Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia was a Native Hawaiian scholar and Christian convert whose life helped catalyze the 19th- century Protestant missionary movement to Hawai‘i. Born in 1792 in the Kaʻū district of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawai‘i), he was orphaned during a civil war and fled to the United States in 1809 seeking a new beginning.

After arriving in New England, ʻŌpūkahaʻia encountered Yale student Edwin Dwight and his relative, Yale president Timothy Dwight, who, along with Samuel Mills, recognized his intellectual and spiritual potential. He studied English, Latin, and Hebrew, and eventually embraced Christianity while studying alongside Mills at Andover Theological Seminary.

ʻŌpūkahaʻia became one of the first students at the Foreign Missions School in Cornwall, Connecticut, where he prepared to return to Hawai‘i as a missionary. He translated portions of the Bible into Hawaiian and began drafting a Hawaiian language primer, laying the foundation for future missionary efforts.

Though he died of typhoid fever in 1818 at age 26 before he could return home, ʻŌpūkahaʻia’s life and testimony inspired the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to send the first group of missionaries to Hawai‘i. He is honored today as a spiritual forerunner of Christianity in the Hawaiian Islands and a symbol of cultural and religious exchange.