01/06/2026
This is what it's like to live according to your principles. And to offer leadership
She owned nine percent of Hawaiʻi.
She spoke English—but refused to use it.
She lived in a grass house by choice.
And she made sure her people would never be erased.
Her name was Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani, and she spent her life proving that power did not require surrender.
Born in 1826, Ruth came from the highest Hawaiian royal bloodlines on both sides of her family. She was aliʻi by birth—nobility whose authority was unquestioned long before she ever spoke. But she grew up watching her world unravel.
Christian missionaries arrived during her childhood, determined to “save” Hawaiians by stripping away their culture. Hula was banned. Traditional religion was condemned. Hawaiians were pressured to dress like New Englanders, speak English, and abandon the gods their ancestors had honored for centuries. Although the kapu system had been officially abolished in 1819, by the time Ruth came of age most of the royal family had converted to Christianity.
Most—but not Ruth.
She continued practicing the old religion. She honored the traditional gods. She performed forbidden rituals openly, daring anyone to stop her. No one did—because Ruth was too powerful.
She became Royal Governor of Hawaiʻi Island, one of the most influential positions in the kingdom. And she enforced one rule that infuriated Westerners:
She would not speak English. Ever.
Ruth understood English perfectly. She could read it, follow political negotiations, and grasp complex discussions. But if someone wanted to speak to her, they spoke Hawaiian—or they brought a translator. Missionaries, businessmen, diplomats, foreign royalty—it made no difference.
Hawaiian. Or nothing.
This was the mid-to-late 1800s. American and European interests were rapidly taking control of Hawaiʻi’s economy. Hawaiian language was being pushed out of schools. Children were punished for speaking their own tongue.
And there sat Princess Ruth, one of the most powerful women in the islands, forcing English speakers to meet her on Hawaiian terms.
She owned a Western-style mansion and had the wealth to live however she pleased. Instead, she chose to live in a hale pili—a traditional Hawaiian grass house. Not as a symbol. Not as a performance. As her home.
She slept there. She governed there. She received guests there.
Her message was unmistakable: I can afford your world. I choose mine.
By the 1870s, Ruth was the largest private landowner in Hawaiʻi, controlling approximately 353,000 acres—nearly nine percent of the entire island chain. She could have sold it. Profited. Aligned herself with the foreign powers dismantling the kingdom.
She didn’t.
She understood what was coming. She saw American business interests tightening their grip. She watched the monarchy weaken. She knew Hawaiʻi might not survive as an independent nation.
So she made a decision that would echo for generations.
When Ruth died in 1883, she left everything—her land, her wealth, her power—to her cousin Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Bernice placed that land into a trust, which became Kamehameha Schools—educational institutions created specifically for Native Hawaiian children.
Today, Kamehameha Schools is among the wealthiest private school systems in the United States, serving thousands of Native Hawaiian students. It exists because Ruth Keʻelikōlani refused to sell out, refused to assimilate, and refused to let her land be divided by people who did not understand its meaning.
Ruth lived through the systematic destruction of her culture. She watched her religion outlawed, her language suppressed, her people devastated by foreign disease, her kingdom carved apart for profit.
Her response was not silence.
She lived louder.
Speaking Hawaiian when told to speak English was resistance.
Sleeping in a grass house when told to live Western was resistance.
Practicing the old religion when told to convert was resistance.
Refusing to explain herself in English was resistance.
She used her power not to rise within the Western system, but to carve out space where Hawaiian culture could survive when the world insisted it should vanish.
Princess Ruth died in 1883—ten years before the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, fifteen years before U.S. annexation. She did not live to see the kingdom fall.
But she lived long enough to build something that would outlast it.
More than 140 years later, Hawaiian children still walk on land she protected. Hawaiian language and culture still thrive in spaces her vision made possible. Every graduate of Kamehameha Schools carries forward her defiance.
Most Americans have never heard her name.
But Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani is still winning.
Because every time Hawaiian culture is reclaimed, every time the language is spoken, every time a Native Hawaiian child is educated on Hawaiian land—that is her legacy.
She refused to disappear.
And she made sure her people never would either.
