1790 Footprints - The Time of Unification

The Time of Unification

The 1782 Battle of Mokuʻōhai gave Kamehameha I control of the West and North sides of the island of Hawaiiʻi, but Keōua Kuahuʻula and his uncle Keawemauhili were able to escape.

For a few years, Kamehameha was occupied with Maui and the arrival of Europeans to Kona, Keōua ruled Kaʻū and Keawemauhili ruled Hilo.

Keawemauhili finally recognized Kamehameha as his help. This angered Keōua who raided some of the lands of Kamehameha while he was in Maui at the Battle of Kepaniwai.

Keōua then attacked and killed his uncle at Hilo. Kamehameha returned from Maui to the Big Island, and Keōua ambushed them in a thick forest of Paʻauhau, but the battle was inconclusive (near coordinates 20°3′45″N 155°26′59″W / 20.06250°N 155.44972°W / 20.06250; -155.44972 (Paauhau)). Kamehameha counterattacked and drove Keōua back, in what is known as the Battle of Koapapaʻa. Kamehameha had brought a cannon salvaged from the ship Fair American captured at Kaʻūpūlehu. Keōua captured the piece, but did not have gunpowder nor expertise to use it effectively. After heavy losses on both sides, the commanders each decided to retreat to their secure territory.

The footprints were thought to have been left by Keōua's forces in their retreat. While passing Kīlauea, they made offerings to the goddess Pele and made camp. As the volcano started to erupt, they thought they might have made some offense, so he split his group into three and stayed to make more offerings. Two parties of warriors were overwhelmed by a pyroclastic eruption while crossing the desert. Only one party of three survived the eruption. The footprints were attributed by early geologist Thomas Jaggar to those warriors who were killed in this event. Keōua would be killed later in 1791 at Kawaihae.

The Ancient Hawaiians kept elaborate oral histories, but did not accurately count years from the Christian era. One important event in the oral history was Ke one helelei which means "the falling sand" in the Hawaiian Language. This corresponded to an eruption witnessed in 1790 by British sailor John Young. It probably was given the specific name because it was an unusual kind of eruption for Hawaiian volcanoes. Surveyor Frederick S. Lyman used the 1790 date to estimate people's birthdates during his 1857 tax assessment.