Ka‘iana, the inconsistent hero of “Chief of War”

© Copyright Stephen Shender 2025

“Chief of War” producer/writer/actor Jason Momoa’s upcoming nine-episode historical drama about the late 18^th century struggle to unify Hawaiian Islands (premiering on Apple TV+ August 1) will mark this story’s first introduction to a wide viewing audience. Even if they’re unfamiliar with Hawaiian history, casual visitors to Hawaii likely already know the name of Kamehameha, the warrior chieftain who led the fight to unite the Islands, from the Hawaiian highways and roads named after him. But there are no roads named after “Chief of War’s” hero, Ka‘iana, whose portrayal by Momoa as a leader of the fight to unify the Islands will leave a lasting impression on the series’ audience. Momoa’s Ka‘iana will no doubt come off as a heroic.

 Ka‘iana is an important figure in Hawaii’s unification story and a colorful character in Once There Was Fire, my historical novel about the life of Kamehameha and his unification of the Hawaiian Islands. He fought bravely alongside Kamehameha in battles on the Big Island and Maui. Ka‘iana became the “most famous” Hawaiian of his day, thanks to portraits of him that circulated widely in the world beyond the Hawaiian Islands.

 I drew on stories about Ka‘iana from multiple sources when I was researching and writing my novel and found him to be more an opportunist than a hero. In the sources I consulted he comes off as a conniver whose most consistent loyalty was to himself.

I’ve already sketched the broad outlines of Ka‘iana’s story elsewhere: He sided with Kamehameha’s fiercest enemy, Kahekili, before turning against him. He later sided with Kamehameha and then, on the eve of the final battle for Hawaiian unification on O‘ahu in 1795, turned against him.

There are two chapters to Ka‘iana’s story: what happened before he joined forces with Kamehameha and what happened after. In my novel, I alluded briefly to the first part and wrote extensively about the second.

The first chapter is as important to understanding Ka‘iana as the second. I wrote about it at length in the first draft of Once There Was Fire, but on my editor’s advice I reduced it to a few hundred words. The fuller story is worth exploring for its insight into  Ka‘iana’s character from the Hawaiians’ point of view.

Part I Misadventure on Kaua‘i

Having chosen the wrong side in a struggle between the O‘ahu nobles and Kahekili, the Maui ruler whom he’d earlier helped conquer O‘ahu, Ka‘iana fled for his life to Kaua‘i. Hawaii’s last king, David Kalākaua (1836-1891) tells the story of Ka‘iana’s misadventures on that island in Legends and Myths of Hawaii, his collection of Hawaiian lore and oral history (Mutual Publishing, 1990).

According to Kalākaua, Ka‘iana was welcomed on Kaua‘i by the island’s queen, Kamakahelei, and her consort, Kaeo, a cousin of Ka‘iana and one of Kahekili’s brothers. Writes Kalākaua:

“Ka‘iana was kindly received at the court at Kaua‘i and given lands for his proper maintenance. But he could not remain quiet. While the clash of arms was heard on the other islands, he chafed under the restraints of his exile and attempted to organize a force of warriors for a descent upon O‘ahu. Kaeo prevented the departure of the expedition, however, and a mutual feeling of suspicion and antagonism was soon developed between him and his reckless and restless cousin.”

Ka‘iana could have settled on Kaua‘i as a gentleman farmer and lived peacefully off the sweat of the peasant tenants who would have come with the lands he’d received for “his proper maintenance.” Instead, he tried to organize a military venture that threatened to embroil Kaeo in fight with his own brother.

Blocked by Kaeo from an attempted conquest of O‘ahu, Ka‘iana next tried to displace him as Kaua‘i’s co-ruler. Continues Kalākaua:

As the avenues of advancement through the chances of war seemed to be temporarily closed to him, Ka‘iana donned his best attire, gave entertainments and began vigorously to play the courtier. He first sought to supplant Kaeo in the affections of the queen. Failing that, he next paid court to her daughter…The latter was disposed to regard his suit with favor, but Kaeo…objected to the alliance.

Ka‘iana was fast wearing out his aloha on Kaua‘i. As his luck would have it, about this time the English navigator, explorer, and fur trader John Meares arrived at Kaua‘i. Meares’s vessel, the Nootka, reached Kaua‘i, Kalākaua writes:

…just as the fortunes of Ka‘iana seemed most desperate and Captain Meares was easily prevailed upon to permit the handsome Hawaiian to accompany him to the Asiatic Coast.

As to who “prevailed upon” Meares, surely by this point Kaeo was as eager to get rid of his troublesome cousin as the latter was to leave Kaua‘i.

Kalākaua’s grandfather was a close ally of Kamehameha. Before he became king, Kalākaua published a Hawaiian-language newspaper devoted in part to preserving his people’s oral histories in writing. As an exponent of the Hawaiians’ view of Ka‘iana, Kalākaua is as authentic as they come. And in Kalākaua’s telling, Ka‘iana comes off as a self-aggrandizing troublemaker.

Part II Schemer and troublesome ally

When Ka‘iana returned to the Hawaiian Islands from China (on a different ship) he was no longer welcome on Kaua‘i, for obvious reasons. Ka‘iana prevailed on the ship’s captain to take him to the Big Island where he offered his services—along with muskets, ammunition, and the knowledge of their use he had acquired abroad—to Kamehameha.

The year following Ka‘iana’s arrival, two English seamen, Isasc Davis and John Young, fell into Kamehameha’s hands. Davis was the lone surviving crewman of the Fair American, a ship that was attacked and captured by one of Kamehameha’s allies. Young was the boatswain of the Elenora, a sister ship that arrived some days later. He was taken prisoner by the Hawaiians when he came ashore to hunt game for his ship’s larder. This, after the locals unaccountably failed to paddle out to trade with his ship’s captain as expected, because  Kamehameha had forbidden it.

Kamehameha’s ally thought he had good reason to attack Davis’s ship, and Kamehameha thought he had good reason to bar his people from trading with Young’s ship—and to hold Young despite his desire to return to the Elenora. Kamehameha subsequently barred Young and Davis from trying to leave on any foreign ship, upon pain of death, because he feared retaliation if foreigners (haole) learned what had happened to The Fair American and its crew. (If you want to know more about these goings on, google “Fair American,” “Elenora,” “John Young,” “Isaac Davis,” or “Simon Metcalfe.” Or better yet, read my book.)

Young and Davis settled into life on the Big Island, rendering valuable services to Kamehameha, who treated them well. But the pair did not entirely abandon their desire to leave, given an opportunity to do so. About a year after their arrival, they got their chance.

James Colnett, the captain of a newly arrived haole ship, learned that two Englishmen were being held by Kamehameha and sent them a note offering to aide in their escape. Young accepted the captain’s offer in a note of his own, entrusting a Hawaiian to deliver the note to the ship. But the ship’s captain never got it, because Ka‘iana intercepted it.

Author Emmett Cahill tells what happened next in his well-researched biographical work, The Life and Times of John Young (Island Heritage Publishing, 1999). Relying on a later, second-hand account by the British explorer George Vancouver, who learned of this affair from Young, Cahill writes:

“[Ka‘iana], already jealous of the two white men, took the letter to the king [Kamehameha] and persuaded him he could read it, claiming he had learned to read during a trip to China aboard an American vessel. Ka‘iana’s version to Kamehameha was that Young and Davis ‘desired Captain Colnett to get the king in his possession and to keep him until the schooner [the Fair American] were delivered up to him and many more of the islanders.’ To avoid this trap, Ka‘iana urged the king to kill Young and Davis, ‘after which … no one would know any thing about them but themselves.’”

Young’s note was in English. Ka‘iana had learned to speak English during his travels abord haole ships, but he could not read it.

Having received no reply from Colnett, Young and Davis set off for the shore but were quickly surrounded by Hawaiians and taken to Kamehameha. If Ka‘iana was counting on Kamehameha executing Young and Davis for trying to leave, he was sorely disappointed. Instead, writes Cahill, quoting Vancouver, who was paraphrasing Young: 

“[Kamehameha] very dispassionately advised them to return from whence they had come; and said, that he would do anything they could wish to render their lives more comfortable, but he would not consent that they should leave the island.”

Young and Davis never again sought to leave Hawaii. True to his word, Kamehameha rewarded both men with lands and positions of trust among his advisers. They served him loyally for the rest of his and their lives. (Davis predeceased Kamehameha and Young outlived him. Kamehameha appointed Young, who married one of his nieces and settled at Kawaihae in the Big Island’s Kohala district, governor of the Big Island.)

For his part, Ka‘iana continued to vex Kamehameha. The object of continued discord between them was Kamehameha’s favorite partner (out of his some twenty “wives”) Ka’ahumanu.

Hawaiians had no marriage sacrament and Hawaiian men and women of Kamehameha’s time and before held liberal attitudes about sex. Men could have children with multiple women and women could have children with multiple men with little or no fault found by anyone. Hawaiian culture having no concept of “wedlock,” no Hawaiian child was ever born with the stigma of “illegitimacy.”

Kamehameha was not concerned about the “extra-marital” liaisons of his other “wives,” but he made an exception for Ka‘ahumanu, declaring her kapu (forbidden) to other men because, according to one account, his kahuna nui (high priest) told him to.

According to Stephen L. Desha, an early 20th century Hawaiian-language newspaper columnist and preservationist of Hawaiian oral history, the priest Holo‘ae told Kamehameha:

There is only one rebellion remaining in your kingdom…and that is your wife, Ka‘ahumanu. If the love of your wife turns to another ali‘i (noble) and she rebels against you, then your kingdom will become unstable…

According to the previously mentioned King David Kalākaua, politics had nothing to do with it:

[Kamehameha] loved her as well as he was capable of loving any woman, and she was the only one whose indiscretions were regarded by him with jealousy.

Whether for political reasons or reasons of the heart (or both), Kamehameha would not tolerate any other man paying court to Ka‘ahumanu.

Ka‘ahumanu was a strong-willed woman however, and unwilling to respect a kapu that was intended for men, and not her. Here’s King Kalākaua, again:

 [Ka‘ahumanu] doubtless sought to avail herself of the privileges of the time, but Kamehameha objected with a frown that would have meant death to another, and for years their relations were the reverse of harmonious.

Ka‘iana was likely the main source of the couple’s disharmony. He ignored Kamehameha’s kapu and paid too much attention (and perhaps more than that) to Ka‘ahumanu. The disharmony continued until George Vancouver, who had befriended Kamehameha and Ka‘ahumanu, prevailed on the two of them to, in effect, kiss and make up.

For Kamehameha, there would have been no forgiving Ka‘iana for his approaches to Ka‘ahumanu, but Kamehameha still had uses for the impetuous warrior, and he did not punish him. He did, however, freeze Ka‘iana out of his inner council ahead of a climactic battle on O‘ahu for control of all the islands except Kaua‘i in 1795. This—plus, no doubt, suspicions that Kamehameha’s advisers of longer standing wanted him dead—contributed to Ka‘iana’s insecurity about his status in Kamehameha’s camp and led him to defect to the losing side on the eve of the battle of O‘ahu, at the cost of his life.

Ka‘iana chose further military adventure over a comfortable life as a gentleman farmer on Kaua‘i. When his cousin, the consort of Kaua‘i’s queen, foiled his scheme to invade O ‘ahu, he tried to supplant him in the queen’s affections. When he failed in that, Ka‘iana pursued the queen’s daughter, exhausting his welcome on Kaua‘i. On the Big Island, Ka‘iana schemed against John Young and Isaac Davis, displeasing Kamehameha. He then further alienated Kamehameha by coming between Kamehameha and his kapu partner, Ka‘ahumanu. Despite all this, Ka‘iana had proven his worth to Kamehameha in earlier battles and could have again, to his advantage, on O‘ahu. But his insecurity got the better of him at the end.

Decision by decision and step by step, Ka‘iana the “chief of war” dug his own grave.