TERRITORY OF HAWAII
The Hawaiian islands lie in the north Pacific ocean, between 18 degrees 54 minutes and 22 degrees 15 minutes north latitude and 154 degrees 50 minutes and 160 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. The group consists of eight inhabited islands and a number of small barren islets extending several hundred miles in a west-northwesterly direction.
The area of the various inhabited islands in square miles is as follows:
All of them are of volcanic and comparatively recent origin, and their age, or at least the time since the last eruptions on them, decreases from west to east. On Hawaii, the largest and most easterly of the group, the volcanic forces are still active and its surface is covered with lava thrown up at no very remote period. The principal port is Hilo and the highest mountain peaks are Mauna Kea (White mountain), 13,823 feet, and Mauna Loa (Great mountain), 13,675 feet.
Maui is formed by two mountains connected by an isthmus. Mauna Haleakala, the higher of the two, rises to a heightof 10,032 feet.[35]Kahului is the most important town and seaport.
Oahu is of irregular quadrangular shape. Two nearly parallel mountain ranges traverse it from southeast to northwest and between them is a plateau that slopes down to the sea both in a northerly and southerly direction. The principal port is Honolulu, the “cross-roads of the Pacific,” a flourishing city of about 60,000 inhabitants and the capital of the group. It is admirably situated on a fine harbor and, in addition to its commercial importance, is one of the most attractive spots in the world on account of its balmy climate and wondrously beautiful surroundings. It is strongly fortified and a considerable military force is maintained there.
Pearl Harbor lies about seven miles from Honolulu in a westerly direction. Here the United States government has established a great naval station, one of the finest in existence. It has the most improved apparatus for supplying coal or fuel oil to vessels; there are machine shops, storehouses and barracks; and the huge dry-dock when completed will accommodate the largest dreadnaughts. The entrance from the sea has been dredged to make it navigable for ships of the greatest draft and the station is protected by powerful long-range guns of the most modern type.
Kauai, the oldest island of the group, is irregularly circular in shape, with a maximum diameter of about 25 miles. On the northwest a precipice rises to a height of 2000 feet and beyond that is a mountain plain, but the other portion of the island consists of shore plains with the mountain peak, Waialeale, 5250 feet high, in their midst. The shore plains are broken by ridges and broad, deep valleys and the island is well watered on all sides by mountain streams. There are a number of ports, but no large towns.
The climate of the Hawaiian islands near sea-level does not vary greatly from one year’s end to the other. It is cooler than other regions in the same latitude and extremely healthful. The northeast trade winds blow with periodic variations from March to December, or, as one writer says, 264 days out of 365 every year.[36]The leeward coast, protected by high mountains, is refreshed by regular land and sea breezes. The heaviest rainfall is from January to May, and naturally the greatest precipitation takes place on the windward side of the principal islands. The extremes of local rainfall in the larger islands have been known to range from 12 inches to 300 inches for the year. In Honolulu the average temperature runs from 72 degrees to 74 degrees, the maximum about 88 degrees and the minimum 52 degrees Fahrenheit. In ascending the mountains a lower temperature will be encountered as a matter of course and some of the highest mountain peaks are covered with snow nearly all the year round. Winds seldom blow with extreme violence and hurricanes are unknown.
Singular it is that so little should have been written upon a subject so important as the history of the growth of the sugar industry of the Hawaiian islands. Jarves and Thrum bring the narrative down to 1875 and Mr. H. P. Baldwin, in his book entitled “The Sugar Industry in Hawaii” (1895), contributes a fund of valuable information which is freely drawn upon in this chapter.
Tradition has it that a Japanese junk touched at the island of Maui during the thirteenth century and a Spanish vessel is said to have put in on the south coast of Hawaii during a voyage from Mexico to the Philippines in 1550. Be this as it may, our knowledge of these islands dates only from the time of their discovery by Captain Cook in 1778. He found sugar cane growing there when he landed and speaks of it in his description ofhis first visit as being “of large size and good quality.” According to the old natives, it grew wild and luxuriant in the valleys and lowlands. As far back as 1837 Mr. D. D. Baldwin recalls having seen fields of white cane on the edge of the woods at Hana, Maui, at an elevation of 2000 to 3000 feet. The natives made no attempt to use sugar cane except as an article of food, although it is said that in ancient days it served as an offering to their gods, particularly the god “Mano” (shark).
Cleveland[37]says that upon his first visit to the Sandwich group in 1799 the natives came alongside the ship in canoes bringing many fruits and vegetables, among which was sugar cane.
L. L. Torbert, one of the early planters, in a paper read before the Royal Agricultural Society in January, 1852, claims that the earliest sugar factory was put up on the island of Lanai in 1802 by a Chinaman who came to the islands in one of the vessels trading for sandalwood. He brought with him a stone mill and boilers, and after grinding one small crop and making it into sugar, went away the next year taking his apparatus with him.
Anderson[38]makes a statement that 257 tons of sugar were exported from the islands in 1814, but cites no authority upon which to base his assertion.
