Joseph Kahoʻoluhi Nāwahī (January 13, 1842 – September 14, 1896), also known by his full Hawaiian name Iosepa Kahoʻoluhi Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu, was a Native Hawaiian nationalist leader, legislator, lawyer, newspaper publisher, and painter. Through his long political service during the monarchy and the important roles he played in the resistance and opposition to its overthrow, Nāwahī is regarded as an influential Hawaiian patriot.
Born on the island of Hawaii, Nāwahī received his formal education in the Protestant missionary schools of the islands. He began his career as a teacher at the Hilo Boarding School and later became a self-taught lawyer. He was also an accomplished artist, and was one of the few indigenous Hawaiian painters to work in Western styles during the 19th century. Entering the realm of politics in 1872 as a member of the House of Representatives, he represented his home districts of Puna and later Hilo in the Legislature of the Kingdom of Hawaii for two decades. Serving in the final legislative assembly 1892–1893, he became a political leader for the Liberal faction in the government. He established himself as a leader in the opposition to the unpopular Bayonet Constitution of 1887 and as a defender of the idea of Hawaiian nationhood and self-rule. Alongside William Pūnohu White, he was a principal author of the proposed 1893 Constitution with Queen Liliʻuokalani. They were decorated Knight Commanders of the Royal Order of Kalākaua for their service and contribution to the monarchy. Three days after an attempted promulgation of the constitution, the queen was deposed during the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January17, 1893.
During the Provisional Government of Hawaii and the Republic of Hawaii that followed it, he remained loyal to the fallen monarchy. He was elected as president of the Hui Aloha ʻĀina (Hawaiian Patriotic League), a patriotic organization established after the overthrow to oppose annexation. He and his wife Emma Nāwahī (a political leader in her own right) established the anti-annexation newspaper Ke Aloha Aina.
In December 1894, Nāwahī was arrested and imprisoned by the Republic on charges of treason. He was acquitted and released, but died, on September 14, 1896, from tuberculosis contracted during his imprisonment. His funeral services in Honolulu and Hilo were attended by supporters and friends; even his former enemies and the government of the Republic acknowledged his important contributions as a Hawaiian patriot.
Early life and education Joseph (or Iosepa) Kahoʻoluhi Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu was born January 13, 1842, at the village of Kaimū, known as the "land of the patterned sand" in the Puna district, located in the southeastern corner of the island of Hawaii. His parents were Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu and Keaweolalo (also known as Keaweleikini). Born into a family of the kaukau aliʻi class of chiefs, subordinate to the high chiefs or aliʻi nui, Nawahi's chiefly (aliʻi) descent was rarely emphasized in his lifetime. His father was descended from the chiefly retainers of the 18th century King Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who the British explorer Captain James Cook attempted to kidnap at Kealakekua Bay in 1779, before his demise at the hand of the Hawaiians.; Shortly after his birth, he was adopted in the Hawaiian tradition of hānai by his paternal uncle Joseph Paʻakaula, an elementary schoolteacher who became the first educator of his hānai son at the ʻAiakalā School.
In 1853, at the age of eleven, Nāwahī was enrolled in the Hilo Boarding School, a Protestant mission vocational school, under the care and instruction of American missionary Reverend David Belden Lyman. The school had been established in 1835 by Lyman and his wife to teach Native Hawaiian boys the trades needed to adapt to a modernizing Hawaii entering the industrial age. Students were taught the ideals of American Protestant work ethics, and were required to perform manual labor to pay for their board. It became a model for the schools of the rest of the islands and also influenced missionary descendant Samuel C. Armstrong, who founded Hampton University to educate emancipated slaves after the American Civil War. In 1857, Nāwahī attended the Lāhaināluna School on Maui, where he was educated by J. F. Pokue and L. ʻAnalū. Upon graduating from Lahainaluna in 1861, he decided to continue his education at the Chief's School at Kahehuna (also known as the Royal School) for several years under the tutelage of Reverend Edward G. Beckwith.
After finishing his formal education, Nāwahī returned to the island of Hawaii and worked as a teacher, establishing his own boarding school at Piʻihonua in 1863. Principal Lyman later hired him to become assistant principal at his alma mater, Hilo Boarding School. Although educated and heavily influenced by the American missionaries, Nāwahī remained loyal to his Hawaiian roots, as evidenced by his later political opposition to the descendants of the missionaries. According to historian Jon Kamakawiwoʻole Osorio, "he was the living promise of the Calvinist mission and an exemplar of that mission's contradictions. He was a Christian Native who was, nevertheless, a firm and lifelong opponent of annexation." Historian Noenoe K. Silva noted that "Nawahi retained his Kanaka identity while assimilating Christianity into his life and philosophy."
Continuing his intellectual pursuits, Nāwahī became a self-taught lawyer and surveyor, gaining the skills of these professions without formal instruction. By the time he was thirty years old, he had earned the license to practice law in the courts of the kingdom. It was his legal career which would gain him entrance into politics.
