01-07-2014, 08:35 PM
Right now the majority of land in Hawaii is not owned by Hawaiians and it is probably true that the majority of Hawaiians do not own land. Go back to 1849 and the majority of land was owned by Hawaiians and lots of Hawaiians owned land. Go back to 1847 and all the land was owned by Hawaiians and only a tiny fraction of Hawaiians owned land. What happened in 1848? The Great Mahele in which the concept of private ownership of land was introduced. Prior to that the vast majority of Hawaiians owned no land and could be turned off the land they were living on. There were lots of laws like that that made being a commoner in ancient Hawaii probably not much more fun than being a European peasant in the same era. I am not foolish enough to get teary-eyed over the good old days of the dark ages in my ancestral homelands of England, Ireland, and Germany. I know how sleazy my ancestors were. I believe in racial equality. I therefor know something about everybody else's ancestors and how "great" things were back then.
Ah, the Law of the Splintered Paddle, enacted by Kamehameha the Great in 1797. Just as Lincoln freed the slaves, Kamehameha granted basic human rights to all Hawaiians including commoners. Course, before you can free slaves you have to own slaves. Similarly prior to the Law of the Splintered Paddle Ali'i could and did arbitrarily did exercise the power of life and death over commoners. Kind of spoils the story. But only if you know and care about history. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming about how great it would be to turn back the clock to a time when women couldn't eat with the men, you could get killed for not getting out of the way of someone of a higher caste, and warfare and the sacrificial killing of captives taken during said warfare were both part of your culture.
And the vast majority of common Hawaiian people didn't own their homes but had to essentially "rent" from the landlords from hell under the worst lease terms imaginable.
Ah, the Law of the Splintered Paddle, enacted by Kamehameha the Great in 1797. Just as Lincoln freed the slaves, Kamehameha granted basic human rights to all Hawaiians including commoners. Course, before you can free slaves you have to own slaves. Similarly prior to the Law of the Splintered Paddle Ali'i could and did arbitrarily did exercise the power of life and death over commoners. Kind of spoils the story. But only if you know and care about history. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming about how great it would be to turn back the clock to a time when women couldn't eat with the men, you could get killed for not getting out of the way of someone of a higher caste, and warfare and the sacrificial killing of captives taken during said warfare were both part of your culture.
And the vast majority of common Hawaiian people didn't own their homes but had to essentially "rent" from the landlords from hell under the worst lease terms imaginable.