Ali’i / Chiefs / Governance | Page 36

February 3, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

William Charles Lunalilo

William Charles Lunalilo was born on January 31, 1835 in an area known as Pohukaina (now part of Honolulu) to High Chiefess Miriam ‘Auhea Kekauluohi (Kuhina Nui, or Premier of the Hawaiian Kingdom and niece of Kamehameha I) and High Chief Charles Kanaʻina.

Lunalilo’s grandparents were Kalaʻimamahu (half-brother of Kamehameha I) and Kalākua (sister to Kaʻahumanu). His great grandfather was Keouakupupailaninui (father of Kamehameha I).

He was declared eligible to succeed by the royal decree of King Kamehameha III and was educated at the Chief’s Children’s School, and at age four, became one of its first students.

He was known as a scholar, a poet and a student with amazing memory for detail. From a very young age, he loved to write, with favorite subjects in school being literature and music.

As a young man, he was courteous and intelligent, generous and friendly. His close friends affectionately called him “Prince Bill”. His native people called him Lokomaikaʻi (“merciful, gracious, generous or benevolent”.)

In the Constitutional Convention of 1864, Lunalilo strongly supported both the cause of the people against unnecessary interference by any ruler and a more democratic government with two houses of the legislature, a House of Nobles and a House of Representatives. He wanted a constitution that favored the people and gave less power to the king.

Kamehameha V had not named a successor to the throne before he died on December 11, 1872. Lunalilo wanted his people to choose their next ruler in a democratic manner and requested a plebiscite to be held on New Year’s Day following the death of Kamehameha V.

He therefore noted, “Whereas, it is desirable that the wishes of the Hawaiian people be consulted as to a successor to the Throne, therefore, notwithstanding that according to the law of inheritance, I am the rightful heir to the Throne, in order to preserve peace, harmony and good order, I desire to submit the decision of my claim to the voice of the people.” (Lunalilo, December 16, 1872)

Prince David Kalākaua and others not in the Kamehameha lineage chose to run against Prince Lunalilo. The people on every island chose William Charles Lunalilo as King.

At noon on January 8, 1873, the Legislature met, as required by law, in the Courthouse to cast their official ballots of election of the next King. Lunalilo received all thirty-seven votes.

The coronation of Lunalilo took place at Kawaiahaʻo Church in a simple ceremony on January 9, 1873. He was to reign for one year and twenty-five days, succumbing to pulmonary tuberculosis on February 3, 1874.

As a proponent of democracy and more freedom of choice for his people, he did not name a successor before his death because he believed that the people should, again, choose their leader. His trait of “Lokomaikaʻi” followed him in death, because of his desire to do what was best for the people.

Upon his passing, the Royal Mausoleum was the temporary resting place for Lunalilo. By birthright, his remains could have remained there with the other Aliʻi, however, his desire was to be among his people, and in 1875 his remains were moved to their permanent resting place in a tomb built for him and his father, Kanaʻina, on the grounds of Kawaiahaʻo Church.

His estate included large landholdings on five major islands, consisting of 33 ahupuaʻa, nine ‘ili and more than a dozen home lots. His will established a perpetual trust under the administration of three trustees to be appointed by the justices of the Hawaiian Supreme Court.

Lunalilo was the first of the large landholding aliʻi to create a charitable trust for the benefit of his people.

The purpose of his trust was to build a home to accommodate the poor, destitute and inform people of Hawaiian (aboriginal) blood or extraction, with preference given to older people. The will charged the Trustees to sell all of the estate’s land and to build and maintain the home.

In 1879 the land for the first Lunalilo Home was granted to the estate by the Hawaiian government and consisted of 21 acres in Kewalo, near the present Roosevelt High School.

The construction of the first Lunalilo Home at that site was paid for by the sale of estate lands. The Home was completed in 1883 to provide care for 53 residents. An adjoining 39 acres for pasture and dairy was conveyed by the legislative action to the Estate in 1888.

After 44 years, the Home in Kewalo had deteriorated and became difficult and costly to maintain. The trustees located a new 20-acre site in Maunalua on the slopes of Koko Head.

