Hawaii | Page 110 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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 24, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palikū

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 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 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Voyaging Canoes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 21, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Point Four Program

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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