Sugar | Page 13 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 6, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Cane Fire

Slash and burn agriculture is a widely used method of growing food in which wild or forested land is clear cut and any remaining vegetation burned.

The resulting layer of ash provides the newly-cleared land with a nutrient-rich layer to help fertilize crops. (EcoLogic)

In the Islands, between AD 1100 and 1650, there was a period of expansion and agricultural intensification in Hawaii that accompanied an increase in human population. (Pratt)

Until about 1500 AD, agriculture was shifting cultivation using slash and burn techniques and long fallow periods. Between 1500 and 1800 A.D., agriculture expanded, intensified, and became permanent. (Cuddihy & Stone)

During that period the lowland vegetation below 1,500-feet elevation was almost entirely replaced by cultivated fields, dispersed settlements and grasslands, caused by repeated fires; while upland sites remained little disturbed. (Pratt)

Several of the large field systems have pronounced burn layers that represent wither the original removal of native tree cover or the use of fire for clearing fallow fields.

Fire was the primary tool used by Hawaiians to clear lands prior to cultivation. This was true in areas adjacent to irrigated valleys and windward slopes as well as in the great field systems. Fire may have been repeatedly used to periodically clear the secondary growth on fallow fields. (Cuddihy & Stone)

Fire was also used in marginal cultivations to burn off vegetation and increase the cover of ‘ama‘u ferns used as pig feed. Large expanses of the lowlands were regularly burned to clear woody vegetation and stimulate indigenous pili grass. (Pratt)

Agricultural burning is standard practice for many other kinds of crops on nearly 9-million acres throughout the country, including rice, wheat, corn, cotton, lentils and soybeans. (HC&S)

Fire was later used in the harvesting of sugarcane. Burning the cane before harvesting removes most of the dead vegetation without causing significant damage to the interior of the cane stalk. (James)

The sugarcane plant consists of about 75 percent to 80 percent net cane (stalks) from which the juice is extracted and the sugar crystalized. The other 20 percent to 25 percent of the plant consists of leafy material, including tops, from which little or no sugar is produced.

This leafy material is called trash. Burning sugarcane before harvest (or milling) removes from one-half to two-thirds of this trash that would otherwise contribute nothing to sugar production. (LSUAC)

In many countries, such as Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa Rica, pre-harvest burning is a common practice. In the US and Philippines, sugarcane fields are burned either before or after harvest, but in India, most of the sugarcane residues are usually burned in the field only after harvest. (de Azeredo França)

In Australia, sugarcane burning started in the 1930s to combat Weil’s disease (leptospirosis) among cane-cutters. In other cane growing areas, burning was sometimes done to clear the field of snakes before hand-cutters cut the cane. (Cheesman)

There were attempts to use fire to get rid of pests, “When as an experiment, a patch of about nine acres of cane, so heavily attacked by leaf-hopper as to be useless, was set on fire all around to destroy these, it was noticed that the adult hoppers rose from the cane in a cloud and spread to other fields; so this plan for destroying them was of no value.” (HSPA, 1906)

It appears that the practice of burning sugarcane started in the early-1900s (some suggest in 1908.) Prior to that, cane trash (nonproductive leafy parts of the cane) was removed by hand (men chopped the cane; ‘holehole’ work, stripping the dried cane leaves, was deemed ‘women’s work.’)

The sugar in burned cane inverts after 48-hours and the lack of ability to quickly transport burned cane to mills limited its practice until the late-1920s when a macadamized road system and diesel trucks across the islands became widespread. (Hayakawa)

Later, pre-harvest burning, in the field, was the only economical means sugar planters found for removing the dried leafy material from its crop.

Removal of this dried leafy material reduces the quantity of material which needs to be hauled to the factory, including the soil adhering to the harvested material; reduces the number of haulers traveling back and forth and therefore reduces fuel consumption; reduces the amount of material the factory must handle and therefore its energy consumption; and improves sugar recovery. (HC&S)

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Sugarcane fire

Sugar Cane in Field-UH-Manoa-Library

Cane Fire-UH-Manoa-Library

Workers loading sugar cane-1905-BM

Chinese_contract_laborers_on_a_sugar_plantation_in_19th_century_Hawaii

Japanese sugar plantation workers in Hawaii around 1910 (BishopMuseum)

Sugar harvesting

Sugar_Cane_field-UH-Manoa-Digicoll-1900

Sugar-harvesting-UH_Library

April 3, 2016 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Canec

Between 1879 and 1948, Waiākea Mill Company conducted mill operations at Waiākea Pond. Bagasse – a by-product of sugarcane – became a secondary industry, first as a fuel for the mills’ boilers, then as the main ingredient for a wallboard product.

