Born in the late 18th century, George Naʻea was the son of High Chief Kamaunu and High Chiefess Kukaeleiki. His father Kamaunu was descended from the high chiefs of the northern districts of the
island of Hawaii. Naʻea served under
Kamehameha III as a member of his Council of Chiefs. He married
Fanny Kekelaokalani Young, the
hapa-haole (half-white) daughter of
Kaʻōanaʻeha, and
John Young, the British advisor of King Kamehameha I. The couple lived on the island of Maui, in
Lahaina, which was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii at the time. Naʻea played no role in his daughter's upbringing and was not allowed contact with her due to his eventual illness. Historian and biographer of Queen Emma,
George Kanahele wrote that "Emma never knew her natural father", and his relative anonymity prompted many to believe that Dr. Rooke was her biological father.
Contracting leprosy Around 1838, Naʻea contracted
leprosy. Many claimed that this was the first case of leprosy in Hawaii, even though the condition had been diagnosed earlier in the 1820s and 1830s. Differing accounts exist as to how he contracted this disease. Writing in 1864, Reverend
Dwight Baldwin alleged that Naʻea had contracted the illness from a low-level royal who had returned from China with the leprosy infection. In his unpublished memoirs written before his death in 1932,
Ambrose K. Hutchison, a resident superintendent of the leper settlement of
Kalaupapa, recounted oral traditions on the origin of leprosy in Hawaii. According to Hutchison, Naʻea had contracted the illness from his
Chinese cook who had arrived in the islands during the early
sandalwood trade. The illness was diagnosed by the royal physician Dr.
William Hillebrand, who recommended isolation for the incurable disease to the King and his Council of Chiefs. Thus Naʻea was banished to
Wailuku,
Maui, and not allowed to return or visit Lahaina. Kanahele stated that he may have continued living under the care of his wife Fanny (who did not contract the disease), and continued to lead a productive life since Minister
Robert Crichton Wyllie described him as a "highly respectable Hawaiian". Naʻea died on October 4, 1854. Hutchison claimed that after his death, the
kahu or household attendants who had accompanied Naʻea during his isolation "scattered all over the Islands" and "that these attendants contracted the disease of their liege Lord and were the carriers that planted the disease on all the islands of Hawaii". From this association, leprosy became known as
maʻi aliʻi (the "sickness of the chiefs"). The illness was also known as
maʻi pake (the "Chinese sickness") after its place of origin. More than a decade after Naʻea's death, the Hawaiian government under
Kamehameha V adopted a systematic policy of segregation for the afflicted and established a leper settlement at Kalaupapa on the island of
Molokaʻi, to which
Peter Kaʻeo, a nephew of Fanny's and a cousin of Emma's, would be exiled in 1873. ==References==