As part of my ongoing moʻokūʻauhau research, and from a deep love of history,
I’ve been sitting with an important question:
What were our people actually
saying in their own voices during these pivotal moments in Hawaiian history?
Too
often, the story of Hawaiʻi in 1893 is told about us, rather than by us. The
narratives that most people encounter are filtered through foreign newspapers,
official government reports, or later historical interpretations.
But our kūpuna
were writing, publishing, debating, praying, warning, grieving, and hoping, in
ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, and in real time.
To better understand that lived reality, I
decided to return to the source.
While researching my own genealogy, I found
myself repeatedly turning to Hawaiian-language newspapers. (Papakilo) In them, I
heard something unmistakable: clarity, restraint, faith, fear, resistance,
unity, and deep aloha ʻāina, all expressed directly by the poʻe of that time.
I
wanted to know:
- What were people reading day to day?
- How were they being instructed, comforted, or warned?
- What emotions were moving through the lāhui in January 1893?
So I began translating entries from Ka Leo o ka Lāhui for the
entire month of January 1893. I chose January deliberately. It is currently
January 2026, and I wanted to align past and present, and to sit with the same month,
133 years apart, and listen carefully.
This post marks the beginning of a
monthly series on this independent blog. Each month, I will share translated
newspaper content from the same month in 1893, and hopefully, if time permits, I
will continue on to the proceeding years, and different nupepa.
I am choosing to
focus for now, on Ka Leo o ka Lāhui.
Why Ka Leo o ka Lāhui? I want to be
transparent about why I chose it as the first newspaper for this
translation project. For now, this choice is intentional.
Ka Leo o ka Lāhui was
one of the most overtly aloha ʻāina, nationalist, and lāhui-centered newspapers
of its time. It was not neutral. It did not pretend to be detached. It spoke
from within the lāhui, to the lāhui, during a moment when Hawaiian sovereignty
was under direct threat.
What Ka Leo o
ka Lāhui Stood For
The title itself—The Voice of the Nation—was not symbolic. It
was literal. This paper stood for:
- Aloha ʻāina
- Loyalty to the Queen
- Nonviolent resistance
- Faith, restraint, and unity
- Political awareness and lāhui discipline
In January 1893 especially, Ka Leo o ka Lāhui functioned almost like a
collective pule and public instruction—urging calm, discouraging violence,
calling for prayer, patience, and moral clarity. Reading it day after day makes
one thing clear:
Our kūpuna were not confused, passive, or unaware. They were
thinking carefully, responding ethically, and speaking deliberately.
I want to
be clear that this is only the beginning. My hope is to eventually translate and
share content from multiple Hawaiian-language newspapers, representing a range
of perspectives, regions, and editorial voices, so that our people can see the
full landscape of Hawaiian thought during this time.
For now, I began with Ka
Leo o ka Lāhui because:
- It is grounded in aloha ʻāina leadership
- It reflects a clear lāhui-centered worldview
- It allows us to hear Hawaiians speaking to Hawaiians, without mediation
As this project grows, so will the papers I work
with. Always with care, transparency, and respect for the source. This work is
about restoring proximity to our kūpuna’s words, not replacing them.
The ʻŌlelo
Hawaiʻi primary source will always be shown alongside my English translation.
My
goal is not to reinterpret history, but to make space for the original voices to
be heard. This January post contains the full month of January 1893 as it
appeared in Ka Leo o ka Lāhui, including editorials, notices, prayers,
reflections, and warnings issued during the days surrounding the overthrow. (I
will only be translating the political articles, which usually starts on page 2)
Translation Disclaimer (Please Read)
These translations were completed solely
for my own independent research and understanding, and are shared here in that
same spirit. To ensure the highest level of care and accuracy possible:
- All translations were completed with the assistance of a trained GPT language model
- That model was trained using currently accepted Hawaiian-language resources, including:
- Wehewehe
- Ulukau (the Hawaiian Electronic Library)
- Digitized Hawaiian Language Books and newspaper archives
I also cross-referenced content using the
Papakilo Database, allowing readers to trace each article back to its original
source
That said: Hawaiian is a deeply contextual, poetic, and layered language. Some meanings may allow for multiple interpretations.
**These translations should
not be treated as legal, academic, or definitive; only as a good-faith
attempt to understand what was written. If you are a fluent speaker, scholar, or
learner and notice nuance worth discussing, I welcome you to the conversation, with
respect and humility.
This work matters to me, because it not just about
rewriting history. It’s about listening. It’s about slowing down enough to hear
how our kūpuna spoke to one another in moments of fear, discipline, unity, and
prayer. It’s about recognizing that they were not silent, passive, or
unaware, but deeply engaged with what was happening around them. Most of all,
it’s about honoring their voices without extracting them from their context.
This blog is a personal, independent project. It is not
affiliated with any institution, organization, or publication. I share it simply
because I believe these voices deserve to be heard, and because understanding
them has changed how I understand this history.
Mahalo for reading, for
listening, and for sitting with these words alongside me.
E hoʻolohe kākou. E
mālama i ka leo o ka lāhui.
Note: All blue text is clickable links.
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