{{Short description|Hawaiian high chiefess (1803–1860)}} {{Infobox royalty | name = Elizabeth Peke Davis | title = | image = | caption = | spouse = Humehume<br>Antone Sylva | issue = Harriet Kawahinekipi Kamakahai | full name = Elizabeth Peke Davis | titles = | house = Kekaulike | father = Isaac Davis Aikake | mother = Kalukuna | birth_date = 1803 | birth_place = Waimea, Hawaii Island | death_date = 1860 | death_place = | burial_place = }}
'''Elizabeth Peke Davis''' (1803–1860) was a Hawaiian Kingdom high chiefess, the hapa haole daughter of Isaac Davis, the Welsh advisor of Kamehameha I, who helped him unify the island in 1810. She was the wife of George Prince Kaumuali{{okina}}i, also known as Humehume.
==Early life== Betty was born on February 12<ref name=fixme>[http://www.kekoolani.org/Pages/9053%20Kekoolani%20Genealogy%20Database/pafg15.htm#284 Hawaiian Genealogy of Kekoolani and Other Families - pafg15 - Generated by Personal Ancestral File] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081025155031/http://www.kekoolani.org/Pages/9053%20Kekoolani%20Genealogy%20Database/pafg15.htm#284 |date=2008-10-25 }} kekoolani.org</ref><ref>[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~royalty/hawaii/i341.html#I341 i341.html] ancestry.com</ref> or December 24, 1803, at Waimea, Hawaii Island. Her 45-year-old father, Isaac Davis from Milford Haven, Wales, known as {{okina}}Aikake by Hawaiians, was one of Kamehameha's closest friends and advisors. He was treated like nobility due to his service. He was given the title High Chief, and owned vast tracts of land. Her mother was the chiefess Kalukuna, a relative of Kamehameha I, and her father's second wife.<ref name="Day \">{{cite book |last= Day |first=Arthur Grove |title=History Makers of Hawaii: a Biographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wkp0AAAAMAAJ |year=1984 |publisher=Mutual Publishing |location = Honolulu |isbn= 0935180095 |page=32}}</ref> She was given the name of Elizabeth and often referred to as Betty or ''Peke'', the Hawaiian version of Betty. She was the youngest sister of Sarah "Kale" Kaniaulono Davis and George Hueu Davis.
Tragedy struck her father in 1810. {{okina}}Aikake was poisoned by the chiefs who disliked the peaceful capitulation of the Kingdom of Kaua{{okina}}i, under King Kaumuali{{okina}}i, into a vassal state of King Kamehameha.<ref>[http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/hi/keepers/koc27.txt koc27]{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} ancestry.com</ref> After his death, his close companion, John Young, looked after Betty and her brother and sister. Two of them were living with him in 1807, and after Davis's murder Young continued to raise them along with his own five children James, her future-brother-in-law; Fanny, mother of Emma Rooke; Grace, ''hānai'' (foster) mother of Emma; John, future premier or kuhina nui; and Jane, mother of Peter Kaeo and Albert Kunuiakea, at his homestead at Kawaihae. In his will, dated 1834, Young divided his lands equally between all his and Davis's children.<ref>Campbell, Ian Christopher (1998) ''"Gone Native" in Polynesia: Captivity Narratives and Experiences from the South Pacific'' Greenwood Publishing Group {{ISBN|0-313-30787-3}}. p.46</ref>
==Marriages== Betty married twice. Her first marriage was to Humehume, known as George Prince Kaumuali{{okina}}i, the son of King Kaumuali{{okina}}i and a commoner. George was five years her senior and a veteran of the War of 1812. Due to her mother-in-law's status, George was not in line to follow the father as King or even vassal king of Kaua{{okina}}i. George was well educated, having been to New England for an education.<ref name="fixme"/> Soon after arriving on The Thaddeus, he met and married Peke Davis. He called her his "rib". They sailed to Kauai to reunite with King Kaumualii. After the death of his father, Kauai was unstable. Many chiefs did not want to follow the new government under King Kamehameha. During the Rebellion of 1824, Humehume and others lost to the forces of Kamehameha. Humehume and Betty were caught and brought to Honolulu, where he died less than two years later from the flu.<ref>Hawaii, Lei of Islands: A History of Catholic Hawaii By Adele Marie Lemon</ref> Betty was a widow at age 23. George and Betty had a son in early 1821, but the boy died in February 1823. Mercy Whitney described the burial: "A regular procession of two and two followed the corpse. Going into the fort in which the grave was dug seemed like entering a burying ground, more so than anything I have witnessed since I left America." The fort was Pa{{okina}}ula{{okina}}ula o Hipo, a former heiau. The infant was part Hawaiian and part foreign.<ref>Hawaii's Russian Adventure: A New Look at Old History By Peter R. Mills. Page 141</ref> Betty and George had another daughter in 1821, who was given to another chiefess because George had no desire for a girl.<ref>Hawaii's Russian Adventure: A New Look at Old History By Peter R. Mills. Page 258</ref> From the same journal it is noted that Peke gave birth on Nov 25, 1821 to a girl. This girl is said to be Kamakahai, who had several surviving children. In 1824, another girl was born, Harriet Kaumuali{{okina}}i, following her father's surname. The name Kawahinekipi was given to her by Kaahumanu while she was an infant in Oahu. She married John Meek Jr., but died in 1843, childless. Kamakahai named her daughter Hattie Kaumuali'i'kalani Kanaina after her.
Betty's second marriage was to Antone Sylva, also known as Antonio Sylva (1807–1887), and this match was childless.<ref>{{cite web|title=Antone Sylva |work=Our Family History and Ancestry |publisher=Families of Old Hawaii |url=http://familiesofoldhawaii.com/getperson.php?personID=I4356&tree=Ano |accessdate=2010-02-16 }}{{dead link|date=December 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
==Later life== American missionary Hiram Bingham described Betty in 1824: "Betty was more fair, of more European feature and slender make than most of her countrywomen at the age of 25 or 30; more taciturn, thoughtful, sedate, and retiring than others of equal rank and intelligence. She had derived some advantages from the instructions of the missionaries, and manifested some concern for her salvation. But her circumstances differed little from those of the wife of a petty chief of the lowest rank."<ref name="Bingham">{{cite book |author=Hiram Bingham I |author-link=Hiram Bingham I |title=A Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands |publisher=H.D. Goodwin |orig-date=1848 |year=1855 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T1VFAAAAYAAJ |edition=Third |pages= 230}}</ref>
She died in 1860.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kameʻeleihiwa|first=Lilikalā|author-link=Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa|title=Native Land and Foreign Desires|publisher=Bishop Museum Press|location=Honolulu|year=1992|isbn=0-930897-59-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T9W5AAAAIAAJ|page=274}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Elizabeth Peke}} Category:Hawaiian Kingdom people of Welsh descent Category:Hawaiian princesses Category:Royalty of Kauai and Niihau Category:Royalty of the Hawaiian Kingdom Category:Hawaiian nobility Category:Hawaiian Kingdom people Category:1803 births Category:1860 deaths Category:Date of birth missing Category:Date of death missing Category:19th-century nobility