Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaumālapaʻu

The total land area of Lānai is 89,305 acres, divided into 13 ahupua‘a (traditional land divisions.)  In the traditional system, respective konohiki served as land managers over each. These konohiki were subject to control by the ruling chiefs.

At the time of the Great Māhele (1848,) lands on Lānai were divided between lands claimed by King Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) (40,665 acres,) which were known as the Crown Lands, and the lands to be claimed by the chiefs and people (48,640 acres,) which were called the Government Lands.

By 1907, more than half the island of Lānai was in the hands of native Hawaiians. Just 14 years later, in 1921, only 208.25 acres of land remained in native Hawaiian ownership. By 1875 Walter Gibson had control, either through lease or direct ownership, of nine‐tenths of Lānai’s lands. (Lānai Community Plan)

When James Dole bought Lānai, ranching was a thriving business under the control of George Munro. Shortly after the purchase, Dole got Munro working at removing cattle from potential pineapple lands. As soon as cattle were fattened they were sold. Ranching operations became a secondary priority to pineapple development.

During 1923, the company embarked on making major improvements to the island of Lānai.  At first, Dole wanted to name the town Pine City, but the post office department objected because there were too many “pine” post offices in the mainland United States.  So the plantation town was called Lānai City.

Dole hired Mr. Root, an engineer, to lay out and plan the town. Root arrived at Mānele Bay to begin his work. He designed the central park with a symmetrical grid of residential streets, which remains the configuration of Lānai City today.” (Lānai Community Plan)

Between 1922 and 1992, pineapple plantation operations provided the people of Lānai with a way of life.  James Doles’ Hawaiian Pineapple Company evolved and many of the innovations in cultivation, equipment design, harvesting, irrigation and labor relations developed on the Lānai plantation, and came to be used around the world. (Lānai Culture & Heritage Center)

Mānele Bay was the main port of entry for Lānai; its primary purpose was to ship pineapple off the island. On the eastern side of the island, remnants of Halepalaoa Landing can be seen; this was used primarily to ship cattle. It’s also reported that in the late 1800s, a steamer landing was located on the western shore of Lānai Island and served as a docking grounds.

A new harbor was needed.  In 1923 to 1926, Kaumālapaʻu Bay, a natural, sheltered cove on the southwest side of Lānai, was developed into the main shipping harbor from which pineapple and all major supplies for Lānai were shipped and received.

“… we learned that the breakwater is composed of 116,000-tons of rock blasted from the cliffs and dropped into the water.  The Kaumalapau harbor entrance is 65-feet deep, and the minimum depth of the harbor is 27-feet.  The wharf is 400-feet long and the boat landing is 80-feet in length.”  (Lanai “The Pineapple Kingdom, 1926)

Bins filled with pineapple were unloaded from the trucks (steam cranes were still used through the 1960s), and placed on the barges for shipping to the cannery at Iwilei, Honolulu, Oʻahu. Tug boats were used to haul the barges – empty bins and supplies to Lānai, and filled pineapple bins to the cannery.

Because of the demands of work at Kaumālapaʻu, Lānai’s “second city” was developed, and known as “Harbor Camp.” The Harbor Camp included around 20 homes and support buildings, and sat perched on the cliffs above Kaumālapaʻu Bay.  (Lānai Culture & Heritage Center)

Surmising from the vast archaeological features on the cliffs above Kaumālapaʻu Gulch, Kaumālapaʻu Harbor was probably a very important settlement (seasonal and/or permanent) for native Hawaiians. (Social Research Pacific)

Access to fishing, whether by boat or off the shoreline, is easily attained at Kaumālapaʻu.  One of the sites immediately mauka of the harbor is called “Fisherman’s Trail.” In the 1862 letter requesting settlement and use of Lānai, even Gibson indicated the importance of fishing as the primary source of subsistence for the island’s inhabitants.

The village of Kaunolu, just to the south of Kaumālapaʻu was known as a “fishing village”. Given its proximity to Kaumālapaʻu, it is highly likely that neighboring Kaumālapaʻu also offered good fishing grounds to Hawaiians. The Kaumālapaʻu Trail extends from Lānai City down to Kaumālapaʻu.   (Social Research Pacific)

In the Māhele, the ahupuaʻa of Kamoku and Kalulu (which adjoin the existing Kaumālapaʻu Harbor) were retained by the King (Kamehameha III), though the ‘ili of Kaumālapaʻu 1 & 2 were given by the King to the Government.