As commercial fuel oils became increasingly available in the late 1920s, the use of bagasse as a fuel declined. This byproduct of production was then creatively used to manufacture a wallboard product for construction.

In 1929, Hawaiian Cellulose Ltd, a subsidiary of the Waiākea Mill Company applied for a patent for the manufacture of it. (County of Hawai‘i)

On May 23, 1930, “The leading plantation agencies and a group of business men organise a $2,250,000 corporation for the manufacture of wallboard and other universally used bagasse fiber products. The name chosen was the Hawaiian Cane Products, Limited.” (The Friend, June 1930)

Later that year, the directors of the company “authorized the purchase of a one-hundred-ton daily capacity plant for the manufacture of insulating board from bagasse.” (The Friend, October, 1930) (It ended up costing $2.5-million.)

April 27, 1932, the company’s Hilo plant (at Waiākea, adjoining Wailoa Pond) was opened; the company emphasized “the overseas distribution for which the industry aims.” (The Friend, June 1, 1932) (By 1934, “five carloads were shipped … to Manchuria.” (Friend, July 1, 1934))

Canec was originally the brand name for pressed fiber board made by Hawaiian Cane Products, Ltd., but it has become commonly used to refer to all pressed board of this type.

It was formed into sheets similar in size to drywall, as well as other sizes for use as ceiling and wallboard. Canec was used for interior ceilings and walls in many residential and commercial structures throughout the state of Hawai‘i. (DOH)

Reportedly, Charles William Mason, a Scotsman who ended up in Olaʻa on the Island of Hawai‘i in 1919, was the inventor of Canec. Mason became the superintendent of Hawaiian Cane Products Company, Ltd., located in Hilo near the site of the Waiākea Mill Company. (Johnston)

The use of canec as a building material in Hawai‘i gradually expanded during the 1930s, but greatly accelerated after World War II when construction volume rapidly increased.

It was estimated that from the twelve plantations contributing bagasse to the canec plant, one million tons of bagasse would be available for the production of wallboard.

Hawaiian Cane Products was sold to the Flintkote Company in 1948. That year, the Hilo plant manufactured 120,000,000-square feet of canec panels; from 1945 to 1955; the majority of the housing in the Islands featured cane walls and/or ceilings. (HHF)

The original patent for canec wallboard called for the bagasse to be mixed with hydrated lime, caustic soda, soda ash and similar chemicals to digest fiberous portions of the trash. (Bernard)

It was treated with inorganic arsenic compounds to discourage mildew and insects. In addition, the wallboard was treated against termites with calcium arsenate and arsenic, and finally hydrosulfate was added to ‘set the size,’ inhibit the absorption of water and harden the board. (Bernard)

The canec plant discharged its waste through a sewer pipe that emptied into the water at the point where the pond flows into Wailoa River.

A NOAA report says, “An estimated 558-tons of arsenic compounds were released into the Hilo Bay estuary through this sewer line during the operational history of the plant.” (EH)

As was disclosed to the public in 1973, the canec plant had “discharged approximately 3.5-mgd of waste water into the Wailoa estuary for 29-years”.

This waste water included both toxic and lethal chemicals such as arsenic, hydrated line, hydrosulfate, ethyl silicate, hydrosulfate, calcium, arsenate and arsenic acid. (Bernard)

Arsenic concentrations in the sediments of Hilo Bay have been found to be as high as 6,370-ppm, approximately 34 times higher than anywhere else in the state (Department of Health.) (Hallacher)

Some suggest the canec plant was destroyed by the May 23, 1960 tsunami that devastated Hilo; actually, a fire destroyed the canec plant a month earlier (April 3, 1960.)

In 1971, the hotel complex known now as Waiākea Villas was built on the canec plant site (the adjacent Waiākea plant millpond was made part of Wailoa River State Park.)

