Hawaiians As Wage Laborers
The break up of the traditional land system not only led to the
establishment of land tenure on the basis of private property ownership,
it also created a large pool of landless Hawaiians with no other means of
subsistence, than to hire themselves out as wage laborers.
Hawaiians had begun to work outside of the context of their traditional 'ohana (family) as early as the trading period. Hardy young Hawaiian men were recruited by sea captains to man the trading ships on voyages between Hawai'i and the northwest coast of North America. The following was typical of the instructions given to sea captains plying the fur and sandalwood routes in the Pacific:
"Take as many stout islanders as will increase your crew to 21 or 22 . . . and when you return from the coast discharge and pay them off in such articles of trade as you have left." (Bryant & Sturgis to Captain James Hale, August 31, 1818, B&S Letter Books, cited in Kuykendall, 1968, p.88)During the whaling period individual Hawaiians were lured away from their homesteads to the burgeoning port towns of Lahaina and Honolulu. From there, some shipped out to sea on the whalers. Others worked for a wage as manual laborers such as boatmen, stevedores, haulers, peddlers, waiters and domestic help.
The 1849 California gold rush attracted many young Hawaiian men. As this coincided with the establishment of private property ownership and the extension of these rights to non-Hawaiians, Americans and Europeans used their influence in the constitutional monarchy to enact a law restricting emigration from Hawai'i so as to protect their limited domestic labor supply. Beginning in 1850 one had to receive a permit in order to emigrate from Hawai'i.
Changes in the traditional land system and newly imposed taxes forced greater numbers of Hawaiians to enter the work force as wage laborers. They labored in the plantations as well as on ranches and in small enterprises such as the gathering of pulu and pepeiao (fungus), coffee growing and salt production for export. With 71 percent of the Hawaiian males left landless as a result of the Mahele and thousands of acres of chiefly lands sold to foreigners, hundreds of Hawaiians were displaced from the land and cut off from their means of securing a livelihood. In order to feed, clothe and shelter their families the landless Hawaiians were forced to seek wage-earning jobs.
Hawaiians As Plantation Laborers
While the foundation for wage labor to develop into the dominant
form of labor was laid by the 1850's it was the emergence of sugar as the
primary commodity around which the Hawaiian economy would be organized
that provided the impetus for the all-sided transformation of the Hawaiian
social system. The 'ohana began to gradually transform from the primary
unit of work and the context within which to make a livelihood to having
no direct relation to the organization of work and production. Instead the
'ohana began to serve as a source of refuge, comfort and support to
Hawaiian laborers who felt overworked and socially alienated from their
'ohana and family homesteads when they labored upon the plantations
and in
port towns.
Employment demands of ten to twelve hours of labor per day for five to six days a week made commuting to work places that were distant from their homes impossible and compelled families to live apart from each other.
Sugar emerged as the primary commodity for the Hawaiian economy just as whaling was declining as an industry due to the replacement of whale sperm oil by petroleum oil for fuel; the privateering and impressment of whaling vessels during the Civil War; and the soaring costs for outfitting ships for longer more perilous voyages to seek out the diminishing number of whales.
While experiments were made in producing coffee, rice, tobacco, cotton, livestock and silk as commodities for large scale commodity production and export, ultimately sugar proved to be the most viable and profitable to produce on a large scale plantation basis.
Impact of the Reciprocity Sugar Treaty
The nationalist movement had its start as a spontaneous movement
to oppose the ceding of Pu'uloa for a reciprocal trade treaty to promote
the sale of sugar in the United States. The enactment and implementation of
the treaty in 1875 created new conditions which contributed to the
expansion and maturation of the Hawaiian nationalist movement.
First, the Reciprocity Treaty made Hawai'i an economic colony of the United States. By 1886, nine-tenths of Hawai'i's exports were sold to the U.S. and eight-tenths of Hawai'i's imports came from the U.S.
The phenomenal expansion of the sugar industry was under the direction and for the benefit of the American and European factory-planter-missionary elite. The displacement of native Hawaiians from their traditional lands increased as the cultivation of sugar increased. The diversion of natural stream waters into plantation irrigation systems lowered the water table and reduced the flow of water into the streams or dried them up altogether. Being cut off from free access to the streams that had watered their lo'i kalo (taro patches) from generation to generation, many Hawaiian farmers were forced off their kuleana lands.
In 1883 sugar plantations were valued at $15,586,800. Of this amount, sixty-five percent valued at $10,185,000 were American interests; twenty-one percent valued at $1,230,000 were British interests; six percent valued at $970,000 were German interests; four percent valued at $641,204 were Hawaiian interests; and slightly less than four percent valued at $560,000 were Chinese interests.
By far, the most significant effect of the Reciprocity Treaty upon the Hawaiian people was the increased importation of immigrant contract labor for Hawai'i's plantations. In 1872 there were 51,531 Hawaiians and they comprised 90.6 percent of the population and 85 percent of the plantation work force. By 1884, Hawaiians numbered only 44,232 and comprised only 54.9 percent of the population. Already by 1882 Hawaiians had comprised only 25 percent of the plantation work force. By 1890 Hawaiians were reduced to a minority within their own homeland, comprising only 45.2 percent of the population.
Altogether, between 1876 and 1887 there were 39,926 Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Norwegians, Germans and South Sea Islanders imported to labor on Hawai'i's plantations. Except for the Portuguese, who were brought in as families, the immigrant work force was all adult and predominantly male. Moreover, the Hawaiian monarchy subsidized the importation of this work force paying $1 million while the planters paid only $565,547.
Not only were the Hawaiian elite who lacked capital resources excluded from competing in the development of the sugar industry, the Hawaiian masses were also marginalized in the development of the major industry in Hawai'i. The alteration of the ethnic composition of the work force also affected Hawai'i's politics.
In 1893 U.S. Commissioner James Blount in his report on the conditions that led up to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy characterized the Reciprocity Treaty as follows:
"From it there came to the islands an intoxicating increase of wealth, a new labor system, an Asiatic population, and alienation between the native and white race, and impoverishment of the former and enrichment of the latter, and the many so-called revolutions, which are the foundation for the opinion that stable government cannot be maintained." (U.S. Dept. of State Papers Relating to the Mission of James H. Blount, U.S. Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands. Washington, U.S. Gov't. Printing Office, 1893, Part II, pg. 5)Indeed, the Reciprocity Trade Treaty laid the foundation for the ultimate incorporation of Hawai'i into the United States through Annexation in August 1898.
Dr. Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor is former Vice Chairperson of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council. She is currently an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Hawai'i-Manoa in Honolulu.
Bibliography
Glossary