The Kaumālapaʻu Harbor breakwater was in disrepair for many years following several hurricanes and seasonal storms.  Completed in 2007, 40,000-tons of new stone was added to the reshaped breakwater, 800 concrete Core-Locs (each weighing 35 tons) were put in place and a 5-foot- thick concrete cap was cast on top of the breakwater to complete the project.  (Traylor)

Today, as in the early 1920s, Kaumālapaʻu Harbor is the main commercial seaport and Lānai’s lifeline to the outside world, with Young Brothers’ barge and other commercial activity in and out of Lānai.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Molokai

It used to be referred to as ʻĀina Momona (the bountiful land,) reflecting the great productivity of the island and its surrounding ocean.

It is about 38-miles long and 10-miles wide, an area of 260-square miles, making it the 5th largest of the main Hawaiian Islands (and the 27th largest island in the US.)

The island was formed by two volcanoes, East and West, emerging about 1.5-2-million years ago.  The cliffs on the north-eastern part of the island are the result of subsidence and the “Wailua Slump” (a giant submarine landslide – about 25-miles long that tumbled about 120-miles offshore – about 1.4-million years ago.)

In separate volcanic activity about 300,000-years ago, Kalaupapa Peninsula was formed.  Penguin Bank, to the west of the island, is believed to be a separate volcano that was once above the water, but submerged within the last 100,000-years.

Molokai is divided into two moku (districts,) Koʻolau on the windward side and Kona on the leeward side.  (These are common district names that are universally used across of the Hawaiian archipelago (“Koʻolau,” marking the windward sides of the islands, and “Kona,” the leeward sides of the islands.))

Archaeological evidence suggests that Molokai’s East end was traditionally the home of the majority of early Hawaiians; large clusters of Hawaiians were living along the shore, on the lower slopes and in the larger valleys.   Productive, well-kept fishponds were strung along the southern shoreline.

The water supply was ample; ʻauwai (irrigation ditches), taro loʻi (ponded terraces) and habitation sites were found in every wet valley. ʻUala (sweet potato) and wauke (paper mulberry) were cultivated in the mauka areas between long shallow stone terraces which swept across the lower kula slopes.

The windward valleys developed into areas of intensive irrigated taro cultivation and seasonal migrations took place to stock up on fish and precious salt for the rest of the year.

The drier coastal regions of the West end were sparsely populated on a year-round basis, although they were frequently visited for extended periods of fishing during the summer months.  (Papohaku on the west shore is the longest stretch of white sand beach in Hawaiʻi (3-miles long and 300-feet wide.))

East end’s Pukoʻo had a natural break in the reef, good landing areas for canoes and nearby fishponds built out over the fringe reef. Archaeological evidence suggests it was a heavily populated area; it was also destined to become the first town in the western tradition on the island of Molokai.

When the American Protestant missionaries arrived on Molokai in 1832, they settled at nearby Kaluaʻaha.  The first church was made of thatch (1833,) a school soon followed.  By 1844, a stone church was built.

It was not long before a small community was forming around the church buildings. It became the social center of the entire island, with people coming from as far away as the windward valleys, over the pali and by canoe, just to attend church sermons on Sunday and socialize.

In the 1850s, Catholic priests began to visit the island; during the 1870s, Father Damien, who had come to Molokai to serve the patients at Kalawao, traveled top-side to gather congregations of Catholics. He built four Catholic churches on the East End of Molokai, at Kamaloʻo, Kaluaʻaha, Halawa and Kumimi.

In later years they built a wharf at Pukoʻo – it became the center of activity for the island and the first County seat.  However, with economic opportunities forming on the central and west sides of the Island, Pukoʻo soon lost its appeal (there is no commercial activity there, today.)

Like Pukoʻo, Kaunakakai had a natural opening in the reef.  In 1859, Kamehameha IV established a sheep ranch (Molokai Ranch) and built his home, Malama, there.  “It is a grass hut, skillfully thatched, having a lanai all around, with floors covered with real Hawaiian mats. The house has two big rooms. The parlor is well furnished, with glass cases containing books in the English language.”

