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This chapter discusses the commission of the monument of King Kamehameha's in the Hawaii State Archives in Honolulu. The handwritten letters between the artist and the commissioning body are mixed in with photographs, newspaper articles, and other papers that have been accumulated since the late nineteenth century. These articles help reveal how the heated politics of the day fed into the monument's design, by explaining topics such as Thomas R. Gould's neoclassical obsessions as a sculptor, and Walter Murray Gibson's personal ambitions to align himself with the struggling Hawaiian monarchy. Moreover, these articles are stored in an underground vault on the grounds of ʻIōlani Palace.

This introductory chapter describes the monument of King Kamehameha—the chief celebrated for uniting the Hawaiian archipelago in the late eighteenth century and who later became Hawaii's first king—in Kapaʻau. The figure was painted in bright colors by the residents. Kamehameha's skin is brown, his hair is black, and his cloak is yellow. He has white toenails and fingernails, and penetrating black eyes with small white brush strokes for highlights; hence, the figure is similar to a piece of folk art than a nineteenth-century heroic monument. In addition, there is paint on the figure. No one knows the original coating of the monument, but some art historians suggests that the skin was chemically patinated brown and the feathered garments were gold-leafed.

This chapter narrates the events surrounding the sinking of the ship, George F. Haendel, which had carried the sculpture of King Kamehameha. The ship encountered a storm in the south Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. A fire broke out, then the ship struck a reef and sank to the bottom of the sea near the Falkland Islands. The news traveled quickly to Honolulu. Fortunately, the Hawaiian legislature had insured the sculpture for 50,000 marks (approximately $12,000), and with the insurance settlement the legislature commissioned a second cast. With the sum of $4,000 from insurance money, Thomas R. Gould and Walter Murray Gibson decided to add four partial-gilt bronze bas-relief panels depicting scenes from Kamehameha's life for the sides of the pedestal.

This chapter introduces the head of one of the most powerful trading houses in Hamburg, Wilhelm Oswald. It tracks the time when he visited Hawai'i as a young cargo officer on the Prussian merchant ship Prinzessin Louise, and how he found himself drawn into the Hawaiian Royal Court and pressed for information by King Kamehameha III. The chapter then shifts to discuss the visit of the Hawaiian ruler to the Prinzessin Louise with a brilliant red-and-yellow cloak, painstakingly made from the feathers of local birds. Before Europeans began arriving in the islands in 1778, and for several decades afterward, such cloaks were visual symbols of military power and political might. These cloaks were handwoven by men of high rank from feathers collected as part of the commoners' taxes. The chapter argues that it was a poignant act of diplomacy, a gift from one sovereign to another, meant to initiate relations. The chapter then investigates how the feather cloak was separated from the natural curiosities and trade items. The feather cloak entered a somewhat smaller collection of “non-European rarities” than existed at the end of the eighteenth century.

This concluding chapter presents Glenn Wharton's reflection on the conservation project for the Kamehameha sculpture. As Wharton and her conservation members sudsed the sculpture and worked their brushes into the deep folds of red and yellow painted feathers, they realized how strained is their relationship with the administrators in Honolulu. Although some supported their efforts, especially after seeing Mary Tuti Baker's documentary King Kamehameha: A Legacy Renewed on public television, others remained staunchly against their participatory approach. In addition, the state continued to provide funds for maintaining the gold-leafed second cast in Honolulu, but refused local requests to help maintain the original cast.