Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Kamehameha Death

“E oni wale no ‘oukou i ku‘u pono ‘a‘ole e pau.”
“Endless is the good that I have given you to enjoy.”
(Kamehameha)

Don Francisco de Paula Marin made numerous notations in his diary from 1818 to 1825 of the epidemics of colds and flu among the Hawaiians and reported, ‘many people died.’ (Van Dyke) Both Kamehameha and Ka’ahumanu may have come down with it. (Parker)

It was Kamehameha’s intention to remain on O‘ahu until his death, but he became suspicious of conspiracies among the younger chiefs. Even if they were sons of his old advisors, and they took the place of their fathers on the council, he was not confident in their loyalty.

They were gaining more and more agricultural land and followers in the districts allotted them. Trading with the foreigners also increased their personal arsenals. This power shifting alarmed the great chief and so in the year 1812 he decided to move his capitol back to Kona with him.

Kamehameha required all weapons to be placed on his own western vessel, the Keoua (formerly the Fair American) for transport to Hawaii Island. The chiefs were allowed two attendants each and were told to follow his vessel in separate vessels. (Parker)

“The view of the king’s camp was concealed only by a narrow tongue of land, consisting of naked rocks, but when we had sailed round we were surprised at the sight of the most beautiful landscape.”

“We found ourselves in a small sandy bay of the smoothest water, protected against the waves of the sea; on the bank was a pleasant wood of palm-trees, under whose shade were built several straw houses …”

“… to the right, between the green leaves of the banana-trees, peeped two snow-white houses, built of stone after the European fashion, on which account this place has the mixed appearance of a European and Owhyee village”.

“(T)o the left, close to the water, on an artificial elevation, stood the morai (heiau) of the king, surrounded by large wooden statues of his gods, representing caricatures of the human figure.” (Kotzebue, visiting in 1816)

‘I‘i describes that the “King erected three houses thatched with dried ti leaves,” a sleeping house (hale moe) and separate men’s (hale mua) and women’s (hale ‘āina) eating houses.”

Kamehameha first moved into the former residence of Keawe a Mahi. He then built another house on the seaward side of that residence, that was referred to as hale nana mahina ‘ai.

This house was built high on stones and faced directly upland toward the planting fields of Kūāhewa. Like an observation post this house afforded a view of the farm lands and was also a good vantage point to see canoes coming from South Kona and from the Kailua vicinity. (Rechtman)

Fishing was the occupation of Kamehameha’s old age at Kailua. He would often go out with his fishermen and when there had been a great catch of aku or ‘ahi he would give it away to the chiefs and people, the cultivators and canoe makers. (Kamakau)

At the onset of his illness, Kamehameha was treated by his kahuna. When the illness would not yield to their treatment, a ship was sent to Honolulu for Marin, a Spaniard who had no formal medical training, but had some basic Western medical knowledge.

Marin, noted in his diary, April 15, that a ship arrived at Honolulu that day from Hawaii seeking him ‘to cure the king;’ Marin reached Kailua four days later and stayed there until after the death of the king; his services proved ineffectual. (Kuykendall)

During Kamehamehaʻs illness the kahuna had suggested human sacrifices to appease, or pacify, the gods so that they might prolong Kamehamehaʻs life. To this Kamehameha said, “No! The men are kapu [sacred] for the king!” By king he meant his son and heir, Liholiho. (Williams)

About ten o’clock he took a mouthful of food and a swallow of water. Ka-iki-o-‘ewa then asked him for a last word, saying. “We are all here, your younger brothers, your chiefs, your foreigner (Young.) Give us a word.”

“For what purpose?’ asked the chief. “As a saying for us” (I hua na makou.) “E oni wale no ‘oukou i ku‘u pono ‘a‘ole e pau (Endless is the good that I have given you to enjoy.”)

