Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Governor of Oʻahu
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1795-1900
History
The 1840 Kumukānāwai (Constitution) of the Hawaiian Kingdom--the founding document of the constitutional monarchy in the Islands--designated 4 island governors who were subject to the monarch.
Places
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Articles 23-26 of the 1840 Kumukānāwai specified the kuleana (responsibilities/privileges) of kiaʻāina (governors) which included appointing and supervising all judges and tax assessors over their respective island(s). All kiaʻāina were considered "superior" over their islands with charge of all munitions of war, forts, and soldiery subject to the mōʻī (monarch) and the kuhina nui (premier). The governor had full charge of all business of the mōʻī on the island with the power to "decide all questions, and transact all island business which is not by law assigned to others." All "important" decisions in times of emergency rested with the governor unless the mōʻī or kuhina nui was present. If a governor died in office, the mōʻī called an assembly of chiefs to gather and nominate a new governor who would be approved by the mōʻī.
Mandates/sources of authority
Ke Kumu Kanawai a me Na Kanawai o ko Hawaii Pae Aina [1840] (Constitution and Laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom [1840]
Internal structures/genealogy
The 1893 coup that toppled the Hawaiian monarchy replaced the executive branch of government--Mōʻīwahine (Queen) Liliʻuokalani and her cabinet--all other positions of government continued on as before. Article 93 section 2 of the July 4, 1894, Constitution of the Republic of Hawaiʻi vacated and made null and void all commissions issued under the monarchy and/or provisional government. The organic act of 1900 that created a government for the Territory of Hawaiʻi that replaced the former position of "island(s) governor," of which there were four, with a single territorial governor with different kuleana attached.