“Although elevated in comparison to natural background, inorganic arsenic in canec material does not pose exposure or potential health concerns for building residents or workers, provided that the canec is in good condition and not rotting or ‘powdering away.’”

“No health effects caused by short time (acute) exposure to high levels of arsenic in canec, or to lower concentrations for a long time (chronic exposure) have been reported to HDOH.”

“However, daily exposure to very high levels of inorganic arsenic over many years can result in various health effects, including an increased risk of cancer. As a result, exposure to deteriorating canec should be minimized.” (Department of Health)

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Flintkote_Canec Division Plant at Waiakea-DOH

Canec-DOH

Hilo_and_Vicinity-Baldwin-Reg1561-1891-portion-noting_Hawaiian Cellulose

Bagasse-DOH

Flintkote_Canec Division Plant – Waiakea-DOH

Waiakea Villas-on former Canec Plant site

Wailoa Pond-Waiakea Villas-on former Canec Plant site (R)

April 2, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Experiment Stations

Members of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association were typically sugar plantations or mill companies and individuals who were directly interested in sugar production. HSPA was self-funded by the industry through self-assessments on each ton of sugar produced. Each plantation company contributed based on the tons sugar produced.

“This Association shall be known as the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and shall have for its objects the improvement of the sugar industry, the support of an experimental station and laboratory, the maintenance of a sufficient supply of labor, and the development of agriculture in general.”

“Members of this Association may be Sugar plantations or Mill Companies and individuals who are directly interested in Sugar plantations or Mills, but the Trustees of this Association may at their discretion admit other plantation companies and individuals engaged in other agricultural pursuits.” (The Independent, November 27, 1895)

HSPA’s Experiment Station was founded in the days of the Republic of Hawai‘i on April 2, 1895 (the date that Dr. Walter Maxwell arrived at the port of Honolulu as the first Director of the Station and took up his work in science applied to sugar-cane culture and production.)

The HSPA Experiment Station had its beginnings in an era when farm science was theory, separated from farm practice by a great gulf of unbelief. Truly, the founders of the Experiment Station had a breadth of vision in the necessity for untrammeled research which was extraordinary.

The initial laboratory and office first opened on the ground floor of the Robinson building, corner of Nuʻuanu and King streets. It was later moved to Makiki (on Makiki Street, near Wilder on land leased from the Kapiʻolani Estate.) HSPA later purchased adjoining land from the Lishman family, and acquired the fee of the leased site.

A building was built in 1904 to house offices and laboratories being “ … equipped in modern fashion, with especial regard to the use to which it is to be put. The rooms are large and are provided with sufficient shelves, drawers, etc., the special bug room and the outdoor cages furnish ample facilities for conducting breeding experiments; and, in fact, almost everything in the way of equipment is present that could be desired”. (Grammer)

In 1919, following restructuring after WWI, the Station’s programs of work included: Entomology (focusing on natural enemies of the leafhopper;) Botany and Forestry (focusing on Forestry work, establishment of nurseries and stations on all islands; and pineapple work in accordance with our contract with the Hawaiian Pineapple Packers’ Association) …

… Chemistry (Fertilizer control work, analytical work as needed by the plantations; soil surveys; and research work on Hawaiian soils;) Sugar Technology (Mill inspections and laboratory investigations on mill operations;) and Agriculture (field experimentation on fertilization, cultivation, irrigation, etc., and extension of seedling work.)

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the HSPA Trustees, “resolved, that in light of the existing emergency, The Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association does pledge its fullest cooperation to the Government of the United States and places all its facilities, services and membership at the disposal of our Government.”

The onset of war forced the Station to suspend immediately work on some of its important projects; numerous members of the Station joined the Armed Forces, while other members left to devote their skill to some special phase of the war effort.

When the Honolulu Blood Bank was frantically calling for blood and more blood, the Station not only made its laboratory facilities and apparatus available to the Blood Bank but assigned numerous members of its technical staff to full-time work.

Members of the Chemistry department devoted considerable time and effort to war work, mainly concerned with such matters as chemical surveys, camouflage problems, weed control, soil sterilization, chemical-dipping problems, precautions in handling toxic materials, demolition issues, and gas decontamination problems.

To meet a very obvious need, the Pathology department cultured the penicillin-yielding mold and produced in large quantities products of the highest quality and potency which were made available to local physicians throughout the long and critical period during which penicillin was not available for the treatment of civilians.

