Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pūlaholaho

In former times, the area we now call downtown Honolulu was not called Honolulu; instead, each land section had its own name.  (A map in the album notes many of the different areas and their respective place names. )

‘Kou’ was later used to describe the district roughly encompassing the present day area from Nuʻuanu to Alakea Streets and from Hotel to Queen Streets Street (Queen Street was, then, only a pathway along the water’s edge.)

The harbor was known as Kuloloia.  It was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794.  He named the harbor “Fair Haven.”  The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

Kamehameha I, who had been living at Waikīkī since 1804, moved his court here in 1809.  His immediate court consisted of high-ranking chiefs and their retainers.

In 1815, Kamehameha I granted Russian representatives permission to build a storehouse near Honolulu Harbor.  Instead, directed by the German adventurer Georg Schaffer (1779-1836,) they began building a fort and raised the Russian flag.  When Kamehameha learned of this, he sent several chiefs to remove the Russians.

The partially built blockhouse was finished by Hawaiians; they mounted guns protected the fort.  Its original purpose was to protect Honolulu by keeping enemy or otherwise undesirable ships out.

By 1830, the fort had 40 guns mounted on the parapets; it was called Fort Kekuanohu (literally, ‘the back of the scorpion fish,’ as in ‘thorny back,’) because of the rising guns on the walls.  (Fort Street is so named, because of the fort on the waterfront.)

One of the areas nearby was called Pūlaholaho (it is down near the old waterfront, ʻEwa side of where the fort was.  (In today’s perspective, it runs from Merchant, Nuʻuanu, Queen Streets and up through the breezeway of the Harbor Court project (this used to be the location of Kaʻahumanu Street.)

April 25, 1825, Richard Charlton arrived in the Islands to serve as the first British consul. A former sea captain and trader, he was already familiar with the islands of the Pacific and had promoted them in England for their commercial potential (he worked for the East India Company in the Pacific as early as 1821.)

Charlton had been in London during Kamehameha II’s visit in 1824 and secured an introduction to the king and his entourage.  By the time he arrived in Hawai‘i in 1825, instructions had already arrived from Kamehameha II that Charlton was to be allowed to build a house, or houses, any place he wished and should be made comfortable.  This apparently was due to favors Charlton had done for the royal party.  (Hawaiʻi State Archives)

Charlton didn’t play well with others.  A report by Thrum noted, “July 13th (1827) – Last evening the English consul, in conversation with Boki told him he would cut Kaahumanu’s head off and all the residents were ready to join in it. Guards were ordered out in all parts of the village. Mr. Charlton may be ready to take up arms against the chief but few, if any, I believe would follow or join with him.” (Thrum)

In spite of that, Charlton did receive land for his home and for Consular offices.  The records suggest that the land under the present Washington Place premises were part of a grant from the chiefs to Charlton in 1825-26 to provide a permanent location for a British Consulate.  (HABS)

(Charlton later sold that property to Captain John Dominis (December 26, 1840,) who later built Washington Place. … By the way, Beretania Street was so named because of the British Consulate there.)

Charlton claimed this and other lands as his personal property.  He also claimed land down by the waterfront.  There was no disagreement over a small parcel, Wailele, but the larger adjoining parcel he claimed (Pūlaholaho) had been occupied since 1826 by retainers and heirs of Kaʻahumanu.

In making his claim for Pūlaholaho, Charlton showed a 299-lease dated October 5, 1826 issued to him by Kalanimōku.  That claim, made in 1840, however, was made after Kalanimōku and Kaʻahumanu had died.

Following Charlton’s presentation of his claim to rights of the entire land section of Pūlaholaho, Kamehameha III sought a means of providing security for the native residents on the land, and claimed that Pūlaholaho belonged to the crown.  (Maly)

In rejecting Charlton’s claim, Kamehameha III cited the fact that Kalanimōku did not have the authority to grant the lease.  At the time the lease was made, Kaʻahumanu was Kuhina Nui, and only she and the king could make such grants.  The land was Kaʻahumanu’s in the first place, and Kalanimōku certainly could not give it away.  (Hawaiʻi State Archives)  The dispute dragged on for years.