“On the north west side of the house is a large grass house, and it seems to be the largest one seen to this time. The house is divided into rooms and appears to be a place in which to receive the king’s guests.”  (SFCA)

Rudolph Wilhelm became manager of Molokai Ranch for Kamehameha V in 1864. However, Kamehameha V was probably best known on Molokai for the establishment of the Leprosy Settlement on the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa in 1865.

Meyer started to grow sugar shortly thereafter (1876.)  By 1882, there were three small sugar plantations on Molokai: Meyer’s at Kalaʻe, one at Kamaloʻo and another at Moanui.

Meyer also served as the Superintendent of the isolated Kalawao settlement (Kalaupapa) (serving with Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope (now, both are Saints.))

Kaunakakai Harbor was an important transportation link and key to these various activities.  After 1866, it became vital to bringing in supplies for the Kalaupapa Settlement. Goods, personnel and visitors were landed at Kaunakakai then transported by mule down the pali trail.

During the 1880s, sugar and molasses from the Meyer sugar mill were loaded onto carts and taken to the harbor where they were transferred into small boats. These boats came up to the sand beach and take the sugar and molasses to larger ships anchored in the harbor.  By 1889 a small wharf had been built at Kaunakakai.

After Molokai Ranch was sold to the American Sugar Company in 1897 a new, more substantial stone mole with a wooden landing platform at the makai end, was put up next to the old wharf to service their expected sugar shipments.

Finally in 1909, a political division of the island was made incorporating Molokai into Maui County and excluding the State Health Department administered area of the Kalaupapa Settlement. This district became known as Kalawao County.

During the 1920s Kaunakakai first began to develop as the main business center of the island. Several stores were built along either side of Ala Malama Street indicating the sense of prosperity of the times. This activity continued well into the 1930s, a period that corresponded to the largest increase in population on Molokai.

At that time and into the early-1930s, Kaunakakai gradually became the main hub of activity, partially due to its central location and increased population. It was here that a larger, improved wharf had been developed for the pineapple plantations and for the shipment of cattle.

Another major change occurred when the Government passed the Hawaiian Homes Act in 1921. Seventy-nine Hawaiian homesteading families moved to Kalamaʻula in 1922 and in 1924 the Hoʻolehua and Palaʻau areas were opened for homesteading on lands previously under lease from the government to the American Sugar Company Limited. The homestead population rose from an estimated 278 in 1924 to 1,400 by 1935.

In 1923, Libby, McNeil & Libby began to grow pineapple on land leased from Molokai Ranch; their activities were focused primarily in the Kaluakoʻi section of the island.  Lacking facilities and housing, the plantation began building clusters of dwellings (“camps”) around Maunaloa.  By 1927, it started to grow into a small town – as pineapple production grew, so did the town.

In 1927, California Packing Corporation, later known as Del Monte Corporation, leased lands of Naʻiwa and Kahanui owned by Molokai Ranch to establish a pineapple plantation with headquarters in the town of Kualapuʻu.  The town takes its name from kaʻuala puʻu, or the sweet potato hill, the hill to the south where sweet potatoes were grown on its slopes.

The town was first created when Molokai Ranch (American Sugar Company) moved their ranch headquarters from Kaunakakai to Kualapuʻu after the demise of their sugar enterprise.

After the Hoʻolehua homesteads were opened up by Hawaiian Homes Commission in 1924, the ranch headquarters began to take on the character of a real town. However the real change came with the arrival of California Packing Corporation in Kualapuʻu to grow pineapple for shipment to the Oʻahu cannery.

In 1968, there were 16,800 acres of pineapple under cultivation on Molokai. The Libby plantation was sold to the Dole Pineapple Corporation in 1970, which very soon closed down the plantation when they determined it was no longer a profitable venture.  After fifty-five years of operation, Del Monte began a phased shut down operation in 1982 which terminated in 1989.

Maunaloa and Kualapuʻu were towns created expressly for agriculture. Kaunakakai came into its own due to its harbor, central location, and the shift of population from the east end of the island. It gradually became the administrative and business center of Molokai, much as Pukoʻo had been many years before.

