Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Leave a Comment

1850

“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1822, she was named Araminta by her enslaved parents, Ben and Rit Ross. Nearly killed at the age of 13 by a blow to her head, “Minty” recovered and grew strong and determined to be free.

Changing her name to Harriet upon her marriage to freeman John Tubman in 1844, she escaped five years later when her enslaver died and she was to be sold. One hundred dollars was offered for her capture.

In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she and her brothers Ben and Henry were to be sold. Financial difficulties of slave owners frequently precipitated sale of slaves and other property.

The family had been broken before; three of Tubman’s older sisters, Mariah Ritty, Linah, and Soph, were sold to the Deep South and lost forever to the family and to history.

Despite additional dangers resulting from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Tubman risked her life and ventured back to the community where she was born to rescue family, friends, and others.

The act required the reporting and arrest of anyone suspected of being a runaway slave, eliminated protections for suspected runaways, and provided economic incentives to kidnap people of African descent.

In September of 1850, Harriet was made an official “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she had to take an oath of silence so the secret of the Underground Railroad would be kept secret.

Vowing to return to bring her family and friends to freedom, she spent the next ten years making about 13 trips into Maryland to rescue them. She also gave instructions to about 70 more who found their way to freedom independently.

Through the Underground Railroad, Tubman learned the towns and transportation routes characterizing the South—information that made her important to Union military commanders during the Civil War.

As a Union spy and scout, Tubman often transformed herself into an aging woman. She would wander the streets under Confederate control and learn from the enslaved population about Confederate troop placements and supply lines.

Tubman helped many of these individuals find food, shelter, and even jobs in the North. She also became a respected guerrilla operative. As a nurse, Tubman dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers dying from infection and disease.

A lifelong humanitarian and civil rights activist, she formed friendships with abolitionists, politicians, writers and intellectuals. She knew Frederick Douglass and was close to John Brown and William Henry Seward.

She was particularly close with suffragists Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, and Susan B. Anthony. Intellectuals in New England’s progressive circles, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Bronson Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Franklin B. Sanborn, and Mrs. Horace Mann, befriended her, and her work was heralded beyond the United States.

Tubman showed the same zeal and passion for the campaign to attain women’s suffrage after the American Civil War as she had shown for the abolition of slavery.

Harriet Tubman died in 1913 in Auburn, New York at the home she purchased from Secretary of State William Seward in 1859, where she established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery.  (NPS)

In the Islands …

In 1848, King Kamehameha III fundamentally changed the land tenure system to a westernized paper title system through the Māhele.  The lands were formally divided among the king and the chiefs, and the fee titles were recorded in the Māhele book.

In 1850, a law was passed allowing these “native tenants” to claim fee simple title to the lands they worked.  Those who claimed their parcel(s) successfully acquired what is known as a kuleana.

Deeds executed during the Māhele conveying land contained the phrase “ua koe ke kuleana o na kānaka,” or “reserving the rights of all native tenants,” in continuation of the reserved tenancies which characterized the traditional Hawaiian land tenure system.  (Garavoy)

Contemporary sources of law, including the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes, the Hawai‘i State Constitution, and case law interpreting these laws protect six distinct rights attached to the kuleana and/or native Hawaiians with ancestral connections to the kuleana.

These rights are:

  • reasonable access to the land-locked kuleana from major thoroughfares;
  • agricultural uses, such as taro cultivation;
  • traditional gathering rights in and around the ahupua‘a;
  • a house lot not larger than 1/4 acre;
  • sufficient water for drinking and irrigation from nearby streams, including traditionally established waterways such as ‘auwai; and
  • fishing rights in the kunalu (the coastal region extending from beach to reef).

The 1850 Kuleana Act also protected the rights of tenants to gain access to the mountains and the sea and to gather certain materials.

