Maui | Page 4 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 20, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Battle of Kalaeʻiliʻili

In Europe, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763,) becoming the dominant power in Europe, North America and India. The war cost a lot of money; to raise funds Britain decided to levy taxes on the Colonies on the American continent.

For instance, the passed Quartering Act (required the colonies to provide barracks and supplies to British troops;) Stamp Act (taxed newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice and playing cards;) Sugar Act (increased duties on non-British goods shipped to the colonies) and Currency Act (prohibited American colonies from issuing their own currency.)

This marked the beginning of Colonial opposition to the British (1765) and Colonists cried out against ‘taxation without representation.’

Turmoil was in the Islands, as well – some folks on Maui were also feeling that they were not being treated fairly; in addition, a power struggle was emerging.

Wailuku was considered a Royal Center (politically, ceremonially and geographically important during traditional times) with many of the chiefs and much of the area’s population residing near or within portions of ‘Īao Valley and lower Wailuku. (FWS)

The period immediately preceding contact with the Europeans was one of considerable upheaval and conflict. (FWS)

After the death of Kamehamehanui (the late king of Maui,, which happened about 1765, Nāmāhana (the widow queen of Kamehamehanui) married Keʻeaumoku. (Fornander)

Nāmāhana’s brother, Kahekili, then became King of Maui, was displeased that Nāmāhana had taken Keʻeaumoku for her husband, and he became Keʻeaumoku’s enemy.

Nāmāhana and Keʻeaumoku lived at the large and fertile land of Waiheʻe.

Some people on Maui felt that the abundance of resources would have allowed all to be well fed; they felt they were not getting their share.

In particular, Kahanana (at the time, a lesser chief in Waiheʻe) was neglected by Keʻeaumoku and his court when the chief of Waiheʻe distributed fish, after fortunate catches, among the subordinates and warriors living on the land. (Fornander)

Kalākaua writes that “Kahekili induced Kahanana … to embroil Keʻeaumoku in a difficulty with his own people.”

One evening Kahanana killed three of Keʻeaumoku’s men. An insurrection arose and Kahekili, who was in the vicinity, took the side of Kahanana.

The resultant Battle of Kalaeʻiliʻili (c. 1765) was fought because the rich agricultural resources of the Waiheʻe River Valley and the offshore marine resources were being unevenly distributed by the chief Keʻeaumoku and other Molokai chiefs.

A general fight ensued between the Kahanana party, being supported by Kahekili, and Keʻeaumoku. Keʻeaumoku and his chiefs maintained their ground for some days, but were eventually overmatched, beaten and obliged to flee. (Fornander)

The Battle reportedly marked the beginning of Kahekili’s reign and Keʻeaumoku and the Molokai chiefs were driven out of Waiheʻe.

But the anger of Kahekili pursued the fugitives. Invading Molokai, he engaged Keʻeaumoku and his Molokai allies in a sea-fight and Kahekili was again victorious. The naval engagement off Molokai is called the battle of “Kalauonakukui.” (Fornander)

Keʻeaumoku fled to Hāna, where Mahihelelima, the governor under Kalaniʻōpuʻu, received him and his wife and entertained them at Kaʻuiki. (Fornander)

At Kaʻuiki, Keʻeaumoku appears to have found a short repose in his turbulent career; he was not heard of again for some years. It is probable that he made his peace with Kalaniʻōpuʻu and was permitted to remain at Hāna. (Fornander)

It was later, there at Kaʻuiki, Hāna, Maui, in about 1768, that Keʻeaumoku and his wife Nāmāhana had their first child, Kaʻahumanu, future and famous Queen of Kamehameha the Great.

Again, several years pass by with Kalaniʻōpuʻu still holding portions of the Hāna district on Maui and the great fort of Kaʻuiki; but about the year 1775, the war between Hawaiʻi and Maui broke out again. (Fornander)

Kahekili successfully defended his capital in Wailuku throughout the 1770s, until his defeat at the hands of Kamehameha’s forces. (FWS) (Kamehameha went on to conquer the Islands of Hawaiʻi, Maui Nui and Oʻahu by 1795 (defeating Kalanikūpule, Kahekili’s son) and ultimately ruled the island chain in 1810.)

Back on the continent, the discontent between the Colonists and the British Crown led to the American boycott of taxed British tea and the Boston Tea Party in 1773, and ultimately the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and then the War of 1812.

November 2, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawai‘i Natural Area Reserves System (NARS)

Hawai`i contains unique natural resources, such as geologic and volcanic features and distinctive marine and terrestrial plants and animals, many of which occur nowhere else in the world.