The image shows an 1897 map of Molokai.  (Lots of information here is from Curtis.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pineapple In Hawai‘i

Christopher Columbus brought pineapple, native of South America, back to Europe as one of the exotic prizes of the New World.  (‘Pineapple’ was given its English name because of its resemblance to a pine cone.)
 
Pineapple (“halakahiki,” or foreign hala,) long seen as Hawaiʻi’s signature fruit, was introduced to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in 1813 by Don Francisco de Paula Marin, a Spanish adviser to King Kamehameha I.
 
Credit for the commercial production of pineapples goes to the John Kidwell, an English Captain who started with planting 4-5 acres in Mānoa.
 
Although sugar dominated the Hawaiian economy, there was also great demand at the time for fresh Hawaiian pineapples in San Francisco.
 
After Kidwell’s initial planting, others soon realized the potential of growing pineapples in Hawaii and consequently, started their own pineapple plantations.
 
Here is some brief background information on four of Hawai‘i’s larger pineapple producers, Dole, Libby, Del Monte and Maui Land & Pineapple.
 
Ultimately, as part of an economic survival plan, pineapple producers ended up in cooperative marketing programs and marketed the idea of Hawaiian products, as in “Don’t ask for pineapples alone.  Insist on Hawaiian Pineapple!”
 
Dole Pineapple Plantation (Hawaiian Pineapple Company)
James Dole, an American industrialist, also famously called the Pineapple King, purchased 60 acres of land in the central plains of Oahu Island and started the Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901.
 
In the year 1907, Dole started successful ad campaigns that introduced whole of America to canned pineapples from Hawaii.
 
In 1911, at the direction of Dole, Henry Ginaca invented a machine that could automatically peel and core pineapples (instead of the usual hand cutting,) making canned pineapple much easier to produce.
 
The demand for canned pineapples grew exponentially in the US and in 1922, a revolutionary period in the history of Hawaiian pineapple; Dole bought most of the island of Lāna‘i and established a vast 200,000-acre pineapple plantation to meet the growing demands.
 
Lanai throughout the entire 20th century produced more than 75% of world’s total pineapple.  More land on the island of Maui was purchased by Dole.
 
In 1991, the Dole Cannery closed.  Today, Dole Food Company, headquartered on the continent, is a well-established name in the field of growing and packaging food products such as pineapples, bananas, strawberries, grapes and many others.
 
The Dole Plantation tourist attraction, established in 1950 as a small fruit stand but greatly expanded in 1989  serves as a living museum and historical archive of Dole and pineapple in Hawai‘i.
 
Libby, McNeil & Libby (Libby’s)
Libby’s, one of the world’s leading producers of canned foods, was created in 1868 when Archibald McNeill and brothers Arthur and Charles Libby began selling beef packed in brine.
 
In the early 1900s it established a pineapple canning subsidiary in Hawaiʻi and began to advertise its canned produce using the ‘Libby’s’ brand name.
 
By 1911, Libby, McNeill & Libby gained control of land in Kāne‘ohe and built the first large-scale cannery at Kahalu‘u.  This sizable cannery, together with the surrounding old style plantation-type housing units, became known as “Libbyville.”
 
The Kāne‘ohe facility ultimately failed; some suggest it was because Libby built it on and destroyed the Kukuiokane Heiau in Luluku.
 
In 1912 Libby, McNeill and Libby bought half of the stock of Hawaiian Cannery Co.  By the 1930s, more that 12 million cases of pineapple were being produced in Hawaii every year; Libby accounted for 23 percent.
 
Del Monte Plantation
Del Monte another major food producing and packaging company of America started its pineapple plantation with the purchase of the Hawaiian Preservation Company in 1917.  The company progressed and increased its plantation areas during 1940s.
 
In 1997, the company introduced its MD-2 variety, popularly known as Gold Extra Sweet pineapple, to the market.  The variety, though produced in Costa Rica, was the result of extensive research done by the now dissolved Pineapple Research Institute, in Hawaii. In 2008, Del Monte stopped its pineapple plantation operations in Hawaii.
 
