HENRY OPUKAHA'IA OF HAWAI’I
by Chris Cook
Henry Opukaha'ia (Obookiah) was born in Ka'u, near the village of Punalu'u on the Island of Hawai'i. His approximate birth-year was given as 1792 in New England accounts of his life. However, the Hawaiian language version of his life, published in the late 1860s, claims he was born instead in the late 1780s.
Opukaha’ia was orphaned at the age of 10 or 12 after fleeing a bloody battle between Hawaiian warriors seeking control of the island of Hawai'i. His father was a warrior on the losing, Ka’u side of the battle fought near Hilo against Kamehameha’s warriors. Following traditional practice, the victors attacked villages in the losing district. Opuakah’ia's family fled and his in an upland cave. With his family famishing from lack of water and food his father ventured out of the cave to seek drinking water. He was spotted and ran. His family was captured and his parents were killed in front of him. Opukaha’ia tried to run away with his infant brother on his back, but the infant was killed by a spear intended for him and Opukaha’ia was taken. Considered too young to attack and old enough to be of worth, his life was spared.
Opukaha’ia eventually was given to his uncle, a kahuna or priest of Lono in South Kona at the Hikiau Heiau at Napo'opo'o. Opukaha’ia was again later captured by enemies of his family, faced death, and escaped. Then a great change occurred in his spirit. A desire to leave Hawai'i grew within him and he longed to find comfort in another country. At that time the ship Triumph out of New York and New Haven sailed into Kealakekua Bay and Opukaha’ia swam out to her and climbed aboard. Through an interpreter he asked Captain Caleb Brintnall to take him on as a crewmember. At dinner that night he met Thomas Hopu, another Hawaiian youth from the Island of Hawai’i, and the two became fast friends.
Henry's uncle objected to his leaving, and forced him to return home. However, he soon again escaped. Finally, the uncle realized he couldn't keep his nephew from leaving and consented to his departure, but asked for a pig to sacrifice to his god in return for the boy.
The Triumph set sail for the Pacific Coast of North America to pick up sealers, one of whom, Russell Hubbard, was a Yale student from Connecticut. Six months later the ship returned to Hawai'i, then went on to China, and finally New York. During the long voyage Hubbard tutored Henry and Hopu in English, and taught them about the Bible.
Brintnall brought the two Hawaiian youths to his home in New Haven. Henry worked as a servant and wandered the streets of the seaport of New Haven and became friends with students at Yale, a place he and Hopu found had many young men their ages. Some students witnessed to Henry, and he attended church on Sundays with the Brintnall family.
One day, frustrated by his limited English and a desire to join the students at Yale, Opukaha’ia sat on the threshold of a dorm building at Yale and wept because "nobody gave him learning." He was discovered by Edwin W. Dwight, a Yale student, who began his formal education. Other students were already tutoring Hopu in their dorm rooms.
Opukaha’ia left Brintnall's home and to live and work in the home of Dr. Timothy Dwight, the renowned theologian and president of Yale College, and a distant relative of Edwin Dwight.
Samuel Mills, Jr., son of the well-known, missionary-minded pastor of the Congregational Church at Torringford in the Litchfield region, and one of the Williams College men who began the vision for the American missionary movement at the famous Haystack Meeting in 1806, befriended Opukaha’ia while he stayed with the Dwights.
Mill's went to study theology at the Andover Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts north of Boston and brought Opukaha’ia with him. There the young Hawaiian man made his first attempts at prayer, and his interest in becoming a Christian deepened.
Mills enabled Opukaha’ia to attend academy, high school level, classes at Bradford Academy, located about eight miles north of Andover. He lived in the Hasseltine home at Bradford. Ann Hasseltine, the daughter of Deacon Hassletine, soon after married Adoniram Judson, and the couple were among the first missionary party sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, heading to India in 1812.
In 1814 Opuakaha’ia received support from the churces in Litchfield and prepared to attend the Morris Academy at South Farms, a town just south of Litchfield, Connecticut.
Preparing for his next voyage in 1815, Brintnall offered to sail Opukaha’ia back to Hawai'i, but the young man declined, along with Hopu.
In 1817 Opuakaha’ia joined other young Native Hawaiian men who had found their way to New England, and other foreign students, at the newly created Foreign Mission School in Cornwall in northwest Connecticut, near the border of Massachusetts. Edwin Dwight greeted the students, as the principal of the school.
At the school Opuakaha’ia's goal of being a teacher of the Gospel in Hawai'i began to appear within hand. His studies in Hebrew and English allowed him to translate the book of Genesis into Hawaiian directly from the Hebrew, he began to write a Hawaiian language grammar. Support for sending a missionary party to Hawai'i i - then commonly known as the Sandwich Islands - increased as Opuakaha’ia spoke in many New England churches in support of the American Board’s missionary efforts, challenging young men and women to go on missions outside of the United States. He actively sought to return to Hawai'i as a Bible teacher, and felt a pressing need among the Hawaiian people for salvation. However, it was not to be, for within a year of the opening of the school Opuakaha’ia died of typhus fever and was buried at a hillside cemetery located on the outskirts of the village of Cornwall.
At Opuakaha’ia's funeral in Cornwall, the Rev. Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, said of the Hawaiian Christian's life: "If the churches of New England, knowing the purpose of God concerning Obookiah, had chartered a ship, and sent it to Owhyhee on purpose to bring him to Christ, and fit him for Heaven, it would have been a cheap purchase of blessedness to man, and glory to God."
Following his death, Opuakaha’ia's vision for Hawai'i was widely read about across Federal Era America in the slim book "Memoirs of Henry Obookiah." Edwin Dwight gathered Opuakaha’ia’s letters and added a narrative to the biography, which was first published as a fundraiser for the mission school. Over the 19th century some 50,000 copies were distributed. Native American language and foreign editions of the book were also published. In 1867 a revised edition of the book in the Hawaiian language was published, which included information collected from Native Hawaiians on the Island of Hawai’i who had knowledge of Opuakaha’ia’s life there.
In 1819 the brig Thaddeus left Boston Harbor with the first company of missionaries to Hawai'i. Aboard was Thomas Hopu, Opuakaha’ia's friend from the island of Hawaii. In April, 1820 the missionaries landed at Kailua-Kona, completing Opuakaha’ia’s vision for a mission to Hawai’i.
In 1993, through the efforts of Deborah Lee of Hilo and her family, who are descendants Opuakaha’ia's family, the remains of Opukaha’ia’s were returned to Hawai’i. His grave site at the Kahikolu Congregational Church overlooks Kealakekua Bay where Opukaha’ia’s fateful path to New England began.
Revised and update: September 7, 2009