Courtesy of Hawaii State Archives
President Sanford Dole and U.S. Minister Harold M.
Sewall at the annexation ceremony on Aug. 12, 1898,
fronting Iolani Palace.

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Sugar yields
sweet deal for
‘Big Five’ firms

By Richard Borreca
Star-Bulletin

Tall, gray-bearded Sanford Dole, in ceremonies 101 years ago at Iolani Palace, spelled out the end of the Republic of Hawaii.

"A treaty of political union having been made, and the cession formally consented to and approved by the Republic of Hawaii, having accepted by the United States of America," said Dole, president of the Republic.

"I now in the interest of the Hawaiian body politic and with full confidence in the honor, justice and friendship of the American people, yield up to you . . . the sovereignty and public property of the Hawaiian Islands."

With that, the islands discovered by bold South Pacific seafarers, united by the warrior chief Kamehameha, now controlled by the grandsons of missionaries and populated by Asian workers, became a territory of the United States of America.

Congress, distracted by the Spanish-American War, did not provide the laws -- the Organic Act -- for Hawaii until 1900.

But in Hawaii, change began in a matter of days.

Courtesy of Hawaii State Archives
The lowering of the Hawaiian flag from Iolani Palace.

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Asian contract laborers who could be jailed for disobeying a plantation luna's order, now fell under U.S. labor and immigration laws.

All citizens of the Republic became U.S. citizens. But since almost all Asian residents had been excluded for citizenship in the Republic, they also were not citizens of the United States.

Dole went from Republic president, to the territory's first governor.

Most importantly, the small group of white plantation and business owners who overthrew the monarchy kept control of the government.

When Walter Frear was sworn in as governor in 1907, he was forced to note that native Hawaiians might not like their new government.

"Natural feelings of sadness and even of bitterness over loss of independence . . .," he said. Yet, "there is every reason to believe that the Hawaiians will soon have passed from a state of reconciliation to one of the same ardent loyalty and patriotism towards their adopted country that characterized their attitude toward their former country."

Courtesy of Hawaii State Archives
The hoisting of the American flag at Honolulu Harbor
by U.S. Marines and sailors coming ashore.

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Frear, a Republican, knew well the Hawaiians' distaste for the government forced upon them.

In the first territorial elections held in the fall of 1900, Hawaiians backed a new political party, the Home Rule or Independent party. It swept the elections to both houses of the Legislature with former restore-the-monarchy rebel, Robert Wilcox, becoming Hawaii's first delegate to Congress.

It was as close as Hawaiians would come to staging a coup to take back their land. For when the Republicans recruited Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Piikoi to join their party and run for Congress, the Home Rule party dwindled away.

Kuhio became an effective lobbyist for Hawaii in Congress but never could win the key appointive position of territorial governor.

"The oligarchy was more successful in manipulating the Hawaiians for its own purposes," Richard Wisnieski said in a history of Hawaii's territorial years.

"Elitist control tightened and consolidated in Honolulu, and Kuhio was continually bypassed both in Washington and in Hawaii by Republican leaders."

Hawaii, meanwhile, was steadily becoming an American outpost.

The federal government took over the postal system, customs and courts. The 1900 Organic Act, which set up the rules for Hawaii's transformation from Republic to territory, stipulated that streets had to be named and houses numbered, and that businesses pay federal taxes.

Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole was Hawaii's
delegate to the U.S. Congress for 20 years

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Kuhio, in an attempt to break up the political power of the sugar and business interests, pressed for home rule. In 1905, the territory set up the county form of government and by 1909, Honolulu had a mayor.

Business, not politics, however, had turned Hawaii into a U.S. territory. Still, in a particularly Hawaiian way, the businesses here were tightly controlled through five major companies which grew as tangled and interconnected as the oldest hau tree in Waikiki. The five were:

Alexander & Baldwin, started by Samuel Alexander and Henry Baldwin, sons of missionaries. Their daring irrigation project sent water 17 miles from the rainy slopes of Haleakala to 3,000 dry sugar cane acres in central Maui.

Theo H. Davis, a British firm that had not relished Hawaii going to the United States. After the overthrow, Theo Davis and Princess Kaiulani in 1893 traveled together to Washington, D.C., to ask President Grover Cleveland to restore the Hawaiian monarchy. That failed, but the firm became a maritime shipping company and branched into the sugar trade.

Castle & Cooke, founded by missionaries, which originally sold sewing machines, farm tools and medicine in Hawaii. It later bought stock in sugar plantations and focused on sugar companies.

C. Brewer, founded by James Hunnewell, an officer on the Thaddeus, which had brought the original missionaries here in 1820. He returned in 1826 to set up a trading company, which was itself later traded to Capt. Charles Brewer who gave the lasting name.

Hackfeld & Company, a German firm that later became Amfac. It was started by a young German selling goods to whalers, who came to manage sugar growers' businesses. When World War I's Alien Property Act forced Hackfeld to sell its assets, they were bought by a consortium of Big Five members for $7.5 million. In an obvious patriotic move, the management firm became American Factors and the retail division became Liberty House.

Big Five businessmen were not afraid to make big plans. So when the isolated sugar plantations needed water, they bored through mountains, built elaborate waterways across valleys, and revolutionized the growing of sugar cane.

In 1916 the Waiahole Tunnel was completed, surging water from Windward Oahu to the dry Ewa plain. A first-hand description of the construction by Jorgen Jorgensen, the project engineer:

"For the last 300 feet the tunnel was a whirling rainstorm, a giant shower bath, a waterspout and a typhoon combined. . . . From the sides, roof and face the water spurted in continuous stream, in some instances with a force against which one could not stand."

While agriculture drove Hawaii's turn-of-the-century economy, tourism was just beginning.

Built in the 1870s near Washington Place, the Hawaiian Hotel was the first lodging for visitors; it later became the Armed Services YMCA. Waikiki's first major hotel, the Moana, was completed in 1901, the same time the Alexander Young Hotel was finished in downtown Honolulu.

Perhaps the top tourist draw of the day was the journey by train from Honolulu to Haleiwa, a famed 44-mile trip around Kaena Point that brought visitors from around the country.

A round-trip two-day excursion was $10, which included an overnight at the Haleiwa Hotel and a trip through the Waialua Sugar Mill, followed by an afternoon carriage ride to Wahiawa to inspect the pineapple plantations.

Promised a 1910 railroad brochure: "Haleiwa Hotel is regarded by persons from the Coast as one of the finest hostelries in the territory, and equal in many respects to those of the highest standard of the mainland."

About this Series The Honolulu Star-Bulletin is counting down to year 2000 with this special series. Each month through December, we'll chronicle important eras in Hawaii's history, featuring a timeline of that particular period. Next month's installment: August 9. Series Archive Project Editor: Lucy Young-Oda Chief Photographer: Dean Sensui