The Kuleana Act did not allow the maka‘āinana to exercise other traditional rights, such as the right to grow crops and pasture animals on unoccupied portions of the ahupua’a. The court’s interpretation of the act prevented tenants from making traditional use of commonly cultivated land.  (MacKenzie)

Kawaiaha‘o Church Clock

Kawaiahaʻo Church (Stone Church) generally marked the eastern edge of town; it was constructed between 1836 and 1842.  The “Kauikeaouli clock,” donated by King Kamehameha III in 1850, still tolls the time to this day.

Honolulu Streets Named

It wasn’t until 1850 that streets received official names. On August 30, 1850, the Privy Council first officially named Honolulu’s streets; there were 35‐streets that received official names that day (29 were in Downtown Honolulu, the others nearby.)

At the time, the water’s edge was in the vicinity of what we now call Queen Street.  Back in those days, that road was generally called ‘Makai,’ ‘Water’ or Ali‘i Wahine.’  (Gilman)

Beginning of the Mormon Mission

“The Mormons are said to have commenced their mission in 1850. Their converts are scattered over all the islands.   They number about nine per cent of all those who in the census returns have reported their religious affiliations.  This mission owns a small sugar plantation at Laie, on the island of Oʻahu.”  (The Friend, December 1902)

The Church traces its beginnings to Joseph Smith, Jr.  On April 6, 1830 in Western New York, Smith and five others incorporated The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York.

In the summer of 1850, in California, elder Charles C Rich called together more elders to establish a mission in the Sandwich Islands.  They arrived December 12, 1850.  Later, more came.

Honolulu Fire Department

Alexander “Alick” Cartwright worked as a clerk for a broker and later for a bank, and, weather permitting, played variations of cricket and rounders in the vacant lots of New York City after the bank closed each day.

Rounders, like baseball, is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a ball with a bat; players score by running around the four bases on the field (the earliest reference to the game was in 1744.)

Cartwright played a key role in formalizing the first published rules of the game of baseball, including the concept of foul territory, the distance between bases, three-out innings and the elimination of retiring base runners by throwing batted baseballs at them.

The man who really invented baseball spent the last forty-four years of his long life in Hawai‘i and laid out Hawai‘i’s first baseball diamond, now called Cartwright Field, in Makiki.  Cartwright went on to teach people in Hawai‘i how to play the game; and, he did a lot more when he was here.

In Hawaiʻi, he continued the volunteer fire fighting activities he had learned as a member of the Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12 in New York City – and, he was part of Honolulu’s first Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Shortly thereafter, the Honolulu Fire Department was established on December 27, 1850, by signature of King Kamehameha III, and was the first of its kind in the Hawaiian Islands, and the only Fire Department in the United States established by a ruling monarch. Cartwright was appointed Chief Engineer of the Department and shortly thereafter, he became Fire Chief.

“The ordinance by Kamehameha III, December 27, 1850, establishing the Honolulu Fire Department, required each householder

to keep at least two buckets hanging handy, for fire use exclusively, and further ordered that they be brought to every fire.”

“The bucket part was probably the most effective, as the only other equipment at that time was a hand engine and 150 feet of homemade canvas hose through which, by constant relays on the pump handles, water could be thrown some sixty feet.”  (Thrum)

Aside from his duties at the Honolulu Fire Department, Cartwright also served as advisor to the Queen.  Cartwright was the executor of Queen Emma’s Last Will & Testament, in which she left the bulk of her estate to the Queen’s Hospital when she died in 1885.  Cartwright also served as the executor of the estate of King Kalākaua.

Post Office Established in Honolulu

The first mention of a postal system in Hawaii was an enactment of the Legislature on April 27, 1846, relating to the handling of inter-island mails. It was entitled “An Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Hawaiian Islands,”

With the US Post Office initiating a regular mail service by steamship between the east coast and California and Oregon, and a subsequent treaty between the US and Hawaii (ratified August 9, 1850) in which an article provided for the safe transmission of the mails between the two countries, the Hawaiian government decided that the 1846 statute governing internal correspondence was insufficient to handle foreign mails.

