On September 30, 1878, a pioneer band of 180 Portuguese landed in Honolulu. The Portuguese entered Hawaiian society in large numbers between 1878 and 1913, predominantly, although not exclusively, to join the sugar plantation workforce. (Bastos)
“About 65 per cent of the Portuguese, who formed the bulk of the assisted Caucasian immigrants, were women and children, as against 19 per cent of the Japanese.”
“Therefore at a time when it cost but $87.75 to bring a Japanese laborer to the islands, it cost $266.15 to bring a Portuguese, including the passage of the nonproducing members of his family.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1902)
“In the long run the discrepancy in cost was not so great, because the Portuguese settled in the country and raised up children there, so that they and their families were a permanent increment to the working population”.
“The Portuguese are largely employed in the semi-skilled occupations of the plantation … These people are an exceedingly hopeful element of the population. They are both industrious and frugal, and their vices are not of a sort to injure their efficiency as workers.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1902)
Few returned to the Portuguese islands, and to the disappointment of the planters, very few renewed their contracts. (Portuguese Historical Museum)
On O‘ahu, they followed the classic pattern: when their contracts expired, they moved to town, concentrating in the Punchbowl and Pauoa districts. (Jardine)
“Around the base of Punchbowl is to be found a colony of Portuguese, who naturally draw together in this strange land, and there they distinguish themselves by the neatness of their dwellings, the growth of pretty (if common) flowers, and a general air of thrift is lacking on the part of many of their neighbors.” (PCA, Sep 23, 1884)
Here, street names commemorate famous Portuguese people and the areas from which they came: Lusitana, Funchal, Lisbon and Azores; Alencastre, Madeira, Morreira and Magellan; Correa, Enos and Osorio. (Jardin)
Lusitana Street was named for the Lusitana Society (sometimes referred to as Lusitania Society), although two with that name existed: the Sociedade Lusitana Beneficente de Hawaii, and the União Lusitana Hawaiiana, founded in 1882 and 1892, respectively. (Bastos) (Lusitania is the ancient name of West Hispania, and now a poetic name for Portugal. (Hawaiian Dictionary))
“Like most other immigrant groups with little or no access to established sources of capital, the Portuguese fostered accumulation of savings among their number.”
“But the Portuguese Benevolent Society was formed in order to be able to help individuals hit by adversity – invalids, widows, and orphans, for example.” (Correa & Knowlton)
“The remarkable financial results achieved by our Portuguese immigrants grow more apparent still in their Benevolent Societies, of which there are four in Honolulu – the Lusitana (1,900 members), the San Antonio (2,100 m), the Patria (125 m) and the San Martino (200 m), to which must be added the Camoes Court of Foresters, with two societies in Hilo.” (Thrum)
“Of all these, the ‘Lusitana’ is the only one which possesses a complete financial statement from its incipiency; it was created in 1882, especially to help the newly-arrived plantation laborers, and has been, for the greater part of its existence, sustained nearly exclusively by such laborers from savings out of their meager wages”.
“Moreover, the ‘Lusitana’ owns its own premises, has $53,000 safely invested, thereby helping members in mortgages, and it keeps an emergency fund of about $9,000.” (Thrum)
“This shows on the part of the members of this Association a very laudable spirit of providing for the future, as well as a pride to prevent themselves from becoming helpless objects of charity during sickness or accidents, which might well be imitated by other nationalities in this Territory.” (Thrum)
“It is no small accomplishment for a few thousand imported plantation laborers, mostly driven to Hawaii by distress in their own country and arriving in a nearly indigent condition …”
“… to have insured themselves and their families against the worst economic consequences of illness and death, and to have accumulated so large an amount of collective funds during the two or three decades that they have been settled in the Territory.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor in Hawaii, Sep, 1906)
The Lusitana Society building was at the intersection of Alapai and Lunalilo. It was later used as a dance hall and academy, and as the home of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The site was later run over by the H1 freeway.
The Portuguese population all over Hawai‘i declined significantly in the early 1900s. Partially due to the Gold Rush in California and the 1906 San Francisco fire, many moved to California to help rebuild or to find their fortune. (NPS)
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