The Providential Life & Heritage of Henry Obookiah: Why Did Missionaries Come to Hawai'i from New England and Tahiti?

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The publication of the Memoirs of Henry Obookiah inspired the sending of the Sandwich Islands Mission to Hawaii from Boston in 1819. Henry Obookiah, a young Native Hawaiian man known in Hawai'i as Opukahaia, in 1808 left his life as an apprentice kahuna at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii Island for the sea. He rose from sailor to scholar to evangelical Christian celebrity in New England. Obookiah's life and death, as told in his memorial biography, made him a leading Second Great Awakening figure in America, Great Britain and beyond. For almost two-hundred years this classic account has stood as Obookiah's definitive biography. Now following a decades-long quest seeking unknown aspects of the life of Henry Obookiah in Hawaii and New England, Hawaii-based author Christopher L. Cook is unveiling The Providential Life & Heritage of Henry Obookiah. This new account of the life and times of Obookiah greatly expands on the Memoirs of Henry Obookiah. Traveling to the places Obookiah journeyed in his pilgrimage of faith, Cook has uncovered a wealth of new and often surprising details. He lays out a providential chain of events that through Obookiah's faith led to Hawaii being declared a Christian kingdom by 1840. New chapters tell of the influence of New Haven sea captain Caleb Brintnall in the life of Obookiah, of the uncovering the 1808 murder in Honolulu of a New Haven ship's officer that likely altered Hawaii's history, of how Obookiah was able to translate Bible scriptures from ancient Hebrew into the Hawaiian language, of the influence of Obookiah and his close friend Hopu in the lives of Harriet Beecher Stowe and other key figures in the anti-slavery movement in America. Cook tells Obookiah's influence being at the foundation of the Sandwich Islands Mission in Hawaii, of the providential arrival of a wave of South Pacific Polynesian influence brought by Tahitian Christians both prior to and following the American missionaries arrival in Hawaii. The Providential Life & Heritage of Henry Obookiah non-fiction account challenges the accuracy, scope, and drama of author James Michener's blockbuster novel Hawaii, in particular his fictional portrayal of the missionaries sent to Hawaii. Hawaii has been read as historical fact by generations of readers, though the acclaimed author's tale is told as historical fiction by Michener, his own fictional interpretation.