The primary object of the Molasses laboratory had been to produce a high-quality yeast for human consumption. After December 7, however, the shortage of bakers’ yeast in Honolulu brought many requests to the Station for aid. It was found that the yeast slurry was excellent for bread making and the Station furnished yeast slurry to numerous bakeries.

One of the most active units of the Station during the war was the Library. It was practically a war-time utility and scarcely a day passed that a group of service men could not be found around the Library tables.

Information was requested on an amazing and endless variety of subjects such as chemistry, ordnance, agricultural crops, rat control, mosquito data and other material pertinent to camp or field work, diversified and soilless agriculture, insects, botany, and so on.

HSPA built its main experiment station and administrative facilities at Makiki (much of its former outplanting area is now the fields of the Makiki District Park;) in the early-1970s HSPA moved to a new facility in Aiea.

In addition to that, HSPA had a large leased area at Waipiʻo, the Helemano Variety Station, the Ewa Variety Station, the Kailua Substation, the Manoa Arboretum (later known as the Lyon Arboretum,) and a few other O‘ahu sites.

On the Island of Hawaii there were four cane variety units (in Hilo, Hāmākua, Kohala and the Hawai‘i Seed Nursery,) as well as other facilities. Kauai had the Kauai Variety Station at Lihue; the Maui substation was at HC&S and Molokai had sugar-cane quarantine facilities.

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Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-001-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-007-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-004-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-006-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-003-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-005-00001

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association Experiment Station-PP-8-9-002-00001

HSPA entrance to administrative building at experiment station in Makiki

HSPA-Makiki-1970-SB

HSPA-Makiki-1961-SB

HSPA administration building (fronting Keeaumoku Street)

HSPA facility Aiea

HSPA Center Aiea

Punchbowl-DiamondHead-DAGS-2412-1952

March 24, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tydings-McDuffie

After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris.

On February 4, 1899, just two days before the US Senate ratified the treaty, fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists who sought independence rather than a change in colonial rulers. The ensuing Philippine-American War lasted three years. (State Department)

Even as the fighting went on, the colonial government that the United States established in the Philippines in 1900 under future President William Howard Taft launched a pacification campaign that became known as the “policy of attraction.”

In 1907, the Philippines convened its first elected assembly, and in 1916, the Jones Act promised the nation eventual independence. The archipelago became an autonomous commonwealth in 1935, and the U.S. granted independence in 1946. (State Department)

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)

On the continent, during the 1920s, there was already uneasiness about the growing number of Filipinos, reviving earlier nativist fears regarding Chinese and Japanese laborers. With the rise in unemployment during the depression and the development of Filipino labor activism in the early 1930s, a new reason for excluding Filipinos was added.

Granting commonwealth status to the Philippines was largely a legal cover for racially excluding Filipinos, who were hit especially hard by the economic downturn of the depression.

Then, on March 24, 1934, President Roosevelt signed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which provided for a Philippines Commonwealth Government that would be followed by complete independence in ten years. (Schiller Institute)

Tydings-McDuffie Act grew out of widespread opposition, particularly in California, to the rapid influx of Filipino agricultural laborers after annexation of the islands and limited Filipino immigration to only 50 per year. For the tens of thousands already in the country, it meant that they could not become naturalized citizens and were cut off from New Deal work programs.

Due to the restriction put on immigration, a threat was put on the supply of cheap labor forces needed within agricultural sector. To many plantation owners, Filipino laborers were a great group in regards to hard work and good work ethics.

The immigration restriction made it almost impossible for Filipino-Americans already living in the U.S. to petition their loved ones and family members. This accentuates the inability for many of the laborers to develop of connect with their families. In other words, Filipino hopes of family reunification were shattered.

In some respects, Filipinos were in a worse position than the previously excluded Chinese and Japanese, for at least Chinese merchants were allowed to bring wives, and Japanese wives and family members had been exempted from the restrictions of the Gentlemen’s Agreement.