The Maunalua site was purchased by the Brown family (John Ii Estate, Ltd.) and given as a gift to Lunalilo Home in memory of their mother Irene Ii Holloway, daughter of John Ii, who was a close friend of Lunalilo’s father.

With Court approval in 1927, the Kewalo/Makiki property was subdivided and sold and the proceeds used to purchase and renovate the buildings on the site to accommodate 56 residents.

Lunalilo Home temporarily ceased operations from 1997 through 2001 to undertake major renovations to its structure. Upon re-opening, it was licensed by the State Department of Health as an Adult Residential Care Home (ARCH) to accommodate 42 residents.

January 24, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palikū

O‘ahu Island consists of a volcanic mass of two primary formations, including the Ko‘olau Formation in the east (windward) and the Wai‘anae Formation in the west (leeward). These volcanic eruptions occurred approximately 1.8 to 2.6 million years ago.

The island of Oʻahu is divided into 6 moku (districts), consisting of: ‘Ewa, Kona, Koʻolauloa, Koʻolaupoko, Waialua and Waiʻanae. These moku were further divided into 86 ahupua‘a (land divisions within the moku.) Ko‘olauloa is divided into 23-ahupua‘a (traditional land division); Ko‘olaupoko is divided into 11-ahupua‘a.

Palikū is in Ko‘olaupoko where it joins Ko‘olauloa. This is now known as Kualoa. The generally narrow coastal area has been gradually accumulating since that time around the base of this volcanic core as a result of gradual erosion and weathering of the uplands.

The coastal beach, however, is a more recent formation. Sea level returned to its modern level sometime around 2,000 years ago, at least a 1,000 years before Polynesian colonists first set foot in Hawai‘i.

The earliest evidence of human occupation at Kualoa Beach is dated at about AD 1040 to 1280, in the most landward portion of the peninsula.

The early radiocarbon date is from charcoal recovered from a firepit that also contained a few discarded basalt flakes, the tip component of a two-piece bone fishhook, and dense shell and bone midden.

The calendar date range of AD 1040 to 1280 ranks among the earliest in secure archaeological context for windward O‘ahu, but it post-dates first settlement in the archipelago by up to a few centuries. The earliest human activities may have been in the more stable coastal plain landward of the Kualoa peninsula.

At the time of Polynesian settlement in the Hawaiian Islands, accretion of the Kualoa Peninsula probably was only in its beginning stage. The landscape at the time, therefore, must have been dominated by steep cliffs near the coast. (Carson and Athens)

This area had an older name Palikū that referred to the “vertical cliff” characterizing this land, and the newer name Kualoa refers to the “long back” of a mo‘o or moko (giant lizard) slain by Hi‘iaka.

The renaming possibly implies knowledge of the ancient landscape prior to coastal growth out into the ocean and substantial accretion, apparently concurrent with the earliest period of human settlement.

“Paliku (Erect cliff), the male, mated with Paliha‘i (Broken cliff), the female. Eight generations later appear Papaluna (Stratum above), the male, mating with Papailalo (Stratum below), the female. (Their counterparts Papa‘una and Papa‘a‘o appear in Marquesan genealogical creation.)”

“The Kumulipo recites 28 more generations (36 following Paliku) before there first appears the name Haumea, who is Mother Earth (sometimes called Papa), she ‘of myriad forms’ (of vegetation) who mated first with WVakea (Kanehoalani}.”

“There follows, as a narrative within the genealogical sequence, the account of the union of Haumea and Wakea, ‘dwelling in the House of Wakea’ (Ka hale ‘i‘o Wakes i noho ‘ai) and the birth of Haloa, the progenitor of mankind.”

When the land was known as Palikū, the goddess Haumea and her husband Wakea were the progenitors of the Hawaiian people, and they made their home at Palikū.

This place can be associated with the beginning of human life, the founding generations of certain Hawaiian genealogies, and the formation of traditional religious practices.

