Agriculture | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 11, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

How Much Land Do We Need To Be Food Self-Sufficient?

Given the on-going conversations on food “self-sufficiency” and “sustainability,” in trying to answer the above question, I first looked to existing State plans to see the estimates and computations noted there.

To my surprise, there is no detail in the Hawaii 2050 Plan (the State’s long-range planning document) that quantifies how much land is needed for food self-sufficiency.

While it does use “happy words” (as I describe its text) generalizing that we need to do this or that; however, no roadmap to get there or measures of success are included.

I then did an internet investigation into the matter to see if ‘rules of thumb’ or other standards could apply. The evidence is variable.

As noted by the graphic used here, some suggest, at a self-subsistence level, a family of four can live off of approximately 2-acres of land.

Extend that to the Hawai‘i’s existing defacto population of about 1.5-million people, we need about 750,000-acres of land to feed everyone. (Of course, there are economies of scale when moving from individual family subsistence production to commercial scale production, so this number is inflated.)

(By the way, de facto population is defined as the number of persons physically present in an area, regardless of military status or usual place of residence. It includes visitors present but excludes residents temporarily absent, both calculated as an average daily census.)

The 750K acres for 1.5M people conflicts with a prior report on feeding the people in the city of Detroit. In that report, Detroit’s 5.4-million people would require only 164,250-acres to feed everyone there, per year.

Extrapolating that to Hawai‘i’s 1.5-million de facto population that means, under the Detroit analysis, Hawai‘i only needs about 45,625-acres of farmland to feed the State. Hmmm.

Another study on Costa Rica “Quantifying Sustainable Development: The Future of Tropical Economies” suggests that it takes about 495,000-acres of land to feed 1.2- to 1.6-million people.

Of course, all of these estimates do not include the significant dietary supplement we are able to use in Hawai‘i by harvesting seafood from the surrounding ocean.

Nor does it include opportunities that concentrated farming offer, like aquaponics, hydroponics, intensive grazing, etc.

So, while we talk about food “self-sufficiency” and “sustainability” what are we doing about it?

Lately, I think the only ‘action’ has been talk – folks go to a meeting, talk, then they prepare a plan. They meet again, and talk some more. Then everyone goes away satisfied that they are ‘doing’ something (until the next happy words meeting.)

Presently, the State designates about 1.9-million acres as “Agriculture.” The USDA reports Hawai‘i’s total farm acreage is 1.1-million acres of land.

And, of course, you can farm lands that are not designated ‘agriculture;’ meaning, a lot more land is available for food production from lands under other land use classifications (including everyone’s own backyard.)

Given that, should we all feel comfortable there will be food for us in the future?

Not quite.

I think it is about time we have a frank discussion about what our needs are and start to take the necessary steps to ultimately realize our goal of food self-sufficiency and sustainability.

The world is changing in lots of ways – we cannot blindly go along with business as usual (with just happy words) in addressing this important and critical need.

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)

September 14, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ancient Agricultural Production Intensification

According the research and reporting by noted archaeologists, there were three main technological advances resulting in food production intensification in pre-contact Hawai‘i: (a) walled fishponds, (b) terraced pondfields with their irrigation systems and (c) systematic dry-land field cultivation organized by vegetation zones.

Walled Fishponds

The Hawaiian walled fishpond stands as a technological achievement unmatched elsewhere in island Oceania. Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters, to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

Only in Hawaiʻi was there such an intensive effort to utilize practically every body of water, from seashore to upland forests, as a source of food, for either agriculture or aquaculture.

The ancient Hawaiian fishpond is a sophisticated land and ocean resource management technique. Utilizing raw materials such as rocks, corals, vines and woods, the Hawaiians created great walls (kuapā) and gates (mākāhā) for these fishponds.

The general term for a fishpond is loko (pond), or more specifically, loko iʻa (fishpond). Loko iʻa were used for the fattening and storing of fish for food and also as a source for kapu (forbidden) fish.

The cultivation of fish took place in Hawaiian agricultural pondfields as well as in specialized fresh and brackish water fishponds. Walled, brackish-water fishponds were usually constructed on the reef along the shore and one or more mākāhā.

Samuel M. Kamakau points out that “one can see that they were built as government projects by chiefs, for it was a very big task to build one, (and) commoners could not have done it (singly, or without co-ordination.)” Chiefs had the power to command a labor force large enough to transport the tons of rock required and to construct such great walls.

