Hawaiian Economy | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 6, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sugar Changed the Social Fabric of the Islands

He keiki aloha nā mea kanu
Beloved children are the plants
(ʻŌlelo Noʻeau 684)

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands; sugar was a canoe crop.

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks. Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands. On January 19, 1778, off Kauaʻi, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.” (Cook)

As a later economic entity, sugar gradually replaced sandalwood and whaling in the mid‐19th century and became the principal industry in the islands, until it was succeeded by the visitor industry in 1960.

Since it was a crop that produced a choice food product that could be shipped to distant markets, its culture on a field scale was started in about 1800 and has continued uninterruptedly up to the present time.

The first sugar to be made in Hawai‘i is credited to a man from China. The newspaper Polynesian, in its issue of January 31, 1852, carried this item attributed to a prominent sugar planter on Maui, LL Torbert:

“Mr. John White, who came to these islands in 1797, and is now living with me, says that in 1802, sugar was first made at these islands by a native of China, on the island of Lānaʻi.”

“He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandalwood, and brought a stone mill and boilers, and after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.”

While HSPA – HARC states, “The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauai in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200”, others suggest the first commercial production actually started on Maui. (Hawai‘i Agriculture Research Center (HARC – successor entity to Hawai‘i Sugar Planters Association (HSPA))

A couple guys named Ah Hung and Ah Tai combined their names in order to identify their company – a 1939 news ‘Short’ says Hungtai “is said to have been one of the earliest manufacturers of sugar in the islands, at Wailuku, Maui in 1823.” (Star Bulletin, April 6, 1939) Others say Hungtai started commercial sales in 1828; still, seven years before Koloa.

Hungtai had a plantation and a water-powered mill in Wailuku and sold the sugar in their store at Merchant and Fort Streets in Honolulu. They were still selling that sugar as late as 1841, when they were advertising in local newspapers. (TenBruggencate)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well. Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.” (Garvin)

Likewise, 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 noted:

“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)

Capital was scarce, profits were uncertain, and failures frequent. There was a market In California and Oregon, but the tariff and competition from Philippine and American producers created difficulties for the Hawaiian planters. (Davis)

Hawaiʻi had the basic natural resources needed to grow sugar: land, sun and water. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

The gold rush and settlement of California opened a lucrative market. Then, there was a jump in price and demand for the Hawaiian Islands product following the outbreak of the Civil War. The Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

Sugar‐cane farming gained this prestige without great difficulty because sugar cane soon proved to be the only available crop that could be grown profitably under the severe conditions imposed upon plants grown on the lands which were available for cultivation. (HSPA 1947)

Though a demand for the product was essential for success, two other factors had to be provided before the demand could be met – more arable land and a larger labor supply. For the first, water was necessary, only along the Hāmākua coast of the island of Hawai‘i and in a few other places was this resource abundantly present together with a suitable land area.

Most plantations depended upon rain for this basic need. There had been a few efforts at irrigation, notably the Lihue Ditch constructed on Kauai in 1856 by William Harrison Rice and extended several times after that date.

But the most Important expansion came on Maui with the construction of the Hāmākua Ditch during the period of 1876 to 1878, and of the Spreckels Ditch in 1879. By means of these two great Irrigation projects water was brought from the mountains to the dry but potentially fertile plains, and thousands of additional acres of land suitable for sugar cane growing were made available.

By 1875 economic and political pressures in Hawai‘i and the US led to additional benefits. The United States saw a double danger in the Sandwich Islands which reciprocity might overcome.

First, there was the influence of a strong group consisting of both Hawaiians and Europeans whose sympathies and ties were with England rather than America and who would like to see the Hawaiian Kingdom allied closely with that country. Second, there was the possibility of losing the Hawaiian trade to Australia, New Zealand, and British Columbia. (Davis)

As a result, the Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated in 1875 and put into effect on September 9, 1876. This agreement provided for the tariff-free entry of a number of Items into each country. For Hawaiian sugar planters the most Important was the admission of unrefined sugar without duty into the USs. The Reciprocity Treaty with the United States brought about the phenomenal growth of the sugar industry in Hawaii.