Nearby, crouched sadly in silence, were John Young, his friend for almost thirty years; High Chief Hoapili; High Chief Kalanimōku; Queen Ka‘ahumanu; the heir Liholiho and others close to the king. Hours later, at two o’clock on the morning of May 8, 1819, Kamehameha passed away at Kamakahonu, Kailua-Kona. (Williams)

Fourteen years Kamehameha fought to unite the islands and he ruled twenty-three years. When he died his body was still strong. his eyes were not dimmed, his head unbowed, nor did he lean upon a cane; it was only by his gray hair that one could tell his age. (Kamakau)

The period of mourning began in Kailua-Kona. It lasted about ten days and was called kūmākena (‘to mourn loudly for the dead.’) When the people learned that Kamehameha I was dead, many fell to their knees, crying and wailing. They became hysterical and expressed their grief in painful ways.

The kapu was not enforced at this time so there was not only sadness and grief but disorder and confusion, as well. The kapu normally governed what the people could and could not do. (Williams)

Immediately after the death of the Kamehameha, his son Liholiho, heir to the throne, went away with his personal attendants to Kawaihae, Kohala, where he remained until Kailua, defiled by death, had been purified. After about a week, he returned for the purpose of being proclaimed king. (Kuykendall) (Image by Brook Parker.)

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Kamehameha Final Days-Parker
Kamehameha Final Days-Parker

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Peleleu

“Where the sunbeams had slept placidly on an unbroken surface of azure, they were now reflected hither and thither by the black sides of canoes, the flashing of outriggers, the sheen of polished metal, the scarlet and yellow of innumerable feather cloaks …”

“… the glittering of oars amid the spray-rain, the gleaming of dusky bodies, and the forward leap of the high prows, whose painted eyes seemed to glow with the fire of life.”

“And in advance was the famous double war canoe Peleleu, the rowers straining at the oars, and the kahili-bearers and warriors standing around the mighty chief who was destined to make Hawaii a nation”

“On they came, nearing the flat beach of Waikiki, where unless Kalanikapule opposed, they could enter the coral reef and land without impediment.”

“But Kalanikapule chose to meet his rival in the heart of the country among the palis, rather than on the level ground; so, though from Leahi you could have seen the moving of dark masses of men among the forests of the southern side of the island, there was no sign on the beach of opposition to the landing of the Hawaiian troops.” (Gowen)

“Since koa is indigenous plant, i.e. one ‘native’ to Hawaii , it grew ‘wild’ in large forest, and Hawaiians did not propagate it. … The prime importance of koa was in the making of canoes, not only the single kinds, kaukahi, but even double kinds, kaulua, which consisted of two canoes lashed together in a special way.”

“Before making a canoe, the Hawaiians employed a kahuna, or priest, to offer prayers and sacrifices to Ku, the long-bearded god of canoe makers, that the work should be successful. Then the kahuna aided the men in selecting a suitable tree in the forest. … The part made from the koa trunk was the wa‘a.”  (Krauss)

Waʻa Peleleu, or simply Peleleu, were long canoes or long voyages were usually 50 feet long, but some were 100 and even 150 feet long. Such canoes were 1 to 2 feet wide and carved from a single log.  (Krauss)

Canoes evolved to meet new demands; the sail had become the primary power mode – those also evolved.  “In the early 1790s the watch aboard a foreign ship sailing off O‘ahu saw a vessel approaching which, by the cut of its sails, appeared to be European.”

“But as it drew near and passed by it was seen to be a Hawaiian canoe with sails cut to European shape. This was the fore-and-aft spritsail.  It was a simple modification, changing the ancient triangular sail to a four-sided shape.”

“Also, from the base of the mast the foot of the sail ran horizontally aft to the clew (bottom trailing edge) where the sheet (controlling line) connected to it. In larger canoes the foot was laced to a boom. This rig quickly became the standard for most Hawaiian sailing canoes.”

“On some of the largest double canoes a sail of about the same shape was used, not with a sprit, but gaff-rigged, the head (top of the sail) laced to a spar which was raised or lowered by halyards, and the entire foot of the sail laced to a boom.” (Herb Kane)

“Kamehameha’s drive to bring all the islands under the rule of Hawai’i Island required much more than the hit and run raids of earlier disputes.”

“Keeping armies in the field required great numbers of huge canoes, not only for invasion but also for keeping the army supplied, which meant canoes capable of returning to Hawai‘i Island, sailed (not paddled) short-handed and against the prevailing wind, for supplies and reinforcements.”