Maui Land & Pineapple Company
The family of Dwight Baldwin, a missionary physician, created the evolving land and agricultural company.  It first started as Haiku Fruit & Packing Company in 1903 and Keahua Ranch Company in 1909, then Baldwin Packers in 1912.
 
In 1932, it was renamed Maui Pineapple Company, which later merged with Baldwin Packers in 1962.  In 1969, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (ML&P) was created and went public.
 
In 2005, the company introduced its now famous “Maui Gold” variety, which is naturally sweet and has low acid content.  Maui Gold pineapple is presently grown across 1,350 acres on the slopes of Haleakala.
 
Maui Land & Pineapple Company is now a landholding company with approximately 22,000-acres on the island of Maui on which it operates the Kapalua Resort community.
 
In 2009, the remnants of the 100-year old pineapple operation were transferred to Maui Gold Pineapple Company (created by former Maui Pineapple Company employees who were committed to saving the 100-year tradition of pineapple on Maui.)
 
While the scale of pineapple farming has dwindled, the celebration of pineapple lives on through Lāna‘i’s Pineapple Festival.  Starting in 1992, the event, formerly known as the “Pineapple Jam,” honors the island’s pineapple history.  (June 30, 2012 will be the 20th annual Pineapple Festival)
 
The image is the iconic Dole Cannery pineapple 100,000-gallon water tank. Built in 1928, it was a Honolulu landmark and reminder of pineapple’s role in Hawaiian agriculture until it was demolished in 1993. (images via: A Pineapple Heart and Burl Burlingame, Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
 
 

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Dan Charles Derby

Dan Charles Derby was born in Santa Fe, Kansas on February 18, 1890, the son of Spurzheim and Mary Catherine ‘Mollie’ (Erickson) Derby. He was educated in grammar schools and business college.

He had three years’ experience as an agriculturist with the Natomas Company of California in their fruit orchards near Sacramento. (Nellist)

Natomas planted several experimental farms, including a grove of Blue Gum Eucalyptus and an Orange Grove. Land to the east of Natomas was leased as experimental orchards, the land west was used for Wheat. (PacificNG)

During this time, he was made foreman. The manager there was assigned by the Chicago Canning Company, Libby, McNeill & Libby (Libby’s), to grow pineapple in Hawaii. He took only two of his men, Dan C Derby, the grower, and Arthur F Stubenberg, a natural mechanic. (Merilyn K Derby, daughter).

In June 1917, Derby came to the Islands to manage Libby’s pineapple plantation in Pupukea, on O‘ahu’s North Shore. (Wife Waleska K Derby’s oral history)

For the next 38-years Derby worked with Libby’s; at his retirement he served as Libby’s General Plantation Manager. (Adv, Feb 28, 1955) (In 1920, Dan Derby married Waialua School teacher Waleska Kerl; they had two daughters, Jeanne, born in 1921, and Merilyn born in 1925, and one son, Dan Jr. born in 1929.)

Libby’s, one of the world’s leading producers of canned foods, was created in 1868 when Archibald McNeill and brothers Arthur and Charles Libby began selling beef packed in brine.

In the early 1900s, it established a pineapple canning subsidiary in Hawaiʻi and began to advertise its canned produce using the ‘Libby’s brand name. In 1912 Libby, McNeill and Libby bought half of the stock of Hawaiian Cannery Co.

Unlike the other bigger pineapple producers, Libby’s did not start in Central Oʻahu; by 1911, Libby’s gained control of land in Kāne‘ohe and built the first large-scale cannery at Kahalu‘u.  This sizable cannery, together with the surrounding old style plantation-type housing units, became known as “Libbyville.”

During most of the period when this cannery was in operation, the canned pineapple was transported to Honolulu by sampan from a pier just off the end of the peninsula near Libbyville.

Growing and canning pineapples became a major industry in the area for a period of 15 years (to 1925.)  At its peak, 2,500 acres were under pineapple cultivation on Windward O‘ahu, and of this a large percentage was in the Kāne‘ohe Bay region.

