Opukaha'ia's Providential Influence in the Creation of the Mission to Hawai'i
As described in 19th Century accounts
Selected writings of Hiram Bingham, Missionary to the Hawaiian Islands - To Raise the Lord's Banner; edited by Char Miller. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1988
From letter of instruction given to first missionaries to Hawai'i upon departure from Boston from American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
What would have been the feelings of Obookiah, had he lived to see this day!-He does live,-and he does behold this day; and amid the ten thousand times ten thousand before the throne of God and the Lamb, he is raising a new and immortal note of praise,for the light which is dawning upon Owhyhee and the kindred islands. You will never forget Obookiah.-You will never forget his fervent love,-his affectionate counsels,-his many prayers and tears for you, and for his and your nation. you saw him die;-saw how the Christian could triumph over death and the grave;-saw the radiant glory in which he left the world for heaven. You will remember it always; and you will tell it to your kindred and countrymen who are dying without hope.
The Hawaiian Islands, Their Progress and Condtion Under Missionary Labors by Rufus Anderson, D.D. Boston, Gould and Lincoln, 1864. Pages 45-47.
For ten years, and more, there had been a train of providential occurrences in the United States tending directly to the sending of a mission to the Hawaiian Islands. It will be interesting to glance the eye along this line of events.
While standing on the eastern shore of Kealakekua Bay, opposite to where Cook was killed, my attention was directed to a small ruined heiau, or heathen temple, with a cocoa-nut tree rising high above it. I was told it was there that Obookiah was trained by his uncle, a pagan priest, to the practice of idolatry, and that the tree was planted by him. This was more than fifty years ago, for Obookiah was brought to the United States, in the year 1808, by a shipmaster of New Haven. He was an intelligent youth, and learning, that a long row of buildings on the public square in New Haven formed a college where younger men of America acquired knowledge, he was one day found sitting on the doorsteps of one of those buildings, weeping because the treasures of knowledge were open to others, but were not open to him. Mr. Edwin W. Dwight, who saw him thus, had compassion on him, and became his religious teacher, and the means of his conversion. This antedates the mission to the Islands by more than ten years. Next we find Samuel John Mills writing to Gordon Hall from New Haven, on the 20th of December, 1809, in view of this case, and suggesting a mission to the Sandwich Islands. The institution of the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut, in 1817, by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, for the instruction of these and other youths from heathen lands, came next in the order of events. Mr. Dwight, the friend of Obookiah, was its first teacher. Five of the ten earliest pupils were natives of the Hawaiian Islands. Obookiah died while a member of this school, on the 17th of February, 1818, at the age of twenty-six; and the published account of his life and death awakened great interest among the churches in behalf of his people. Then came the offer of a young man named Hiram Bingham, a student in the Andover Seminary, to go as a missionary to those Islands. And he finds a worthy associate in Asa Thurston, a classmate at the Seminary, and a graduate of Yale College, of whom the college traditions speak as one of the most athletic of her sons. These favored men have both been spared to the present time.
The next step brings us to the 15th of October, 1819, to a public meeting in Park-street Church, in Boston, where we find Messrs. Bingham and Thurston, now ordained ministers of the gospel, and their wives; with Thomas Holman, a physician, Samuel Whitney and Samuel RuggIes, teachers, Elisha Loomis, printer, and Daniel Chamberlain, a farmer, and their wives; and Thomas Hopu, William Kanui (Tenooe), and John Honuri (Honoore), three Hawaiian young men from the Cornwall School; about to be organized as a mission to the Sandwich Islands.
The Hand of God In History or Divine Providence Historically Illustrated in The Extension and Establishment of Christianity by Hollis Read, A.M. Hartford, H.E. Robins and Co., 1851
In the last chapter, attention was directed to an interesting period in the history of Christianity. We saw the angel, having the everlasting gospel to preach, directing his adventurous flight over the broad Pacific, scattering blessings from his wings on the beautiful isles that sit on its bosom. " Truly, the isles waited for the law of their God." In not a few instances, the people, in expectation of the missionary ship, cast away their idols, erected places for public worship, and waited for the coming of the "Messenger of Peace." It is related that in several instances, before the gospel was introduced, though expected, they were known to assemble at six o'clock on Sabbath morning, sit in silence an hour or more, and repeat this a second, and even a third time, during the day."
Before leaving this new and wide theatre on which God has of late, and in a most extraordinary manner, been pleased to display the riches of his grace, I shall recount yet another instance of remarkable providential interposition. The illustration is familiar - you will discern the finger of God in the tale.