The peleleu class war canoes were invented for that purpose. “These were sailing vessels with deep hulls, some armed with swivel guns, carrying fore-and-aft sail rigs, either as spritsails or gaff-rigged and capable of sailing upwind.” (Herb Kane)

“The peleleu were a fleet of very large war-canoes which Kamehameha I had made from koa trees felled in the forests back of Hilo, Hawaii. Their construction was begun about the year 1796.”

“In spite of the fact that the Hawaiian historian, Malo, speaks of the peleleu with a certain pride and enthusiasm, they are to be regarded rather as monstrosities, not belonging fully to the Hawaiian on whose soil they were made, nor to the white men who, no doubt, lent a hand and had a voice in their making and planning.” (Malo)

“So great was the size of these canoes and such their depth from the gunwale down, that flooring had to be made on which the paddlemen might stand, or rest their feet while sitting on the usual paddlers’ seats.” (Emerson in Mills)

“They were excellent craft and carried a great deal of freight. The after part of these crafts were similar in construction to an ordinary vessel (i. e. was decked over).”

“It was principally by means of such craft as these that Kamehameha succeeded in transporting his forces to Oahu when he went to take possession of that part of his dominion when he was making his conquests.” (Malo)

“The large, wide and deep peleleu canoes, however, quickly became obsolete.  In comparison with standard double canoes, they were unwieldly, labor intensive, and impractical for common use”. (Mills)

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America

Lots of things were happening in the Islands around the time Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492 on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.

About that time, four major leaders ruled over various Islands in the Hawaiian Islands: Māʻilikūkahi on Oʻahu, ʻUmi-a-Līloa on Hawaiʻi, Piʻilani on Maui and Kukona on Kauai.

Early in his reign, Māʻilikūkahi moved to Waikīkī and was probably one of the first chiefs to live there (prior to that, Oʻahu chiefs typically lived at Waialua and ‘Ewa.)  Waikīkī remained the Royal Center of Oʻahu aliʻi, until Kamehameha I moved the seat to Honolulu.

What is commonly referred to as the “ahupuaʻa system” is a result of the firm establishment of palena (boundaries) that Mā’ilikūkahi set up around the Island.  This system of land divisions and boundaries enabled a konohiki (land/resource manager) to know the limits and productivity of the resources that they managed.

ʻUmi-a-Līloa (ʻUmi) from Waipiʻo, son of Līloa, also moved the Hawaiʻi Island Royal Center about this time, from Waipi‘o to Kona.  He, too, started to divide the lands following the mauka-makai orientation.

ʻUmi started a significant new form of agriculture in Kona; archaeologists call the unique method of farming in this area the “Kona Field System.” (These are long, narrow fields that ran along the contours, along the slopes of Mauna Loa and Hualālai; farmers then planted different crops, according to the respective rainfall gradients.

Piʻilani’s reign showed a boom in construction of heiau, fishponds, trails and irrigation systems.  Famed for his energy and intelligence, Piʻilani constructed the West Maui phase of the noted Alaloa, or long trail (also known as the King’s Highway;) his son, Kihapiʻilani laid the East Maui section and connected the island.

Missionaries Richards, Andrews and Green noted in 1828, “a pavement said to have been built by Kihapiʻilani, a king … afforded us no inconsiderable assistance in traveling as we ascended and descended a great number of steep and difficult paries (pali.)” (Missionary Herald)

Kukona, on Kauai became a symbol of the very highest ideals of chivalry in battle.  He once captured all four chiefs of Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu, Maui and Molokaʻi and had the opportunity to kill them all.  However, he preferred peace and allowed them to return safely home with a promise that they never again make war on Kauai.

As noted by Fornander: “The war with the Hawaii chief, and the terrible defeat and capture of the latter, as well as Kukona’s generous conduct towards the four chiefs who fell into his hands after the battle, brought Kauai back into the family circle of the other islands, and with an eclat and superiority which it maintained to the last of its independence.”

Back to Columbus and America …

Columbus wanted to find a new route to the Far East, to India, China, Japan and the Spice Islands. If he could reach these lands, he would be able to bring back rich cargoes of silks and spices.

Columbus called all the people he met in the islands Indians because he was sure that he had reached the Indies. When Columbus reached Cuba, he thought it was the mainland of Japan.