Handy and Handy noted that: “The land now called Kualoa was formerly Paliku (upright cliff), for its salient feature, the great cliff at its back. It was here that the primordial goddess Haumea battled alone against the warriors of Kumuhonua in legendary times preceding the great tidal wave that inundated all the coast from Kualoa south to He‘eia.”

“Here was built the high shrine to Lono … who saved Wakea and Haumea in the flood.”

Palikū is recognized as the place of the first heiau (traditional Hawaiian religious temple) during the time of Haumea and Wākea and associated with an ancient cultural context that later underwent significant evolution.

When a great tidal wave swept Haumea, Wākea, and all of their followers out to sea, Wākea was instructed, presumably by the god Lono, ‘to cup his hands together to represent a heiau, then he caught a humuhumu-nukunukuapua‘a fish [triggerfish with a pig-like snout] . . . and stuck it head first into the cupped hands to represent a pig’. (Handy and Handy).

The followers repeated Wākea’s actions, and then the sea washed all of them ashore.

In gratitude to Lono, a temple was constructed at Palikū, and an order of priests called Mo‘o-kuauhau-o-Lono (literally “genealogical line of Lono”) was responsible for religious proceedings at this temple. (Malo)

Handy and Handy reported that the priestly order known as Palikū formerly performed rituals at heiau (temples) called māpele.

Māpele is defined as ‘thatched heiau. (temple) for the worship of Lono and the increase of food’ (Lono was god of abundance as well as of rain and storm). (Handy and Handy)

The area was partly in Ko‘olaupoko and partly in Ko‘olauloa. The tax collectors of Ko‘olaupoko accompanying the symbol of Lono came only to the northern border of Kualoa at Paliku and turned back. Those of Ko‘olauloa came south to Ka‘a‘awa on the north side of Kanehoalani (the summit of the ridge at Kualoa) and turned back. (Handy and Handy)

“The fact that the land strip Kualoa, called formerly Paliku, with Kanehoalani towering at its back, was a land so sacred that no canoe could pass by at sea without lowering its sails …”

“… would seem to justify the conclusion that it was at the base of the cliff called Paliku that the ancient mapele shrine dedicated to Lono was located. This undoubtedly was the seat of the hierarchy of the priestly order of Lono”. (Malo)

Kualoa (formerly called Paliku, after its sacred cliff) has a broad lagoon inside a solid barrier reef, but hardly any beach. Having no streams, it was for the most part unsuitable for taro growing.

However, the late Albert F Judd, in whose family the ranch lands of Kualoa have long been included, recalled that his father, Dr. GP Judd, once said that the Kahola-Iele Pond was excavated from a long abandoned taro lo‘i.

This pond is in the flatland named ‘Apua near the boundary between Kualoa and Hakipu‘u. The land was anciently famous for the wauke (paper mulberry) grown there for the making of bark cloth (tapa).

North of Kanehoalani is the valley of Ka‘a‘awa (Turning passage). The name apparently refers to the ‘passage’ through the reef formed by the stream which empties through two channels some distance apart. There is a narrow beach and broad lagoon, not very well protected because the passage (awa) through the reef is so broad.

At Ka‘a‘awa there was a small stream that flowed only in rainy weather, but the flat and sloping habitable area of Ka‘a‘awa and Makaua must have been good only for sweet potatoes, and no doubt there were coconut trees along the shore. There is hardly any beach, but a high shore and a well-protected lagoon make this a good fishing locality. (Handy and Handy)

January 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Voyaging Canoes

Before European open ocean exploration began, Eastern Polynesia had been explored and settled. (Herb Kane)

More than three thousand years ago, the uninhabited islands of Samoa and Tonga were discovered by an ancient people. With them were plants, animals and a language with origins in Southeast Asia; and along the way they had become a seafaring people.

Arriving in probably a few small groups, and living in isolation for centuries, they evolved distinctive physical and cultural traits. Samoa and Tonga became the cradle of Polynesia, and the center of what is now Western Polynesia. (Herb Kane)

By the time European explorers entered the Pacific in the 15th century almost all of the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years and oral traditions told of explorations, migrations and travels across this immense watery world. (Kawaharada)

Because of the great distances, these must have been sailing double-hulled canoes, with paddling as auxiliary power used only for brief periods-to launch or land canoes, or keep off a dangerous lee shore.