According to Jarves[39]the first instance of the manufacture of sugar goes back beyond 1820, but the name of the pioneer planter is unknown. It is certain that at first molasses was manufactured and then sugar some time before 1820.
Don Francisco de Paula Marin made sugar in Honolulu in 1819, the year before the arrival of the first missionaries. Lavinia, an Italian, did the same thing in 1823. His method was topound the cane with stone pestles on huge wooden trays (poi boards) by native labor, collecting the juice and boiling it in a small copper kettle.
Accounts from various sources agree that the making of sugar and molasses was general in 1823-24. This undoubtedly had direct connection with the manufacture of rum, which was extensively carried on at that time.
In 1828 a considerable amount of cane was raised in the neighborhood of Honolulu and mills were built in the Nuuanu valley and Waikapu, Maui. A pioneer cane grower, Antonio Silva by name, lived at the latter place, and some Chinamen had a sugar mill near Hilo. In those days mills were made of wood, very crudely put together and worked by oxen.
The first attempt at sugar cultivation on a large scale was made at Koloa, Kauai, by Ladd & company, a Honolulu merchant firm, in 1835. This was the beginning of what is now known as the Koloa plantation, and the first breaking of the soil for planting cane was done with a plough drawn by natives. A mill was established here at the same time, and the enterprise was managed by a Mr. Hooper.
As has been said, the general character of the mills was rude and primitive and it continued to be so up to 1850. The rollers were generally of wood and the kettles in which the juice was boiled were whalers’ trypots. The buildings were adobe or simple grass huts. Only one grade of sugar was made. The juice was boiled to a thick syrup and put into coolers to grain, after which the granulated mass was packed in mats, bags, boxes or barrels with perforated bottoms for the molasses to drain off. The mills were run by bullocks, horses and in some cases by water power, and were fed by hand, one stalk at a time. The whole process, both in the field and in the mill, was very crude and imperfect.
The value of the sugar exported from the islands from 1836to 1841 was $36,000 and that of the molasses for the same period $17,130.
An article by the late William Ladd on the “Resources of the Sandwich Islands,” published in the “Hawaiian Spectator” for April, 1838, speaks thus prophetically of the manufacture of sugar, then in its infancy:
“It is a very common opinion that sugar will become a leading article of export. That this will become a sugar country is quite evident, if we may judge from the varieties of sugar cane now existing here, its adaptation to the soil, price of labor and a ready market. From experiments hitherto made, it is believed that sugar of a superior quality may be produced here. It may not be amiss to state that there are now in operation, or soon to be erected, twenty mills for crushing cane propelled by animal power, and two by water power.”
Just here it may be remarked that at that time the price of labor was a potent argument in favor of making the islands a sugar-producing country, for native labor was available in abundance and the current rate of wages was from 12½ cents to 37½ cents per day, or $2.00 to $5.00 per month.
In an article on commercial development,[40]Thrum says:
“Hawaiian produce in the early days had to seek distant markets, for we find shipments of sugar, hides, goat skins and the first shipment of raw silk moving to New York per the barkFlorain 1840. A trial shipment of sugar was sent to France, but it did not offer sufficient encouragement for any renewals. The Sydney market was also exploited with sugar, where it obtained better figures than similar grades of Mauritius.”
Between the years 1840 and 1850 a cane field and rude mill in Lahaina, Maui, were owned by David Malo, a well-known Hawaiian, who made molasses and sold it for home consumption. His apparatus consisted of three whaling-ship trypots set upon adobe and stone mason work. The crushing was done with wooden rollers, strengthened by iron bands.
In 1841, Kaukini, governor of Hawaii, planted about one hundred acres of cane in Kohala and the crop when harvested was ground under contract by a Chinese named Aiko.
In Wyllie’s “Notes” on the islands, published in the “Friend,” December, 1844, the quantity of sugar exported from the island of Kauai is estimated at about 200 tons, and the molasses at 20,000 gallons. Hilo, in the same year, exported 42 tons of sugar. Maui had, at that time, two mills, but the amount of sugar produced is not reported.
In 1851, D. M. Weston, then manager of what is now the Honolulu Iron Works, invented the first centrifugal machine for drying sugar, and this machine was installed on the East Maui plantation in the same year. This, it is claimed, was the first centrifugal to be used for the purpose anywhere.
Prominent among the early planters are the names of Stephen Reynolds, William French, Ladd & company, Dr. R. W. Wood, L. L. Torbert, W. H. Rice, and later on S. L. Austin, A. H. Spencer and Captain Makee.
In the year 1854 or 1855, Captain Edwards of the American whalerGeorge Washingtonbrought from Tahiti two varieties of cane, one known as Cuban and the other as Lahaina. The latter proved to be profitable to raise and fifteen or sixteen years later began to displace other species throughout the islands. Since then its popularity continued to increase and up to twenty years ago it was the variety most in favor on all Hawaiian plantations.
Twelve varieties of cane were imported from Queensland, Australia, in 1880, but of these only one—the Rose Bamboo—compared with the Lahaina in productiveness, and that only in high altitudes.