The change in landscape to the Windward side by 1914 is reflected in the following sentences: “At last we reached the foot of the Pali… Joe and I looked over the surrounding hills …”

“… but looked in vain for the great areas of guava through which but a few months ago we had fought and cut our way. As far as the eye could reach pineapple plantations had taken the place of the forest of wild guava.”  (Cultural Surveys)

Later, Libby’s expanded to the Leeward side, in Wahiawa and Kalihi, and then on Maui and Molokai. (Hawkins)  By the 1930s, more than 12-million cases of pineapple were being produced in Hawai‘i every year; Libby’s accounted for 23 percent of that.

“A pioneer for Libby, Mr Derby opened up the Libby holdings on the Big Island in 1921, on Molokai in 1923 and on Maui in 1926.  The next year he was made general manager over all Libby’s plantations in the Hawaiian Islands, and has aided the growth and development of pineapple for his company”. (Adv, Feb 28, 1955)

Libby’s need to ship fruit from the growing area on Molokai to pineapple processing on Oʻahu created an opportunity for the Young brothers.

Libby’s built a wharf at Kolo, just below Maunaloa.  Kolo had a shallow channel, and the Inter-Island Steam Navigation ships couldn’t get in.

The brothers made a special tender and with their first wooden barges, YB-1 and YB-2, Young Brothers carried pineapple from Kolo Wharf to Libby’s O‘ahu cannery. “That’s how [Young Brothers] started the freight.”  (Jack Young Jr)

The end of the pineapple era began in 1972 when Libby’s sold to Dole Corp and was finalized three years later when Dole closed its Maunaloa facility. (West Molokai Association)

“With the growth of the pineapple industry in the Wahiawa area, my grandfather told me that he was concerned about the cultural significance of Kukaniloko.”

“There was another plantation that abutted the rocks and boulders who wanted them removed for planting, however, he protested and supported efforts to preserve the sacred and historic site in the early 1920s.“ (granddaughter Dana Ritchie Fujikake)

“He was a modest kindly person, never scolding us as children, but instead sharing a parable to teach us the lesson we were to learn.”  “If a man is treated with dignity, he will behave with dignity” was one of his sayings. (granddaughter Dana Ritchie Fujikake)

“The industry, as well as Libby, McNeill and Libby, loses one of its foremost men, Mr Derby has played an important part in the development of pineapple in Hawaii.” (Adv, Feb 28, 1955)

Dan Derby died January 22, 1975.  “The Derby crypt at Hawaiian Memorial Park overlooks his fields.” “God’s Own Nature,” he would say of his beloved Ko‘olau vista. (granddaughter Dana Ritchie Fujikake)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Filipinos in Hawaiʻi

Filipinos were the first Asians to cross the Pacific Ocean, as early as 1587 – fifty years before the first English settlement of Jamestown was established on the continent.

From 1565 to 1815, during the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, Filipinos were forced to work as sailors and navigators on board Spanish Galleons.  (CSU-Chico)

In 1763, Filipinos made their first permanent settlement in the bayous and marshes of Louisiana. As sailors and navigators on board Spanish galleons, Filipinos – also known as “Manilamen” or Spanish-speaking Filipinos – jumped ship to escape the brutality of their Spanish masters.  (CSU-Chico)

During the War of 1812, Filipinos from Manila Village (near New Orleans) were among the “Batarians” who fought against the British with Jean Lafitte in the Battle of New Orleans.

Filipino’s Spanish connection came to an end after the Spanish-American War in 1898 when America wanted to control the Philippines. Unknown to Filipinos, through the Treaty of Paris (April 11, 1899,) Spain sold the Philippines to the US for $20-million, thus ending over 300 years of Spanish colonization.

In Hawaiʻi, shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

Of the large level of plantation worker immigration, the Chinese were the first (1850,) followed by the Japanese (1885.)  After the turn of the century, the plantations started bringing in Filipinos.

Over the years in successive waves of immigration, the sugar planters brought to Hawaiʻi 46,000-Chinese, 180,000-Japanese, 126,000-Filipinos, as well as Portuguese, Puerto Ricans and other ethnic groups.

For the first 15-Filipino sakadas (probably derived from the Ilocano phrase “sakasakada amin”, meaning, barefoot workers struggling to earn a living) who got off the SS Doric on December 20, 1906, amid stares of curious onlookers, the world before them was one of foreboding.

