven, the Father; the Son and the Holy Spirit; a house of prayer erected by the first church and congregation of Honolulu, a place for them to worship the true God. Those people who have been very helpful in this work are Kamehameha III., Kaahumanu II., Auhea, Liliha, Kekauonohi, Kekuanaoa, Governor of Oahu, Paki, and Keohokalole.^[10]

Political career

Kapeau was greatly trusted by King Kamehameha III, who said, "He understands the work very well, and I wish there were more such men."^[11] Kapeau was appointed Secretary of the Treasury.^[6] In 1843, he and Jonah Kapena served as clerks in the 1843 session of the Legislature of Hawaii at Lahaina.^[12] Kapeau served in the Privy Council as an advisor to the king from 1847 until 1854, the year of Kamehameha III's death.^[13] He also served as a member of the House of Nobles from 1848 to 1855. His appointment was challenged by Hawaiian historian and fellow Lahainaluna classmate Samuel Kamakau who regarded his rank as too inferior to sit as a noble.^[2] By the 1850s the House of Nobles consisted mainly of chiefs called Kaukaualiʻi.^[14]

In addition to his legislative posts, he held the post of deputy governor of the Big Island of Hawaii under Governor William Pitt Leleiohoku I.^[15][1] In 1846, Chester Lyman met both the governor and the deputy governor, but only Kapeau left an impression on him:

He is a man of prepossessing appearance apparently about 35, & converses in English with a good degree of fluency. While at Lahainaluna where he spent 4 years he was distinguished for his skill in engraving, & some of the maps & pictures published at that place were executed by him.^[1]

From 1846 to 1850, he served as acting governor of Hawaii; Leleiohoku died in the measles epidemic of 1848.^[7] In 1849, Kapeau stirred up much controversy when he allowed his tax assessors to confiscate and destroy private property belonging to the Roman Catholic priests in Kailua. According to Kamakau, it was the result of the smashing of imported porcelain china belonging to the priests.^[16] The French Admiral Louis Tromelin, who was at the port of Honolulu at the time, received the complaints from the French Consul and made ten demands to King Kamehameha III on August 22.^[17] One of these demands was "the removal of the governor of Hawaii for allowing the domicile of a priest to be violated by police officers who entered it to make an arrest or the order that the governor make reparation to that missionary."^[17] When the king refused, Tromelin invaded Honolulu, sacked the Fort and caused an estimated $100,000 in damages.^[16][17] The situation didn't seem to have any effect on Kapeau's position as acting governor, and in July 1850 he became the official governor of the island after four years as acting governor.^[18]

Around February 1849, the English traveler Samuel S. Hill paid a visit to Kailua and met Governor Kapeau:

Kailua, now the capital of Owhyhee, was the seat of the government of the group after the conquests of the renowned Kamehameha I., who, it will be remembered, died here. It is situated within a wide bay, with a safe roadstead and good anchorage. It has a very few more inhabitants than some of the larger villages in the island, though much frequented by the natives living in the vicinity, on account of its being the centre of their civil and religious affairs. It has, however, four stone buildings and a fort. The buildings are, the residence of the governor; that of the parent of the missionaries, Mr. Thurston, whom we have had already occasion to name; and two places of worship. Immediately upon our arrival, we called to pay our respects to the governor, Kapeau, a native chief, who received us with good-humoured frankness, and ordered a room in the government-house to be prepared for our reception and residence; in order, as he said, that we might be as near to him as possible during our stay in the place. We were not long installed, before the hospitable chief came to pay us a visit, and, as it happened to be a bright moonlight night, he invited us to go at once in his company, to inspect the fort, which was in front of his residence, and which in passable English he called the right arm of his strength. We found it consist of a single battery commanding the bay, with twelve pieces of cannon of not very large calibre.^[5]

He was the last governor that kept up the maintenance of Kailua Fort.^[19]

Death and legacy

On May 7, 1855, Kapeau was appointed Judge of the Third Circuit Court.,^[13][20] he was succeeded by Ruth Keelikōlani, the widow of Leleiohoku, as Governor of Hawaii.^[19] He married Julia Hoa of Wailuku, Maui and had a son, George, Jr. His wife died in Kona, Hawaii, in June, 1858 and his son died at Wailuku, February 19, 1861. Kapeau died in October 1860.^[21][3]