Personal life Nāwahī married twice. On January 17, 1862, he married a Hawaiian woman named Meleana Keakahiwa, who died shortly after their marriage. His obituary in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Makaainana claimed this first marriage ended in divorce and his first wife survived him. He married secondly Emma ʻAʻima Aʻii in Hilo on February 17, 1881. She was half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese, being the daughter of a Hilo chiefess and Tong Yee, a Chinese businessman and founder of Paukaʻa Sugar Plantation. In later life, Emma would become an important political leader in her own right. They had three sons including Albert Kahiwahiwa Nāwahī (1881–1904), Alexander Kaʻeʻeokalani Nāwahī (1883–1942) and Joseph Nāwahī, Jr. (1885–1888). Through his sons, he currently has descendants living to this day.; They also adopted a daughter named Emmeline Kaleionamoku "Kalei" Nāwahī (1877–1901), who died while attending school at St. Andrew's Priory in Honolulu.;
Political career Nāwahī first entered politics during the last year of the reign of King Kamehameha V. His election as a member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Hawaiian legislature, for the district of Puna, was reported on February 14, 1872. During this first term, Kamehameha V died without naming an heir and he and his fellow legislators unanimously elected the popular Lunalilo to the throne. ; ; ; The new king died in 1874 after a short reign, also without naming a successor, causing the legislators to convene and elect a new monarch again. Nāwahī, now in his second term, became one of the six legislators who cast their votes in favor of the defeated Queen Emma of Hawaii. Kalākaua, who won the legislative election, ascended the throne as Hawaii's second elected monarch in the wake of the Honolulu Courthouse riot led by Emma's defeated supporters.; ; ; ; ; ;
After the controversial 1874 election, Nāwahī became a member of the Queen Emma Party and joined with Representative George Washington Pilipō of North Kona in forming the native opposition against Kalākaua. He was re-elected to every meeting of the biannual legislature during this period as the representative from Puna and later Hilo, starting from 1878. Over the next decade, Nāwahī characterized himself as a leader of the Independent (Kuokoa) faction against the government-backed National Party. He opposed the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, introduced and personally negotiated by the king, fearing the negative consequences of aligning Hawaii too closely to the United States. Nāwahī blasted the treaty as "he ku ʻikahi kaʻili aupuni" ("a nation-snatching treaty") and prophesied that it "will be the first step of annexation". He was also vehemently against the proposed cession of Pearl Harbor to the United States. Nāwahī and Pilipō were given the epithet of "Nā Pū Kuni Ahi o ka ʻAhaʻōlelo" (the Cannons of the Legislature) for their steadfast defense of Hawaiian sovereignty. In the election of 1886, Kalākaua personally journeyed to the districts of Pilipō and Nāwahī, on Hawaii, and John William Kalua, on Maui, to sway the vote against these three politicians. This resulted in Nāwahī's first electoral defeat in his home district of Hilo.; ; ; ;
On June 30, 1887, King Kalākaua was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution under duress by the Hawaiian League, a group of foreign businessman and Hawaiian subjects of American missionary descent including Lorrin A. Thurston. This constitution limited the absolute power of the monarch and strengthened the power of the executive cabinet. It also raised property requirements for suffrage, disenfranchised many poor Native Hawaiians and naturalized Asian citizens, and gave the vote to unnaturalized foreign residents of European or American descent. Instigators of this coup d'état formed the Reform Party, drawing its membership from Hawaiian conservatives and citizens of foreign descent. The new constitution also called for an election to be held ninety days after its enactment on September 12, 1887. Nāwahī remained an independent against the newly empowered Reform Party even though many of its members were his former allies against the National Party in years before. In the special election of 1887, he and George Charles Moʻoheau Beckley ran under the opposition ticket against Reform Party members Henry Deacon and D. Kamai but lost due to the disenfranchisement of much of the native constituencies. Deacon and Kamai would represent Hilo in the special legislative session of 1887 and the regular session of 1888.;
The next general election of 1890 saw Nāwahī's return to the legislature. He ran as a National Reform party member and won the seat for the district of South Hilo. During this session, he became a supporter of Kalākaua and later his successor Queen Liliʻuokalani.; ; ; In this session, Nāwahī joined with many other leading National Reform politicians in calling for a constitutional convention to draft a replacement to the existing Bayonet Constitution. A bill was drafted and submitted by Representative Kalua. However, when the constitutional convention bill went up for the vote of the legislature on October 1, it was defeated by a vote of 24 to 16.
Legislature of 1892–93 In the election of 1892 Nāwahī changed party alliance and ran as a candidate for the newly created National Liberal Party, defeating Reform candidate Robert Rycroft for the seat of South Hilo in the House of Representatives.; ; ; ; ; ; ; The Liberal Party advocated for a constitutional convention to draft a replacement to the unpopular Bayonet Constitution and increased Native Hawaiian participation in the government. The party was divided between radicals and more conciliatory groups. Nāwahī and William Pūnohu White (the representative of Lahaina) soon became the leaders of the factions of the Liberals loyal to the queen against the more radical members including John E. Bush and Robert William Wilcox, who were advocating for drastic changes such as increased power for the people and a republican form of government.; ; Nāwahī was initially elected vice-president under Bush and later became the president of the Liberal Party.Daily Bulletin, Oct. 7, 1892.