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In The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen Noenoe K. Silva reconstructs the indigenous intellectual history of a culture where - using Western standards - none is presumed to exist. Silva examines the work of two lesser-known Hawaiian writers - Joseph Ho'ona'auao Knepu'u (1824-ca. 1885) and Joseph Moku'hai Poepoe (1852-1913) - to show how the rich intellectual history preserved in Hawaiian-language newspapers is key to understanding Native Hawaiian epistemology and ontology. In their newspaper articles, geographical surveys, biographies, historical narratives, translations, literatures, political and economic analyses, and poetic works, Knepu'u and Poepoe created a record of Hawaiian cultural history and thought in order to transmit ancestral knowledge to future generations.