The Privy Council, therefore, passed a decree on December 20, 1850, and the 1851 Legislature enacted a law that established a Post Office in Honolulu (temporarily in the Polynesian Office). The Council appointed a Postmaster, Henry M. Whitney, and set up rates for renumeration to ships’ captains for carrying the mails.  (DAGS)

© 2022 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by 3 Comments

Land Matters

Malo notes, “The office of an independent king (Ali‘i ‘āi moku, literally one who eats, or rules over, an island) was established on the following basis …”

“He being the house, his younger brothers born of the same parents, and those who were called fathers or mothers (uncles and aunts) through relationship to his own father or mother, formed the stockade that stood as a defence about him.”

“Another wall of defence about the king, in addition to his brothers were his own sisters, those of the same blood as himself. These were people of authority and held important offices in the king’s government.”

“One was his kuhina nui, or prime minister; others were generals (pukaua), captains (alihi-kaua), marshals (ilamuku), the king’s executive officers, to carry out his commands. … So it was with the king; the chiefs below him and the common people throughout the whole country were his defence.” (Hawaiian Antiquities, Malo)

“Controversy and bitterness have arisen in recent years because of the widespread and seemingly well-established belief that land owned by early foreign settles was dishonestly acquired …”

“… either through cajoling the king or a chief, so that gifts of large tracts resulted; or through some vague arrangement whereby the common people were induced to part with their land for less than the current value.” (Pageant of the Soil, Hobbs, 1935)

Jon Osorio suggests, “The single most critical dismemberment of Hawaiian society was the Māhele or division of lands and the consequent transformation of ‘āina into private property between 1845 and 1850.”

He boldly suggests, “No one disagrees that the privatization of lands proved to be disastrous for Maka‘āinana”. He goes on to suggest, “The Māhele was a foreign solution to the problem of managing lands increasingly emptied of people.” (Dismembering Lāhui, Osorio)

Actually, some disagree.

“The accusation of dishonesty in regard to land transactions by foreigners seems to be directed most bitterly and emphatically toward the missionary group.” (Hobbs, 1935)

“The popular theory that missionaries acquired land by dishonest practice is unsupported by facts.”

However, “There is indisputable evidence that individual missionaries refused many opportunities to acquire gifts of land, either for themselves or for the mission.” (Hobbs, 1935)

“A page-by-page research of all records of land conveyance in the Territory of Hawaii was made in order to determine the amount of land acquired by each individual member of the American Protestant Mission, the amount paid for it, and, in general, the disposition made of the property.”

“In most instances it is clear that these lands were disposed of for very nominal sums and that comparatively small areas were left by will to descendants.” (Hobbs, 1935)

Hobbs notes that “Close scrutiny of the records of the Land Office in Honolulu will reveal, however, that a much larger area of land remained in the possession of Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians than is generally thought to have been the case.”

Likewise, Donovan Preza “offers a correction to the perceived results of the Māhele.” He notes “that the particularities of Hawaiian history should be properly explored, contextualized, and not be pre-judged.”

“These kinds of pre-judgments lead to a kind of colonial determinism which allows for the acceptance of less-rigorous arguments to be accepted as truth.” (Preza)

In looking at the Māhele, Preza makes the argument that “This division took place between the King and each individual konohiki whereby the rights of all of the Konohiki to the various ahupua‘a were divided.”

“These rights were codified in the 1839 Declaration of Rights. These vested rights refer to ‘interests’ in land, but these interests were segregated by class and did not imply an equality of rights between the government, Konohiki class, and Maka‘āinana class.”

“Under Kālai‘āina (the carving/distribution of land), the King can be thought to have held absolute title to land as sovereign and was the source of governance, “The Government was as exclusively in him as the titles to the lands were.” (Preza)

The Māhele ‘event’ resulted in the division of the previously ‘undivided’ rights of the Konohiki class in the dominium of Hawai‘i. The Māhele ‘event’ did not establish one’s title to land. (Preza) The first māhele, or division, of lands was signed on January 27, 1848; the last māhele was signed on March 7, 1848.

