Historical Disconnect: Posthumous Publication of Puzzle Pieces by S. M. Kamakau

While publishing his serial history of Hawai'i in the 1860s, Samuel Kamakau promised his Nupepa Kuokoa readers that he would write biographies of Ka'ahumanu, Keōpūolani, Kalanimoku, and Ulumāheihei, important chiefs from the time of Kamehameha I. Those biographies never appeared in the 5-year weekly series, though the four chiefs were mentioned often in the effort to record Hawaiian history. He did write three of the four biographies he proposed, but the articles did not get published for more than a decade after he left that newspaper and years after his death. The first and longest of the biographies is translated here, offering additional insights about Ka'ahumanu, the favorite wife of Kamehameha I.