“At no time during the life of Columbus, nor for some years after his death, did anybody use the phrase ‘New World’ with conscious reference to his discoveries. … It was supposed that he had found a new route to the Indies by sailing west, and that in the course of this achievement he had discovered some new islands.”  (Fiske)

“At the time of his death their true significance had not yet begun to dawn upon the mind of any voyager or any writer.”  Still believing that he had found a new route to the East Indies, Columbus died in 1506.

It wasn’t until 1499, when an Italian an explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer, Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512,) sailed back to the area Columbus ‘discovered.’

Columbus found the new land; but Vespucci, by travelling down the coast, came to the realization that it was not India at all, but an entirely new continent.

What should they call it?

It wasn’t until a German clergyman and amateur geographer (Martin Waldseemüller) and his Alsatian proofreader (Matthias Ringmann) reportedly put the name “America” on the new land mass (April 25, 1507 – the first written use of America.)  (They made up the name, using a feminized Latin version of Vespucci’s first name.)

Waldseemüller and Ringmann were at work on a reproduction of Ptolemy’s treatise on geography, to which they were adding a preface entitled ‘Cosmographiae Introductio.’  They determined to incorporate the story of Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages into this work, and Ringmann, who was acting as editor, wrote an introduction.

“Now, these parts of the earth have been more extensively explored and a fourth part has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci.  Inasmuch as both Europe and Asia received their names from women, I see no reason why any one should justly object to calling this part Amerige, i.e., the land of Amerigo, or America, after Amerigo, its discoverer, a man of great ability.” (Cosmographiæ Introductio of Martin Waldseemüller)

“(T)he name America was, for the time  being, restricted to the southern part of the  New World. After the lapse of three decades, however, another German cartographer applied the name America to the northern portion of the Western Hemisphere.”  (Cosmographiæ Introductio of Martin Waldseemüller)

But the new name didn’t completely catch on, at first.

The Pilgrims, in signing the Mayflower Compact (1620,) noted they were headed to Virginia.  The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628) and its initial laws Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) reference being in New England.  In the mid-1700s, the British Colonies were referenced into the New England Colonies (northern,) Middle Colonies and Southern Colonies.

The earliest recorded use of this term in English dates to 1648, in Thomas Gage’s The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies.

It wasn’t until 1740, in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias (a fight between Britain and Spain in what is now known as Columbia,) that the British colonists on the continent were called ‘Americans’ for the first time (about 3,600-colonial troops supported the British effort – the Spanish won.)  (nih-gov)

The name ‘United States of America’ appears to have been used for the first time in the Declaration of Independence (1776.) (At least no earlier instance of its use in that precise form has been found.)  (Burnett)

Back to Columbus … President Franklin D Roosevelt created the first federal observance of Columbus Day in 1937; Richard Nixon established the modern holiday by presidential proclamation in 1972.  Columbus Day is observed the second Monday in October; it’s a federal holiday, it is not a State holiday in some states.

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Early Sugar Use … Rum

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully.  In 1802, sugar was first made in the islands on the island of Lānai by a native of China.

He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandalwood, and brought a stone mill and boilers and, after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.

But it wasn’t development of a sweetener that was one of the first popular uses of the canoe crop (that later ended up changing the landscape and social make-up of the Islands.)

“In short it might be well worth the attention of Government to make the experiment and settle these islands by planters from the West Indies, men of humanity, industry and experienced abilities in the exercise of their art would here in a short time be enabled to manufacture sugar and rum from luxuriant fields of cane equal if not superior to the produce of our West India plantations.”  (Menzies, 1793)

Rum is a beverage that seems to have had its origins on the 17th century Caribbean sugarcane plantations and by the 18th century its popularity had spread throughout world.  Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane byproducts by a process of fermentation and distillation.

The origin of the word ‘rum’ is generally unclear. In an 1824 essay about the word’s origin, Samuel Morewood suggested the word ‘rum’ might be from the British slang term for ‘the best,’ as in “having a rum time.  … it would be called rum, to denote its excellence or superior quality.” (Samuel Morewood, 1824)

According to Kamakau, “The first taste that Kamehameha and his people had of rum was at Kailua in 1791 or perhaps a little earlier, brought in by Captain Maxwell. Kamehameha went out to the ship with (John) Young and (Isaac) Davis when it was sighted off Keāhole Point and there they all drank rum.”

