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One could argue that it all started with the group of students who found him sitting on the steps of their college with tears running down his face. When the students asked the youth why he was crying, the young man turned to them and, so the story goes, lamented that "nobody gives me learning."
It was a fortuitous meeting. This was no ordinary school. He happened to be crying on the steps of Yale College. It was also an extraordinary time for men like him.
Edwin Dwight was a senior among the group who found him. He was so deeply moved by the young man's plea that he took him to the college president. The president heard his tale and took him in as his personal student. He taught him to read and write. Soon he was off to another school in Connecticut. And so began the education of Henry Opukahaia.
How did a Native Hawaiian sailor end up crying on the steps of Yale College in the early 19th century?
In his memoirs, Opukahaia describes his childhood among the wilds of Ka'u on the Big Island. An orphan at 15 after watching both his parents murdered in regional warfare, Opukahaia wanted to leave Hawaii. In 1808 he got his chance when he befriended an American sea captain. They sailed from Kealakekua to New England, where he lived with the sea captain for a few weeks. It was not long before he was on his own and wandering about New Haven when the students found him reduced to tears at Yale.
Obookiah, as he was known to the Yankees, quickly became a Christian. He joined the Congregational Church in Connecticut, which was heavily influenced by the doctrines of Calvinism at the time.
His timing was excellent. Opukahaia's conversion to Christianity intersected with a massive religious movement sweeping through the United States. Scholars would later refer to it as the Second Great Awakening, when large revivals in Protestant churches electrified the Eastern Seaboard and parts of the South.
The converted Opukahaia was one of four other young Hawaiian men in New England who joined the Congregationalists. They toured the countryside with ministers encouraging churchgoers to spread the news of their God to every corner of the world -- even their island homelands. If they were unwilling to leave their homes, they urged folks to raise money for those who would travel.
Opukahaia proved to be a persuasive speaker and an inspiration for New Englanders. His old friend Edwin Dwight, who found Opukahaia that day at Yale, would later write that that Opukahaia "has done much in this region to wipe off this disgrace thrown upon the heathen, and to remove the objection so often made."
The converted Hawaiians helped inspire the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first American missionary society founded in 1810. It was interdenominational, but largely represented by Presbyterians and Opukahaia's own Congregationalists.
The ABCFM's mission was simple and straightforward: to spread the gospel to every person all over the world. The devout set out to live among Cherokee tribes in Tennessee, peoples of Western India, the inhabitants of island of Ceylon, and, of course, the people of Opukahaia's own Sandwich Islands.
Opukahaia planned to be part of that mission and return home. He showed great promise and influence and would be an asset in learning the language of the Hawaiians. But that would never be.
In 1818, the young convert contracted typhus and died in Cornwall, Conn. His gravestone read "In Memory of HENRY OBOOKIAH a native of OWHYHEE. His arrival in this country gave rise to the Foreign mission school, of which he was a worthy member." He was 26.
His death was not in vain. The ABCFM sent 12 companies of missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands over the next 20 years after Opukahaia's death. The first set sail from on Oct. 8, 1819 on a 164-day voyage.
The missionaries would have no idea that while the brig the Thaddeus sailed down the East Coast and rounded South America, the indigenous religion of the Hawaiian Islands and the kapu system was in flux.
When they reached Kawaihae on the Big Island in late March 1820, Liholiho had abolished the kapu system. Interpreting the end of the indigenous religion as a sign of divine providence, they sang, "Wake, isles of the South! Your redemption is near."
The missionary influence in Hawaii cannot be overstated. These dedicated couples (they were always married; missionaries were required to wed before leaving) aspired to convert Hawaiians to their faith. Along the way, they put the oral Hawaiian language into print and promoted literacy. They served as advisers to chiefs and kings. Many would leave the islands, but some stayed behind after their missionary service to serve the kingdom.
Of course, their children would later become large landowners and aggressive capitalists. The Baldwins on Maui, the Castles on Oahu, the Lymans on the Big Island were all missionary stock.
But what about Henry Opukahaia? Nearly 175 years after his death, his descendants helped him achieve his dream. Through quiet ceremonies in Connecticut and Hawaii, his earthly remains returned to the Big Island. He was reinterred at the Kahikolu Congregational Church in Napo'opo'o, Kona. The young man whose tears at Yale changed the course of Hawaii forever returned home.
* Ben Lowenthal is a trial and appellate lawyer, currently with the Office of the Public Defender, who grew up on Maui. His email is 808stateofaloha@gmail.com. "The State of Aloha" alternates Fridays with Sarah Ruppenthal's "Neighbors."