Historical fidelity may not be “Chief of War’s” strong suit

I spent 12 years researching, writing, and publishing Once There Was Fire, my historical novel about the life of Kamehameha and his fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands, and I'm eager to see how Jason Momoa and his "Chief of War" co-writer Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett treat the historical figures and events I wrote about in my novel. Based on the sketchy information about "Chief of War" provided by Apple TV+'s publicists, I’m skeptical about "Chief of War’s" faithfulness to Hawaiian history and to the Hawaiians’ point of view, which its creators say it represents.

Let’s take the issue of viewpoint first. Apple initially teased “Chief of War” as the story of a “bloody campaign” to unify the Islands to save Hawaiians “from the threat of imminent colonization.” Bloody it certainly was. But the Hawaiians of the late 18th century, when “Chief of War” takes place, were not threatened with colonization, imminent or otherwise. Apple TV+’s publicists have since rephrased the “Chief of War’s” looming peril as an undefined “existential threat.” But the initial colonization angle has stuck and been widely repeated.

While researching and writing my novel, I relied on the works of Samuel Kamakau and Stephen Desha, two Hawaiians who wrote about Hawaiian oral history in Hawaiian, for Hawaiians, in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries respectively, and whose work was later published in English; and on the work of Abraham Fornander, a 19th century Swedish immigrant to Hawaii who championed Hawaiians’ oral traditions and interviewed native Hawaiians for his English-language history of the Hawaiian people. They did not mention threatened colonization, imminent or otherwise. Additionally, the late University of Hawaii professor and Hawaii scholar Ralph Kuykendall never mentioned “colonization” in his exhaustive, three-volume history of the islands’ unification and the Kingdom of Hawaii. You won’t find “colonization” anywhere in the indices of these works.

Moreover, it's improbable that Hawaiians of the late 18th century, who were still isolated from world events, would have known about European colonialism. The idea that Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s day knew of European colonization and worried about it reflects a 21st century sensibility, not theirs. In a word, it’s an anachronism.

The "discovery" of Hawaii by Capt. James Cook in 1778-79 marked the Hawaiians’ first encounter with foreigners, haole, who would visit the islands with increasing frequency during Kamehameha's later fight to unify first, his native Big Island, and then all the islands. Historically, these visitors came as explorers and adventurers, and as China-bound merchantmen who traded manufactured goods for pigs, fruit, and vegetables. They weren’t colonizers.

It is likely that Kamehameha would’ve worried about a more amorphous “existential threat.” When he was still fighting for control of the Big Island, he would’ve learned from John Young and Isaak Davis, two stranded English sailors whom he’d compelled to serve him, that the haole were more numerous than he imagined. He would’ve realized that many more foreigners would come to Hawaii, and he would’ve worried that if the Hawaiian Islands remained divided, his people would be in danger of falling prey to haole more interested in domination than exploration and trade.

Will that be how “Chief of War” contextualizes Kamehameha’s struggle to unify the Hawaiian Islands, or will the series’ characters talk—anachronistically—about threated “colonization”? Stay tuned.

There’s no getting around Momoa’s and Pa‘a Sibbett’s turning history on its head where Ka‘iana, “Chief of War’s” hero, is concerned. Ka‘iana didn’t lead the fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands, Kamehameha did. That’s why I haven’t mentioned Ka‘iana up to now. That’s why Kamehameha, not Ka‘iana, is the throughline of my novel. Ka‘iana is an important and fascinating historical figure to be sure, but he played a supporting role in Kamehameha’s fight. Nevertheless, Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbet have chosen to make Ka‘iana, played by Momoa, the lead. No matter how heroically Momoa plays Ka‘iana in “Chief of War,” the historical Ka‘iana was more an opportunist than a hero.

Before he offered his services to Kamehameha, Ka‘iana had helped Kamehameha’s most fearsome rival, the Maui ruler Kahekili, conquer O‘ahu. Then he turned on Kahekili, supporting the O‘ahu ali‘i (nobles) when they rebelled against him, likely in hopes of gaining land on O‘ahu from a new ruler. When Kahekili put down the rebellion and killed most of the O‘ahu nobles, Ka‘iana escaped to Kaua‘i. From Kaua‘i he took ship for China with the British navigator, explorer, and fur trader, Captain John Meares. Returning a year later with, according to some accounts, a load of haole weapons and ammunition, and no longer welcome on Kaua‘i, Ka‘iana sailed to the Big Island to offer his guns and services to Kamehameha. Likely knowing of Ka‘iana’s checkered past, Kamehameha would’ve been wary of him.

Kamehameha initially welcomed Ka‘iana’s weapons and help. But Ka‘iana later irritated Kamehameha by flirting (and possibly sleeping) with his favorite partner, Ka‘ahumanu. This, despite Kamehameha having declared her kapu—forbidden—to other men. Ka‘iana also alienated Kamehameha’s longstanding allies, who’d fought at his side in earlier battles. They found Ka‘iana arrogant and advised Kamehameha to get rid of him. With his importance to Kamehameha waning and his position among Kamehameha’s older advisers uncertain, Ka‘iana switched sides again, joining forces with Kamehameha’s remaining rival, Kahekili’s son Kalanikūpule, on the eve of the climactic battle for O‘ahu, in which (spoiler alert) he died.

“Chief of War” cannot ignore its hero’s fate and keep faith with history. Which leaves me with this question: How will “Chief of War” portray Ka‘iana’s fatal break with Kamehameha; will Momoa play Ka‘iana as an unjustly maligned hero or as a brilliant warrior undone by his own hubris?

Watch this space for future commentary...