In 1848, when King Kamehameha III pronounced the Great Māhele, or land distribution, Hawaiian fishponds were considered private property. This was confirmed in subsequent Court cases that noted “titles to fishponds are recognized to the same extent and in the same manner as rights recognized in fast land.”

Lo‘i Kalo (terraced pondfields)

A second technological invention by Hawaiian Polynesians was the development of their extended stone-faced, terraced pondfields (lo‘i) and their accompanying irrigation systems (‘auwai) for the intensive cultivation of wetland taro (kalo.)

The terraces were irrigated with water brought in ditches from springs and streams high in the valleys, allowing extensive areas of the valleys to be cultivated. The irrigation ditches and pondfields were engineered to allow the cool water to circulate among the taro plants and from terrace to terrace, avoiding stagnation and overheating by the sun, which would rot the taro tubers.

An acre of irrigated pondfields produced as much as five times the amount of taro as an acre of dryland cultivation. Over a period of several years, irrigated pondfields could be as much as 10 or 15 times more productive than unirrigated taro gardens, as dryland gardens need to lie fallow for greater lengths of time thin irrigated gardens.

In addition, walled pondfields not only produce taro, but were also used to raise an additional source of food, freshwater fish: primarily the Hawaiian goby (‘o‘opu nakea) and certain kinds of shrimp (‘opae.)

Captain George Vancouver visited O‘ahu in 1792 and wrote about the taro gardens in tine Waikīkī-Kapahulu-Mo‘ili‘ili-Manana complex that he observed:

“Our guides led us to the northward through the village [Waikiki], to an exceedingly well-made causeway, about twelve feet broad, with a ditch on each side. This opened to our view a spacious plain…the major part appeared divided into fields of irregular shape and figure, which were separated from each other by low stone walls, and were in a very high state of cultivation.”

In 1815, the explorer Kotzebue added to these descriptions by writing about the gardens and the artificial ponds that were scattered throughout the area:

“The luxuriant taro-fields, which might be properly called taro-lake, attracted my attention. Each of these consisted of about one hundred and sixty square feet, forms a regular square, and walled round with stones, like our basins. This field or tank contained two feet of water, in whose slimy bottom the taro was planted, as it only grows in moist places. Each had two sluices. One to receive, and the other to let out, the water into the next field, whence it was carried farther.”

Dryland Field System

The third form of subsistence intensification involved the systematic cultivation of dryland crops in their appropriate vegetation zones as exemplified by the Field Systems in Kona, Kohala, Kaupō and Kalaupapa (Ka‘ū reportedly also has a field system.)

Cultivation of the soil in Kona was characterized by a variety of non-irrigated root and tree crops grown for subsistence, each farmer having gardens in one or more vegetation zones. Each crop was cultivated in the zone in which it grew best.

Reverend William Ellis described the area behind Kailua town in Kona above the breadfruit and mountain apple trees as, “The path now lay through a beautiful part of the country, quite a garden compared with that through which they had passed on first leaving the town.”

“It was generally divided into small fields, about fifteen rods square fenced with low stone walls, built with fragments of lava gathered from the surface of the enclosures. These fields were planted with bananas, sweet potatoes, mountain taro, paper mulberry plants, melons, and sugar-cane, which flourished luxuriantly in every direction.”

Farmers found, farmed and intensified production on lands that were poised between being too wet and too dry. Archaeological evidence of intensive cultivation of sweet potato and other dryland crops is extensive, including walls, terraces, mounds and other features.

The fields were typically oriented parallel to the elevation contours and the walls; sometimes these were made up of a grid of rain-fed plots, defined by low stone field walls built, in part, to shelter sweet potatoes and other crops from the wind.

Since the dryland technique was away from supplemental water sources, this was truly dryland agriculture. There was no evidence to level terraces as in irrigated pondfield systems (taro lo‘i,) and there was no evidence of water control features or channels; so the conclusion was the system was strictly rainfed.

The inspiration (and much of the information) for this post came from research from Dr. Marion Kelly.