Changes in the primary power mode of the larger canoes of the Hawaiian Islands from sail to paddling, followed by a return to sail.

Voyaging vessels were double-hull; hulls were deep enough to track well while sailing across the wind or on a close reach into the wind. The round-sided V hulls provided lateral resistance to the water while under sail. (Herb Kane)

The most widely distributed and presumably most ancient sail was a triangle made up of strips of fine matting sewn together and mounted to two spars, one serving as a mast; the other, as a boom, usually more slender and either straight or slightly curved.

Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging. (Herb Kane)

The double-hulled voyaging canoes were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated one could sail “three miles to our two.” (Kawaharada)

Voyaging between Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific appears to have ceased several centuries before European arrival. No explanation is found in the traditions. (Herb Kane)

As long distance voyaging declined, the need shifted from voyaging canoes to large canoes for chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, resulting in changes in canoe design.

For these short coastal and inter-island trips, paddling replaced sailing as the dominant power mode. Never certain when hospitality might turn sour, chiefs prudently traveled with bodyguards. (Herb Kane)

Throughout the years of late-prehistory, AD 1400s – 1700s, and through much of the 1800s, the canoe was a principal means of travel in ancient Hawaiʻi. Canoes were used for interisland and inter-village coastal travel.

Most permanent villages initially were near the ocean and at sheltered beaches, which provided access to good fishing grounds, as well as facilitating convenient canoe travel.

In the 1970s the Polynesian Voyaging Society built and launched a Polynesian voyaging canoe with the intention of sailing it from Hawai‘i to Tahiti using only traditional techniques. The canoe, christened Hōkūle‘a, was piloted by Mau Piailug, a navigator from the Caroline Islands.

The goal of the project was to show that, although no such voyage had been made for hundreds of years, ancient Polynesian voyagers had been able to navigate distances of more than 2,500 miles using nothing more than their knowledge of the wind, sea, and stars.

On May 1, 1976, the Hōkūle‘a set sail from the island of Maui. Just before their departure, Mau addressed the crew, telling them how to behave while they were at sea.

“Before we leave,” he told them, “throw away all the things that are worrying you. Leave all your problems on land.” On the ocean, he said, “everything we do is different.”

At all times, the crew would be under the captain’s command: “When he says eat, we eat. When he says drink, we drink.” For three, maybe four weeks, they would be out of sight of land. “All we have to survive on are the things we bring with us…. Remember, all of you, these things,” he concluded, “and we will see that place we are going to.” (PopularScience)

Almost 50-years later, the Hōkūle‘a sailed on the Moananuiākea Voyage. (Moananuiākea refers to the vast waters of the earth’s largest ocean.) (MauiNow) (Art of Voyaging Canoe by Herb Kane.)

January 21, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Point Four Program

In his inaugural address (January 20, 1949) President Harry S Truman noted that, “Since the end of hostilities [of WWII], the United States has invested its substance and its energy in a great constructive effort to restore peace, stability, and freedom to the world. …”

“We have constantly and vigorously supported the United Nations and related agencies as a means of applying democratic principles to international relations. We have consistently advocated and relied upon peaceful settlement of disputes among nations.”

Truman challenged the nation by stating that, “In the coming years, our program for peace and freedom will emphasize four major courses of action.”

He noted that, “First, we will continue to give unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies … Second, we will continue our programs for world economic recovery. … Third, we will strengthen freedom-loving nations against the dangers of aggression.”

The last of his initiatives later earned the name, Point Four Program. In it, he stated, “Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.”

Truman went on to elaborate, in describing this latter point, “I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life. And, in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development.”

