Kaʻahumanu

Kaʻahumanu was the favourite and most politically powerful wife of Kamehameha I and, as kuhina nui, co-ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom under his first two successors. Born at Hāna on Maui, she married Kamehameha at thirteen. After his death in 1819 she shared power with Kamehameha II and, with Keōpūolani and the high priest Hewahewa, brought about the end of the kapu. In 1821 she and Kamehameha II had Kaumualiʻi of Kauaʻi kidnapped, and she married him by force. She converted to Protestant Christianity in 1824, ordered the first Catholic missionaries to leave in 1827, banned the hula in 1830, and died near Honolulu in 1832.