In 1970, the legislature statewide Natural Area Reserves System (NARS) was established to preserve in perpetuity specific land and water areas which support communities, as relatively unmodified as possible, of the natural flora and fauna, as well as geological sites, of Hawai`i.

Areas that are designated as NARS are protected by rules and management activities that are designed to keep the native ecosystem intact, so a sample of that natural community will be preserved for future generations.

Contained in the System are some of Hawai`i’s most treasured forests, coastal areas and even marine ecosystems. Some would argue the NARS are the best of the best natural areas.

The Natural Area Reserves System (NARS) currently consists of reserves on five islands, totaling 109,165 acres. (DLNR)

NARS was established to protect the best remaining native ecosystems and geological sites in the State.

A Natural Area Reserves System (NARS) Commission assists DLNR and serves in an advisory capacity for the Board of Land and Natural Resources, which sets policies for the Department.

The diverse areas found in the NARS range from marine and coastal environments to lava flows, tropical rainforests and even an alpine desert. Within these areas one can find rare endemic plants and animals, many of which are on the edge of extinction.

While NARS is based on the concept of protecting native ecosystems, as opposed to single species, many threatened and endangered (T&E) plants and animals benefit from the protection efforts through NARS.

Major management activities involve fencing and control of feral ungulates (wild, hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep, deer and pigs), control of other invasive species (weeds, small mammalian predators), fire prevention and control, rare plant restoration, monitoring, public outreach, and maintenance of existing infrastructure, such as trails and signs.

The reserves also protect some of the major watershed areas which provide our vital sources of fresh water.

To protect Hawai`i’s invaluable ecosystems, a dedicated funding mechanism was created for the Natural Area Partnership Program, the Natural Area Reserves, the Watershed Partnerships Program and the Youth Conservation Corps through the tax paid on conveyances of land.

These revenues are deposited into the Natural Area Reserve (NAR) Special Fund and support land management actions on six major islands and engage over 60 public-private landowners, partners and agencies.

The Natural Area Reserves System is administered by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife. Here is a list of the reserves:

Big Island:

Pu‘u O ‘Umi
Laupāhoehoe
Mauna Kea Ice Age
Waiākea 1942 Lava Flow
Pu‘u Maka‘ala
Kahauale`a
Kīpāhoehoe
Manukā
Waiea

Maui

West Maui
Hanawi
Kanaio
‘Ahihi Kīna’u
Nakula

Molokai

Oloku‘i
Pu‘u Ali‘i

O‘ahu

Ka‘ena Point
Pahole
Mount Kaʻala
Kaluanui
Pia

Kauai

Hono O Na Pali
Kuia

See more here: https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/ecosystems/nars/

October 25, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamehameha Schools

Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani inherited all of the substantial landholdings of the Kamehameha dynasty from her brother, Lot Kapuāiwa; she became the largest landowner in the islands.

At her death, Keʻelikōlani’s will stated that she “give and bequeath forever to my beloved younger sister (cousin), Bernice Pauahi Bishop, all of my property, the real property and personal property from Hawaiʻi to Kauaʻi, all of said property to be hers.” (about 353,000 acres)

Bernice Pauahi was the birth daughter of Abner Pākī and his wife Laura Kōnia (Pauahi was the great-granddaughter and direct royal descendant of Kamehameha the Great.)

She was reared with her parent’s hānai child, Lydia Liliʻu Kamakaʻeha (birth daughter of High Chiefess Analeʻa Keohokālole and High Chief Caesar Kaluaiku Kapaʻakea, who later became Queen Liliʻuokalani.) The two girls developed a close, loving relationship. They attended the Chief’s Children’s School, a boarding school, together, and were known for their studious demeanor.

Pauahi’s will formed and funded the Kamehameha Schools; “Thirteenth. I give, devise and bequeath all of the rest, residue and remainder of my estate real and personal, wherever situated unto the trustees below named, their heirs and assigns forever, to hold upon the following trusts, namely: 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.” (KSBE)

Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s will (Clause 13) states her desire that her trustees “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”.

She directed “that the teachers of said schools shall forever be persons of the Protestant religion, but I do not intend that the choice should be restricted to persons of any particular sect of Protestants.”

On November 4, 1887, three years after her death, the Kamehameha School for Boys, originally established as an all-boys school on the grounds of the current Bishop Museum, opened with 37 students and four teachers. A year later the Preparatory Department, for boys 6 to 12 years of age, opened in adjacent facilities.

In 1894 the Kamehameha School for Girls opened on its own campus nearby. Between 1930 and 1955, all three schools moved to its present location – Kapālama Heights – less than a mile mauka of the old Bishop Museum campus. In 1965 the boy’s and girl’s campuses became co-ed and the curriculum was increasingly geared to college preparation.

Prior to 1897, Kamehameha students attended Sunday services at Kaumakapili Church, then located about a mile from campus at the corner of Nuʻuanu and King Streets. It took about 20 minutes to cover the distance on foot – with the boys wearing their heavy West Point-style uniforms designed for “long lasting quality, not comfort.”

On December 19, 1897, a new campus chapel dedication took place on the sixty-sixth anniversary of Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s birth. KS scholars, teachers, administrators and community representatives filled the whole building.

Reverend William Brewster Oleson (1851–1915), former principal of the Hilo boarding school (founded by David Belden Lyman in 1836,) helped organize the schools on a similar model.

At the first Founder’s Day ceremony in December, 1889, Charles Reed Bishop, Pauahi’s husband and a member of Kamehameha’s first Board of Trustees, elaborated on her intentions.

“Bernice Pauahi Bishop, by founding the Kamehameha Schools, intended to establish institutions which should be of lasting benefit to her country…The founder of these schools was a true Hawaiian. She knew the advantages of education and well directed industry. Industrious and skillful herself, she respected those qualities in others.” (KSBE)

“The hope that there would come a turning point, when, through enlightenment, the adoption of regular habits and Christian ways of living, the natives would not only hold their numbers, but would increase again …”

“And so, in order that her own people might have the opportunity for fitting themselves for such competition, and be able to hold their own in a manly and friendly way, without asking any favors which they were not likely to receive, these schools were provided for, in which Hawaiians have the preference, and which she hoped they would value and take the advantages of as fully as possible.” (KSBE)

In 1996 two new campuses were established on the neighbor islands of Maui and Hawai‘i, and they now serve students in grades K-12. Kamehameha subsidizes a significant portion of the cost to educate every student.

In addition to three campuses, Kamehameha operates a number of preschool sites enrolling children statewide; and serves thousands more students through community outreach and scholarship programs, and collaborations with educational and community organizations. (Lots of info and images from KSBE.)

October 4, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kahikinui

Ku ka moku i Kahiki; o Kahiki nui ka moku
i olelo ia ilaila i poohina ai ka makani.

The district that resembles Kahiki, is to Kahiki-nui, the district which is said to be made silvery by the winds (descriptive of the winds bearing salty sea-spray from the ocean.) (Ka Hoku o Hawaii, March 11, 1915; Maly)

Archaeologists and historians describe the inhabiting of these islands in the context of settlement which resulted from voyages taken in canoes, across the open ocean. Some believe the first Polynesians to arrive at Hawaii came ashore at Kahikinui.

They have proposed that early Polynesian settlement happened with voyages between Kahiki (Tahiti – the ancestral homelands of the Hawaiian gods and people) and Hawai‘i, with long distance voyages occurring fairly regularly through at least the thirteenth century.

It has been generally reported that the land-sources of the early Hawaiian population – the Hawaiian “Kahiki” – were the Marquesas and Society Islands. The moku (district) of Kahikinui is named because from afar on the ocean, it resembles a larger form of Kahiki, the ancestral homeland. (Maly)

Some suggest place names illustrate the historical ties between Kahikinui (Great Tahiti) and the islands of Tahiti. Some believed there were navigational ties between the two places and that they had ancestral ties to Tahiti.

Other place names in Kahikinui include: Manawainui (The big water/river) for a big gulch where a lot of water is generated there during heavy rain; Kanaloa for a place where Kanaloa may have landed: Manamana which refers to spiritual powers: and Mahamenui which refers to Mahame trees, a hard wood, and probably prolific through the area at one time.

Some believe that along Kahikinui were given names that referred to Hawaiʻiloa, an ancient navigator. These included fishing koʻa, and astronomical and navigational sites on the mountain. (Matsuoka)

There are eight named subdivisions within Kahikinui (ahupuaʻa and/or ʻili;) from west to east, these named land units are: Auwahi, Lualaʻilua, Alena, Kāpapa, Nakaohu, Nakaaha, Mahamenui, and Manawainui. Most maps indicate that the eastern boundary of Kahikinui was Wai‘ōpai Gulch. (Pacific Legacy) However, today, most of these get joined together into a single reference to Kahikinui.