An orphan boy on one of the Sandwich Islands, of twelve years old, is seen escaping from a scene of the most disgusting carnage. He bears on his back an infant brother of only two months old. They are pursued; the infant is transfixed with a spear, while the lad is spared and led away the captive of war. He is the only survivor of his family. The father and mother, with these two boys, had, on the approach of the enemy to their village, fled to the mountains; but were soon sought out and cut to pieces before the face of their children. Henry, the surviving boy, remained for some time with the man whom he had seen kill his father and his mother-is at length found by an uncle, who takes him to his house, and keeps him one or two years. Again is he, with his aunt, a prisoner of war-makes his escape-secretes himself at a little distance, whence he soon saw his aunt conducted. from the prison to a precipice, from which she was thrown headlong, and dashed to pieces. Now alone in the world and disconsolate, he determines to end a miserable existence in the same way he had seen his relative meet her tragic death. As soon as the enemy disappeared from the precipice, he approached to execute his horrid purpose. But being discovered by one of the hostile party,he is rescued just in time to save a life which should be the hand of Providence to bring life and immortality to light among his benighted countrymen.
Again we find him, by some means once more restored to his uncle, yet weary of life, and the last of his race, he never ceases to bemoan his parents. In this state of despondency and wretchedness, he conceives the strange idea of seeking an asylum in some foreign country.
While in this state of mind an American ship arrives. Young Obookiah was immediately on board to seek a passage to America. His uncle refused to let him go, and shut him up in his house. But the young adventurer finds means to escape, and is again on board, and is allowed to sail.
But mark the next link in the chain. There is on board this vessel a pious young man, (Russel Hubbard,) a student of Yale College, who becomes a friend of young Henry, and takes much pains to instruct him in the rudiments of learning, of which be was totally ignorant .
After a few months we find Henry in New Haven wandering about the college yard, he attracts the attention of E. W. Dwight, who, from this time, becomes his friend and teacher-is introduced into the family of Dr. Dwight, and finall y comes to the knowledge of Samuel J. Mills, who takes him to his father's, in Torringford. Thence, after some time, he is transferred to Andover&endash;becomes a Christian-lives in different places in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire every where adorns a good profession &endash;manifests a burning zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, and much solicitude for the salvation of all men. At length we find him in the mission school at Cornwall-the same decided, consistent Christian ; the industrious scholar; the amiable companion, ever loved and highly respected.
He has by this time produced a strong interest in favor of the Sandwich Islands. A mission thither was always his fond hope and the object of his unremitting toil. It was a much cherished idea that he might return, a messenger of peace, to his deluded countrymen; and for this purpose he used all diligence to be prepared. But, strange dispensation of Providence! He is cut down by the relentless hand of death, before he sees one of his benevolent schemes for his native island executed.
But let us pause here and mark the hand of God. The time of blessed visitation had come for the isles of the sea. The English churches had already taken of the spoil of their idols, and were rejoicing and being enriched by their conquests. The American Zion must participate in the honor and profit of the war. Hence Henry Obookiah, an obscure boy, without father or mother, kindred or tie, to bind him to his native land, must be brought to our shores; be renewed from place to place, from institution to institution, everywhere fanning into a flame the smoking flax of a missionary spirit, and giving it some definite direction; be made the occasion of rousing the slumbering energies of the church on behalf of the heathen, and of kindlier a spirit of prayer and benevolence in the hearts of God s people; and finally, and principally, his short and interesting career, and, perhaps, more than all, his widely lamented death, should originate and mature a scheme of missions to those islands, the present aspect of which presents scenes of interest scarcely inferior to those of the apostolic age. Behold, what a great matter a little fire kindieth!
But there is another aspect in which we must view the pleasing interposition. While Henry Obookiah was being used as the hand of Providence in preparing (through Mills and Hall, Griffin and Dwight, and others on whom his influence bore,) the American church to engage in a plan of benevolent action, definitely directed towards the islands of the Pacific, there was a process transpiring at the islands still more interesting, if possible, and more strongly marked as the handiwork of God. Already had the decree passed for the destruction of idolatry, and those islands, too, were waiting for the law of their God.
Fragments of Hawaiian History as Recorded by John Papa I'i, Translated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Edited by Dorothy B. Barreré, Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 70, Bishop Museum Press, 1983 Revised Edition.
Henry Opukaha'ia's brush with death as a child may have been at a battle in Ka'u in 1798 when Kamehameha battled Namakeha, who had started a rebellion there.
Henry Opukaha'ia left Kealakekua in 1806 at time of epidemic call 'oku'u disease.
I'i says missionaries from New England came to Hawaii as a result of God calling Opukaha'ia to the United States.