The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 1 November 2004

Princess Ka'iulani: Princess of the Peacocks

It’s not often you run across a Victorian-era princess with a surfboard named after her, never mind a Victorian-era princess who actually surfed, but Princess Ka'iulani of Hawaii was just such a rarity. And while it’s refreshing to think of historical royalty in this light, surfing is the least of the characteristics that made Ka'iulani such a unique and important royal figure in her own time, not to mention today.

Born Princess Victoria Kawekiu Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Ka‘iulani Cleghorn on October 16, 1875 in Honolulu, Hawaii, her name reflected both her royal heritage - Ka‘iulani translates to “royal sacred one” or “the highest point in heaven” - and Hawaii’s political ties to Great Britain - Queen Victoria had been friendly to Hawaii’s royalty. As for her surname, in case you hadn’t already suspected, it reflected her non-royal heritage - that of her Scottish father, Archibald Cleghorn, a successful local businessman who was born in Edinburgh and emigrated to Hawaii as a young man.  

In 1870, the 35-year-old Cleghorn married 19-year-old Miriam Likelike, who was from a family of important Hawaiian chiefs. Just four years later, her brother was elected King of Hawaii after his predecessor died without a successor, and Likelike became a royal princess. After the birth of Princess Ka‘iulani the following year, the family seemed to live a pleasant existence at Ainahau, their estate in Waikiki, until the untimely death of Princess Likelike in 1887.

If there had previously been any doubt that Ka‘iulani might someday inherit the Hawaiian throne, it vanished with her mother’s death. Both the reigning monarch, King Kalakaua, and his heir, Princess Lili‘uokalani - Ka‘iulani’s uncle and aunt, respectively - were childless, making Ka‘iulani second in line to the throne. Accordingly, her father and royal relatives intended that the young Princess should receive an education befitting a future queen, and that included sending the young Princess to Britain. But not before she could earn some important admirers in her homeland.

Just five months before leaving Hawaii in May of 1889, Ka‘iulani would meet and become fast friends with Robert Louis Stevenson, who was so impressed with the 13-year-old Princess - and she with him - that their short relationship is something of a legend. In honor of her departure for Britain, her wrote a poem for the Princess that includes the touching lines:

“Light of heart and bright of face:
The daughter of a double race.
Her islands here, in Southern sun, Shall mourn their Ka'iulani gone…”

The two would never meet again - Stevenson died in 1894 on the Island of Samoa while Ka‘iulani was in Britain, but Stevenson’s words would eventually come to symbolize far more than Ka‘iulani’s temporary departure from Hawaii in 1889.

But first, she would be trained and primed for her future role as Queen of Hawaii - one that inched even closer when her uncle, King Kalakaua, died in January of 1891, leaving her aunt as the new monarch. Queen Lili‘uokalani quickly cemented Ka‘iulani’s position by formally naming her as her heir. It would seem logical that, at this point, the new Crown Princess would have returned to Hawaii. After all, it was originally planned that her studies in Britain would last only one year and by the time of her elevation to Crown Princess, she had been studying to great success for more than two years, but all was not well in Hawaii.

When Queen Lili‘uokalani attempted to strengthen the power of the monarchy soon after her accession, Americans in Hawaii who were afraid of losing their profitable sugar-cane interests led an uprising that eventually led to the Queen being deposed in 1893. Ka‘iulani learned of the fall of her family from the throne while she was in Britain. Despite her heartbreak, the 17-year-old travelled to the United States to publicly fight that country’s abolition of the Hawaiian monarchy and planned annexation of Hawaii.

Despite initial mocking by the U.S. press, who called her - among other things - the “heathen Princess,” Ka‘iulani won them over and was soon being described as “charming, fascinating” and “the very flower - an exotic - of civilization.” More importantly, she won over President Grover Cleveland, who promised to help her cause, although his efforts were ineffectual.

Ka‘iulani returned to Britain - where, in 1894, she learned that Hawaii had become a republic - and, eventually, elsewhere in Europe, before finally returning to Hawaii in 1897. Since learning of the fall of the monarchy, Ka‘iulani’s health had deteriorated to the point of chronic migraine headaches and easy susceptibility to other ailments. After years of living in the cooler climates of Britain, her health only became worse in the warm, tropical weather of her homeland. Despite her health, Ka‘iulani continued to live at Ainahau, enjoying her passions of riding, horticulture and, of course, the many beloved peacocks that lived on her estate - a passion that earned her one of her many favorable nicknames, “The Princess of the Peacocks.” Her people admired her and she continued to be an important figure in her homeland.

But all that would end abruptly in 1898 when she caught a fever after riding one day in the rain. Her health never improved and she died on March 6, 1899, at only 23 years of age. In her wake, schools, hotels and, yes, even surfboards, have been named for her and she continues to be a representative of all that was - and still is - good about Hawaii.

Until next week, 

- Tori Van Orden Martínez