In 1898 Lahaina and Rose Bamboo seemed to have outlivedtheir usefulness on the Hamakua coast of the island of Hawaii, and while they continued to give excellent results in the low, sheltered valleys, it became evident that they could not be profitably grown on the uplands. The yields in the Hamakua region were becoming smaller each year and the plantation owners had to seek a new variety. A cane known as Yellow Caledonia[41]solved the difficulty and wonderful crops of it have been raised uninterruptedly in that section ever since.
In 1856 no fertilizers were used and practically nothing was known of irrigation. The average yield of sugar at that time was one ton per acre. The extraction of sugar from the cane was less than 50 per cent, while today in the best mills it exceeds 98 per cent and the average result from all Hawaiian factories shows over 90 per cent.
The industry struggled along under severe handicaps and discouraging circumstances until 1857, when the number of plantations on the islands had dwindled down to five: Koloa and Lihue on Kauai, the East Maui and the Brewer on Maui and a Chinese outfit near Hilo, Hawaii.
In 1858-59 steam was adopted as the motive power in themills; wooden mills were superseded by those built of iron and in 1861 the first vacuum pans were introduced. The same year saw the number of plantations increase to twenty-two, nine of which employed steam for the grinding of the cane.
The outbreak of the Civil war in the United States cut off the supply of sugar drawn from the Southern states and caused the price of Hawaiian sugar in kegs to advance to ten cents a pound. This gave the Hawaiian producers their first real start. In 1863 the export tonnage was 2600, and this increased until in 1860 it reached 8869 tons.
A small plantation was started at Paia, Maui, by a Captain Bush in 1868 and in the following year he disposed of it to S. T. Alexander and H. P. Baldwin. The former gentleman was then manager of the Haiku plantation and the acquisition of his interest in the Paia venture necessitated his going to Honolulu to borrow the sum of $9000, which he managed to do, but not without difficulty. Mr. Alexander was the father of irrigation in Hawaii. He promoted and built the Haiku ditch, which was the forerunner of the present magnificent water-distributing system of the islands.
The period from 1869 to 1876 was one of arduous struggle for the planters. Their very existence was at stake. The duty levied on imports by the United States cut their margins down to nothing, labor was scarce and the cost of obtaining it great, the rate of interest was from ten to twelve per cent, agents’ commissions for buying and selling ran from five to ten per cent; in short, many plantations were threatened with utter ruin, and so seriously discouraged did the business men become that the only gleam of hope for the salvation of the sugar industry seemed to be annexation.
Repeated efforts were made to negotiate a reciprocity treaty with the United States. Finally this was accomplished; the treaty was consummated in 1876 and a new Hawaii was born.
The expansion that followed was more rapid than the finances of the country could stand. Depression ensued, and as a result the resources of the islands were taxed to the utmost.
The demand for labor during this period of expansion was so great that the pay of the laborers in the fields was raised to one dollar a day, with free rent, fuel and medical attendance. Laborers were sought for in the far corners of the earth, and in consequence the islands have a race mixture rarely found anywhere else in the world.
In 1876 the annual crop of the islands could have been put in one vessel of the capacity of those that are now engaged in freighting Hawaiian raw sugars to the United States, the total being in the neighborhood of 13,000 short tons. At that time, however, this seemed an enormous amount to the planters with their small acreage and mills. It is well known that one planter was very much exercised as to how he was possibly going to handle the extraordinary production of 1100 tons from his plantation, which was then the largest in the islands.
The crop came on the market in such small quantities that it was of no value to refiners, as they could not depend upon definite deliveries. It was therefore put up in special containers, known as “island kegs,” and sold directly to the wholesale grocers on the Pacific coast.
Some plantations turned out sugars that found especial favor with the trade, and these grades brought as high as 14 cents per pound.
Under the benefits of reciprocity the crop increased by leaps and bounds and in a short time the planters ceased selling these raw grocery sugars and turned their attention to supplying the wants of refiners. The “island keg” became a thing of the past and the small sailing vessels which had heretofore carried all the island products to the mainland gave way to steamers. At the present day there is only one sailing vessel plying regularlybetween San Francisco and the islands, and she usually loads at a port where the large freighting steamers do not care to venture.
Annexation to the United States in 1898 was the next important step in the development of Hawaii. Its immediate effect was to create a feeling of security and confidence in every direction, for while the reciprocity treaty had produced excellent results, the danger of its being made the subject of attack in Congress was ever present. The hoisting of the American flag in the islands permanently dispelled any anxiety on that score.
Of all the early pioneers whose steadfastness and courage kept the sugar industry alive through so many vicissitudes, but few survive. Their descendants have succeeded to their possessions and responsibilities, and today in Hawaii cane cultivation and sugar manufacture have attained a higher degree of development than has been reached by any other country in the world. Crude methods and appliances have long since disappeared. Scientific principles govern the treatment of the land and the selection and care of the cane. The irrigation works are marvels of engineering skill. The mills are modern steel-frame structures, with concrete floors and equipped with machinery of the most improved type. And the end is not yet. The minds of many highly trained men are constantly at work upon the various problems presented by the industry, and what the fruit of their effort will be, who shall say?
Production of Hawaii since 1837 in tons of 2240 pounds: