Dear Trinity Church,
According to The Boston Globe, on March 6, 1893, Princess Victoria Kaiulani, heir to the Hawaiian throne, appeared quite the Bostonian as she sat in a pew at Trinity Church. She wore fashionable rimless eyeglasses and a large felt hat decorated with an ostrich feather. Her loose-fitting coat was dark blue and around her neck she wore a fur boa. Spiritually devout, she had chosen to worship at St. Paul’s earlier in the day, a visit that had gone unnoticed. But somehow word had spread that she would attend 4 pm vespers at Trinity Church. The building was packed with onlookers.
The princess and her guardian, Mr. Davies, entered through the Clarendon Street entrance having walked across the street from the Brunswick Hotel. Boston was the second leg in her U.S. journey. Just seventeen years old, she had come as an advocate for her kingdom. Later, of her experience at Trinity, she reportedly remarked, “What a strange thing it is when the practice of your faith becomes a public occurrence.”
Princess Kaiulani
Kaiulani was born October 16, 1875, the daughter of Princess Miriam Likelike and Archibald Cleghorn, a prominent Scottish-born Honolulu businessman. She was christened Victoria Kawekiu Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapala Kaiulani. Her uncle, King David Kalakaua, ruled Hawaii. Her aunt Princess Liliuokalani was his heir apparent, and Kaiulani was designated as her heir.
Princess Miriam Likelike
King David Kalakaua
Kaiulani grew up on the family estate, Ainahau, in Waikiki. For much of her young life it was an idyllic setting, a garden oasis, visited by nobles and elites from around the world. Things changed in December 1886 when her mother became ill. On the afternoon of February 2, 1887, Princess Likelike died. Though bereft, father and daughter continued to welcome visitors into their home, including author Robert Louis Stevenson.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson had befriended King Kalakaua who introduced him to Kaiulani and her father, a fellow Scotsman. Perhaps best known for Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson also wrote A Child’s Garden of Verses, considered one of the most influential works for children of the 19th century. He was captivated by the young princess and she by him.
When Kaiulani turned thirteen, advisors declared she should have an education befitting a future queen. Kaiulani sailed to England in 1889. Before she left, Stevenson composed a poem for her that began:
Forth from her land to mine she goes,
The island maid, the island rose,
Light of heart and bright of face:
The daughter of a double race.
During her studies in Europe, she was buffered from the turmoil taking place in Hawaii as American and European business interests sought to undermine the monarchy.
On January 20, 1891, King Kalakaua died in San Francisco. The King’s sister Liliuokalani was crowned Queen, and Kaiulani became the Crown Princess. Liliuokalani’s reign was short. On January 17, 1893, the monarchy was overthrown. After a brief transition under a Provisional Government, the Republic of Hawaii was established on July 4, 1894, with Sanford B. Dole as president. This government sought to annex the islands to the United States against the wishes of the Native Hawaiians who wanted to remain an independent nation.
USS Boston Landing Force to Protect Provisional Government
As she learned of these events, Princess Kaiulani decided to travel to Washington, D.C. to seek an audience with President Grover Cleveland and convince him not to annex her homeland. Her demeanor and eloquence would captivate the American public. The first stop was New York, then to Boston before traveling to Washington. Just six years earlier, Queen Kapiolani, consort of King David, had visited Boston enroute to the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in London. At her side was Crown Princess Liliuokalani who would become Queen in just four years.
Queen Liliuokalani
As described in A Royal Journey to London by Emily V. Warinner, “Arriving at the depot on Sunday morning, May 8, 1887, the Hawaiian royalties were met by His Hawaiian Majesty’s Consul at Boston, Lawrence Bond, and by the Mayor’s welcoming committee. …. News gatherers were busily engaged, a dispatch to The New York Times including the further activities of the Sabbath: “When the bells tolled for Church the queen and party were driven to Trinity to listen to the eloquence of Phillips Brooks where the curiosity to see the strange visitors was no less manifest because the church was filled with the most fashionable set in town. …”
In 1891, Phillips Brooks was elected Bishop of Massachusetts. Because he unexpectedly died on January 23, 1893, Princess Kaiulani would not hear him as she sat inside Trinity Church. Inside Trinity Church in March 1893, she heard the voice of Brooks’ successor Rector Elijah Winchester Donald.
The princess soon made her way to Washington. She so moved President Cleveland that he appointed a commissioner to investigate the situation in Hawaii, an action which frustrated those whose end goal had always been annexation of Hawaii by the United States.
Having felt that she hadd been heard, Kaiulani resumed her studies in Europe before returning to Hawaii in 1897. Native Hawaiians referred to Kaiulani as “Our Last Hope.” Efforts to restore the monarchy continued to no avail. Finally, in 1898, Hawaii was annexed. It would become America’s 50th state on August 21, 1959.
In December 1897, Kaiulani accepted an invitation to attend a wedding on the Big Island of Hawaii. She developed a fever. After a long illness, Princess Kaiulani died on March 6, 1899, surrounded by her father, friends, and relatives. She was twenty-three years old.
Until next month,
Cynthia
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Sources and Further Reading
Newspapers
Princess at Church. Royalty Worshipped at Old St. Paul’s and Trinity. The Boston Globe. March 6, 1893, p. 4.
Kaiulani at the White House. The Boston Globe. March 14, 1893, p. 7.
About the Princess
http://www.fsakamoto.com/naomi/kaiulani.html
Linnea, Sharon. Princess Kaiulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People. Wm. B. Eerdman Publishing Co. 1999.
The Kaiulani Project
Other
A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)
https://robert-louis-stevenson.org/works/a-childs-garden-of-verses-1885/
Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom
A Royal Journey to London