This, and other grievances purported by Charlton and the British community in Hawai‘i, led to the landing of George Paulet on February 11, 1843 “for the purpose of affording protection to British subjects, as likewise to support the position of Her Britannic Majesty’s representative here”.

Following this, King Kamehameha III ceded the Islands and Paulet took control.  After five months of British rule, Queen Victoria, on learning the injustice done, immediately sent Rear Admiral Richard Darton Thomas to the islands to restore sovereignty to its rightful rulers.

On July 31, 1843 the Hawaiian flag was raised.  The ceremony was held in area known as Kulaokahuʻa; the site of the ceremony was turned into a park, Thomas Square.

On November 26, 1845, legal title to Charlton’s land claim was secured and was sold to British businessman, Robert C Janion (of Starkey, Janion and Co – that company later became Theo H. Davies & Co and one of Hawaiʻi’s ‘Big 5.’)   (Liber 3:221; Maly)  Charlton stayed in Honolulu until February 19, 1846, when he left Hawai’i for the last time.

Pūlaholaho was subdivided and Janion auctioned off the properties in 1846.  Captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld opened a store on one of them in October 1849.  His company, H Hackfeld & Co, later became American Factors, Amfac, another Hawaiʻi ‘Big 5’ company.

A lasting legacy is the Melchers Building, the oldest commercial building in Honolulu, erected in 1854, at 51 Merchant Street, built for the retail firm of Melchers and Reiner. Its original coral stone walls are no longer visible on most sides, under its layers of stucco and paint (check the makai side of the building to see the coral blocks.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Alexander & Baldwin

In 1843, Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin, sons of early missionaries to Hawaiʻi, met in Lāhainā, Maui. They grew up together, became close friends and went on to develop a sugar-growing partnership.

Alexander was the idea man, more outgoing and adventurous of the two. He had a gift for raising money to support his business projects.

Baldwin was more reserved and considered the “doer” of the partners; he completed the projects conceived by Alexander.

After studying on the Mainland, Alexander returned to Maui and began teaching at Lahainaluna, where he and his students successfully grew sugar cane and bananas.

Word of the venture spread to the owner of Waiheʻe sugar plantation near Wailuku, and Alexander was offered the manager’s position.

Alexander hired Baldwin as his assistant, who at the time was helping his brother raise sugar cane in Lāhainā. This was the beginning of a lifelong working partnership.

In 1869, the young men – Alexander was 33, Baldwin, 27 – purchased 12-acres of land in Makawao and the following year an additional 559-acres.  That same year, the partners planted sugar cane on their land marking the birth of what would become Alexander & Baldwin (A&B.)

In 1871, they saw the need for a reliable source of water, and to this end undertook the construction of the Hāmākua ditch in 1876.

Although not an engineer, Alexander devised an irrigation system that would bring water from the windward slopes of Haleakala to Central Maui to irrigate 3,000 acres of cane – their own and neighboring plantations.

Baldwin oversaw the Hāmākua Ditch project, known today as East Maui Irrigation Company (the oldest subsidiary of A&B,) and within two years the ditch was complete.

The completed Old Hāmākua Ditch was 17-miles long and had a capacity of 60-million gallons per day.  A second ditch was added, the Spreckels Ditch; when completed, it was 30-miles long with a capacity of 60-million gallons per day.

Before World War I, the New Hāmākua, Koʻolau, New Haiku and Kauhikoa ditches were built. A total of ten ditches were constructed between 1879 and 1923.

Over the next thirty years, the two men became agents for nearly a dozen plantations and expanded their plantation interests by acquiring Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company and Kahului Railroad.

In 1883, Alexander and Baldwin formalized their partnership by incorporating their sugar business as the Paia Plantation also known at various times as Samuel T Alexander & Co, Haleakala Sugar Co and Alexander & Baldwin Plantation.