“The Māhele itself does not give a title. It is a division, and of great value because, if confirmed by the Board of Land Commission, a complete title is obtained. … By the Māhele, His Majesty the King consented that [Konohiki’s name] should have the land, subject to the award of the Land Commission” (Kenoa et al v. John Meek, October Term 1871)

After a Konohiki took their claim to the Land Commission, their rights and interests in land were confirmed and title to land was established through the issuance of a Land Commission Award.

Preza argues, “If the Māhele produced an initial dispossession, one would expect to see the majority of the land transferring into foreign hands.”

Actually, “Interpreting the Māhele as a division of land (versus rights in land), contributes to this confusion due to the large amount of land initially divided between Kauikeaouli (2.5-million acres) and the remaining Konohiki (1.5-million acres).”

Foreigners were not part of the Māhele. Some nonaboriginal Hawaiians who arrived in Hawai‘i prior to the Māhele were consolidated into the Konohiki class, such as John Young and Isaac Davis “foreigners who came and worked for Kamehameha were treated in a manner similar to kaukau ali‘i”. (Preza)

Then, the Kuleana Act was one mechanism which was used to divide out the interests of the maka‘āinana class.

Foreigners were not included in the system of Kālai‘āina and were not considered to be of the Maka‘āinana class, they were outside of it. Foreigners, even those naturalized as Hawaiian Nationals, were not considered Native Tenants and therefore, they were not eligible for a Land Commission award from the Kuleana Act. (Preza)

“On March 8, 1848, the day after the great division (Māhele) between the Konohiki class, Kauikeaouli divided the 2.5-million acres of land in his possession between his private estate and the government.”

“As a result of this division he kept approximately 1-million acres of land for himself as his private property (King’s Land) and relinquished 1.5-million acres of land to the Hawaiian Kingdom government creating what is called “Government Land”.”

“Government Lands are those lands which are considered to be used for the benefit of the country as a whole and constitute approximately 1.5-million acres. Any proceeds from Government Lands went to the government treasury and were used to benefit the citizenry of the country.” (Preza)

In 1850, a law was passed allowing maka‘āinana (the ‘native tenants’) to claim fee simple title to the lands they worked.

“The makaʻāinana were the planters and fishers who lived on (ma) the (ka) lands (‘āina;) the final na is a plural substantive.” (Handy) Or, they may be viewed as maka (eye) ‘āina (land) – ‘the eyes of the land.’ Pukui notes the name literally translates to ‘people that attend the land.’

Some suggest the foreigners bought up all the land.

In 1850, provision was made to permit foreigners equal privileges with Hawaiians; on July 10, 1850, the Hawaiian legislature passed ‘An Act To Abolish The Disabilities Of Aliens To Acquire And Convey Lands In Fee Simple’ (sometimes referred to as the Alien Land Ownership Act); it allowed: …

“That any alien, resident in the Hawaiian islands, may acquire and hold to himself, his heirs and assigns, a fee simple estate in any land of this kingdom, and may also convey the same by sale, gift, exchange, will or otherwise, to any Hawaiian subject, or to any alien, resident …” (Penal Code 1850)

At its August 19, 1850 Privy Council meeting, “Mr Wyllie brought forward & read a report of a committee appointed on the 29th April & powers enlarged on the 24th June to report respecting lands applied for by Missionaries.” The ‘Report on Missionary Lands’ was published in the Polynesian on May 7, 1852.

In part, that report notes, “The missionaries who have received and applied for lands have neither received and applied for them, without offering what they conceived to be a fair consideration for them.”