“Our aim should be to help the free peoples of the world, through their own efforts, to produce more food, more clothing, more materials for housing, and more mechanical power to lighten their burdens.” (Truman Inaugural Address, Truman Library Museum, National Archives)

“The primary functions of Point Four lie in the fields of education, public health and agriculture. In the fiscal year 1951 approximately 80 per cent of the Point Four budget was spent on projects in these fields.” (Rickher)

It’s interesting that later history writers referenced the first American Protestant Missionaries to Hawai‘i as the “first American Point Four Agents.” (Tate)

“[O]ne hundred-thirteen years before President Harry S. Truman’s ‘bold new program’ for making the benefits of American scientific ‘know how’ and industrial progress available for the advancement of undeveloped areas of the world …”

“… the Sandwich Islands missionaries demonstrated a genuine and prophetic acquaintance with the requirements of a humble people lacking skill, enterprise, and industry, and suffering under so many restrictions that their temporal prosperity and their existence as a nation appeared problematical.”

“To the naive and sometimes indolent Hawaiians the evangelists exhibited the advantages of industry and frugality; they endeavored earnestly with their limited resources to lift a benighted nation from ignorance and poverty, in fact, to save it from extinction.”

“Their mission was more than a mission of love – it was the first American technical mission overseas; their tireless labors and simple instruction in the agricultural, mechanical, and manual fields represented the first chapter in the prelude to Point Four.” (Tate)

“On November 15, 1832, Rev. William Richards and others at Lahaina, Maui, in a letter to the American Board, expressed their conviction that in order to retain the ground which Christianity had already gained in the islands, new plans must be devised for elevating the character and living standards of the people.”

“As one means of doing this, they suggested that the Board sponsor a project for introducing the manufacture of cotton cloth into Hawaii. … The missionaries did not propose that the Board become a manufacturing company; but they saw nothing more inconsistent in teaching the people to manufacture cloth than in instructing them in agriculture.”

“They had already voted to teach the Hawaiians carpentry in connection with the high school at Lahainaluna, near Lahaina. In the same month [missionaries in Kona] emphasized the need of machinery for the domestic manufacture of cloth and of an instructor.”

“These clergymen earnestly invited the attention of ‘the friends of civilization to the subject of raising this people from their degradation’ and of uniting ‘with this mission in fixing upon some practicable means to effectuate this object.’ The American Board looked favorably upon the plan”.

Rev BB Wisner, secretary of the American Board, “wanted to have the deliberate views of the mission on the subject of agriculture, not with the aim of making New England farmers, ‘but of introducing and encouraging among them [the Hawaiians] such agriculture as is suited to their climate.”

The missionaries in the Islands “regarded the subject as of sufficient importance to warrant ‘encouraging the growth of cotton, coffee, sugar cane, etc., that the people may have more business on their hands and increase their temporal comforts.’”

“The initial steps toward the desired end were taken at the mission stations that became veritable oases from which seeds and cuttings of vegetables, fruit trees, and flowers were distributed throughout the country districts.”

“Edwin Locke at Waialua, Oahu, Samuel Ruggles at Kona, Hawaii, and James Goodrich, of the Hilo station, were especially successful along these lines.” (Tate)

“The first mission schools were not established as industrial or manual training institutions, but in the 1830’s the evangelists perceived the importance of agriculture and industry in raising the living standard of the nation.”

“In their general meeting held at Lahaina in 1833 they proposed a manual labor system, as a means both of desirable improvement and self-support, to be instituted at the high school. The secular agent was instructed to engage an artisan to oversee the work, take charge of the stock, tools, etc.”

“Two years later the mission recommended that a farmer be procured to teach agriculture and to conduct the secular concerns of the school and that the scholars be required to cultivate the land or earn their own food by their personal industry.” (Tate)

“In 1841 a regular manual labor school was started at Waioli, on Kauai, by Edward Johnson, but later was conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Abner Wilcox. Moreover, in the boarding schools at Kohala, Wailuku, and Hilo the boys were given instruction in agriculture and the girls were taught domestic science or home making.”

“[T]he Hilo Boarding School curriculum kept abreast with industrial progress by introducing successively courses in agriculture, tailoring, dairying, carpentry, blacksmithing, and coffee culture in the nineteenth century and cocoa, banana, and pineapple production and auto mechanics in the twentieth.”