By spring of 1900, A&B had outgrown its partnership organization and plans were made to incorporate the company, allowing the company to increase capitalization and facilitate expansion.

The Articles of Association and affidavit of the president, secretary and treasurer were filed June 30, 1900 with the treasurer of the Territory of Hawaiʻi. Alexander & Baldwin, Limited became a Hawaiʻi corporation, with its principal office in Honolulu and with a branch office in San Francisco.

Shortly after, in 1904, Samuel Alexander passed away on one of his adventures. While hiking with his daughter to the edge of Victoria Falls, Africa, he was struck by a boulder. Seven years later, Baldwin passed away at the age of 68 from failing health.

After the passing of the founders, Alexander & Baldwin continued to expand their sugar operations by acquiring additional land, developing essential water resources and investing in shipping (Matson) to bring supplies to Hawaii and transport sugar to the US Mainland markets.

A&B was one of Hawaiʻi’s five major companies (that emerged to providing operations, marketing, supplies and other services for the plantations and eventually came to own and manage most of them.)  They became known as the Big Five.

Hawaiʻi’s Big Five were: C Brewer (1826;) A Theo H Davies (1845;) Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and Alexander & Baldwin (1870.)

What started off as partnership between two young men, with the purchase of 12 acres in Maui, has grown into a corporation with $2.3 billion in assets, including over 88,000 acres of land.

(In 2012, A&B separated into two stand-alone, publicly traded companies – A&B, focusing on land and agribusiness and Matson, on transportation.)

A&B is the State’s fourth largest private landowner, and is one of the State’s most active real estate investors.  It’s portfolio includes a diversity of projects throughout Hawaiʻi, and a significant commercial property portfolio in Hawaiʻi and on the US Mainland. (Information here is from Alexander & Baldwin.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Bloody Monday’

In 1935, as part of the New Deal initiatives, Congress passed the Wagner Act legalizing workers’ rights to join and be represented by labor unions.

In Hawaiʻi, business was dominated by the Big Five: Alexander & Baldwin, C. Brewer, Castle & Cooke, AmFac and Theo. Davies.  Nearly everything of significance, from banks to shipping lines and sugar plantations to newspapers, was tightly controlled by the Big Five.

One third of the population of the islands was living on the plantations, with seventy percent of the people directly dependent on plantation economy.

The Hilo Longshoremen’s Association was formed on November 22, 1935, when about 30 young longshoremen of almost every ethnic and racial origin common to the territory agreed to join forces and organize all the waterfront workers regardless of race or national origin.

By the summer of 1937, with the help of the longshoremen, Hilo had the following unions: Hilo Laundry Workers’ Association, Hilo Longshoremen’s Association, Hilo Canec Association, Hilo Clerks’ Association, Hilo Railroad Association and the Honuʻapo Longshoremen’s Association.

By 1938, during the height of the Great Depression, labor discontent escalated over low pay and poor working conditions.  Negotiations were underway between the unions and employers on two major issues: 1) parity or equity of wages and conditions with the West Coast workers; and 2) the closed or union shop or some kind preferential hiring arrangement.

But Hawai’i employers were committed to fight the issue of wage parity or mainland wage standards in every industry as a matter of principle.

The Hilo Longshoremen’s Association struck against the Inter-Island Steamship Navigation Co.

The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. had been controlled since 1925 by Matson Navigation and Castle & Cooke, the days before commercial airline transport between the islands.  Its ships carried virtually all passenger and light freight traffic.

After three weeks of striking, the unions had decided to fall back somewhat and draw their line at the return of the two larger ships, the SS Waiʻaleʻale and the SS Hualalai.

Inter-Island scheduled another return of the Waiʻaleʻale to Hilo Harbor.  Expecting confrontation, the night before the scheduled arrival, nearly 70-Police officers and special volunteer deputies began to assemble at the wharf to be sure that the union men would not get there before they did.

