Joseph Kahoʻoluhi Nāwahī (January 13,āwahī 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.