Hawaiians had provided the original labor supply, and as late as 1873, 79% of the workers on 36 plantations were from that group. This number included more than 50% of the able-bodied native males. But the indigenous population had been decreasing at an alarming rate over a period of many years, probably reaching its lowest ebb about the time of the Reciprocity Treaty.

Hence, even if the long, hot, arduous days in field or mill continued to attract Hawaiians, they were numerically unable to fill the increased need. Importation of workers seemed the only answer. (Davis)

Though the demand for sugar and the conditions for producing it continued to improve, this one necessity was lacking. Sugarcane went to ruin in the fields, building and development were delayed, production fell short of estimates, all for lack of enough workers.

The Hawaiian government favored the importation of South Sea Islanders so that the declining Polynesian population could be rebuilt. Several other groups were considered but rejected for various reasons – American Negroes, Hindus, Malaysians. (Davis)

Labor for the expanding plantations was hired under contracts regulated by the ‘Act for Government of Masters and Servants,’ originally passed in 1850 and amended several times thereafter.

This Act applied to workers of any kind, Including household servants, yard and stable boys, washerwomen, shop clerks, and others. The contract could cover any period not to exceed five years and might be made in a foreign country for service In Hawai‘i.

There were severe penalties for absence from or refusal to work, and some protection against a master’s cruelty, misuse, or violation of contract. Its form was determined by law, and It required that both parties Involved appear before an agent of the Hawaiian Government, listen to the terms of the contract, voluntarily assent to it and accept its obligations.

There were many who objected to this system as a kind of slavery or serfdom in which most of the legal safeguards were on the side of the employer, but it was defended by planters as essential to the success of the sugar Industry. Only by means of the contract, they felt, could labor of the type needed by the plantations be controlled and held to the land.

Sugar changed the social fabric of Hawai‘i.

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)

There were three big waves of workforce immigration:
• Chinese 1852
• Japanese 1885
• Filipinos 1905

Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred:
• Portuguese 1877
• Norwegians 1880
• Germans 1881
• Puerto Ricans 1900
• Koreans 1902
• Spanish 1907

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands.

The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe.

For nearly a century, agriculture was the state’s leading economic activity. It provided Hawai‘i’s major sources of employment, tax revenues and new capital through exports of raw sugar and other farm products.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawai‘i’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.

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

A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.

As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawai‘i underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

Koloa-Sugar-Monument

January 22, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻIliahi

Sandalwood (ʻiliahi) has been highly prized and in great demand through the ages; its use for incense is part of the ritual of Buddhism. Chinese used the fragrant heart wood for incense, medicinal purposes, for architectural details and carved objects.

Sandalwood was first recognized as a commercial product in Hawai‘i in 1791 by Captain Kendrick of the Lady Washington, when he instructed sailors to collect cargo of sandalwood. From that point on, it became a source of wealth in the islands, until it’s supply was ultimately exhausted.

Trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s; by 1805 it had become an important export item.

Waimea Bay became the sandalwood capital during the 1800s. Huge cargo ships would anchor offshore to load sandalwood.

Sandalwood trade was a turning point in Hawai‘i, especially related to its economic structure. It moved Hawai‘i from a self-sufficient economy to a commercial economy. This started a series of other economic and export activities across the islands.

In 1809, two brothers, the American ship captains Jonathan Winship of the “Albatross” and Nathan Winship of the “O’Cain,” started on a voyage that established the sandalwood trade.

After trading for furs on the coast of Oregon, they sailed in October, 1811, for Honolulu, where they and Captain William Heath Davis of the “Isabella” took on cargoes of sandalwood.

The ships sailed to Canton, where the fragrant wood was sold at a large profit. Returning to Honolulu, the three captains persuaded King Kamehameha I to grant them a monopoly of the sandalwood and cotton trade for 10 years. However, after the first trip, Kamehameha cancelled the arrangement. (St John)

In 1811, an agreement between Boston ship captains and Kamehameha I established a monopoly on sandalwood exports, with Kamehameha receiving 25% of the profits. As trade and shipping brought Hawaiʻi into contact with a wider world, it also enabled the acquisition of Western goods, including arms and ammunition.

Kamehameha used Western cannons and guns to great advantage in his unification of the Islands and also acquired Western-style ships, buying the brig Columbia for a price of two ship loads of sandalwood in 1817.

Between about 1810 and 1820, the major item of Hawaiian trade was sandalwood. Kamehameha I rigidly maintained control of the trade until his death in 1819, at which time his son, Liholiho, took over control.

When Kamehameha I died, although Liholiho (his son and successor) should have inherited all of Kamehameha’s lands, the chiefs also wanted the revenue from the sandalwood.

Chiefs persuaded the king to give them an in on the royal sandalwood monopoly; trade continued at an accelerated rate, following Kamehameha’s death.

In America, the Panic of 1819 (the first financial crisis in the United States) made it difficult for traders to obtain sandalwood for the China trade.

However, because the Hawaiian chiefs had become enamored of items of foreign manufacture, the islands provided an open market for goods like rum, clothing, cloth, furnishings and a host of other things.

Foreign traders shipped these goods to the islands, exchanging them for sandalwood, which continued to be in demand in China.

It was Hawaii’s first source of revenue and major debt. Credit secured by payment in sandalwood saddled the Hawaiian Chiefs and the Islands’ struggling economy.

In 1826, the kingdom of Hawaiʻi enacted its first written law – a sandalwood tax. Every man was ordered to deliver to the government 66 pounds of sandalwood, or pay four Spanish dollars, by September 1, 1827.

Every woman older than 13 was obligated to make a 12-by-6-foot kapa cloth. The taxes were collected to reduce the staggering debt.

The common people were displaced from their agricultural and fishing duties and all labor was diverted to harvesting sandalwood. This period saw two major famines as ʻiliahi was over-harvested to the point of commercial extinction in Hawaiʻi forests.

Unfortunately, the harvesting of the trees was not sustainably managed (they cut whatever they could, they didn’t replant) and over-harvesting of ‘iliahi took place.

By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed. Hawaiian forests were exhausted and sandalwood from India and other areas in the Pacific drove down the price in China and made the Hawaiian trade unprofitable.

Once reported as growing on landscape scales, today, there are only remnant patches of ‘iliahi. Several are trying to bring sandalwood back.

April 10, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Whaling

The war for independence against the British on the American continent (1775-1783) closed the colonial trade routes within the British empire.

The merchantmen and whalers of New England swarmed around South America’s Cape Horn, in search of new markets and sources of supply. A market was established in China.

China took nothing that the US produced; hence Boston traders, in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase teas and silks at Canton, spent 18-months or more of each China voyage collecting a cargo of sea-otter and other skins out of the northwest side of the American continent, highly esteemed by the Chinese.

Years before the westward land movement gathered momentum, the energies of seafaring New Englanders found their natural outlet, along their traditional pathway, in the Pacific Ocean.

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i for provisions and recreation; then, the opening years of the 19th century saw the sandalwood business became a recognized branch of trade.

Sandalwood, geography and fresh provisions made the Islands a vital link in a closely articulated trade route between Boston, the Northwest Coast and Canton, China.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Orient brought many ships to the Islands. They needed food and water, and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands.

At that time, whale products were in high demand; whale oil was used for heating, lamps and in industrial machinery; whale bone was used in corsets, skirt hoops, umbrellas and buggy whips.

Rich whaling waters were discovered near Japan and soon hundreds of ships headed for the area.

