Henry Martyn Whitney, the son of missionaries[2] began Kuokoa to run alongside his other publication, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser soon afterwards.

Whitney himself was heavily influenced by American values, supported annexation, and held the Hawaiian people with little regard.

Kamehameha III had resisted the Calvinist Church for decades but in later years the missionaries went almost uncontested after the Mahele was forced into place.

[6] Henry Martyn Whitney, the son of missionaries, had begun the first independent newspaper in Hawaii called, Pacific Commercial Advertiser in Honolulu on July 2, 1856.

[7] The paper had a regular section devoted to content in Native Hawaiian called Ka Hoku Loa O Hawaii (The Morning Star).

The subscription price was six dollars a year and complaints of only having three-fourths of the paper available in English eventually led to the section being removed after the Pacific Commercial Advertiser stopped publishing for a short period.

Both the Ka Hoku Loa and the government paper encouraged colonial support and condemning native culture and practices.