When Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III became king in 1825 he was just 11 years old. It was a time of change and social upheaval in the Hawaiian Kingdom.
When the young king began his reign, Native Hawaiians numbered just 150,000 – the Indigenous population already decimated by more than 80% as entire families and communities succumbed to a relentless onslaught of foreign diseases in the 50 years after Westerners arrived on our shores. And it would only get worse during his lifetime.
Politically and economically, foreign influence was also taking hold in the kingdom. Whalers, traders, fortune-seekers and missionaries descended on the Islands – many of them staying.
Businessmen, primarily from America and Europe, convinced of their own cultural, racial and religious superiority, often married Hawaiian women from the nobility and, in doing so, gained social, political and economic capital within the kingdom.
Against this backdrop, and while still in his mid-20s, King Kamehameha III developed the Hawaiian Kingdom’s first formal written laws with help from his trusted advisor, Hoapili, and former missionary William Richards. His first act was a declaration of human rights in 1839. He then enacted the Constitution of 1840 – the kingdom’s first.
Increasingly concerned about threats to the kingdom by foreign powers, in 1842 Kauikeaouli commissioned three men – his close friend Timoteo Haʻalilio, Scottish businessman Sir George Simpson, and Richards – to travel to Washington, D.C., and Europe to secure formal recognition of Hawaiian independence from these dominant colonial powers.
The men departed Hawaiʻi in July 1842. Simpson traveling to Europe via Alaska and Siberia, while Haʻalilio and Richards traveled to Washington, D.C., by way of Mexico. The three planned to meet in London.
Kauikeaouli’s instincts were astute. In February 1843, while Haʻalilio and Richards were on route from Washington, D.C., to London, British Captain Lord George Paulet arrived in Honolulu and, without authority, exercised “gunboat diplomacy” and forced the king to surrender to the British crown.
Paulet was acting on a report by Richard Charlton, the British consul to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, that British subjects in Hawaiʻi were being denied their legal rights. Receiving permission from Rear-Admiral Richard Thomas to investigate, Paulet sailed to Hawaiʻi.
Upon arriving in Honolulu, he demanded to meet with the king. When he was not immediately granted an audience, a humiliated and outraged Paulet went rogue and threatened an attack on Honolulu.
Outgunned, Kauikeaouli surrendered. Paulet appointed himself and three others to govern Hawaiʻi, burned every Hawaiian flag he could find, and raised the British Union Jack over Honolulu.
Both Paulet and the king immediately sent envoys to London to present their respective cases: Paulet to justify his actions, and the king to press for sovereignty. For five months Hawaiʻi languished under Paulet’s rule.
When Great Britain’s Queen Victoria learned what had transpired, she quickly dispatched Rear-Admiral Thomas to Honolulu.
Upon arriving on July 26, 1843, Thomas met with the king and very quickly concluded that the British consul’s allegations were unsubstantiated. On July 31, 1843, Thomas declared that the British occupation of Hawaiʻi was over and that Hawaiian sovereignty was to be respected.
A public ceremony was held at what is now Thomas Square in Honolulu on South King Street. Thousands of Hawaiian citizens, of all ethnicities, gathered to watch as the British Union Jack was lowered, cheering as the Hae Hawaiʻi was raised once again, symbolizing the restoration of sovereignty to Hawaiʻi.
This event became the first national holiday of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It was called Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea – Sovereignty Restoration Day – and it was on this occasion that Kamehameha III proclaimed, “Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono” (the sovereignty of the nation is restored by righteousness).
Four months later, Haʻalilio, Richards and Simpson were successful in securing global recognition of Hawaiʻi’s sovereignty. On November 28, 1843, Great Britain and France signed a proclamation recognizing the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign state. This became the second national holiday of the Hawaiian Kingdom: Lā Kūʻokoʻa – Independence Day – observed on November 28.
Both holidays were celebrated annually throughout the kingdom until the 1893 overthrow.
Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea celebrations were revived in Hawaiʻi almost 40 years ago. The late Dr. Richard Kekuni Blaisdell and the late Henry Welokīheiakeaʻeloa “Soli” Niheu, are credited with restoring the holiday at Thomas Square in 1987.
In 2022, the State of Hawaiʻi passed legislation officially designating July 31 as Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea – Sovereignty Restoration Day. While not a paid state holiday, it does help to advance awareness of our Hawaiian history.