On the ahupuaʻa or land division of Waiʻaha, Kapeau had built his residence located about two thousand feet above Kailua-Kona on the slopes of the dormant volcano of Hualālai. After his death, it was sold to Reverend T. E. Taylor who enlarged the house and lived in it for several years before selling it to King Kamehameha IV who used it as his summer house. In its later days, situated among groves of coffee, orange, breadfruit, and other tropical treas, it was judged "one of the most delightful and healthy spots" in the Islands, "worthy of being made the [king's] Kona country seat." It was later inherited by his widow Queen Emma.^[22][23]

In June 8, 1989, two plaques commemorating the 150th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone at Kawaiahaʻo Church were erected underneath an 1889 slab that honored the life of missionary Hiram Bingham I on the centennial of his birth. The plaque on the left briefly gives credit to Kapeau's copper plate which had been placed under the cornerstone in 1839.^[24]

References

1. Lyman 2006, pp. 141-142.
2. Osorio 2002, pp. 90-91.
3. Forbes 2012, p. 22.
4. "Papa Inoa O Ke Kula Nui O Lahainaluna". Ka Hae Hawaii. May 19, 1858.
5. Hill 1856, pp. 207-208.
6. Merry 2000, p. 89.
7. "KAPEAU,GEORGE LUTHER LCA 8441-8534" (PDF). Kanaka Genealogy web site. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
8. Bingham 1848, pp. 572-573.
9. Damon 1945, pp. 231-232.
10. The Magazine of Christian Literature. Volume 1. Christian Literature Co. 1890. pp. 231–232.
11. Kamakau 1992, p. 401.
12. Hawaii & Lydecker 1918, p. 18.
13. "Kapeau, George Luther office record". state archives digital collections. state of Hawaii. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
14. Osorio 2002, p. 80.
15. Newbury 2001, pp. 1-38.
16. Kamakau1992, p. 411.
17. Alexander 1891, p. 266.
18. List of Governors of Hawaii Island in Hawaii State Archives
19. Jones 1937, pp. 46-47.
20. Soszynski, Henry (7 March 2012). "Hawaiʻi Island". World of Royalty. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
21. Andrews 1865, p. 559.
22. Kanahele 1999, pp. 133-135.
23. "Waiaha - Queen Emma’s Birthplace?". Kona Historical Society web site. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
24. J. J. Prats (November 23, 2008). "Hiram Bingham Marker". The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved February 25, 2012.

Bibliography

• Alexander, William DeWitt (1891). A Brief History of the Hawaiian People. New York: American Book Co.
• Andrews, Lorrin (1865). A Dictionary of the Hawaiian language, to which is appended an English-Hawaiian vocabulary and a chronological table of remarkable events. p. 559.
• Bingham, Hiram (1855) [1848]. A Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands (Third ed.). Canandaigua, NY: H. D. Goodwin.
• Damon, Ethel Mosely (1945). The Stone Church at Kawaiahao, 1820-1944. Honolulu: Trustees of Kawaiahao Church.
• Forbes, David W. (2012). Engraved at Lahainaluna: A History of Printmaking by Hawaiians at the Lahainaluna Seminary, 1834 to 1844, with a Descriptive Catalogue of All Known Views, Maps, and Portraits. Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.
• Forbes, David W., ed. (2001). Hawaiian National Bibliography, 1780-1900 3. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 173. ISBN 0-8248-2503-9.
• Hawaii (1918). Lydecker, Robert Colfax, ed. Roster Legislatures of Hawaii, 1841-1918. Honolulu: Hawaiian Gazette Company.
• Hill, Samuel S. (1856). Travels in the Sandwich and Society Islands. London: Chapman & Hall. pp. 207–208.
• Jones, Maude (1937). "The Fort at Kailua, Hawaii". Hawaiian Historical Society (Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society): 39–47.
• Kanahele, George S. (1999). Emma: Hawaii's Remarkable Queen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-2240-4.
• Kamakau, Samuel (1992) [1961]. Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii (Revised ed.). Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press. ISBN 0-87336-014-1.
• Lyman, Chester (2006). Teggart, Frederick J., ed. Around the Horn to the Sandwich Islands and California, 1845-1850: Being a Personal Record Kept by Chester S. Lyman. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 123, 133, 134. ISBN 1428655026.
• Merry, Sally Engle (2000). Colonizing Hawai'i: the Cultural Power of Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 89, 224. ISBN 9780691009322.
• Newbury, Colin (2001). "Patronage and Bureaucracy in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1840–1893". Pacific Studies. Brigham Young University Hawaii Campus. pp. 1–38.
• Osorio, Jon Kamakawiwoʻole (2002). Dismembering Lāhui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 35, 45, 69, 80, 90, 91, 109, 269, 270. ISBN 0-8248-2549-7.