“So far as their applications have been granted, your Majesty’s government have dealt with them precisely as they have dealt with other applicants for land, that is, they have accepted the price where they considered it fair, and they have raised it where they considered it unfair.” (Signed by RC Wyllie and Keoni Ana)

WD Alexander, Superintendent of Government Survey, notes that “Between the years 1850 and 1860, nearly all the desirable Government land was sold, generally to natives. The portions sold were surveyed at the expense of the purchaser.” (Alexander, 1891)

Preza validates that and also shows Hawaiians out-purchased Non-Hawaiians. “Purchases by Hawaiians (1,856) in the 1850s alone outnumbers the total number of purchases by Non-Hawaiians (1,020) from 1846-1893. More Hawaiians bought land in the 1850s than Non-Hawaiians did between 1846 and 1893.” (Preza)

Government Grants refer to the fee-simple sale of Government Land and take the form of ‘Royal Patents’, ‘Royal Patent Grants’, or ‘Grants’. Of the 3,470 awards, 2,450 (71 percent) of the Government Grants were purchased by ‘Hawaiians’. ‘Non-Hawaiians’ purchased 1,020 awards (29 percent). (Preza)

Some blame sugar planters for buying all the land. “The Māhele of 1848 created the potential to own private property in Hawai‘i.
Immediately following the Māhele the sugar plantations were more likely to lease land rather than purchase land …”

“… due to the economic risks involved in purchasing large amounts of land with little re-sale value. Trends in the sale of Government Lands show that Hawaiians were active participants in the purchase of these lands.” (Preza)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook 

Follow Peter T Young on Google+ 

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn  

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

© 2018 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Na Mokupuni O Hawaii Nei-Kalama 1837
Na Mokupuni O Hawaii Nei-Kalama 1837

by 2 Comments

‘Native Tenants’

“Kamehameha I was the founder of the kingdom, and to him belonged all the land from one end of the islands to the other, though it was not his own private property. It belonged to the chiefs and people in common, of whom Kamehameha I was the head, and had the management of the landed property.” (Constitution 1840)

“When the Islands were conquered by Kamehameha I, he followed the example of his predecessors, and divided out the lands among his principal warrior chiefs, retaining, however, a portion in his hands, to be cultivated or managed by his own immediate servants or attendants.”

“Each principal chief divided his lands anew, and gave them out to an inferior order of chiefs, or persons of rank, by whom they were subdivided again and again; after passing through the hands of four, five or six person; from the King down to the lowest class of tenants.”

“All these persons were considered to have rights in the lands, or the productions of them. The proportions of these rights were not very clearly defined, but were nevertheless universally acknowledged.”

“The tenures were in one sense feudal, but they were not military, for the claims of the superior on the inferior were mainly either for produce of the land or for labor, military service being rarely or never required of the lower orders.”

“All persons possessing landed property, whether superior landlords, tenants or sub-tenants, owed and paid to the King not only a land tax, which he assessed at pleasure, but also, service which was called for at discretion, on all the grades, from the highest down.”

“They also owed and paid some portion of the productions of the land, in addition to the yearly taxes. They owed obedience at all times. All these were rendered not only by natives, but also by foreigners who received lands from Kamehameha I and Kamehameha II, and by multitudes still alive …”

“… of this there are multitudes of living witnesses, and a failure to render any of these has always been considered a just cause for which to forfeit the lands.”

“It being therefore fully established, that there are but three classes of persons having vested rights in the lands—1st, the Government, 2nd, the landlord (Chiefs and Konohiki,) and 3rd, the tenant (Makaʻāinana,) it next becomes necessary to ascertain the proportional rights of each.”

“Happily, evidence on this point is not wanting, though it may be the most difficult one to settle satisfactorily of any connected with land claims. The testimony elicited is of the best and highest kind.”

“It has been given immediately by a large number of persons, of a great variety of character, many of them old men, perfectly acquainted with the ancient usages of the country; some were landlords, and some were tenants.” (Land Commission Principles, adopted by Legislature October 26, 1846)

“The title of the Hawaiian government in the lands so acquired and so bona fide owned, as in the preceding sections set forth, shall be deemed in law to be allodial, subject to the previous vested rights of tenants and others, which shall not have been divested by their own acts, or by operation of law.” (Laws adopted 1846)

“Wherefore, there was not formerly, and is not now any person who could or can convey away the smallest portion of land without the consent of the one who had, or has the direction of the kingdom. These are the persons who have had the direction of it from that time down, Kamehameha II Kaahumanu I and at the present time Kamehameha III.”