They had a small arsenal of 52-riot guns with bayonets, 4-Thompson sub-machine guns, tear gas grenades and an adequate supply of ammunition including both buckshot and birdshot cartridges for the riot guns.

In addition, the Hilo Fire Department was assigned to dispatch a pumping truck and enough firemen as might be needed to repulse the marchers with water hoses.

In addition to the official police force that was assembling, the Inter-Island Navigation Company had also prepared a squad of its own ‘specials.’

The Waiʻaleʻale was expected around 9 am on August 1, 1938.  Some of the longshoremen started to gather as early as 6:30 am, and by 8:30 the majority of the unionists began to arrive.

Over two hundred men and women belonging to several different labor unions attempted to peacefully demonstrate against the arrival of the SS Waiʻaleʻale in Hilo.

Without any specific order, the crowd formed up and began to march down singing as they went, “The more we get together, together, together; The more we get together, the better we’ll be!” While in the back the women were singing, “Hail, hail the gang’s all here.”

They were met by a force of police officers who tear gassed, hosed and finally fired their riot guns into the crowd.  In the scuffle, at least 16 rounds of ammunition were fired: seven birdshot and nine buckshot.

When it was over, fifty people, including two women and two children, had been shot; at least one man bayoneted and another’s jaw nearly broken for speaking up for his fallen brother.

In the confusion and uncertainty of the moment, the remaining, uninjured unionists left the docks Monday afternoon and the Waiʻaleʻale was unloaded without incident. But that night a rally was held at Moʻoheau Park which was attended by a huge crowd.

Reminiscent of the violence unleashed in the West Coast Strike four years earlier, the Hilo shooting closely paralleled the San Francisco police attack of July 5th that had left two strikers slain and a hundred others wounded.

The West Coast event had been called Bloody Thursday; here, they were already calling August 1st Hilo’s Bloody Monday.

The strike was soon settled.

A Grand Jury found: “That evidence is not sufficient to warrant an indictment against any person or group of persons”.  The union subsequently filed a lawsuit for damages, which they lost.

Lots of information and images here are from Hawaii-edu and The Hilo Massacre: Hawaii’s Bloody Monday, August 1st, 1938 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Center for Labor Education & Research, 1988.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Big Five (plus 2)

“By 1941, every time a native Hawaiian switched on his lights, turned on the gas or rode on a street car, he paid a tiny tribute into Big Five coffers.” (Alexander MacDonald, 1944)

The story of Hawaii’s largest companies dominates Hawaiʻi’s economic history. Since the early/mid-1800s, until relatively recently, five major companies emerged and dominated the Island’s economic framework. Their common trait: they were focused on agriculture – sugar.

They became known as the Big Five:

C. Brewer & Co.
Founded: October 1826; Capt. James Hunnewell (American Sea Captain, Merchant; Charles Brewer was American Merchant)
Incorporated: February 7, 1883

Theo H. Davies & Co.
Founded: 1845; James and John Starkey, and Robert C. Janion (English Merchants; Theophilus Harris Davies was Welch Merchant)
Incorporated: January 1894

Amfac
Founded: 1849; Heinrich Hackfeld and Johann Carl Pflueger (German Merchants)
Incorporated: 1897 (H Hackfeld & Co;) American Factors Ltd, 1918

Castle & Cooke
Founded: 1851; Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke (American Mission Secular Agents)
Incorporated: 1894

Alexander & Baldwin
Founded: 1870; Samuel Thomas Alexander & Henry Perrine Baldwin (American, Sons of Missionaries)
Incorporated: 1900

Some suggest they were started and run by the missionaries. Actually, only Castle & Cooke had direct ties to the mission – Castle ran the ‘depository’ and Cooke was a teacher.

Alexander & Baldwin were sons of missionaries, but not a formal part of the mission. Brewer was an American sea captain and merchant; the founders of Davies were English merchants and the founders of Amfac were German merchants.

Hawaiʻi’s industrial plantations began to emerge at this time (1860s;) they were further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US obtained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into U.S. markets for their sugar.