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Moku‘ula

Moku‘ula

Fish_Ponds_at_Honoruru,_Oahu,_by_John_Murray,_after_Robert_Dampier-(WC)-1836

Honolulu_Harbor_to_Diamond_Head-Wall-Reg1690 (1893) - Waikiki_portion-(note_fish_ponds-rice_fields_(formerly_used_as_taro_loi)

c. 1826 lithograph, William Ellis C., Big Island. Waipio Valley, Ahupua’a.

Stepped terrace walls under hau trees, Kahaluʻu Taro Loʻi-(WC)

Hanalei_Valley_Taro-Loi-(WC)

Loi-Kalo-Punaluu-(KSBE-BishopMuseum)-1924

Water from the ‘auwai going back to the kahawai-(KSBE)

Kohala Field System-walls-trails-map-Vitousek

Kalaupapa_Field_System-densely packed windbreak field walls are visible from the air-(McCoy)

Map of Islands noting Majory Dryland Field Systems-(Kirch)

April 19, 2019 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Manini

“The number of foreigners residing at the islands is far greater than I supposed. Four American mercantile houses – two of Boston, one of New York, and one of Bristol, Rhode Island – have establishments at this port, to which agents and clerks are attached.”

“Their storehouses are abundantly furnished with goods in demand by the islanders; and, at them, most articles contained in common retail shops and groceries, in America, may be purchased.”

“There is another class, consisting of fifteen or twenty individuals, who have dropped all connexion with their native countries, and become permanent residents on different islands; and who hold plantations and other property under the king awl various chiefs.”

“Of these, Marini (Don Francisco de Paula y Marin) a Spaniard, interpreter for the government; … “Marini (has) been at the islands more than thirty years; and (was a companion and counsellor) of Tamehameha.”

Marin “accumulated much property, holds many plantations, and owns extensive flocks of goats, and herds of cattle; and is said to have money in fund, both in the United States and in England.”

“He has introduced the grape, orange, lemon, pine-apple, fig, and tamarind trees, but to a very limited extent; and seemingly from a motive entirely selfish: for he has perseveringly denied the seeds, and every means of propagation, to others, and been known even secretly to destroy a growth that had been secured from them without his knowledge.”

“A considerable quantity of wine is yearly made from his vineyard; and his lemons and pines, by sales to ships and in the town, bring quite an income.”

“He has a numerous breed of mules; and several horses, some twenty or thirty of which have within a few years been brought from the coast of California, and are now rapidly increasing.”

“Flocks of beautiful doves, also an importation, are domiciliated at his establishment; and some few miles from the town, along the coast, there is an islet, covered with the burrows of English hares, belonging to him.” (CS Stewart.)

Don Francisco de Paula Marin (known to the Hawaiian as “Manini”) was a Spaniard who arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.) Manini’s nickname appears to be the closest way that the Hawaiians could pronounce his name.

His knowledge of Western military weapons brought him to the attention of Kamehameha, who was engaged in the conquest of O‘ahu. Marin almost immediately became a trusted advisor to Kamehameha I.

Marin spoke four languages (he arrived fluent in Spanish, French and English, and learned Hawaiian) and was employed by Kamehameha as Interpreter, Bookkeeper and part time Physician (although he had no formal medical training, he had some basic medical knowledge.) He also served as purchasing agent for the arms that proved decisive to Kamehameha’s victory of the Battle of Nu‘uanu (1795.)

Kamehameha granted Marin a couple acres of land Ewa of the King’s compound on the Honolulu waterfront (near Nu‘uanu Stream.)

Marin then proceeded over the next several years to erect the first stone house built in Hawai‘i on the property, pre-fabricated wooden houses imported from New England, a cut coral breakwater wall, a wharf, storehouses, bullock pen and stone perimeter fencing.

Kamehameha also rewarded him with large tracts of land, including Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, which Marin used to raise cattle.

He was known for his interest in plant collecting and brought in a wide variety of new plants to Hawai‘i. His gardens were filled with trees, vines and shrubs.

He turned this hobby into a “ship supply” business and provided fresh fruits and vegetables to the crews of ships docked at Honolulu Harbor.

Marin was responsible for introducing and cultivating many of the plants commonly associated with the Islands. To name only a few, here are some of the plants he introduced and/or cultivated in Hawai‘i: pineapple, coffee, avocado, mango and grape vines.

He also successfully cultivated and raised oranges, figs, roses, beans, melons, turnips, tobacco, wheat, barley, cloves, tomatoes, saffron and cherries.

