A place to which one could escape and be saved from being taken captive or from being put to death was called a Pu‘uhonua–A Place of Refuge. The king was called a pu'uhonua because a person about to die could run to him and be saved; so also were called his queen (Ka Mo‘iwahine) and his god. They were sacrosanct, therefore their lands were sacrosanct, and were ‘Aina Pu‘uhonua, lands of refuge. Some fortifications (Pu‘u kana) were Pu‘uhonua, when they were close to those about to be captured in battle.

In the time of Kamehameha I the old pu'uhonua were abolished, and Kamehameha set up new pu'uhonua as he wished. The old ones were abolished because they were taken over by the chiefs, war leaders, and warriors who had fought Kamehameha's wars for him, and therefore they ceased to be pu'uhonua.

Only on Kauai did the old pu‘uhonua remain, because Kamehameha’s wars did not extend to Kaua‘i; hence these lands were not distributed to his war leaders. Kaua‘i did not become a dependency, and the kingdom remained under its hereditary chiefs. The pu'uhonua lands on Kaua‘i were, Keonekapu-a-Kahamalu‘ihi for Waimea, Kekaha for Mana, and Wailua for Puna, and there were some others besides. There were also pu‘uhonua refugees on Hawai‘i (The Big Island), in Kohala, Hamakua, Hilo, Puna, and Ka‘u. But in the battles between the chiefs of Hilo, Ka‘u and Kona, the Kona chiefs won and the pu‘uhonua lands were lost to the war leaders of Kamehameha. Only the pu‘uhonua at Honaunau, Kona, remained, perhaps because the Kona chiefs won the kingdom, or perhaps because the land on which the pu‘uhonua was situated was of no value. The Ahupua‘a of Honaunau was separate from the pu‘uhonua.