“Then nothing would do but Kalanimōku must get some of this sparkling water, and he was the first chief to buy rum.”

Shortly thereafter, while in Waikīkī, after having tasted the “dancing water,” Kamehameha I gained the apparent honor of having spread the making of rum from Oʻahu to Hawaiʻi island. (Kanahele)

After he saw a foreigner make rum in Honolulu, he set up his own still. Spurred by his own appetite for rum, he soon made rum drinking common among chiefs and chiefesses as well as commoners. (Kanahele)  Many of the subsequent royalty and chiefs also drank alcoholic beverages (several overindulged.)

Within a decade or so, Island residents were producing liquor on a commercial basis. “It was while Kamehameha was on Oʻahu that rum was first distilled in the Hawaiian group,” wrote Kamakau.

“In 1809 rum was being distilled by the well-known foreigner, Oliver Holmes, at Kewalo, and later he and David Laho-loa distilled rum at Makaho.”  Several small distilleries were in operation by the 1820s.

By November 1822, Honolulu had seventeen grog shops operated by foreigners.  Drinking places were one of the earliest types of retail business established in the Islands.

“For some years after the arrival of missionaries at the islands it was not uncommon in going to the enclosure of the king, or some other place of resort, to find after a previous night’s revelry, exhausted cases of ardent spirits standing exposed and the emptied bottles strewn about in confusion.” (Dibble)

In 1825 an English agriculturist named John Wilkinson, who in his younger years had been a planter in the West Indies, arrived at Honolulu on the frigate Blonde. He had made some arrangement with Governor Boki, while the latter was in England, to go out and engage in cultivating sugar cane and coffee and in making sugar and, probably, rum.  (Kuykendall)

A plantation was established in the upper part of Mānoa valley. Six months after beginning operations Wilkinson had about seven acres of cane growing, Untimely rains raised the stream and destroyed a dam under construction at the mill site. (Kuykendall)  His partners constructed a still and began to make rum from molasses.  (Daws)

Boki’s trade in entertaining the visiting ships and distilling liquor ran him afoul of the missionaries and Kaʻahumanu.   Kaʻahumanu had him fined in 1827 for misconduct, intemperance, fornication and adultery, apparently in connection with his brothels and grog-shops.  (Nogelmeier)

Kaʻahumanu ordered the sugar cane on his Mānoa plantation to be torn up when she found it was to be used for rum.  When Boki could no longer provide the cane for distilling and Kaʻahumanu had the sugar crop destroyed, Boki turned to distilling ti-root.    (Nogelmeier)

In March 1838, the first liquor license law was enacted, which prohibited all selling of liquors without a license under a fine of fifty dollars for the first offense, to be increased by the addition of fifty dollars for every repetition of the offense.  (The Friend, December 1887)

All houses for the sale of liquor were to be closed at ten o’clock at night, and from Saturday night until Monday morning.  Drunkenness was prohibited in the licensed houses under a heavy fine to the drinker, and the loss of his license to the seller.  (The Friend, December 1887)

In 1843, the seamen’s chaplain, Samuel C. Damon, started ‘The Temperance Advocate and Seamen’s Friend;’ he soon changed its name to simply “The Friend.”   Through it, he offered ‘Six Hints to seamen visiting Honolulu’ (the Friend, October 8, 1852,) his first ‘Hint,’ “Keep away from the grog shops.”

However, that was pretty wishful thinking, given the number and distribution of establishments in the early-years of the fledgling city and port on Honolulu.

In 1874, a legislative act was passed that allowed distillation of rum on sugar plantations.  According to a report in ‘The Friend,’ “the only planter in the Legislature voted three times against the passage of the Act.”  The first export of Hawaiian rum was made on May 15, 1875 – the product of Heʻeia Plantation.  (Today, others are making a comeback.)

The sweetener production focus of sugar caught hold. The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i.  On July 29, 1835 (187 years ago, today,) Ladd & Company obtained a 50-year lease on nearly 1,000-acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.  A century after Captain Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.  That plummeted to 492,000 tons in 1995.

