Humehume, known also as Prince George Kaumuali‘i, was born on Kaua‘i circa 1797, the son of a commoner mother and King Kaumuali‘i, Kaua‘i’s last king.
When he reached the age of 6 or 7, Kaumuali‘i paid a Capt. Rowan several thousand dollars worth of sandalwood to provide for his son’s education and welfare in Massachusetts.
Following his schooling near Boston, Humehume labored as a carpenter and a farmer before going to Boston in the hope of securing passage on a ship bound for Hawai‘i. But when he arrived there, he enlisted in either the Navy or Marine Corps instead and served during the War of 1812.
After his discharge, he worked at the Boston Navy Yard, until friends invited him to Cornwall, Connecticut and the Foreign Mission School, established to train students of foreign lands in missionary work.
About three years later, in 1819, Humehume finally sailed to Hawai‘i with the “First Company” of American Protestant missionaries, and arrived at Waimea, Kaua‘i in 1820.
Kaumuali‘i then appointed him second-in-command of his kingdom, and had great expectations for him. But Humehume’s fondness for liquor soon set him at odds with his father.
Take the case, for example, when he got drunk and set fire to Capt. Masters’ houses in Waimea after Masters refused to give him a bottle of gin.
His father made up the loss to Masters with $2,500 worth of sandalwood, but Humehume’s incessant drinking and bad conduct soon reached the point that he eventually lost favor with Kaumuali‘i.
He then moved with his wife and daughter to a camp of thatched houses near the beach at Wahiawa Bay, where he settled in with about 100 commoners and two or three white men, drinking and talking to anyone who’d listen.
In 1824, he led a rebellion of Kaua‘i chiefs against supporters of Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and his regent, Ka‘ahumanu, and was defeated in battle at the Russian Fort and the Hanapepe Lookout.
A few weeks later he was captured, but treated well, and was deported to O‘ahu with his family, where he died on May 3, 1826.
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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com
