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Julia Fayerweather Afong | |
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![]() Julia Fayerweather Afong in her youth | |
Born | Julia Hope Kamakia Paaikamokalani o Kinau Beckley Fayerweather February 1, 1840 |
Died | February 14, 1919 79) | (aged
Spouse | Chun Afong |
Children | 16 |
Parent(s) | Abram Henry Fayerweather Mary Kekahimoku Kolimoalani Beckley |
Julia Hope Kamakia Paaikamokalani o Kinau Beckley Fayerweather Afong (February 1, 1840 – February 14, 1919) was a Hawaiian high chiefess who married Chinese millionaire merchant Chun Afong with whom she had sixteen children. She was of British, American and Hawaiian descent.
She was born on February 1, 1840, in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, the first-born child and daughter of Abram Henry Fayerweather (1812–1850) and Mary Kekahimoku Kolimoalani Beckley (1820–1850). [1] Her family was considered to be of the aliʻi (noble) class. She was the maternal granddaughter of British Captain George Charles Beckley and Ahia, a distant relation of the reigning House of Kamehameha and descendant of the 15th-century King Līloa. [2] [3] Her two sisters were Mary Jane Fayerweather Davison Montano (1840–1918), who married American pharmacist Benoni Richmond Davison and Colombian photographer Andreas Avelino Montano, and Hannah Fayerweather Bell (1843–1870), who married Thomas Kamukamu Bell. [4] A brother named William Malulani Fayerweather (1841–1843) died young. [1]
On May 28, 1857, she married Chinese millionaire merchant Chun Afong. The wedding ceremony was officiated by American Protestant missionary Reverend Lowell Smith. [1] This marriage connected Afong to the reigning Kamehameha family and the ruling Hawaiian elite class. In 1874, her husband supported the political aspirations of Kalākaua (who shared a wet nurse with Julia and was considered a foster brother). Afong quietly gave financial support to Kalākaua in the election of 1874 against Queen Emma (the widow of Kamehameha IV). After the king's election, he appointed Afong to his Privy Council of State. The family business in Hawaiʻi steadily grew with investments in retail, shipping, opium sales, and sugar and coffee plantations. [5] [6]
After the death of Afong's eldest son Chun Alung in 1889, he sold or reorganized most of his business holdings in Hawaiʻi and invested in the Douglas Steamship Company in Hong Kong. He named Samuel Mills Damon as administrator of an estate left in Hawaiʻi to support Julia and their many children. [7] Afong never returned to Hawaiʻi and died in Hong Kong in 1906. [8]
Julia Afong died in Honolulu, at the age of 79, on February 14, 1919. She was buried at the Oahu Cemetery next to her son Jimmie. [9]
Julia and Afong had sixteen children. The following list of descendants are compiled from the family in Dye's Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: [10] [note 1]
Their sixteen children included: [16]
In 1909, Julia and Afong's life was fictionalized in the short magazine story, “Chun Ah Chun”, by American novelist Jack London. It was later published his 1912 book The House of Pride: And Other Tales of Hawaiʻi. London's highly embellished story of Afong depicts him as a "crafty coolie" who spites the white capitalist establishment through his own business success. He also entices white men with money to marry his racially-mixed daughters across the color-line. [17] Julia was portrayed as "Stella Allendale, herself a subject of the brown-skinned king, though more of Anglo-Saxon blood ran in her veins than of Polynesian". [17] In 1961, his great-grandson Eaton "Bob" Magoon Jr. wrote the book, music and lyrics to 13 Daughters , a short-lived Broadway musical. Don Ameche played the eponymous Chun while Monica Boyar portrayed his wife Emmaloa (based on Julia). [17] [7] [18]
The site of the Afong family's Waikīkī villa, where royalty and dignitaries were entertained, was sold in 1904 to the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the construction of Battery Randolph and Battery Dudley, built to defend Honolulu Harbor from foreign attacks. It is now part of the property of the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaiʻi and Fort DeRussy Military Reservation. An informational marker describing the villa and Afong's legacy and is a stop on the Waikīkī Historic Trail. [19] [20]
Kalākaua, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, reigning from February 12, 1874, until his death in 1891. Succeeding Lunalilo, he was elected to the vacant throne of Hawaiʻi against Queen Emma. Kalākaua was known as the Merrie Monarch for his convivial personality – he enjoyed entertaining guests with his singing and ukulele playing. At his coronation and his birthday jubilee, the hula, which had hitherto been banned in public in the kingdom, became a celebration of Hawaiian culture.
Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili was a Queen consort of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi alongside her husband, Kauikeaouli, who reigned as King Kamehameha III. She chose the baptismal name Hakaleleponi after the Biblical figure Hazzelelponi. Her name Kalama means "the torch" in the Hawaiian language.
The Chinese in Hawaii constitute about 4.7% of the state's population, most of whom (75%) are Cantonese people with ancestors from Zhongshan in Guangdong. This number does not include people of mixed Chinese and Hawaiian descent. If all people with Chinese ancestry in Hawaii are included, they form about 1/3 of Hawaii's entire population. As United States citizens, they are a group of Chinese Americans. A minority of this group have Hakka ancestry.
Kaniakapūpū, known formerly as Luakaha, is the ruins of the former summer palace of King Kamehameha III and Queen Kalama on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Built in the 1840s, and situated in the cool uplands of the Nuʻuanu Valley, it served as the king and queen's summer retreat after the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii moved from Lahaina to Honolulu in 1845. It was famous for being the site of a grand luau attended by an estimated ten thousand guests during the 1847 Hawaiian Sovereignty Restoration Day celebration. The palace had fallen into ruins by 1874; no records exist about its condition in the intervening years. Rediscovered in the 1950s, the site was cleared and efforts were made to stabilize the ruins from further damage by the elements and invasive plant growth. The site remains officially off-limits to the public and trespassers are subjected to citations, although the site is not regularly monitored.
