''Ua Mau ke Ea o ka Āina i ka Pono'' is a Hawaiian phrase, spoken by

Kamehameha III Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name is Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K� ...

, and adopted in 1959 as the state motto. It is most commonly translated as "the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness." A alternate translation, which appears at

Thomas Square Thomas Square is a park in Honolulu, Hawaii, named for Admiral Richard Darton Thomas. The Privy Council voted to increase its boundaries on March 8, 1850, making Thomas Square the oldest city park in Hawaii. Thomas Square is one of four sites in Ha ...

next to a statue of Kamehameha III, is "The sovereignty of the kingdom continues because we are righteous."

History

This phrase was first spoken by

, the King of Hawaii, on July 31, 1843, on

Oʻahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O’ ...

, when the sovereignty of the

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...

was returned by the British through the restorative actions of Admiral

Richard Darton Thomas Admiral Richard Darton Thomas (3 June 1777 – 21 August 1857) was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and went on to become Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station in the 1840s. Biogr ...

, following the brief takeover by

Lord George Paulet George Paulet CB (12 August 1803 – 22 November 1879) was an officer of the Royal Navy. He entered the navy shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and after some years obtained his own command. He served off the Iberian Peninsula durin ...

. Today, the phrase is extensively used by both the

state of Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

and by Hawaiian sovereignty activists.

Meaning

Some of the words in the phrase have additional meanings or connotations. In particular, ''Ea'' means not only "life" or "breath" but also "sovereignty". Hawaiian activists argue that ''ea'' refers specifically to sovereignty because of the circumstances at the time KamehamehaIII uttered it. Thus, an alternate translation is "The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness." ''Pono'', commonly translated as "righteousness", may also connote goodness, fairness, order, or completeness. ''ʻĀina'', translated in the motto as "land", also has a more significant meaning in the Hawaiian language. ''ʻĀina'' is better translated as "that which feeds" and can describe a relationship between Native Hawaiians and the islands.

References

External links

Round-table discussion on righteousness and sovereignty

PBS Hawaii KHET (channel 11), branded as PBS Hawai'i, is a PBS member television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands. Owned by the Hawaii Public Television Foundation, the station maintains studios on Sand Island Acces ...

, July 16, 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ua Mau ke Ea o ka 'Aina i ka Pono Hawaiian language Hawaiian words and phrases State mottos of the United States Symbols of Hawaii Hawaiian sovereignty movement