“On twenty-five acres of land at Lahainaluna set aside for vocational education, Samuel T. Alexander, just out of college, was assigned … to the supervision of a sugar cane project. The success of this experiment conducted by the son of a former missionary principal, William P. Alexander, encouraged the commercial development of sugar in Hawaii.”

The Hawaiian leadership saw benefits. King Kamehameha III sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands. In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly.”

“I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …” (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

January 15, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Homesteads

“From ancient times, Kanaka Maoli culture supported a belief in the power of environmental gods. It was generally believed that all the resources on the land of these islands and in the sea around them were gifts to the Kānaka Maoli from their gods.”

“These gifts carried responsibilities; the people had to care for them. The gods would thus be satisfied that their resources were respected; otherwise, disaster would strike, droughts parch the land, and there would be nothing to eat.”

“These natural resources were gifts for all the people to use; they were not “owned” by individuals, not even ali‘i (chiefs).”

“The ali‘i nui (high chief), in a sense, held the lands in trust for the gods and had the responsibility to create conditions under which the maka‘āinana, who were the fishers, the cultivators, and the artisans, took proper care of the land and the sea, which provided food and other resources for everyone, generation after generation.“

“Private ownership of land by foreigners living in the Hawaiian Islands was legalized by a law passed in July 1850. However, the maka‘āinana, had to wait until the Kuleana Act of August 1850 before rules and procedures were established to allow the government to start dealing with their land claims under the Māhele.” (Hasager & Kelly)

“The Kuleana Act (kuleana has the double meaning of plot of land and responsibility) specified that the native ‘tenants’ had the rights to their ‘cultivated grounds, or kalo lands, [but only] what they really cultivated, and which lie in the form of cultivated lands’”. (Language from Sec 6 of Kuleana Act; Hasager & Kelly)

“The Kuleana Act has been called the first homestead effort of the Hawaiian government, equating homesteads with agricultural enterprises.”

“The homesteading feature of the act was section 4, which opened for sale of government lands to ‘natives’ ’in lots of from one to fifty acres, in fee-simple, to such natives as may not be otherwise furnished with sufficient land, at a minimum price of fifty cents per acre’”. (Language from Sec 4 of Kuleana Act; Hasager & Kelly)

A few years later, King Kalākaua signed what is referred to as the Homestead Act on August 29, 1884. That Act starts by saying, “There are many persons of small means in the Kingdom who are without permanent homes and are desirous of procuring homesteads.” (Homestead Act of 1885)

“Following the American homestead policy, the government of Hawai‘i made plans to offer ownership of land in relatively small parcels for merely occupying and farming it for a given number of years, starting in 1884. Most of these lands were in relatively small parcels with nearby flowing streams.” (Hasager & Kelly)

The Homestead Act noted a distinction between kula (‘dry’) and kalo (‘wet’) lands noting that “the Minister of the Interior is hereby authorized and instructed to cause portions of the public lands which are suitable for the purpose and not at the time held by any person under lease from the Government …”

“… to be surveyed and laid out in lots not over twenty and not less than two acres in extent in dry or kula land, and not over two acres in extent in wet or kalo. land, with convenient roads in connection therewith.” (Section 1 of Homestead Act of 1884)

“These lots are then to be appraised by three appraisers, one of whom shall be the surveyor who laid out the land, and the other two residents of the district, who shall make a written statement of their appraisement to the Minister of the Interior, signed by at least two of their number.”

“The Minister shall thereupon publish a notice, inviting applications for the said lots, which shall be filed with the date of their receipt.” (Alexander)

“Any person of full age who may desire to acquire any of the said lots shall apply in writing to the Minister of Interior, stating the number of the lot chosen, and shall thereupon attend at the office of the Minister of Interior, bringing a fee of ten dollars, which shall be paid to the Minister of the Interior if such application is accepted and the proper papers signed and delivered.”

