For this week's Hawaiian History Month blog, we will focus on plantations in Hawaiʻi -- their origins and legacy.
Sugarcane was first introduced to the islands by the first inhabitants of Hawaiʻi who brought the plant in their outrigger canoes to plant in the new land they settled. The first inhabitants used the sweet juice of the sugarcane for medicinal purposes to offset bitterness found in some tinctures. Sugarcane was also used to sweeten food or chewed to encouraged the strengthening of the gums and teeth. For many years, the plant was used by households on small levels of production. The first industrial mill was erected on Lanaʻi in 1802 but commercial sugarcane did not gain momentum in the Islands until the 1840s. As demand from the continental United States grew for more sugarcane to be produced in the Islands, laborers were imported to live and work on sugarcane plantations across the state. This mix of peoples gave way to the multicultural landscape of Hawaiʻi today.
Check out these selections from our collection below or email the Hawaiian-Pacific Librarian, Krystal (krystal.kakimoto@chaminade.edu) for more information and resources.
Dorrance, W. H. (2000). Sugar islands: the 165-year story of sugar in Hawaiʻi. Mutual Publishers.
"Sugar Islands tells this story beginning with the early days when pioneer businessmen struggled with nature and imported their machinery and labor from half a world away. Often prosperity would suddenly turn to bankruptcy because of drought, huge shipping costs, warehouse fires, or plant disease. It is not just a story but an epic history as the industry affected every aspect of Island life..." -- from publisher
Felipe, V. M. (2002). Hawaiʻi: a Pilipino dream. Mutual Publishers.
"Peppered with spicy local language and slang, his [Lilo Bonipasyo] story is told by a multitude of vivid images taking the reader from the Philippines in the early 1900s, to sugar rich Kohala on the Big Island in the 1920s through WWII, then on to rural Waimanalo, Oahu, in the 1970s". -- from publisher
"Sovereign Sugar unravels the tangled relationship between the sugar industry and Hawaiʻi's cultural and natural landscapes. It is the first work to fully examine the complex tapestry of socioeconomic, political, and environmental forces that shaped sugar's role in Hawaiʻi. While early Polynesian and European influences on island ecosystems started the process of biological change, plantation agriculture, with its voracious need for land and water, profoundly altered Hawaiʻi's landscape." -- from publisher
Murayama, M. (1998). Plantation boy. University of Hawaiʻi Press.
"NO other writer has attempted such a broad view of the nisei experience in Hawaiʻi at Milton Murayama... the third novel in a planned teralogy [centers on] eldest son Toshio [who] narrates the continuing story of the Oyama family... His struggles are set against the cataclysmic events of World War II -- the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the internment of Japanese Americans, the heroism of the 100th and 442nd in Europe, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Asia -- and the social and political uphevals in Hawaiʻi." -- from publisher
"Pau hana documents culture retention, transition, and change as Takaki explains the development of Hawaiian pidgin. English, plantation economics, social gatherings, religion, and family development. Throughout the story, one becomes involved with the various peoples and the landowners as their experiences unfold." -- from publisher
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