With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.  A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.  As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it.  Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

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Palapala Kila Nui

“Under the ancient feudal system the allodium of all lands belonged to the King, not however, as an individual, but ‘as the head of the nation, or in his corporate right,’ to quote the language of the land commission.”

“The constitution of 1840 declared that the land of the Kingdom was not the private property of Kamehameha I. ‘It belonged to the chiefs and people in common, of whom Kamehameha I was the head, and had the management of the landed property.’” (Alexander)

“[I]n 1848 a committee was appointed to effect the division between the King as feudal suzerain and the chiefs, his feudatories, which completed its work in forty days. Partition deeds were signed and sealed by the King on one side and the several chiefs on the other side, who were then entitled to receive awards from the land commission for the lands thus partitioned off to them.”

“[T]he lands held by the King at the close of the Mahele were not regarded as his private property, strictly speaking. Even before his division with the landlords a second division between himself and the Government was clearly contemplated …”

“Accordingly, on the very day after the Mahele, or division with his chiefs, was closed, viz, the 8th day of March, 1848, he proceeded ‘to set apart for the use of the Government the larger part of his royal domain, reserving to himself what he deemed a reasonable amount of land as his own estate.’”

“This latter class of lands ‘he reserved for himself and his heirs forever’ as his own private estate, and they are now known as Crown Lands.”

“On the 7th day of the following June, 1848, the legislative council passed the ‘act relating to the lands of His Majesty the King and of the Government,’ which confirms and ratifies the division which had already been made by the King, thus making it an act of the nation through its representatives.”

“In this act the said lands are designated by name, and declared ‘to be the private lands of His Majesty Kamehameha III, to have and to hold to himself, his heirs, and successors forever; and said lands shall be regulated and disposed of according to his royal will and pleasure, subject only to the rights of tenants.’” (Alexander)

“Government lands were administered by the Minister of the Interior who was empowered by law to sell and lease. As the Land Commission could only consider claims to farms and building lots arising prior to December 10, 1845, many of the people were deprived of the opportunity to secure lands for themselves.”

“So to provide for this class the Minister of Interior was authorized in the early days of the new regime to sell building lots and tracts of land from a fraction of an acre to several hundred acres, at prices ranging from twenty-five cents to one dollar an acre.”

“The Minister of Interior was also authorized to dispose of government lands by sales for many other purposes.” (King)  On July 11, 1851, an Act was passed confirming certain resolutions of the Privy Council of the previous year, which ordered …”

“‘.. that a certain portion of the Government lands on each island should be placed in the hands of special agents to be disposed of in lots of from one to fifty acres in fee simple, to residents only, at a minimum price of fifty cents per acre.’”  (Interior Department, Surveyor’s Report, 1882)

Between the years 1850 and 1860, nearly all the desirable Government land was sold, generally to Hawaiians. The portions sold were surveyed at the expense of the purchaser.  (Interior Department, Surveyor’s Report, 1882)

“Following the division of the lands into Crown, Government, and Konohiki Lands, from time to time portions of the Government Lands were sold as a means of obtaining revenue to meet the increasing costs of the Government.”

“Purchasers of these lands were issued documents called ‘Grants’ or ‘Royal Patent Grants.’ These differed from the Royal Patents issued upon Land Commission Awards.” (Chinen)

These Land Grants were given for lands that were purchased by individuals from the Hawaiian Kingdom when they were made available for purchase in mid-1800s. (UH Mānoa Library) The term used for these was Palapala Kila Nui (also Palapala Sila Nui, aka Government Grant; Royal Patent).

Royal Patent Grants (until 1893) and Land Patents conferred fee simple title to a Government land. This was an outright purchase of Government land, and not a commutation of the Government’s interest in land. The last Royal Patent was number 7992. (UH Manoa Library)

“This class of conveyance is designated a Royal Patent (Grant) and since the overthrow of the monarchy, as Land Patent (Grant). It is more commonly known as a Grant and so designated on most of the title maps.”

“These grants are recorded in a series of books now deposited in the office of the Commissioner of Public Lands. Many conveyances by the Minister of Interior were by the ordinary deed method which deeds were recorded by the grantees in the Bureau of Conveyances.”  (King)

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