Colonel Curtis Piʻehu Iaukea[1][2][3][4][5][6] (December 13, 1855 – March 5, 1940) served as a court official, army officer and diplomat of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

He also served as Hawaii's ambassador to Europe and Asia, attending the coronation of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

He served as an officer on the military staff of President Sanford B. Dole and represented the Republic at the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

As one of the last surviving representatives of the Hawaiian royal court, he served as business manager and private secretary to the deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani until her death in 1917.

[7] From his paternal line, he descended from Namiki, a priest of the Pa‘ao order, and Kahiwa Kānekapōlei, a daughter of Kamehameha I.

Renamed Halepoepoe (meaning circular or round house), this building had been turned into a home for royal retainers and the kahu (caretakers) for the reigning King Kamehameha IV.

In later life, Iaukea noted, Of the more vivid and enduring of my boyhood impressions, I recall the days when, as a bare footed urchin of five and six, I used to romp around the Palace Grounds, dancing attendance on royalty in the role of page and valet to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Hawaii — Ka Haku-o-Hawaii, as he was more familiarly known amongst royalty and Hawaiians, then, well on in his fourth year and in the full enjoyment of health and happy childhood.

Around 1862 or 1863, Iaukea was enrolled in St. Alban's College, founded by Bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley and his assistants Archdeacon George Mason and Rev.

[22] In 1871, before leaving Hawaii, Archdeacon Mason informed Iaukea that had Kamehameha IV still been living, he would have intended for him to continue his education in Europe, and eventually to groom him to become an ordained chaplain for the royal family.

After the king's death in 1872, Iaukea briefly left his service to the royal court and moved to Hilo to live with his sister Maraea and her husband Charles Akono Nui Akau, a Chinese-Hawaiian manager of the Paukaʻa Sugar Plantation.

[27] Liliʻuokalani noted her brother's group "consisted in a large degree of the very purest and sweetest male voices to be found amongst the native Hawaiians".

[31][32] At this time, the army of the Kingdom of Hawaii consisted of five volunteer companies, including the Prince's Own, and the regular troops of the King's Household Guard.

[33][34][35] At different times during the king's reign he held the important posts of tax collector for Koolaupoko, member of the Privy Council of State, commissioner to the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in London, member of the Board of Health, disbursing agent for the Royal Guard, collector general of Customs, commissioner of Crown Lands and land agent, and private secretary to the king, as well as other minor positions and appointments.

After a period in the service of this new foreign minister, he was asked to resign by Gibson who appointed his friend Joseph S. Webb to the position instead.

Commissioned as the kingdom's ambassador with the rank of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, he represented Hawaii at the coronation of Tsar Alexander III of Russia on May 27, 1883, and led a subsequent diplomatic tour of the courts of Europe and Japan.

Iaukea later noted, "the sight of my country's flag floating over the entrance to the Hotel Duseaux besides those of the United States and Japan, gave me an added incentive to meet the responsibilities that lay ahead and discharge them with honor".

The two Hawaiians traveled to the courts of Berlin, Vienna, Belgrade, London, Rome, and India and Japan via the Suez Canal.

[7][44] The diplomatic party also included Governor John Owen Dominis, husband of the princess, Colonel James Harbottle Boyd, secretary and attaché to Iaukea, and their attendants.

[38] The monarchy was overthrown on January 17, 1893, by the Committee of Safety, with the support of United States Minister John L. Stevens, and the landing of American forces from the USS Boston.

[53] According to Iaukea, in later life, he decided to continue working for the two subsequent regimes after consulting with the deposed queen and gaining her approval.

From this point his friendship with Liliʻuokalani cooled with Iaukea noting that "my calls on [her] lacked the personal informality of happier days".

[33][55] Having developed a close friendship with the British Crown, Iaukea returned to the United Kingdom to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897.

[7] Representing the Republic, he served at the demoted rank of secretary and military attaché to Special Envoy Samuel Mills Damon.

In the general election of 1904, he unsuccessfully challenged Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, a Republican, for the position of congressional delegate from Hawaii on the Democratic ticket.

He was the one who raised her royal standard (flag) over Washington Place to signal her death, and was in charge of planning Liliʻuokalani's state funeral.

[68] As the last surviving court member of the defunct monarchy, Iaukea was regarded as an important authority on the past during his lifetime but also as a positive example of those who adapted to the changing politics of the islands.

He was also regarded as representing all that was apparently good about becoming American, even though until the end of his life the photos of my great-great-grandfather show him proudly wearing the uniforms and medals that accompanied his trips to faraway places as a diplomat for the Hawaiian Kingdom.

[71] The only daughter of American businessman Frederick Leslie Hanks and Chinese-Hawaiian Akini, Charlotte was of mixed-Caucasian, Native Hawaiian and Chinese descent.

Her father was allegedly a relative of Nancy Hanks, the mother of President Abraham Lincoln, and had settled in Hawaii after his second visit in 1853.

[7][76] Before his death, Iaukea had hired writer and researcher Jeanne Hobbs to write his memoir entrusting her with many of his personal papers.