“No one will be allowed to acquire more than one lot, provided, however, that persons will be allowed to acquire two lots where one of them is kula land only and one is wet or kalo land only.” (Notice from Minister of Interior, Homestead Act of 1884)

“By this agreement, the applicant is allowed to occupy the lot for five years free from taxes for the same, on condition that he build a dwelling house upon it within one year, and fence it within two years”. (Alexander)

“Furthermore, this agreement cannot be assigned to any third party. At the end of the said term of five years, on the fulfillment of the above agreement, the occupant of the lot shall receive a Royal Patent for the same.” (Alexander)

On September 6, 1888, the foregoing Act was so amended that in the rocky districts of Kahikinui and Kipa, Maui, and Kona and Puna, Hawai’i, the limit of the size of the Kula lots was raised to one hundred acres. (Alexander)

“The results of these homestead laws were beneficial in placing homes, which have been greatly improved, into the possession of numerous families of moderate means. They did not, however, meet all of the requirements, hence these laws were supplanted by the land act of 1895.” (USDA, Stubbs, 1901)

In the following Land Act of 1895, “The idea of the legislature in creating these leases was clearly to encourage settlement and residence upon lands of the government.”

“It was not for the purpose of allowing persons to obtain farming lands at easy rates, but for the purpose of creating small farm homesteads where the parties would engage in farming and agricultural pursuits and increase in number the thrifty citizens of the Territory.” (Lorrin Andrews, Attorney General, Hilo Tribune, Sep 27, 1904)

“In this act, three types of homestead agreements were defined: (1) the Homestead lease; (2) the Right of Purchase Lease; and (3) the Cash Freehold Agreement.”

“The Homestead Lease was for a term of 999 years, and was issued after the applicants complied with terms and conditions of a Certificate of Occupation. “

“The Right of Purchase Lease was a lease for 21 years with the right of purchase at anytime after the end of the third year of full compliance with the stipulated conditions of residence, cultivation, fencing, payment of taxes, and payment of the purchase price.”

“The Cash Freehold Agreement was an agreement of sale in which the purchaser paid 25% of the purchase price in down payments, and 25% on the remainder for the next three years.”

“The Land Act of 1895 specifically noted that ‘The lessee shall from the end of the first year of said term to the end of the fifth year thereof continuously maintain his home on such premises.’” (Kumu Pono)

“The extremely varied quality of the lands, the intermingling of public and private lands, and the special needs of the people, together with the duty of best utilizing the limited public domain required land laws drawn to meet such special conditions, and these, in all essential points, have been met by the land act of 1895.” (USDA, Stubbs ,1901)

Then, a homestead resolution was drafted and debated in Congress; The US House of Representatives passed this measure on May 22, 1920. With disagreement in the Senate, Hawaiʻi’s delegate, Prince Kūhiō provided amendments and on July 9, 1921 SR 1881 passed both houses (and was signed into law). (McGregor)

“The Congress of the United States and the State of Hawaii declare that the policy of this Act is to enable native Hawaiians to return to their lands in order to fully support self-sufficiency for native Hawaiians and the self-determination of native Hawaiians in the administration of this Act, and the preservation of the values, traditions, and culture of native Hawaiians.” (Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920)

“Native Hawaiian” means any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778.

The principal purposes are:

Establishing a permanent land base for the benefit and use of native Hawaiians (upon which they may live, farm, ranch, and commercial/industrial or other activities;
Placing native Hawaiians on the lands set aside in a prompt and efficient manner and assuring long-term tenancy to beneficiaries;
Preventing alienation of the fee title to the lands set aside so that these lands will always be held in trust for continued use by native Hawaiians in perpetuity;
Providing adequate amounts of water and supporting infrastructure, so that homestead lands will always be usable and accessible; and
Providing financial support and technical assistance to native Hawaiian beneficiaries to enhance economic self-sufficiency and promote community-based development, the traditions, culture and quality of life of native Hawaiians (Hawaiian Homes Act)

Approximately 200,000‐acres of land was set aside to the Hawaiian Homes Commission as a land trust for homesteading by native Hawaiians. The property and its program are administered by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.