Marin also planted lots of potatoes, yams, breadfruit, melons, cabbage, onions, celery, and garlic, as well as wheat, rice and Indian corn. He made castor oil, soap, molasses, pickles, sugar, butter, cigars, coconut oil, candles and hay.

Hawai‘i’s first accommodations for transients were established sometime after 1810, when Marin “opened his home and table to visitors on a commercial basis … Closely arranged around the Marin home were the grass houses of his workers and the ‘guest houses’ of the ship captains who boarded with him while their vessels were in port.”

He fermented the first wine in Hawai‘i and distilled brandy. He also made rum from sugarcane and brewed beer, all of which he sold at his boarding house-saloon near the waterfront.

Marin Street near Honolulu Harbor was named for him and the Marin Tower, built in 1994, occupies the site of his boarding house.

His “New Vineyard” grapevines were located Waikiki side of Nu‘uanu Stream and makai of Vineyard Street; when a road was cut through its mauka boundary, it became known as Vineyard Street.

In April of 1819, Marin was summoned to the Big Island of Hawai‘i to assist Kamehameha, who had become ill. Marin was not able to improve the condition of Kamehameha, and on May 8, 1819, King Kamehameha I died. Marin died in Honolulu on October 30, 1837.

Marin’s contributions are best noted by Robert C. Wyllie, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, when addressing the Royal Agricultural Society of Hawai‘i in 1850, saying:

“From the brief accounts of the life and works of the don in 1809 to 1820, few of you will doubt that most of the present wealth of these islands is owing to the seeds, roots and plants introduced by Francisco de Paula Marin, and to whom the Hawaiian people are so greatly indebted.”

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Marin Compound-Interpretive Sketch-Lydia Pulsipher

Francisco_de_Paula_Marin_Drawn_by_Masselot-1837

Francisco_de_Paula_Marin-signature

Chest believed to have belonged to Don Francisco de Paula y Marin-PP-37-4-005

Chest believed to have belonged to Don Francisco de Paula y Marin_PP-37-4-004

Francisco_de_Paula_Marin-plaque

September 24, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Settlement & Agricultural Development

Folks describe different ‘phases’ or ‘periods’ of human settlement and agricultural development in the Islands over time. Different people use different terms for each of these (some use varying timeframes, as well,) but they seem to generally fall into Settlement, Development, Expansion and ultimately Post-Contact.

Settlement – AD 1000-1400

It is believed that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch) This effectively started the ‘Settlement’ phase.

The rich valley bottoms which later they would clear, terrace, and irrigate for wet-taro cultivation, were in their pristine state, dense jungle, probably covered mostly with the hau shrub which, where it runs wild, produces a dense, tight jungle. For this jungle the first settlers had no use.

What taro tops they had, they planted along the banks of the streams, as taro is still planted along the banks of irrigation and drainage ditches. If they had sweet-potato shoots, these were planted in sandy soil near their huts.

It is more likely, however, that the first settlers had little or nothing to plant. The plants and more settlers were probably brought by canoes sent back to the homeland.

For generations, the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

Fishermen and their families living around the bays and the beaches, or at isolated localities along the coast where fishing was practicable, led a life that was materially simpler than that of planters who dwelt on the plains.

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

With such a small (but growing) population based on the family unit, society was not so complicated that it needed chiefs to govern or oversee the general population.

Kamakau states that there were no chiefs in the earliest period of settlement but that they came “several hundred years afterward … when men became numerous.”

Development – AD 1400-1650

As the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved. The traditional land use in the Hawaiian Islands evolved from shifting cultivation into a stable form of agriculture.

Stabilization required a new form of land use and eventually the ahupua‘a form of land management was instituted (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today.) Ahupuaʻa served as a means of managing people.

In addition, this centralization of government allowed for development and maintenance of large projects, such as irrigation systems, large taro loʻi, large fish ponds, heiau and trails.

To feed more people, farming became more developed and intensified. Only in Hawaiʻi was there such an intensive effort to utilize practically every body of water, from seashore to upland forests, as a source of food, for either agriculture or aquaculture.

Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters, to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

Another technological invention by Hawaiian Polynesians was the development of their extended stone-faced, terraced pondfields (lo‘i) and their accompanying irrigation systems (‘auwai) for the intensive cultivation of wetland taro (kalo.)