The first written description of the region was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

“I coasted along its shore at a distance of a league (three miles) …. The aspect of the island of Mowee was delightful (Hāna to Kaupō.) We beheld water falling in cascades from the mountains, and running in streams to the sea, after having watered the habitations of the natives, which are so numerous that a space of three or four leagues (9 – 12 miles) may be taken for a single village.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

“… the sea beat upon the coast with the utmost violence, and kept us in the situation of Tantalus, desiring and devouring with our eyes what it was impossible for us to attain … After passing Kaupō no more waterfalls are seen, and villages are fewer.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

Then, as they passed Kahikinui, “We saw no more waterfalls, the trees were fairly sparsely planted along the plain, and the villages, consisting only of 10 or 12 huts, were quite distant from each other.”

“Every moment made us regret the country which we were leaving behind, and we only found shelter when we were faced with a frightful shore, where the lava had once run down as waterfalls do today in the other part of the island.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Kirch)

Handy observed that, “In … Kahikinui, the forest zone was much lower and rain more abundant before the introduction of cattle. The usual forest zone plants were cultivated in the lower upland above the inhabited area.”

Kahikinui was arid along the coast but well-forested above the cloud line. Fishing was good along its rugged shores. Hawaiians lived in isolated communities on the broken lava, scattered from one end of the district to the other close to the sea or slightly
inland, wherever potable water was found in a brackish well or a submarine spring offshore.

The Hawaiians of Kahikinui developed garden holes also, but their primary cultivation area was upland, just below the forest zone and where the rainfall was plentiful. There, they developed upland plots or dry taro and other edible plants. (Handy; Matsuoka)

“From…Kahikinui … the sweet potato was the staple food for a considerable population, supplemented with dry taro grown in the low forest zones. This is the greatest continuous dry planting area in the Hawaiian islands.” (Handy; Maly)

“The district was populated largely by makaʻāinana, common folk, who were derided by officials of the nineteenth-century Hawaiian Kingdom as ‘ili ulaula, “red skins,” a reference to their sunburned bodies, reflecting long hours of toil in the sweet potato patches.” (Kirch)

The ocean off Kahikinui is a wealth of marine resources that remain available for education, traditional practices, subsistence lifestyles and recreation. As its name implies Kahikinui means big Tahiti and points to ancestral directions and paths to ancestral places over the ocean. It is an important wayfinding place for places beyond the island chain. (DHHL)

“The fishermen along the coasts of Kahikinui and Honua’ula used to exchange their fish for sweet potatoes and taro grown by those living up on the kula; Hawaiian tradition gives ample evidence that the population of this now almost depopulated country was considerable…” (Handy; Maly)

As time went on, due to climate change, ranching, goats and other animals had caused the dry-land forest to recede far in-land. The Southside on Maui has now turned to mostly dust, cinder, invasive trees, cattle and a population of about less than a hundred people. Only 5% of the dry-land forest is left in the state, which can be found only on Maui and the Big Island. (KUPU)

Kahikinui is “most remote and undeveloped region;” it constituted an entire moku, an ancient political district, which had never suffered from the effects of Westernized ‘development’ … lacking in freshwater or rich soils, Kahikinui was spared the effects of sugarcane or pineapple plantations”. (Kirch)

Kahikinui is 7 miles long and 6 miles wide and ranges in elevation from sea level to 10,000-feet. Its slope at the 3,000-foot level in the forest reserve was greater than 20%, and between 10% to 20% closer to the shoreline. The land section contains several Puʻu (cinder cones.) (Matsuoka)

In 2012, the Auwahi Wind project (in the westernmost ahupua‘a of Kahikinui) installed an 8-turbine, 21-MW wind farm, with battery storage.

Leeward_Haleakala_Kahikinui_Forest-DLNR

kahikinui_Marino

kahikinui-overflight-hawp

kahikinui-overflight_hawp

kahikinui-overflight hawp

Kahikinui-gullies-hawp

kahikinui_Osher

Auwahi Wind turbines

Historic_Mokus_of_Maui_Map_(Kahikinui)-AhaMoku

Historic_Mokus_of_Maui_Map

Historic_Mokus_of_Maui_Map_(Kahikinui)

September 29, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pioneer Mill

The early Polynesians brought sugarcane with them to the Islands. Kō (sugarcane) was planted as a subsistence crop – with domestic, medicinal and spiritual uses.

In 1802, processed sugar was first made in the islands on the island of Lānaʻi by a native of China, who came here in one of the vessels trading for sandalwood and brought a stone mill and boilers. After grinding off a small crop and making it into sugar, he went back to China the next year.