Whalers’ aversion to the traditional Hawaiian diet of fish and poi spurred new trends in farming and ranching. The sailors wanted fresh vegetables and the native Hawaiians turned the temperate uplands into vast truck farms.

There was a demand for fresh fruit, cattle, white potatoes and sugar. Hawaiians began growing a wider variety of crops to supply the ships.

In Hawaiʻi, several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour “on Japan,” “on the Northwest,” or into the Arctic.

The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years. For Hawaiian ports, the whaling fleet was the crux of the economy. More than 100 ships stopped in Hawaiian ports in 1824.

“At present the whale ships visit the Sandwich Islands in the months of March and April and then proceed to the coast of Japan, the return again in October and November remain here about six weeks, and then proceed in different directions …”

“… some to the Coast of California, others cruise about the Equator when they return thither again in March and April and proceed a second time to the Coast of Japan; it usually occupies two seasons on that coast to fill a ship that will carry Three Hundred Tons.” (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

“The number of hands generally comprising the Company of a whale ship will average Twenty Five; and owing to the want of discipline, the length and the ardourous duties of the voyage, these people generally become dissatisfied and are willing at any moment to join a rebellion or desert the first opportu(nity) that may offer …”

“… this has been fully exemplified in the whale ships that have visited these islands, constant disertions have taken place and many serious mutinies both contributing to protract and frequently ruin the voyage.” (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

The effect on Hawaiʻi’s economy, particularly in areas in reach of Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo, the main whaling ports, was dramatic and of considerable importance in the islands’ history.

Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

Then, whaling came swiftly to an end.

In 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry.

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Port-of-Lahaina-Maui-1848

Lahaina as seen from Lahainaluna-(portion_Lahainaluna_engraving)-1838

Koloa_Landing-Kauai-(KauaiMuseumCollection)

Rotch fleet in the midst of a school of sperm whales off the coast of Hawaii-LOC-1833

Whaling-Honolulu_Harbor-1850s

A view of whale fishery, from A Collection of Voyages round the World…Captain Cook’s First, Second, Third and Last Voyages, 1790 (NOAA)

Cutting up the ‘junk’ – central section of the head of sperm whales

head oil from sperm whales could be bailed directly into casks

Hoisting the blanket strip

Trying the horse pieces – the minced ‘horse piece’ to the ‘try-pot’

‘The wharf-gauging oil’, by David H. Strother, a New Bedford whaling wharf covered with casks of whale oil. (Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, June 1860)

Stripping the ivory for scrimshaw

Drake_Well-Park-sign

EarlyOilField-Titusville-WC

July 26, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Beyond the Boundaries

In ancient Hawai‘i, most of the makaʻāinana (‘common people’) were farmers, a few were fishermen. Tenants cultivated smaller crops for family consumption, to supply the needs of chiefs and provide tributes.

Access to resources was tied to residency and earned as a result of taking responsibility to steward the environment and supply the needs of aliʻi. The social structure reinforced land management – the primary land unit was the ahupuaʻa.

Resources not only sustained the occupants, they were also used to pay tributes to the King. Missionary Samuel Ruggles noted in his journal (June 17, 1820:) “The King’s rent has been brought in from all parts of the Island and from Onehow (Niʻihau) a small Island about 15 miles to the westward.”

“It consisted of hogs, dogs, mats, tappers, feathers, pearl fishhooks, calabashes and paddles. This rent is to go to Owhyhee (Hawaiʻi) as a present to the young King.”

“It was interesting to see the natives come, sometimes more than a hundred at a time, with their loads on their backs and lay down their offerings at the feet of their great and good Chief as they call him.” (Ruggles)

A typical ahupuaʻa was a long strip of land, narrow at its mountain summit top and becoming wider as it ran down a valley into the sea to the outer edge of the reef. If there was no reef then the sea boundary would be about one mile from the shore.