The 15-pioneers would soon be joined by thousands of their compatriots, thanks to the relentless recruitment of the Hawaiʻi Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA). (Aquino)

Upon arrival in Hawaiʻi, Filipino contract laborers were assigned to the HSPA-affiliated plantations throughout the territory. Their lives would now come under the dictates of the plantation bosses.

They had no choice as to which plantation or island they would be assigned. Men from the same families, the same towns or provinces were often broken up and separated.  (Alegado)

Between 1906 and 1930, the HSPA brought in approximately 120,000-Filipinos to Hawaiʻi, dramatically altering the territory’s ethnic demographics.    (Aquino)

By the 1920s, Filipinos in Hawaiʻi were still largely male, men outnumbered women by nearly seven to one, and unmarried. They represented, at one point, half of the workers in the sugar industry. Initially the Filipinos tended to be “peasants” of lower education than other groups.  (Reinecke)

Comprising only 19-percent of the plantation workforce in 1917, the sakadas jumped to 70-percent by 1930, replacing the Japanese, who had dwindled to 19-percent as the 1930s approached.  (Aquino)

These Filipino pioneers were known as the “manong generation” since most of them came from Ilokos Sur, Iloilo, and Cavite in the Philippines (manong is an Ilokano term principally given to the first-born male in a Filipino nuclear family who serves as one of the leaders in the extended family.)

During this later time, particularly during the Great Depression, Filipinos had to compete against other ethnic groups to earn a living. Tensions grew.

This eventually led to the passing of the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934, which officially provided for Philippine independence and self-government; it also limited Filipino immigration to the US to 50-per year.

The work was hard, it was dirty work (literally with soot  and mud) and monotonous and dangerous work; there was no future in it, in that as one grew older and weaker one earned less money, and that the work was tiring and thus the need to recuperate often.

Among Filipinos, when they got paid they would go to Honolulu by train and not come back for a week. Not to worry: “We could always get our jobs back because it was the worst job working in the fields and nobody else would do it.”  (Alcantara)

Working conditions and wage disparities lead to worker unrest, eventually leading to the formation of labor unions; they formed the Filipino Labor Union.

In 1924 and again in 1935 the Filipinos struck along racial lines; the Filipino workers and their families were evicted from their homes and left to fend for themselves, their leaders were jailed.

Then, in 1935, President Roosevelt, as part of his New Deal legislation, passed the Wagner Act giving workers the legal right to organize unions that could demand employer recognition.

Following WW II (May 21, 1945,) pro-labor legislature passed the landmark Hawaiʻi Employees Relations Act, popularly called the Little Wagner Act, which extended the rights of collective bargaining to agricultural workers. The legislature extended the provisions of the wage and hour law to cover agricultural workers and set minimum wages.

The International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) proceeded to organize on all sugar plantations, and by the end of 1945, the ILWU had contracts industry-wide.

Bargaining on the employers’ side was conducted by the Hawaiʻi Employers Council (non-profit and voluntary,) formed to conduct the bargaining and negotiate contracts with unions – thus the ILWU bargained not with the plantations but with the Hawaiʻi Employers Council.

Over the years, the Filipino community has largely been working class; but there is now a growing number of management, professional and related occupations (including professionals such as doctors, nurses, therapists, teachers, lawyers, engineers and business executives.)  (hawaii-edu)

In 1959, the “First Annual Convention of Filipino Community Associations of Hawaiʻi” was held under the theme, “Statehood and the Filipinos in Hawaiʻi.”

Concurrent with the convention, a Fiesta Filipina celebration was held where Leticia Quintal, a UH history major, was crowned as “the first Miss Philippines-Hawaiʻi.” (That pageant award was later changed to Miss Hawaiʻi Filipina.)  Out of the convention and fiesta was born the United Filipino Council of Hawaiʻi.

In an editorial entitled “The Filipino Contribution,” the Honolulu Advertiser of June 19, 1959, noted: “There is a sense of urgency as able Consul General Juan C. Dionisio encourages Americans of Filipino ancestry – and Philippine nationals too – to organize and play a bigger part in Hawaiian affairs.”  (United Filipino Council of Hawaiʻi)

With a note of optimism, the editorial further pointed out: “The Filipinos, who have been doing right well under individual steam, now can be expected to progress even faster.”  (United Filipino Council of Hawaiʻi)

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