It was not until ca. 1823 that several members of the Lāhainā Mission Station began to process sugar from native sugarcanes, for their tables. By the 1840s, efforts were underway in Lāhainā to develop a means for making sugar as a commodity. (Maly)

Sugar was being processed in small quantities in Lāhainā throughout the 1840s and 1850s; in 1849, it was reported that the finest sugar in the islands could be found in Lāhainā. (Maly)

James Campbell, who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1850 – having served as a carpenter on a whaling ship and then operated a carpentry business in Lāhainā, started a sugar plantation there in 1860. The small mill, together with cane from Campbell’s fields, manufactured sugar on shares for small cane growers in the vicinity.

Soon after the establishment of the new plantation, Henry Turton and James Dunbar joined Campbell. Under the name of Campbell & Turton, the company grew cane and manufactured sugar.

The small sugar mill consisted of three wooden rollers set upright, with mules providing the power to turn the heavy rollers. The cane juice ran into a series of boiling kettles that originally had been used on whaling ships.

When the nearby Lāhainā Sugar Company, a small company founded by H Dickenson in 1861, went bankrupt in 1863, its assets were acquired by Campbell and his partners.

In 1865, the plantation became known as Pioneer Mill Company (that year Dunbar left the company.) By 1874, Campbell and Turton added the West Maui Sugar Company, a venture of Kamehameha V, to the holdings of Pioneer Mill Company.

The Pioneer Mill Company was extremely profitable, enabling Campbell to build a large home in Lāhainā and to acquire parcels of land on Maui and Oʻahu.

Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire). Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate.

Over the years, Campbell acquired property in Kahuku, Honouliuli, Kahaualea and elsewhere, amassing the holdings that eventually became ‘The Estate of James Campbell.’

In 1877, James Campbell sold his half interest to partner Henry Turton for $500,000 with agents Hackfeld & Company holding a second mortgage of $250,000. The company’s charter was dated in 1882, but by 1885, Mr. Turton declared bankruptcy and sold the property back to James Campbell and to Paul Isenberg, who was associated with Hackfeld & Co. Mr. CF Horner was selected to manage the plantation.

With later acquisitions of additional West Maui lands, Pioneer Mill was incorporated on June 29, 1895. Horner sold his interest to American Factors, formerly Hackfeld & Co., and in 1960, Pioneer Mill Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Amfac.

Irrigation of Pioneer Mill Company’s fields, an area that eventually extended 14-miles long and 1 1/2-miles wide with altitudes between 10 and 700 feet, was accomplished with water drawn from artesian wells and water transported from the West Maui Mountains. The McCandless brothers drilled the first well on Maui for Pioneer Mill Company in 1883.

Pioneer Mill Company was one of the earliest plantations to use a steam tramway for transporting harvested cane from the fields to the mill. Cane from about 1000-acres was flumed directly to the mill cane carrier with the rest coming to the mill by rail. (The Sugar Cane Train is a remnant of that system.)

In 1937, mechanically harvested cane was bringing so much mud to the factory that Pioneer Mill Company began the development of a cane cleaner.

Between 1948 and 1951, a rock removal program rehabilitated 3,153 acres of Pioneer land to permit mechanical planting, cultivating, and harvesting. In 1952, the railroad was eliminated and a year later new feeder tables were conveying cane directly from cane trucks into the factory.

Lāhainā Light and Power Company, Lāhainā Ice Company, the Lāhainā and Puʻukoliʻi Stores, and the Pioneer Mill Hospital were associated with the plantation, providing services to employees as well to Lahaina residents.

Faced with international competition, Hawaiʻi’s sugar industry, including Pioneer Mill Company, found it increasingly difficult to economically survive.

At the industry’s peak 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.

Seeing hard times ahead, Pioneer Mill Company took 2,000-acres out of cane during the 1960s to develop Kāʻanapali as a visitor resort destination.

By 1986, the plantation had reduced its acreage down to 4,000-acre (which at its height had 14,000-acres planted in cane.) After years of losing money, in 1999, Pioneer Mill closed its operations.

The Lāhainā Restoration Foundation and others worked to preserve the Pioneer Mill Smokestack. It remains tall above the Lāhainā Community as a reminder of the legacy of sugar in the West Maui community. (Lots of information here from the UH-Manoa, HSPA Plantation Archives.)

(One of our few locations that survived the Lahaina fire relatively unscathed is the Pioneer Mill Smokestack and Locomotives. (Lahaina Restoration Foundation))