An acre of irrigated lo‘I kalo produced as much as five times the amount of taro as an acre of dryland cultivation. Over a period of several years, irrigated pondfields could be as much as 10 or 15 times more productive than unirrigated taro gardens, as dryland gardens need to lie fallow for greater lengths of time thin irrigated gardens. (Kelly)

There was systematic cultivation of dryland crops in their appropriate vegetation zones as exemplified by the Field Systems (notable systems are seen in Kona, Kohala, Kaupō, Kalaupapa and Ka‘ū.) (Kelly)

This was a period of tremendous significance in Hawaiian pre-contact history since, during this time, (1) the population underwent a geometric rate of increase; (2) virtually all habitable and arable lands were occupied and territorially claimed; (3) the territorial pattern of chiefdom (moku) and subchiefdom units (ahupua‘a) appears to have been established …

… and (4) toward the end of this period the Hawaiian sociopolitical system was transformed from a simple, ancestral Polynesian chiefdom to a highly stratified society with virtual class differentiation between chiefs and commoners. (Kirch)

Expansion – AD 1650-Contact (1778)

A population peak (usually estimated at several hundred thousand) was reached around 1650 AD, more than 100 years before contact with Europeans.

It was at this population peak, or shortly before, that Hawaiians began to inhabit less favorable coastline areas and barren zones between the coast and upland agricultural sites and to develop extensive dryland agricultural systems in marginal regions. (Cuddihy)

Large-scale irrigation works and permanent field systems were developed during the expansion period. Settlements were intruding into increasingly marginal environments, including the interiors of leeward valleys and the higher elevation slopes. Population densities in the fertile windward valleys increased, although densities in tablelands and elsewhere were much lower.

Cultivation was characterized by a variety of non-irrigated root and tree crops grown for subsistence, each farmer having gardens in one or more vegetation zones. Each crop was cultivated in the zone in which it grew best.

There was extensive development of at least the mauka portion of the kula sub-zone, for sweet potatoes, wauke and probably also gourds. This development was accompanied rarely by permanent habitation and more often by temporary and seasonal habitation along the kula gardens.

Animal enclosures, probably for pigs, may date to this phase. The upland zones were under complete development by this time. Suitable caves were modified for refuge during times of warfare or social conflict. Caves located in the midst of garden features were intensively used for temporary shelter and work spaces. (Terry)

Post Contact – After 1778

At the time of Captain Cook’s arrival (1778-1779), the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Island rulers, Aliʻi or Mōʻī, typically ascended to power through familial succession and warfare. In those wars, Hawaiians were killing Hawaiians; sometimes the rivalries pitted members of the same family against each other.

“It is supposed that some six thousand of the followers of this chieftain (Kamehameha,) and twice that number of his opposers, fell in battle during his career, and by famine and distress occasioned by his wars and devastations from 1780 to 1796.” (Bingham)

In addition to deaths in wars, epidemics of infections added to the decline in Hawaiʻi’s population from approximately 300,000 at the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778 to 135,000 in 1820 and 53,900 in 1876.

Vancouver was appalled by the impoverished circumstances of the people and the barren and uncultivated appearance of their lands. “The deplorable condition to which they had been reduced by an eleven years war” and the advent of “the half famished trading vessels” convinced him that he should pursue his peace negotiations for “the general happiness, of the inhabitants of all the islands.” (Vancouver, Voyage 2)

“By this time nearly a generation of the race had passed away, subsequently to their discovery by Cook. How much of their strength had been exhausted by wars and the support of armies, and how much by new and terrible diseases, it is not easy to estimate. The population was greatly diminished, and the residue unimproved in morals.” (Bingham)

The cultivation of kula lands gradually decreased in extent and intensity, nevertheless remaining important to a decreasing population. Some kula lands were being converted to grazing beginning in the 1840s.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i. On July 29, 1835, Ladd & Company obtained a 50-year lease on nearly 1,000-acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

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.

Although sugar dominated the Hawaiian economy, there was also great demand at the time for fresh Hawaiian pineapples, and later canned pineapple. By 1931, pineapple production exceeded 12 million cases as a result of both expansion and improvements in productivity; production of canned pineapple peaked in 1957.

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