Shaped by island geography, ahupuaʻa varied in shape and size (from as little as 100-acres to more than 100,000-acres.) Each ahupuaʻa had its own name and boundary lines. Often the boundary markers were natural features such as a large rock or a line of trees or even the home of a certain bird. A valley ahupuaʻa usually used its ridges and peaks as boundaries.

The traditional land tenure system in ancient Hawaiʻi had at its core the presence of water (however, some ahupuaʻa did not have perennial streams or springs.) Although of many shapes and sizes, the typical ahupuaʻa consisted of three area types: mountain, plain and sea. Ahupuaʻa contained nearly all the resources Hawaiians required for survival.

In ancient Hawaiian times, relatives and friends exchanged products. The upland dwellers brought poi, taro and other foods to the shore to give to kinsmen there. The shore dweller gave fish and other seafood.

The emphasis on economic self-sufficiency in Hawaiian ahupua‘a resonates in our modern world with concerns for environmental and economic sustainability.

But the general perception of ahupua‘a self-sufficiency is quite different from demonstrated large scale movement of basalt and volcanic glass artifacts between island districts and sometimes between islands. (Mills)

Although control over agricultural production was doubtless central to the Hawaiian political economy, to this we can add a significant role of an exchange economy based on the control and distribution of other kinds of goods and resources.

One such resource, which fortunately is well represented in the archaeological record, consists of high-quality, fine-grained volcanic rock. (Kirch)

Many sources of stone within most ahupua‘a could have been used to make adzes (albeit of lesser quality.) It was the structure of ancient Hawaiian culture that led to the development of preferred sources outside of the ahupua‘a being used.

The ahupuaʻa of Kaʻohe in the Hāmākua district of Hawaiʻi Island, and its rich resource of basalt for adze making, helps illustrate this.

Kaʻohe is an irregular ahupua‘a because it only occupies a narrow (and relatively resource-poor) band along the coast where most of the residents would have lived.

But as Kaʻohe ascends the eastern slope of Mauna Kea and emerges above the forest near 6,000-ft in elevation, it expands to occupy the entire summit region.

The uplands of Kaʻohe would have contained few food resources beyond ground-nesting birds. The primary evidence of pre-contact human utilization of Kaʻohe’s vast mountain region is the adze quarry, which would have provided Kaʻohe with a valuable resource to exchange with other ahupua‘a. (Mills)

Likewise, Kahikinui on Maui, shows that, although the district’s residents exploited local stone sources for the majority of their tool production, they nonetheless imported slightly more than one-quarter of their lithic resources from outside of their own political district.

Clearly, even though they were capable of being self-sufficient in stone resources, they chose to import a significant quantity of high-quality volcanic rock, either as raw material or as finished adzes. (Kirch)

Moreover, archeologists have found disproportionately high frequency of fine-grained volcanic rock artifacts (from outside the specific ahupuaʻa) in high-status residence sites or ritual, temple complexes.

This strongly suggests that control over access to and distribution of these stone resources was controlled by aliʻi, who would likely have included the district chief (aliʻi ‘ai moku) and ahupua‘a-level sub-chiefs (aliʻi ‘ai ahupua‘a,) as well as the land managers (konohiki) and priests (kāhuna.) (Kirch)

Some early historical texts also hint at other kinds of exchange with others from other districts, including peddlers who traveled with goods between districts, regular exchange of foodstuffs, woods and fibers between moku, and even ‘fairs’ for barter between different districts. (Mills)

This exchange economy may also have consisted of perishable materials (ie, salt, fiber plants and cordage, lauhala matting, large hardwood logs for canoe hulls, and the red and yellow feathers of certain species of forest birds;) however, none of these preserve in most archaeological contexts. (Kirch)

Of course, following contact, the economic exchange of goods and services expanded – Sandalwood, supporting Whaling, Sugar, Pineapple, Visitor Industry etc. (Lots of information here is from Kirch and Mills.) (The image shows the adze maker in artwork by Herb Kane.)

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