As the sugar industry pushed ahead, something else new was introduced into the economic scheme of things. In Honolulu two or three new firms began business solely to handle the affairs of the scattered plantations.

They began by acting as selling agents for the planters. Gradually they took over other functions: financing crops, importing labor, purchasing machinery for the planters and serving in all ways as their business agents. The new businesses soon found themselves running the sugar industry.

By the 1880s, five of these concerns, called factors, eventually dominated the field. How effectively the Big Five could band together as one against outside forces whether the enemy was foreign capital, insects, labor, competing products or disease was well demonstrated by their Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, more familiarly known as the HSPA. (MacDonald)

This group organization for Hawaii’s sugar industry was founded in 1882 as the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company when the planters found they had common problems in irrigating the sugar lands, growing the cane, and finding labor. That was its immediate official purpose.

“Everything that comes into the territory comes through a large corporation. The independent businessman who attempts to enter business here immediately finds that even nationally advertised lines from the mainland are tied up by the Big Five. It is almost impossible to get an independent line of business as they have everything – lumber paint, right down the line.” (Edward Walker, High Sheriff of Hawaiʻi, 1937; Kent)

Acting as agents for thirty-six of the thirty-eight sugar plantations, the Big Five openly monopolized the sugar trade. Twenty-nine firms, producing seven out of every eight tons of sugar exported from the Islands, refined, markets and distributed through the Big Five’s wholly owned California and Hawaiian Sugar Company, whose refinery, the largest in the world, was on San Francisco Bay. (Kent)

They branched out into other businesses. To squeeze additional profits out of the sugar trade, they started their own refinery in California; it was to become the largest in the world. They built up a fleet of ships, the Matson line, to carry the sugar away and to bring back goods and passengers.

They developed inter-island shipping, built hotels, put capital into insurance, cattle, pineapples, banking. They took over bodily the wholesaling of goods coming into the Islands; ninety percent of retail stock came from their warehouses.

Their capital started the public utilities. Their street railway transported Hawaiians, their gas and electric plants lighted the city, they acquired the communications systems. (MacDonald)

The sugar industry was the prime force in transforming Hawaiʻi from a traditional, insular, agrarian and debt‐ridden society into a multicultural, cosmopolitan and prosperous one. (Carol Wilcox)

With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.

The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’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.)

A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s. As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

There were a couple other associated entities that were associated with the Big 5” Dillingham (Benjamin Franklin Dillingham) and Campbell (James Campbell) and their associated companies.

Click HERE to view/download for more information on Hawai‘i’s Big 5 (plus 2).

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Alexander & Baldwin-logo
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Alexander & Baldwin Building-PP-7-4-006-00001
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American Factors (formerly H.Hackfield)-PP-7-5-019-00001
American Factors (formerly H.Hackfield)-PP-7-5-019-00001
C Brewer-logo
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Brewer Building-Burlingame-SB
Castle & Cooke-logo
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Theo Davies-logo
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Theo. H. Davies Co., Bishop St-PP-8-3-010-00001
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James_Campbell_Building-(Williams, Adamson)-1967
Dillingham Transportation Building-PP-8-4-003-00001
Dillingham Transportation Building-PP-8-4-003-00001

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The New “Big 5”

This story was inspired by a luncheon talk former OHA Trustee, Peter Apo gave to the Hawaiʻi Economic Association I attended. Although he hinted at the “Big 5” reference, he purposefully referenced it differently.

Since the early/mid-1800s, until relatively recently, five major companies emerged and dominated the state’s economic framework. Their common trait: they were founded in agriculture – sugar and pineapple.

They became known as the Big 5: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H. Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C. Brewer (1826.)

The luncheon talk suggested a new group of five is making a difference in Hawaiʻi’s economic scene.

The new “Big 5:” Kamehameha Schools, Queen Emma Foundation/Queens Health Systems, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Queen Liliʻuokalani Trust.

Their common trait: they are entities formed from or for native Hawaiians.

