He was named Kauikeaouli (placed in the dark clouds) Kaleiopapa Kuakamanolani Mahinalani Kalaninuiwaiakua Keaweaweʻulaokalani (the red trail or the roadway by which the god descends from heaven) after his maternal grandfather Kīwalaʻō.

[6]: 8 Kauikeaouli was cleansed, laid on a rock, fanned, prayed over and sprinkled with water until he breathed, moved and cried.

[citation needed] He was torn between the Puritan Christian guidelines imposed on the kingdom by the kuhina nui (Queen Regent) who was his stepmother Kaʻahumanu, and the desires to honor the old traditions.

Under the influence of Oʻahu's then governor, Boki, and a young Hawaiian-Tahitian former priest named Kaomi, Kauikeaouli's aikāne partner, he rebelled against his partial Christian upbringing.

In ancient Hawaii, the upper classes considered a marriage with a close royal family member to be an excellent way to preserve pure bloodlines.

He had loved his sister Nāhiʻenaʻena and planned to marry her since childhood, but the union was opposed by the missionaries due to their perceptions of incest.

[8] It was proposed in 1832 that Kamanele, the daughter of Governor John Adams Kuakini, would be the most suitable in age, rank, and education for his queen.

Richards (although he had no legal training himself) gave classes to Kamehameha III and his councilors on the Western ideas of rule of law and economics.

[10]: 343 In 1839, under a French threat of war, Roman Catholicism was legalized in the Edict of Toleration and the first statutory law code was established.

[15] This laid the groundwork for the establishment of judicial and executive branches of government, and a system of land ownership was implemented under the Mahele in 1848.

[14] The Kumu Kānāwai was primarily based on Hawaii's indigenous traditions, various laws enacted since 1823, and the principles of the Christian Bible.

Kamehameha III was happy to support the explorers, and appointed missionary doctor Gerrit P. Judd to serve as translator.

Less than five months later, British Admiral Richard Thomas rejected Paulet's actions and the kingdom was restored on July 31.

July 31 was celebrated thereafter as Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day, an official national holiday of the kingdom.

Under Kamehameha III, Hawaii rapidly transitioned from indigenous traditions to a new legal system based on Anglo-American common law.

The domination of his cabinet by Americans (balanced only by Scot Wyllie and half-Hawaiian Keoni Ana) also discouraged the people.

Local Hawaiian magistrates became Circuit Judges, and a Supreme Court was formed with Lee, Andrews, and John Papa ʻĪʻī as members.

Previously the long trips around Cape Horn or from Europe meant infected sailors were either recovered or buried at sea by the time they arrived.

[20]: 415 In 1851, Scottish-Australian entrepreneur and sailor Benjamin Boyd convinced King Kamehameha III to become regent of a Pacific empire ranging from Hawaii and the Marquesas to Samoa and Tonga.

By the end of 1853 the threats, whether real or imagined, caused petitions for the king to consider annexation to the United States.

They carried with them a letter of introduction that bore the official seal of King Kamehameha III, the then-ruling monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.

The British minister William Miller and French representative Louis Emile Perrin objected to the plan.

New U.S. Commissioner David L. Gregg received instructions from Secretary of State William L. Marcy and negotiated a treaty of annexation with Wyllie by August 1854.

He gave us a Constitution and fixed laws; he secured the people in the title to their lands, and removed the last chain of oppression.