Kuamoo Battlefield
Kuamoo Battlefield
Before Kamehameha I died, he named two heirs to his kingdom. To his son, Liholiho, he left his lands and political power. To his warrior nephew, Chief Kekuaokalani, he entrusted his feathered war god, Kukailimoku, a powerful symbol of strength, said to utter cries during battle. After Kamehameha’s death, Liholiho, encouraged by powerful queens, initiated “free eating” at Kamakahonu and declared the old gods dead. Naturally, this angered many Hawaiians, among them Kekuaokalani, who wanted no part of this unexpected “revolution.”
In December 1819, just seven months after the death of Kamehameha I, the allies of his two opposing heirs met in battle on the jagged lava fields south of Keauhou Bay. Liholiho had more men, more weapons and more wealth to ensure his victory. He sent his prime minister, the wily Kalanimoku, to defeat his stubborn cousin.
Kekuaokalani marched up the Kona Coast from Kaawaloa and met his enemies at Lekeleke, just south of Keauhou. The rebel army fought with rusty muskets, as well as with the spears, slingstones and clubs of old Hawaii. Kalanimoku fielded a large force of well-armed and experienced warriors, accustomed to fighting in close quarters. A swivel gun mounted on a double canoe increased their firepower. In spite of this advantage, the first encounter went in favor of Kekuaokalani. At Lekeleke, the king’s army suffered a temporary defeat.
Regrouping his warriors, Kalanimoku fought back and trapped the rebels farther south along the shore in the ahupuaa of Kuamoo. There, pinned between two armies, one on land and the other in a flotilla of canoes along the coast, Kekuaokalani met defeat and death. His valiant wife, Manono, fought bravely on, falling dead beside him at the battle’s end. They are buried together in a stone grave still standing at Kuamoo, not visible from the paved highway.
Liholiho ordered the bodies of his men to be buried beneath the terraced graves at Lekeleke, visible today at the end of Alii Drive. Kekuaokalani’s dead warriors were allowed to be buried as well, and Liholiho pardoned all surviving rebels. It was estimated that hundreds of people were killed in this battle, the last fought in Kona.
The battle of Kuamoo effectively crushed any hope of reviving traditional Hawaiian religion and its accompanying kapu system. Not every custom died out overnight, but without the direct support of Lihiliho, his chiefs, and his kahuna, the ancient religion of the high alii could not survive. However, many Hawaiians continued to honor their personal family gods, their aumakua.
Liholiho did not know it, but as he celebrated the destruction of one religion, another was making its way toward the shores of his tiny kingdom. In just a few months, the brig Thaddeus would drop anchor in Kailua Bay, and American missionaries would bring a new god to Kona’s people.
Copyright 1998 Kona Historical Society. Reprinted by permission.