“These persons have had the direction of the kingdom down to the present time, and all documents written by them, and no others are the documents of the kingdom.”

“The kingdom is permanently confirmed to Kamehameha III and his heirs, and his heir shall be the person whom he and the chiefs shall appoint, during his lifetime, but should there be no appointment, then the decision shall rest with the chiefs and House of Representatives.” (Constitution 1840)

“‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth,’ in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.”

“These are some of the rights which he has given alike to every man and every chief of correct deportment; life, limb, liberty, freedom from oppression, the earnings of his hands and the productions of his mind, not however to those who act in violation of the laws.”

“Protection for the People declared. The above sentiments are hereby published for the purpose of protecting alike, both the people and the chiefs of all these islands, while they maintain a correct deportment, that no chief may be able to oppress any subject, but that the chiefs and people may enjoy the same protection, under one and the same law.”

“Protection is hereby secured to the persons of all the people, together with their lands, their building lots, and all their property, while they conform to the laws of the kingdom, and nothing whatever shall be taken from any individual except by express provision of the laws.”

“Whatever chief shall act perseveringly in violation of this constitution, shall no longer remain a chief of the Hawaiian Islands, and the same shall be true of the governors, officers, and all land agents.”

“But if any one who is deposed should change his course, and regulate his conduct by law, it shall then be in the power of the chiefs to reinstate him in the place he occupied, previous to his being deposed.” (Declaration of Rights, 1839)

In 1848, King Kamehameha III responded to increasing economic pressure from foreigners who sought to control land by fundamentally changing the land tenure system to a westernized paper title system.

The lands were formally divided among the king and the chiefs, and the fee titles were recorded in the Māhele book.  Lands granted in the Māhele were granted “subject to the rights of native tenants,” usually tenant farmers who already worked and resided on portions of those lands.

In 1850, a law was passed allowing these “native tenants” to claim fee simple title to the lands they worked. Those who claimed their parcel(s) successfully acquired what is known as a kuleana.

In the years that have passed since the Māhele, many of the large parcels initially granted to chiefs have changed hands through formal legal transfers of title.

Deeds executed during the Māhele conveying land contained the phrase “ua koe ke kuleana o na kānaka,” or “reserving the rights of all native tenants,” in continuation of the reserved tenancies which characterized the traditional Hawaiian land tenure system. (Garavoy)

Contemporary sources of law, including the Hawaii Revised Statutes, the Hawaii State Constitution, and case law interpreting these laws protect six distinct rights attached to the kuleana and/or native Hawaiians with ancestral connections to the kuleana.

These rights are:
(1) reasonable access to the land-locked kuleana from major thoroughfares;
(2) agricultural uses, such as taro cultivation;
(3) traditional gathering rights in and around the ahupua‘a;
(4) a house lot not larger than 1/4 acre;
(5) sufficient water for drinking and irrigation from nearby streams, including traditionally established waterways such as ‘auwai; and
(6) fishing rights in the kunalu (the coastal region extending from beach to reef).

The 1850 Kuleana Act also protected the rights of tenants to gain access to the mountains and the sea and to gather certain materials.

The Kuleana Act did not allow the makaʻāinana to exercise other traditional rights, such as the right to grow crops and pasture animals on unoccupied portions of the ahupua’a. The court’s interpretation of the act prevented tenants from making traditional use of commonly cultivated land. (MacKenzie)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook 

Follow Peter T Young on Google+ 

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn  

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

© 2017 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hale_Pili-Kalihiwai-(ksbe)
Hale_Pili-Kalihiwai-(ksbe)