Economy | Page 58 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 27, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Linzy Clark Child

“Born Aug. 14, 1887, Ogden, Utah, son of Austin W., and Mary (Thompson) Child; married Lena Conant at Kealakekua, Hawaii, July 5, 1913; children, Helen C., Madelane C., and Elmer Austin Child; member, Hilo Lodge No. 759, B. P. 0. Elks.”

“Educated in schools of Utah, Mr. Child came to Hawaii in 1908 and entered the employ of H. Hackfeld & Co., at Kailua, remaining in the branch office and store there after it was taken over by American Factors, Ltd.”

“On October 1, 1918, he was promoted to the managership, which position he still holds. He is active in the civic affairs of the Kona district and is postmaster at Kailua.” (Nellist)

“From 1900 to 1917, the largest business in Kailua-Kona was H. Hackfeld & Co. Ltd. The name changed to American Factors in 1917 and to AmFac in the 1960s.”

“Its two-story building sat at the entrance to Kailua Pier on the current site of King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel. It served as company headquarters, general store, post office and employee housing.”

“There were also a coffee mill and a large diesel generator used to make ice. By the 1930s, American Factors had established a lumberyard on the site as well. … the warehouses of Amfac dealt with practically everything else for decades: ice, food for man and beast, building materials, hardware, fuel and kitchen sinks.”

“[B]ecause Kailua’s shallow water pier was impossible to tie up to, lumber was floated, paddled, and swum ashore and then hauled up to dry on the white sands of Kamakahonu Beach.” (Kona Historical Society)

“This arduous task, floating huge beams and rafters ashore, happened for well over a century at undeveloped Kona ports such as Kailua, Keauhou, and Ho`okena. Henry N. Greenwell’s shipment of northwest fir for his Greenwell Store arrived at Kealakekua Bay before 1870.”

“His initials – H.N.G. – painted in black on each piece of timber identified his wood so when athletic Hawaiians swam it ashore at Napoopoo, it could be piled in one place.”

“That was when Napoopoo ‘was a really happening place’ with Amfac’s wooden store dominating the front street, large metal tanks holding fuel looming amongst the palm trees, and warehouses filled with Kona coffee, Kona oranges, and bananas advertised Kona’s agricultural wealth.”

“And, live beef on the hoof was to be found penned up near Hikiau Heiau, awaiting their one-way trip to Honolulu’s slaughterhouses on board the Humu’ula.”

“Freighters arrived in Kailua Bay laden with fuel, a long hose or pipe was connected from the ship to the shore to enable gasoline to be pumped directly into Standard Oil’s large white fuel tank. Fifty gallon drums full of oil were simply floated ashore.”

“When ‘rafts’ of bundled lumber made it onto the beach, Mr. Linzy Child, Amfac’s Kailua branch manager, had men grade (select with no knots, rough clear), segregate, and carefully stack each plank to dry with laths in between each piece.”

“Local villagers would be hired to do much of the work on steamer days, a good chance for able bodied men and boys to earn some ready cash.”

“Takao Katoku earned a penny a piece to swim lumber ashore and drag it onto the sands of Napoopoo Beach in the early 20th century.

“Kona, in the 1920s, enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Large sums were invested in equipment and machinery, acreage was expanded, and new homes were built. Farmers obtained credit for these improvements and they borrowed heavily.”

“Those outside coffee farming – those who provided goods and services – prospered. The Y.K. Aiona Store, owned by Sam Liau’s family, was one of many stores that enjoyed a brisk business. The Manago Hotel, now a Kona landmark, expanded its facilities and services.” (Kona Historical Society)

Hopes continued to soar. But, when coffee prices fell, Kona’s people, too, fell deeper and deeper into debt. The hopes and dreams of many were shattered.

Between 1929 and 1938, the number of farmers decreased by an alarming 50 percent. Relief was obtained only in the late 1930s. Farmers, storekeepers, and others united in an effort to save their community.

Usaku Morihara was one of many who participated in this effort. “People started running away because of the depression. So we started negotiating with American Factors. I told Factors to reduce all of the debts.”

“I told them the people would remember this and be loyal to them until death. I told them the coffee business would be doomed otherwise, and there would be no farmers in Kona, so it would be their loss as well as ours. I told them let us be free of our debts.”

“I told them the farmers would start working hard when everything started fresh. And those who’d run away would come back since they liked Kona better than the sugar plantations and any other place.” (A Social History of Kona)

“[I]t was my grandfather Linzy C. Child who was the manager of American Factors Kailua during that period that negotiated and spoke to Mr. Morihara and others about helping the farmers debt problems.”

“Getting on a ship to Honolulu he was successful getting top management of American Factors to forgive 98% of the debts; this was unheard of. I believe the action taken by Grandpa and American Factors saved the Kona Coffee industry and changed the way banking was done in Hawaii in dealing with other ethnic groups!” (Linzy Hotz)

Linzy Clark is also credited in helping to start Kona’s Kai ‘Ōpua canoe club. (Kai ‘Opua) “Grandpa was a humble man who rarely spoke of his life while living in Kona since the early 1900s.” (Linzy Hotz)

January 26, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

First Descriptions of the Islands and the People

“On the 19th (of January, 1778,) at sunrise, the island first seen, bore east several leagues distant. … At this time, we were in some doubt whether or not the land before us was inhabited; but this doubt was soon cleared up, by seeing some canoes coming off from the shore, toward the ships”.

“In the course of my several voyages, I never before met with the natives of any place so much astonished, as these people were, upon entering a ship. Their eyes were continually flying from object to object …”

“… the wildness of their looks and gestures fully expressing their entire ignorance about every thing they saw, and strongly marking to us, that, till now, they had never been visited by Europeans, nor been acquainted with any of our commodities except iron …”

” Of what number this newly-discovered Archipelago consists, must be left for future investigation. We saw five of them, whose names, as given to us by the natives, are Woahoo (O‘ahu,) Atooi (Kauai,) Oneeheow (Ni‘ihau,) Oreehoua (Lehua) and Tahoora (Ka‘ula.)”

“Besides these … which we can distinguish by their names, it appeared, that the inhabitants of those with whom we had intercourse, were acquainted with some other islands both to the eastward and westward. I named the whole group the Sandwich Islands, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich.”

“The inhabitants are of a middling stature, firmly made, with some exceptions, neither remarkable for a beautiful shape, nor for striking features, which rather express an openness and good-nature, than a keen, intelligent disposition.”

“Their visage, especially amongst the women, is sometimes round; but others have it long; nor can we say that they are distinguished, as a nation, by any general cast of countenance.”

“Their colour is nearly of a nut-brown, and it may be difficult to make a nearer comparison, if we take in all the different hues of that colour; but some individuals are darker.”

“They are vigorous, active, and most expert swimmers; leaving their canoes upon the most trifling occasion; diving under them, and swimming to others though at a great distance.”

“It was very common to see women, with infants at the breast, when the surf was so high that they could not land in the canoes, leap overboard, and without endangering their little ones, swim to the shore, through a sea that looked dreadful.”

“They seem to be blest with a frank, cheerful disposition; … They seem to live very sociably in their intercourse with one another; and … they were exceedingly friendly to us.” “(T)hey spoke the language of Otaheite, and of the other islands we had lately visited.”

Men wore a ‘maro’ (malo,) “pieces of cloth tied about the loins, and hanging a considerable way down.” “The only difference in (women’s) dress, was their having a piece of cloth about the body, reaching from near the middle to half-way down the thighs, instead of the maro worn by the other sex.”

“The habitations of the natives were thinly scattered about … (part of Cook’s crew) had an opportunity of observing the method
of living amongst the natives, and it appeared to be decent and cleanly.”

“Though they seem to have adopted the mode of living in villages, there is no appearance of defence, or fortification, near any of them; and the houses are scattered about, without any order, either with respect to their distances from each other, or there position in any particular direction.”

“Their amusements seem pretty various; for, during our stay, several were discovered. The dances … from the motions which they made with their hands, on other occasions, when they sung, we could form some judgment that they are, in some degree at least, similar to those we had met with at the southern Islands”.

“They did not, however, see any instance of the men and women eating together; and the latter seemed generally associated in companies by themselves.”

“They eat off a kind of wooden plates, or trenchers; and the women, as far as we could judge from one instance, if restrained from feeding at the same dish with the men … are at least permitted to eat in the same place near them.”

“It was found, that they burnt here the oily nuts of the doee dooe for lights in the night, … and that they baked their hogs in ovens”.

“They met with a positive proof of the existence of the taboo (or as they pronounce it, the tafoo), for one woman fed another who was under that interdiction.”

“They also observed some other mysterious ceremonies; one of which was performed by a woman, who took a small pig, and threw it into the surf, till it was drowned, and then tied up a bundle of wood, which she also disposed of in the same manner. The same woman, at another time, beat with a stick upon a man’s shoulders, who sat down for that purpose.”

“They have salt, which they call patai; and is produced in salt ponds. With it they cure both fish and pork; and some salt fish, which we got from them, kept very well, and were found to be very good.”

“Fish, and other marine productions were, to appearance, not various; as, besides the small mackerel, we only saw common mullets; a sort of a dead white, or chalky colour; a small, brownish rock-fish, spotted with blue; a turtle, which was penned up in a pond; and three or four sorts of fish salted. The few shellfish that we saw were chiefly converted into ornaments”.

“Of animal food, they can be in no want; as they have abundance of hogs, which run, without restraint, about the houses ; and if they eat dogs, which is not improbable, their stock of these seem to be very considerable. The great number of fishing-hooks found among them, showed, that they derive no inconsiderable supply of animal food from the sea.”

“Judging from what we saw growing, and from what was brought to market, there can be no doubt that the greatest part of their vegetable food consists of sweet potatoes, taro, and plantains; and that bread-fruit and yams are rather to be esteemed rarities.”

“(T)he vale, or moist ground, produces taro, of a much larger size than any we had ever seen; and the higher ground furnishes sweet potatoes, that often weigh ten, and sometimes twelve or fourteen pounds; very few being under two or three.”

(This summary comes entirely from the Journals of Captain Cook, explaining what he saw immediately after contact.)

View of the Sandwich Islands_Webber-Achorage at Atooi

January 23, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Marcus Douglas Monsarrat

I like maps, especially historical maps.

One of my favorites was a map of Honolulu drawn by Marcus Douglas Monsarrat, Hawaii-born surveyor. He prepared it in 1897.

I like it, not only because it represents the nature of the City at that time, but, more importantly, he also depicts homes and buildings, and includes the names of the owners.

Born on March 29, 1857, on his paternal side Monsarrat is descended from Nicholas Monsarrat, who went to Dublin, Ireland, in 1755 from France.

His father, MC Monsarrat resided in Canada before coming to Hawaii, having been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, June 18, 1844, and in the Islands he served as deputy collector of customs, later with Dowsett & Compauy, lumber dealers, which subsequently became SG Wilder & Company.

His father (Marcus Cumming Monsarrat became a bit notorious in the Islands. Prince Lot had invited Marcus Monsarrat, who lived nearby, as a guest at a dinner party on January 15, 1857. When dinner was over, Monsarrat bid his goodbye and left. …

Soon after, one of Lot’s servants said the tall, handsome Monsarrat was in Victoria Kamāmalu’s bedroom. Prince Lot burst into Victoria Kamāmalu’s quarters and discovered her in compromising circumstances with his guest Marcus Monsarrat (he was ‘arranging his pantaloons.’) He was banished from the Islands.

The incident was embarrassing to the court because efforts were underway to arrange a marriage between Victoria Kamāmalu and Kalākaua; these plans were quickly aborted. Monsarrat returned; he died in Honolulu on October 18, 1871. Some suggest Monsarrat Street near Lēʻahi (Diamond Head) is named for Monsarrat; others say it is for his son, James Melville Monsarrat, an attorney and Judge.

Through his mother Marcus Douglas Monsarrat is a descendant of Captain Samuel James Dowsett, a native of Rochester, Kent, England, and a commander in His Majesty’s Colonial Service, who, as owner and master of the brig “Wellington,” came to Hawaii from Sydney July 27, 1828, and established his family in Honolulu. (Nellist)

Monsarrat studied at O‘ahu College (now Punahou School, 1866-70 and 1872-73) and St Alban’s (now Iolani School, 1870-71). His first employment was with James Dowsett.

Monsarrat worked for the Hawaiian Government Survey from about 1874 until 1877. The Office of Hawaiian Government Survey was established under the Interior Department in 1870, when the Minister of the Interior, F.W. Hutchison (who had the care of public lands and by law had the authority to have them surveyed), asked the Legislature for $5,000 for “Government Surveying.”

Its formation was prompted by the increased public demand for additional grants of government land in the late 1860s and the government’s corresponding ignorance of the amount or location of government land still available for lease or sale.

It was also surmised that a survey and its resultant maps, besides determining the extent of remnant government lands, would prove useful to private individuals and other government agencies, especially tax assessors, boundary commissioners and the courts, since no district maps then existed and island maps were still based on the charts of Cook and Vancouver.

Consequently, an Office of Survey was begun and its primary object was “to account for all the land in the Kingdom by its original title, and indicate such accounting on general maps, and while having no authority to settle boundaries, to require the surveyors to lay down such boundaries on maps to the best of their ability with the abundant information at their disposal.” (DAGS, Survey)

Monsarrat surveyed the Island of Lanai. After working for the government, Monsarrat opened his own surveying firm. He served as Crown surveyor from 1878 until Hawai‘i’s annexation with the US. (Geographicus) He also had a contract to survey Molokai.

During his long and active career, he personally surveyed a large portion of the Hawaiian Islands. From 1902 to the time of his death, he served as commissioner of boundaries for first and second judicial circuits. (Siddall)

Monsarrat married Florence Ellen Luce, at Honolulu, June 1, 1882; they had three children, Kathleen Douglas, Mildred Myrtle (deceased), and Ethel Florence. (They later divorced.) Monsarrat died October 23, 1922.

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.