Victoria Kamāmalu Kaʻahumanu IV (November 1, 1838 – May 29, 1866) was Kuhina Nui of Hawaii and its crown princess.

Born at the Honolulu Fort, on November 1, 1838, she was the only daughter of Elizabeth Kīnaʻu (Kaʻahumanu II) and her third husband Mataio Kekūanaōʻa.

[5][6][7] Having given away her previous four sons, Kīnaʻu refused to give her only remaining daughter in hānai to John Adams Kuakini who wanted to take her to be raised on the Big Island.

[12][13] She was expected from birth to one day succeed to the position of Kuhina Nui if not the office of monarch, so she was educated by the Cookes with full attention to what political roles she might play in the near future.

[16][17] Princess Victoria Kamāmalu was appointed as Heiress Presumptive to the title of Kuhina Nui in 1850, to be the successor to Keoni Ana.

According to Robert Crichton Wyllie, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a trusted friend of the royal family, opponents of the new king were planning to overthrow him and place his sister Princess Victoria on the throne instead.

In 1862, Victoria and her brother Lot were officially added to the line of succession in an amendment to the 1852 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

[21] Victoria constitutionally assumed the power of state for a day when her brother Kamehameha IV died leaving no designated heirs in 1863.

Section II Article 47 of the 1852 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom provided that the Kuhina Nui (Premier), in absence of a monarch, would fill the vacant office.

In fact Kamehameha IV had tried to split them apart by engaging Victoria to David Kalākaua, and Lunalilo to Lydia Kamakaʻeha.

"[30] Liliʻuokalani, remaining silent on the royal scandal, mentioned that the match was ultimately terminated when the princess decided to renew her on-and-off betrothal to Lunalilo.

[31][32] Historian Kīhei de Silva noted that Kalākaua was willing in the union, but Kamāmalu refused the match.

Musically gifted, she was an accomplished pianist and vocalist, and she sat at the melodeon and led the choir of Kawaiahao Church for many years.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Crichton Wyllie, considered it improper that a royal princess would sing in a choir and tried to convince her to stop, but she stayed loyal to the American missionaries at Kawaiahao.

[34][35] She was also a poet and chanter and composed chants and mele in the traditional Hawaiian style including many on her nephew Prince Albert Kamehameha.

[36][37] In 1863, Victoria founded the Kaʻahumanu Society, an organization concerned with the welfare of the ill and elderly Hawaiians, originally to nurse the victims of the smallpox epidemic.

[41] The Honolulu English language newspaper The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported, "On Sunday she was better, but her disease took an unfavorable turn soon after".

[42][43] Mark Twain was in Honolulu at the time and wrote favorably of her in his public correspondence to the Sacramento Daily Union.

Victoria died without a written will, so her vast landholdings, including much of the original private lands of her mother and Queen Kaʻahumanu, were inherited by her father and eventually passed to her half-sister Keʻelikōlani who willed them to Bernice Pauahi Bishop and from whence they became part of the Kamehameha Schools.

The Kaʻahumanu Society went to the wayside after her death, but Lucy Kaopaulu Peabody reorganized the club in 1905, and it continues to this day.

The legislature had to raise $6,000 for her funeral expenses including a coffin made from fine kou and koa wood.

Writing in high revolutionary fervor of the days immediately following the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Professor William DeWitt Alexander remarked: It is true that the germs of many evils of Kalakaua's reign may be traced to the reign of Kamehameha V. The reactionary policy of that monarch is well known.

He didn't understand that for the last years of the Princess' life, she had become disillusioned with Western modernization and retreated to the ancient Hawaiian traditions, and the funeral ceremonies were her brother's way of honoring her dying wishes.