Exemptions to the act did, however, allow Hawaiian employers to import Filipino farm labor when needed (though remigration to the mainland was not permitted) and enabled the US to recruit more than 22,000 Filipinos into the navy (between 1944 and 1973), most of whom were assigned to work in mess halls or as personal servants. (ImmigrationToUS)

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Sugarcane_plantation_workers-400

Millard Tydings

John McDuffie

Sakadas in Hawaii

Sugar_Workers-(SEA)

Harvesting_Sugar

Harvesting pineapples in Hawaii-(NYTimes)-around 1940

Harvesting pineapples in Hawaii-(star-bulletin)-1960s

Sakada-pineapple

Filipino_immigrant_family_in_Hawaii,_c._1906

Lei Day, Filipino Bamboo Pole Dance UH-(vic&becky)-1954

March 3, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hole Hole Bushi

“Kane wa kachiken
Washa horehoreyo
Ase to namida no
Tomokasegi”

“My husband cuts the cane stalks
And I trim the leaves
With sweat and tears we both work
For our means.”

Japanese laborers quickly comprised the majority of Hawaiian sugar plantation workers after their large-scale importation as contract workers in 1885. (Oxford Press)

Their folk songs provide good examples of the intersection between local work/life and the global connection which the workers clearly perceived after arriving.

While many are songs of lamentation, others reflect a rapid adaptation to a new society in which other ethnic groups were arranged in untidy hierarchical order–the origins of a unique multicultural social order dominated by an oligarchy of white planters. (Oxford Press)

From 1885-1924, about 200,000 Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations. (Kim) By 1900, the Japanese population, about 40% of the total, was the largest ethnic group in Hawai‘i. (Densho)

Many of those Issei women, first generation of Japanese immigrants, came as picture brides and found themselves working long hours in the canefields.

The men cut the cane; the women’s work was to strip the leaves from sugar cane stalks so that it produces more juice while providing fertilizer for the growing plant.

These women sang songs about work and the dilemmas of plantation life. The songs, called Hole Hole Bushi, used old Japanese folk tunes, and mixed Hawaiian and Japanese words for dramatic lyrics. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a hybrid term that combines the Japanese word for tune (bushi) with a Hawaiian term describing the stripping the leaves off of sugar cane (hole.) Issei women composed and sung a repertoire of these songs, set to familiar Japanese melodies, which expressed their hardships, disappointments, and hopes. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a folk song which Issei (first-generation Japanese overseas emigrants) who immigrated to Hawai‘i at the end of the 19th century, sang at their work in the sugarcane fields. (Nakahara)

Folk songs are short stories from the souls of common people. Some, like Mexican corridos or Scottish ballads, reworked in the Appalachias, are stories of tragic or heroic episodes. Others, like the African American blues, reach from a difficult present back into slavery and forward into a troubled future. (Oxford Press)

Japanese workers in Hawaii’s plantations created their own versions, in form more like their traditional tanka or haiku poetry.

These Holehole Bushi describe the experiences of one particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Oxford Press)

The name “Hole Hole Bushi,” first appears in Saishin Hawai Annai (The Latest Hawai‘i Guide) by Namitarō Murasaki (1920.) “Hole-hole Bushi” is described as one of Hawai‘i’s specialties to see, as in the following:

“Honolulu is a song-less town. One rarely hears singing except through a phonograph or overhearing a spree coming out of a restaurant. Of course, new popular songs are imported every time Japanese ships come into port. But these songs are sung only at tea houses for the time being, and mostly disappear before they spread outside.”

“Nevertheless, if you go to the countryside, you can still hear the loud singing of a tune saturated with a sorrowful mood. That is “Hole-hole Bushi”—a distinctive feature in Hawai‘i.” (Nakahara)

The lyrics are mostly in Japanese with Hawaiian and English words mixed in, and follow a poetic form with lines of 7+7+7+5 syllables. The texts cover a wide range of topics, from the hardships of field labor and uncertainty in life to the relationships between men and women, name-calling and gossip.

Around 1930, the lives of the Issei improved, and many moved to cities. The Hole Hole Bushi which had been sung in the field disappeared, and, in its place, lively-sounding versions of Hole Hole Bushi were performed in Japanese tea houses.

During the Second World War, the government banned Japanese cultural activities. After the war, however, the great success of the Nisei troops in the fight received admiration. However, Hole Hole Bushi was never performed; for the Issei, Hole Hole Bushi had become an embarrassment. (Nakahara)

Hole Hole Bushi performed by Allison Arakawa at Japanese American National Museum: