User:KAVEBEAR/Moses Kekūāiwa

Moses Kekūāiwa
Prince of Hawaii
The Kamehameha Tomb at Mauna ʻAla, his name is inscribed on the left side of the monument under "Kekuaiwa".
Born(1829-07-20)July 20, 1829
Honolulu, Oʻahu
DiedNovember 24, 1848(1848-11-24) (aged 19)
Honolulu, Oʻahu
BurialDecember 30, 1848
October 30, 1865
Names
Moses Kekūāiwa
HouseHouse of Kamehameha
FatherKekūanaōʻa
Kaikioʻewa (hānai)
MotherKīnaʻu
Emilia Keaweamahi (hānai)
SignatureMoses Kekūāiwa's signature

Moses Kekūāiwa (July 20, 1829 – November 24, 1848) was a member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Arresting a prince.[1]

...An older son Moses, died in youth, after having developed a violent and uncontrollable nature, of which I once witnessed a sample in his childhood. We were embarking for Kauai early in 1839 in company with Mr. and Mrs. Amos F. Cooke and the old governor of Kauai, Kaikioewa, who was the official Kahu, or guardian of little Prince Moses. The youngster had made up his mind to go with his guardian. He came down to Robinsons' wharf where we were about to set sail, and laid hold of the side of the brig, yelling and howling. His guardian all the time continued to dissuade and expostulate. No one dared to use force upon the furious child. This continued for more than two hours, until nearly night. Finally his father, the governor Kekūanaōʻa, sent down a file of soldiers with orders to arrest and convey the little prince home to the palace near by. This released us from further detention, and we set sail. It was a tiresome, but very curious experience. To Mr. and Mrs. Cooke it was doubtless an instructive experience, since about a year later, as I think, they were placed in charge of the "Royal School" for the children of the chiefs, over whom they maintained a family rule of gentle but firm discipline, to which the little princes had been strangers.

Education edit

He was 10 years old when his uncle, King Kamehameha III, placed him in the Chiefs' Children's School, the exclusive school for the children eligible to be rulers. This Royal School was run by Mr. and Mrs. Amos Star Cooke. Under an official order of the king, he was proclaimed eligible to rule the Hawaiian Kingdom. He would have been next in line for the throne if the order of succession were based only on age.

His hānai father died in April 10, 1839, and Moses went to Kauai to assume the governorship of the island. In his lifetime, he was referred to him as the "prospective Governor of Kauai"; the nominal governess during the time Keaweamahi and later his cousin Kekauʻōnohi were merely placeholders for the position until Moses came of age.[2][3]

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015415/1912-03-18/ed-1/seq-7/ On account of the death of his father, Moses was called home to be proclaimed Governor, and was then sent back to attend school. He died afterwards at the age of nineteen years.


He was not a favorite student of the Cookes.[citation needed] The Cookes and fellow missionaries felt that Hawaiian children were wild and unruly and that the royal children were the worst. Unlike American children, ali'i children were considered to be kapu (sacred) to their subjects. It would be unthinkable for a kahu (servant) to strike a royal charge. The Cookes however, did not hesitate to enforce their rules and would beat the children with a ruler, deprive them of their meal and confining them to their rooms. On one occasion Mr. Cooke struck Alexander on the head and Moses replied, "he keiki a ke ali'i oia nei." Translated as "He is the son of the chief." Cooke replied "I am the King of this school."[4]

Many strange and often trying experiences unfolded for both Moses, his classmates and their teachers. In the earliest, most shaping time of their lives, the children had been raised in the environment of their homes which in the 1830s mixed some of the worst features of the old culture and those of the West, newly introduced to Hawaii.

The presence of scrupulously attentive kahus (attendants) within the margin of the school, presented a serious problem to the Cookes. Servants appearing at windows and doors, waiting to indulge the every impulse of their royal charges, continually hampered the educational program. In time this problem was handled, with the dismissing of most of them and replacing them with one, John Papa ʻĪʻī. But others troubles developed. Fear of ghosts brought difficulties at nightfall. The children looked everywhere for signs portending trouble with the spirit world. Odd holes in the ground or a particular pattern of shadows on the floor, or some other manifestation, were looked upon as warning signs of demons.[5]


When the permanent school building was completed, the children were housed in rooms of their own but under the same roof with the Cooke family. A strict rule that kahus were not to sleep in the same rooms as the children was enforced upon by their teachers. Before long the rule was broken. Even disciplinary measures, when taken, could not put an end to the weeping that continued into the small hours of the morning. In time the burgeoning sexual urges of the older children presented the necessity of cautious surveillance after dark. The robust tendency of Moses became a great strain on Mr. Cooke's New England-endowed sense of sexual morality. Mathematics, history, philosophy, and music were embellished with interpolations of long-established lore superimposed upon the Western curriculum by fervent kahus and the older generation at home. In time the question of their future activities, including marriage, became a paramount issue.[5] He was among the first to graduate from Royal School, although he actually left on his own accord.

Expulsion from School edit

He keiki a ke alii oia nei - He is a child of the chief.

August 13—Yesterday I became a little more stern with my scholars—& had to discipline Moses to make him mind. Today punished Alexander & Moses replied he keiki a ke alii oia nei [he was a child of the Chief]. I replied I was King of the school.

[6] [7]

Betrothal to Tahitian princess edit

Moses, the eldest male of his generation and a lineal descendant of Kamehameha I, was expected to marry a high chiefess of rank to continue the royal line. He was engaged to the Tahitian Princess Ninito Teraʻiapo (d. 1898) in one of a series of historical attempts of marriage alliance between the royals of Hawaii and Tahiti. A niece of Tute Tehuiari'i the private chaplain of Kamehameha III, and cousin of Manaiula Tehuiarii, Ninito was also a female relative of the Tahitian Queen Pōmare IV, and the sister of High Chiefess Ariitaimai, the mother of Queen Johanna Marau Ta‘aroa, wife of Pōmare V, the last King of Tahiti.[8] She set sail for Hawaii, but arrived in Honolulu to the news of his death.[9][10][11] He died November 24, 1848 at Honolulu in a measles epidemic. He was 19-years old, unmarried, and without any children.[12]


He was originally betrothed to his fellow classmate Jane Loeau, the eldest female student at the Royal School and the daughter of Governess Kuini Liliha. The Cookes encouraged her to marry American lawyer John Jasper instead of Moses.[13]

Death and legacy edit

His funeral service was held on December 30, 1848, alongside the service for Kaiminaauao, the hānai daughter of Queen Kalama and younger sister of his classmates Kalākaua and Liliuokalani, and the service for William Pitt Leleiohoku, the late husband of his half-sister and father of his classmate William Pitt Kīnau.[14][15][16] Originally buried in the Old Mausoleum on the grounds, where the current ʻIolani Palace stands, his remains were transported along with those of his father's and other royals in a midnight torchlight procession on October 30, 1865, to the newly constructed Mauna ʻAla Royal Mausoleum up in the Nuʻuanu Valley.[17][18][19]

Lanai 9677 acres. http://www.lanaichc.org/mahele-documents-part-2/lca-7714-b-kekuaiwa.pdf

One of the piece of land awarded to him in the Great Mahele, the ahupuaa of Kapālama, is now the site of the Bishop Museum after it had passed hands from his sister Kamāmalu, to his brother Kamehameha V, to his half-sister Keelikōlani, to his cousin Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who the museum is dedicated to. http://www.hawaiialive.org/resources/manuscript/645.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=CB04AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439&lpg=PA439&dq=%22kekuaiwa%22&source=bl&ots=R7P4REC4co&sig=0fKiJVS8DgHVaZDNHiLbhOHh4K8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HWGfUO27E5DU8wT97YGwCQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

