Princess Ka‘iulani was born into the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii, but it was only years later that she was considered to be in line for the throne. At age 13, as the next heir apparent, she was sent to England to be educated. She didn't spend all her time there studying.
But first and foremost, the princess was a surfer. Known to ride a long wooden board, a particularly heavy and demanding one at that, she had a reputation for outstanding performance in big surf. Hawaiian women, particularly those of royal blood, were noted for their prowess and power on the waves. The Hawaiian monarchy had surfed with passion until the late 1800s, when wave riding became almost extinct as a sport. The evangelical missionaries’ religious dogma had become the preeminent cultural power in the land—and for the most part they had succeeded in removing surfing from the everyday lives of the Hawaiian people. But Princess Ka‘iulani— second in the line of succession for the Hawaiian Crown—was a notable exception. Disregarding the missionaries’ efforts to eradicate all wave-riding activities, she continued to surf daily in full defiance of the western restrictions imposed on the Hawaiian culture. “She was an expert surfrider,” recalled early 20th-century surfrider Knute Cottrell, one of the founders of the Hui Nalu surf club at Waikiki in 1908. Riding a “long olo board made of ‘wili wili’ hardwood, Ka‘iulani was the last of the traditional native surfers at Waikiki.”
Ka‘iulani was still in England when word came that her kingdom had been overthrown by American business interests. She fought back, as fiercely as a 17-year-old princess could. Read the story of Crown Princess Ka‘iulani at Atlas Obscura.