Kaiminaauao

Who was Kaiminaauao?

Kaʻiminaʻauao was a Hawaiian princess by adoption to Queen Kalama and King Kamehameha III. She died of the measles at the age of four. She was a member of the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.

Her mother was Analea Keohokālole, and her father was Caesar Kapaʻakea. Both were Hawaiian nobility. She was a younger sister of Moses Kapaʻakea, James Kaliokalani, David Kalākaua, Lydia Kamakaeha, and Anna Kaʻiulani, and she was the older sister of Miriam Likelike, William Pitt Leleiohoku II and Kinini Kapaʻakea. Two of her siblings became rulers after her death.

She was an adopted child, as were most of her siblings. Kamehameha III and his queen, Kalama, were childless at the time because two sons born to Kalama had died before reaching adulthood. Kamehameha III had previously adopted his half-sister Kīnaʻu's son Alexander Liholiho as his heir. Kalama probably wished to have a daughter of her own to raise, so they adopted Kaiminaʻauao. Kaiminaʻauao was the first in her family to be referred as a princess since her foster parents were the sovereign king and queen of the Hawaiian Islands.

The measles, brought to Hilo by an American warship, decimated about a third of the Hawaiian population. Measles, whooping cough and influenza epidemics wiped out 10,000 people, mostly native Hawaiians. Among the high chiefs who died were Moses Kekūāiwa, William Pitt Leleiohoku I, husband of Ruth Keʻelikolani, and the four-year-old Kaiminaʻauao on November 10, 1848. She was interred in the Kalākaua Crypt of the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii at Mauna Ala.