In 1912. a plaque honoring the memories of the Cooke's and the pupils of the Royal School was erected at the Kawaiahaʻo Church; Moses was listed first amongst the list of sixteen students.[20]

In her book Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell recounted her first meeting with Cooke descendant Laurel Douglass, who was reading Kekūāiwa's personal diary entries in the Mission House Museum archives. The two discuss the abuse in the Royal School and the Kekūāiwa's relation with Amos Starre Cooke. [21]

Source and stuff edit

  • [1]
    • Calling him Prince and Royal Highness

See also edit

Reference edit

  1. ^ Bishop 1916, pp. 47–48.
  2. ^ Jarves 1843, p. 374.
  3. ^ Dibble 1843, p. 330.
  4. ^ Kanahele 1999, p. 29.
  5. ^ a b http://www.janesoceania.com/hawaii_monarchy/index.htm
  6. ^ Cooke & Cooke 1937, p. 34.
  7. ^ Kanahele 1999, pp. 29–30.
  8. ^ Henry & Orsmond 1928, p. 270.
  9. ^ Barrere 1989, p. 105.
  10. ^ Deering 1899, pp. 104–105.
  11. ^ Taylor 1929, pp. 433–440.
  12. ^ Liliuokalani 1898, pp. 6–8.
  13. ^ Kaomea 2014, p. 135.
  14. ^ Forbes 2000, pp. 529–530.
  15. ^ http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015408/1848-12-16/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1848&sort=date&date2=1848&words=Moses&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=9&state=Hawaii&rows=20&proxtext=Moses&y=23&x=2&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
  16. ^ http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015408/1848-12-23/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1848&sort=date&date2=1848&words=Moses&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=10&state=Hawaii&rows=20&proxtext=Moses&y=23&x=2&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
  17. ^ Alexander 1894, p. 161.
  18. ^ Judd 1975, p. 157.
  19. ^ "Royal Mausoleum". The Hawaiian Gazette. March 10, 1899. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
  20. ^ "Memorial of Founders of Royal School". The Hawaiian Gazette. March 16, 1912. hdl:10524/26214. Retrieved November 10, 2012.
  21. ^ Vowell 2011, p. XXX.

Bibliography edit


  • Gilman, Gorham D. (1970). Sharpless, Jean S.; Greer, Richard A. (eds.). "1848 - Honolulu As It Is - Notes for Amplification". The Hawaiian Journal of History. 4. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society: 105–156. hdl:10524/253. OCLC 60626541.
  • The first that left was Master Mosesf—the elder Br of L. Alx and V. The habits & tastes of this young man were quite firmly fixed as he had been wholly under native influence which is not the best adapted to instruct a young mind in the paths of virtue. Moses however was not naturally a viscously—nor maliciously inclined—& He remained at the school enjoying and improving its advantages in a manner creditable both to himself & his instructors—till his health and other circumstances induced his Father to take him from school and he has since lived with his Father at the Fort. He looks feeble—as if he did not enjoy good health. He is the prospective Gov of Kauai—having the same claims as his Brother to the Island of Maui—but his health would not allow his taking the charge even should other weightier objections be removed.[1]
  • Barrere, Dorothy (1989). "Tahitian in the History of Hawaiʻi: the Journal of Kahikona". The Hawaiian Journal of History. 23. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society: 75–107. hdl:10524/426. OCLC 60626541.


Further reading edit

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kekuaiwa, Moses}} [[Category:1829 births]] [[Category:1848 deaths]] [[Category:Royalty of the Kingdom of Hawaii]] [[Category:Princes of Hawaii]] [[Category:House of Kamehameha]] [[Category:Infectious disease deaths in Hawaii]] [[Category:Burials in the Kamehameha Tomb (Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii)]] [[Category:Hawaiian adoptees (hānai)]]

  1. ^ Gilman 1970, p. 126.