Archeological Sites at Kawela
archeological sites in Hawaii
Archeological Sites at Kawela are a number of archeological sites at or near the settlement of Kawela on the southern coast of Molokaʻi, the northernmost of the islands of Maui County, Hawaii. It was the site of two battles in Hawaiian history.
Early history
Ka Wela means "the heat" in the Hawaiian language. It was the name of a traditional land division (ahupuaʻa) of ancient Hawaii, but the name is also used on several other islands.
It is located about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east of the town of Kaunakakai.
A heiau is visible at 21°4′39″N 156°56′40″W on a ridge between the forks of Kawela Gulch.
This is generally thought to be the place of refuge (Puʻuhonua) where the soldiers of Kapiʻioho o kalani fled during a great battle of about 1737.
In about February 1795, women and children escaped to Molokaʻi when Kamehameha I had just conquered Maui. In pursuit, the vast fleet of war canoes stretched all along the coast from Kawela past Kaunakakai to the area known as Kalamaʻula. The army met little resistance this time.
“Archeological Sites at Kawela” enters the record as archeological sites in Hawaii. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Archeological, Sites and Kawela can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4785909. Authority coordinates are 21.078, -156.944. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1737 and 1795.
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This entry incorporates text from “Archeological Sites at Kawela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.