Fort DeRussy is a United States military reservation in the Waikiki area of Honolulu, Hawaii, under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. Unfenced and largely open to public traffic, the installation consists mainly of landscaped greenspace. The former Battery Randolph now houses the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaiʻi, which is open to the public. The Hale Koa Hotel, an Armed Forces Recreation Center, and the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies are also located on Fort DeRussy.
Kinoʻoleoliliha Pitman, also written as Kinoole-o-Liliha, was a high chiefess in the Kingdom of Hawaii. She was known as Mrs. Pitman after her marriage. In the Hawaiian language, kino 'ole means "thin" and liliha can mean "heartsick".
Elizabeth Sumner Chapman Achuck Lapana Keawepoʻoole was a Hawaiian high chiefess during the Hawaiian Kingdom and lady-in-waiting of Princess Likelike. An accomplished Hawaiian composer, she composed the popular Hawaiian love song Sanoe with Queen Liliʻuokalani, which was about a love affair in the Hawaiian royal court in the 1870s.
William Keolaloa Kahānui Sumner, Jr. was a high chief of the Kingdom of Hawaii through his mother's family; his father was an English captain from Northampton. Sumner married a Tahitian princess. Aided by royal family connections, he became a major landowner and politician in Hawaii.
Eliza Meek was the daughter of Captain John Meek, an early American settler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In her early youth, she was renown for her equestrian skills on her father's land. She later became the royal mistress of King Lunalilo and formed a contentious relationship with Queen Emma of Hawaii and was rumored to be the main obstacle between a possible marriage between the two. Along with a group of other members of the royal court, Eliza accompanied the king to Kailua-Kona during his last illness and remained by Lunalilo's side until his death from tuberculosis on his return to Honolulu on February 3, 1874. Little is known about her later life; Eliza was financially well-off until her death on February 8, 1888.
13 Daughters was a short-lived Broadway musical with book, music and lyrics by Eaton Magoon, Jr, starring Don Ameche. It played for 28 performances in 1961. The story was influenced by the life of Magoon's great-grandparents Chun Afong and his wife Julia Fayerweather Afong and their twelve daughters.
After the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Kingdom of Hawaii under King Kamehameha IV declared its neutrality on August 26, 1861. However, many Native Hawaiians and Hawaii-born Americans, abroad and in the islands, enlisted in the military regiments of various states in the Union and the Confederacy.
George Naʻea, was a high chief of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and father of Queen Emma of Hawaii. He became one of the first Native Hawaiians to contract leprosy and the disease became known as maʻi aliʻi in the Hawaiian language because of this association.
George Charles Beckley was an English captain, trader, and military adviser. He was one of the earliest foreigners to have a major impact in the Kingdom of Hawaii, where he eventually became a noble, and was one of the disputed creators of the Flag of Hawaii.
Emma Ahuena Davison Taylor was a part-Native Hawaiian high chiefess during the 20th century. She was a cultural historian, a genealogist, and a repository of Hawaiian culture and history who wrote many articles and recollections about the past and influenced her husband, Albert Pierce Taylor, the author of the historical book Under Hawaiian Skies. She was involved in local philanthropic, historical, and civic groups and participated in the women's suffrage movement in the Territory of Hawaii, campaigning for the rights of local women to vote prior to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Emma ʻAʻima Aʻii Nāwahī was a Native Hawaiian political activist, community leader and newspaper publisher. She and her husband Joseph Nāwahī were leaders in the opposition to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and they co-founded Ke Aloha Aina, a Hawaiian language newspaper, which served as an important voice in the resistance to the annexation of Hawaiʻi to the United States. After annexation, she helped establish the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi and became a supporter of the women's suffrage movement.
Tong Kee, also known as T. Aki, was a Chinese immigrant and businessman who settled in the Kingdom of Hawaii. In 1886–87, he was embroiled in the Aki opium scandal,, a bribery corruption scandal involving King Kalākaua and Junius Kaʻae reneging on a bribe Aki made to secure the sale of an opium license.
Chun Afong was a Chinese businessman and philanthropist who settled in the Hawaiian Kingdom during the 19th century and built a business empire in Hawaii, Macau and Hong Kong. He immigrated to Hawaii from Guangdong in 1849 and adopted the surname Afong after the diminutive form of his Cantonese given name, Ah Fong.
Keanolani was a Hawaiian chiefess (aliʻi) of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She was the illegitimate daughter of Abigail Maheha and King Kamehameha V, who reigned from 1863 to 1872, and was born during a liaison between the two when they were students at the Chiefs' Children's School, a boarding school run by American missionaries for students of Hawaiian royal descent. Keanolani was raised by her father's half-sister Keʻelikōlani. Her illegitimate birth and unacknowledged parentage prevented her from succeeding to the Hawaiian throne when her father died without naming an heir, thus ending the reign of the House of Kamehameha. In 1873, she became a mistress of her uncle by marriage William Hoapili Kaʻauwai. In 1874, she became a supporter of the newly elected House of Kalākaua. She married and left descendants. Her name is also often spelled as Keano or Keanu. In one source, she is named as Keauoʻokalau.
Chun Chik-yu ; June 12, 1859 – October 18, 1936) was a Chinese-Hawaiian businessman who served briefly as Governor of Guangdong Province from 1922 to 1923. He was born Toney Afong, full name Antone Abram Kekapala Keawemauhili Afong.
Chun Lung was a Chinese businessman in the Hawaiian Kingdom. He sometimes used his father's Hawaiianized surname and was known as C. L. Afong. He was also known as Alung or Ah Lung using the common Cantonese diminutive prefix Ah before his given name.
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