Kawānanakoa, ‘last Hawaiian princess’ dies at 96

HONOLULU (AP) — Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawānanakoa, the so-named very last Hawaiian princess whose lineage provided the royal family members that at the time ruled the islands and an Irish businessman who became a single of Hawaii’s biggest landowners, died on Sunday. She was 96.

Her demise was announced Monday morning at ʻIolani Palace, America’s only royal residence where the Hawaiian monarchy dwelled but now serves mainly as a museum. The announcement came from Paula Akana, government director of ʻIolani Palace, and Hailama Farden, of Hale O Nā Aliʻi O Hawaiʻi, a royal Hawaiian society.

No result in of dying was presented.

She held no official title but was a residing reminder of Hawaii’s monarchy and a symbol of Hawaiian nationwide identity that endured immediately after the kingdom was overthrown by American businessmen in 1893.

“She was always termed princess between Hawaiians for the reason that Hawaiians have acknowledged that lineage,” Kimo Alama Keaulana, assistant professor of Hawaiian language and scientific studies at Honolulu Neighborhood University, said in a 2018 job interview. “Hawaiians keep dear to genealogy. And so genealogically talking, she is of superior royal blood.”

He referred to as her “the very last of our alii,” utilizing the Hawaiian word for royalty: “She epitomizes what Hawaiian royalty is – in all its dignity and intelligence and art.”

James Campbell, her good-grandfather, was an Irish businessman who built his fortune as a sugar plantation owner and a person of Hawaii’s most significant landowners.

He married Abigail Kuaihelani Maipinepine Brilliant. Their daughter, Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa, married Prince David Kawānanakoa, who was named an heir to the throne.

After the prince died, his widow adopted younger Abigail, which strengthened her assert to a princess title. She acknowledged in an interview with Honolulu Magazine in 2021 that experienced the monarchy survived, her cousin Edward Kawānanakoa would be in line to be the ruler, not her.

“Of training course, I would be the energy driving the throne, there’s no concern about that,” she joked.

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As an only child of an only child, Kawānanakoa obtained more Campbell dollars than everyone else and amassed a have faith in valued at about $215 million.

She funded numerous causes around the many years, together with scholarships for Indigenous Hawaiian pupils, opposing Honolulu’s rail transit venture, supporting protests versus a large telescope, donating products owned by King Kalākaua and Queen Kapiʻolani for general public display, which includes a 14-carat diamond from the king’s pinky ring, and protecting ʻIolani Palace.

Critics have reported due to the fact there are other remaining descendants of the royal spouse and children who do not claim any titles, Kawānanakoa was held up as the last Hawaiian princess simply just because of her prosperity and honorific title.

Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte claimed a lot of Hawaiians are not interested in no matter whether she was a princess and that her impact on Indigenous society was minimal.

“We didn’t fairly understand what her role was and how she could aid us,” Ritte reported.

Numerous Hawaiians couldn’t relate to her, he claimed. “We call it the substantial maka-maks,” he mentioned using a Hawaii Pidgin phrase that can imply upper-class.

Born in Honolulu, Kawānanakoa was educated at Punahou, a prestigious prep university. She also attended an American university in Shanghai and graduated from the all-woman Notre Dame Large School in Belmont, California, in which she was a boarding scholar.

She was engaged briefly to a person, but most of her very long-phrase interactions were with ladies.

“She was often curious about what people would do for revenue,” said Jim Wright, who was her personalized attorney due to the fact 1998 right up until she fired him in 2017 in the course of a bitter court docket battle more than manage of her trust.

He recalled a time when the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu requested for a $100,000 gift to mark the canonization of St. Marianne. She told him she would give the church the cash only if she could get a image of Pope Benedict XVI accepting her look at, Wright reported.

When the bishop agreed, Kawānanakoa was upset. “She was truly hoping they would inform her to excitement off,” Wright mentioned.

Meanwhile, she uncovered the Dalai Lama’s refusal to accept her monetary gifts in 2012 satisfying, Wright mentioned: “She was so delighted that anyone in fact experienced some integrity.”

Just one of her passions was breeding racehorses.

She was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2018, with the American Quarter Horse Affiliation noting she was the industry’s “all-time main woman breeder at the reins of an procedure that has made the earners of more than $10 million.”

One particular of her horses, A Basic Dash, won $1 million in 1993 in New Mexico’s All-American Futurity.

Aside from drawing attention with her racehorses, Kawānanakoa received notoriety when she sat on an ʻIolani Palace throne for a Lifestyle magazine image shoot in 1998. She harmed some of its fragile threads.

The uproar led to her ouster as president of Buddies of ʻIolani Palace, a place she held for much more than 25 a long time.

The battle in excess of regulate of her belief began when a judge accredited Wright as a trustee following she experienced a stroke. She claimed she was not impaired, fired Wright and married Veronica Gail Well worth, her companion of 20 several years.

Court docket filings in the circumstance alleged the spouse physically abused Kawānanakoa. Lawyers for the few disputed the claims.

In 2018, Kawānanakoa tried to amend her trust make certain that her wife would get $40 million and all her personal residence, in accordance to courtroom documents.

In 2020, a choose ruled that Kawānanakoa was not able to handle her residence and enterprise affairs simply because she was impaired.

For hearings in the situation, her spouse would travel them to a handicapped stall in the vicinity of the back entrance of a downtown Honolulu courthouse in a black Rolls Royce.

“My wife? Oh, wifey,” she reported in a online video job interview her publicist released in 2019 to respond to allegations lifted in the court case, which include how her spouse was managing her. “If it wasn’t for Gail, I wouldn’t be as standard as you see me now,” she reported in the video demonstrating her coiffed hair, built-up face and crimson manicure.

It was “heartbreaking,” she mentioned, to be not able to fulfill her obligation to the Hawaiian persons amid legal wrangling more than her believe in.

“My heritage dictates that I will have to get treatment of the Hawaiian people today,” she stated in the course of just one court docket hearing.

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This variation corrects the spelling of Kawānanakoa in the headline.