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From Oʻahu the Hawaiian Kingdom grew. Honolulu, with the only sheltered deep-water harbor for miles, became the capital around 1850 and the hub of the islands' trade — sandalwood, then whaling fleets, then sugar and pineapple — drawing missionaries and merchants and, to the plantations, waves of immigrant labor from Japan, Okinawa, Portugal, China and the Philippines. The monarchy raised ʻIolani Palace there in 1882 — the only royal palace on American soil, lit by electricity before the White House — and ruled from its halls. Around it stood the Kingdom's Honolulu: Kawaiahaʻo Church of 1842, the "Westminster Abbey of Hawaiʻi," and the gilded statue of Kamehameha that still faces the old courthouse. This was the heart of a sovereign Hawaiian nation.
People have gathered here for more than a thousand years. Polynesian voyagers settled Oʻahu from the south, raising taro in its valleys, walling fishponds along its reefs, and building heiau across the island — among them Puʻu o Mahuka above the North Shore, the largest temple site on Oʻahu. The island's defining moment came in 1795, when King Kamehameha I landed his war canoes on the south shore and met the forces of Kalanikūpule in the steep Nuʻuanu Valley. The fighting climbed the ridge to the cliffs of the Nuʻuanu Pali, where hundreds of defenders were driven over the precipice. With that victory Kamehameha took Oʻahu and all but completed the unification of the Hawaiian Islands — Kauaʻi would join by negotiation in 1810 — and the island stood at the center of the new kingdom.
Why People Visit Oʻahu
Oʻahu offers the whole of Hawaiʻi in one place: deep history and living culture, world-famous surf, a great multicultural city, and beaches for every mood. It is where most visitors begin — and, for the million people who live here, simply home, the island where Hawaiʻi gathers.