Kamehameha Schools (KS)

The largest, Kamehameha Schools (KS) was founded under the terms of the 1884 will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop and is supported by the land assets she provided to support the schools.

The Princess noted in her will that a trust is “to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools.”

She further stated, “I desire my trustees to provide first and chiefly a good education in the common English branches, and also instruction in morals and in such useful knowledge as may tend to make good and industrious men and women”.

Through the legacy of its founder, KS is endowed with 365,000-acres of land statewide, ninety-eight percent of which is in agriculture and conservation.

KS has about 1,000 agricultural tenants who farm a variety of crops including coffee, papaya, pineapple, macadamia nuts, lettuce, asparagus, sweet potatoes, taro, watercress, avocado, bananas, tomatoes, cattle, aquaculture, and more.

Kamehameha Schools has net assets of nearly $7-billion and annual operating revenue of $1.34-billion.

Queen Emma Foundation/Queens Health Systems

The Queen’s Hospital, now called The Queen’s Medical Center, was founded in 1859 by Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV.

Queen Emma Land Company was established to support the Queen’s Medical Center and its affiliates and accomplishes this by managing and enhancing income-generating potential of the lands left to the Queen’s Hospital by Queen Emma in 1885 and additional properties owned by the Queen’s Health Systems.

Today, the Queen’s Health Systems is Hawaiʻi’s oldest health care-related family of companies, ranking 13th in size among Hawaiʻi’s corporations and employing approximately 3,700 employees with net revenues of roughly $516-million.

Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL)

Written in 1920 and passed in 1921 by the US Congress, the “Hawaiian Homes Commission Act” established a structure and framework for the establishment of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) 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.

The principal purposes of the Act: establishing a permanent land base for the benefit and use of native Hawaiians; placing native Hawaiians on the lands; 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.

When considering development and use of its lands, DHHL asserts its land use authority over Hawaiian Home Lands through its General Plan and Island Plans and is exempt from State and County land classification requirements.

DHHL has net assets of approximately $717-million and annual operating revenue of over $12-million, plus on-going capital improvement/development expenditures.

Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)

Amendments to the State Constitution in 1978 established the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA.) Those amendments also established a board of trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is a semi-autonomous state agency created “to address the needs of the aboriginal class of people of Hawaii.”

Duties of the Board of Trustees include, “hold title to all the real and personal property now or hereafter set aside or conveyed to it which shall be held in trust … (as well as) manage and administer the proceeds from the sale or other disposition of the lands, natural resources, minerals and income derived from whatever sources for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians”.

Recently, it was announced that the State and OHA settled disagreements on past ceded land payments. The State is giving about 25 acres of land to OHA, worth $200 million.

This is added to its existing inventory of Wao Kele O Puna (25,800+ acres,) Waimea Valley (1,800-acres) and other smaller properties.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has net assets of over $650-million and operating revenue of over $40-million.

The Liliʻuokalani Trust (QLT)

In 1909, Queen Liliʻuokalani executed a Deed of Trust that established the legal and financial foundation of an institution dedicated to the welfare of orphaned and destitute children of Hawaiʻi.

Her Deed of Trust states that “all the property of the Trust Estate, both principal and income … shall be used by the Trustees for the benefit of orphan and other destitute children in the Hawaiian Islands, the preference given to Hawaiian children of pure or part-aboriginal blood.”

The trust owns approximately 6,200-acres of Hawaiʻi real estate, the vast majority of which is located on the Island of Hawaiʻi. 92% is agriculture/conservation land, with the remaining land zoned for residential, commercial and industrial use.

The trust owns approximately 16-acres of Waikīkī real estate and another 8-acres of commercial and residential real estate on other parts of Oʻahu. It has operating revenues of approximately $40-million.

In addition to these land holdings, the Legislature created the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC) to manage the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve while it is held in trust for a future Native Hawaiian sovereign entity.

While most of the prior “Big 5” have slowly faded away and no longer influence Hawaiʻi’s economy as in the past, these other five have a growing presence and influence in Hawaiʻi’s future.