Monday, April 04, 2005
Star Bulletin Poll
I cast a "No" vote in the Star Bulletin's recent poll asking the question whether I would want Hawaii to have two governments. I'm Half-Hawaiian. I suppose if the question was whether I wanted to see Hawaiians get a share of help from federal programs for health, education, employment, economic development and housing, I wouldn't vote No, even though I get nothing for those purposes. I qualify for Medicare because I'm over 65 years of age and was born American in the
Territory of Hawaii. So far I've never asked OHA to give me money
for any of those purposes because I didn't want to fill out all those
red-tape applications to qualify as a beneficiary in common with
400,000 other poor Hawaiians here and on the mainland. I don't
ask, although they have all that money in their bank for projects that
qualify for culture, you know, high-minded things for the society.
I find it hard to ask them for nitty-gritty things, like putting a
water pipe in to the homesteads in Kula, Maui. They would just shake
their head and tell me to ask somebody else in the DHHL. That's all we do, go back and forth between these agencies that are now ready
together united to assume the helm of the ship of state. I did
apply and qualify (after years of shuffling papers) for a Hawaiian homestead on Maui 20 years ago, and since becoming an awardee-lessee I admit I've never built anything on that homestead that qualifies as a home, and I have yet to dig the earth to plant a sweet potato, but I
do have a small shack to keep warm. There's no running water yet
(I'll find some by myself, soon) either to drink or to raise
anything called a vegetable. The State of Hawaii told Hawaiian Homes
to look for its own water and not from the main Maui water supply.
Scratch your own head on that one. Hawaiians know their kings once
owned the water supply, but their kids don't now, isn't that so? Out
of curiosity, I once asked the U.S. Military (downtown office) ages ago if we should ask Uncle Sam to put a pipe through for us, would they do it? They said, "Just ask". What, me ask those powerful people up to do any of that for me down low on the totem pole. Nobody in OHA or DHHL has ever had the gumption to ask. When the 'Ohana got Kaho'olawe back, they asked for 400 million dollars worth of financial
aid and got it. No water there, either, except where the military
used to live at Hanakanai'a. Imagine that. Haoles built those water
cachment systems so they could have water to drink and take a bath.
So why would I want to change how I go across the river by splitting my
horse in two in midstream? Dangerous thing to do, or let somebody
else do, for me? I vote No against Congress passing the 'Akaka Bill
without a real plebiscite of Hawaii's electorate before August, 2005 or it's dead pony time for everybody, not just me. I'll vote No again. I no like two governments. Only one 'aina, so one nuff awready.
Rubellite Kawena Johnson
I cast a "No" vote in the Star Bulletin's recent poll asking the question whether I would want Hawaii to have two governments. I'm Half-Hawaiian. I suppose if the question was whether I wanted to see Hawaiians get a share of help from federal programs for health, education, employment, economic development and housing, I wouldn't vote No, even though I get nothing for those purposes. I qualify for Medicare because I'm over 65 years of age and was born American in the
Territory of Hawaii. So far I've never asked OHA to give me money
for any of those purposes because I didn't want to fill out all those
red-tape applications to qualify as a beneficiary in common with
400,000 other poor Hawaiians here and on the mainland. I don't
ask, although they have all that money in their bank for projects that
qualify for culture, you know, high-minded things for the society.
I find it hard to ask them for nitty-gritty things, like putting a
water pipe in to the homesteads in Kula, Maui. They would just shake
their head and tell me to ask somebody else in the DHHL. That's all we do, go back and forth between these agencies that are now ready
together united to assume the helm of the ship of state. I did
apply and qualify (after years of shuffling papers) for a Hawaiian homestead on Maui 20 years ago, and since becoming an awardee-lessee I admit I've never built anything on that homestead that qualifies as a home, and I have yet to dig the earth to plant a sweet potato, but I
do have a small shack to keep warm. There's no running water yet
(I'll find some by myself, soon) either to drink or to raise
anything called a vegetable. The State of Hawaii told Hawaiian Homes
to look for its own water and not from the main Maui water supply.
Scratch your own head on that one. Hawaiians know their kings once
owned the water supply, but their kids don't now, isn't that so? Out
of curiosity, I once asked the U.S. Military (downtown office) ages ago if we should ask Uncle Sam to put a pipe through for us, would they do it? They said, "Just ask". What, me ask those powerful people up to do any of that for me down low on the totem pole. Nobody in OHA or DHHL has ever had the gumption to ask. When the 'Ohana got Kaho'olawe back, they asked for 400 million dollars worth of financial
aid and got it. No water there, either, except where the military
used to live at Hanakanai'a. Imagine that. Haoles built those water
cachment systems so they could have water to drink and take a bath.
So why would I want to change how I go across the river by splitting my
horse in two in midstream? Dangerous thing to do, or let somebody
else do, for me? I vote No against Congress passing the 'Akaka Bill
without a real plebiscite of Hawaii's electorate before August, 2005 or it's dead pony time for everybody, not just me. I'll vote No again. I no like two governments. Only one 'aina, so one nuff awready.
Rubellite Kawena Johnson
How did Crown lands become Public Lands?
A recent letter in the newspaper from Clyde Namu’o [Administator,Office of Hawaiian Affairs) justifies the ‘Akaka Bill by reason ofthe following, and in this order:
(1) What occurred during the period before annexation and the transfer of Hawaiian crown lands;
(2) The illegal overthrow of 1893;
(3) The subsequent Ku’e Petitions (no date, but approximately, 1897-98, five years after the overthrow).
The annexation of Hawaii to the U.S. in 1898 transferred the publiclands to the United States as a condition (requested by the U.S.) ofthe Treaty of Annexation in 1898 in exchange for U.S. payment of a $ 4-millionpublic debt. If it had been just a debt, the payment would look like another ordinary purchase or payment of debt characteristic of American annexations of many areas of the continental U.S. In the case of Hawaii’s debt, it had been incurred from borrowing during the monarchy, starting in the time of Kalakaua, so that by the time of the overthrow of Lili’uokalani in 1893, it had not yet been paid, having risen to about 2 million dollars or more, increasing under the Provisional Government and the Republic to about 4 million dollars by the time of its cancellation by the U.S. between 1898 and 1900 A.D. May I remind the public that at that time the U.S. dollar and the Hawaii dollar were coined in gold, not paper?
What are 4 million gold dollars worth in today’s coin? One gold dollar during the kingdom was the standard price for an acre. One dollar today buys chocolate candy at the store. It will hardly buy a loaf of bread. What would have happened if the overthrow never happened when it did? If the debt was never paid off when Hawaii was annexed by the United States? What happens to you if you borrow money to pay the mortgage and when the note matured you owed four millions plus interest? What happens to your house then if your neighbor says he’ll pay the mortgage off and during many years you paid almost nothing toward the principal?
That’s how theCrown Lands in the Ceded Lands trust became Public Lands by constitutionalconveyance in the1894 Constitution (Republic of Hawaii although no land in the United States has ever been conveyed into public domain from private estates without due compensation. Is land conveyed by constitutional law okay? No it isn’t. Not without compensation by the government to the owners of the title.
Did the Crown own the Crown Lands when Lili’uokalani was queen? No, it did not. Kalakaua’s proclamation acknowledging her as his successor told her the Crown Lands did not belong to her. Did the Crown Lands Commission created by Lot Kamehameha V in 1865 own the Crown Lands? In testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to consider returning the Crown Lands to Lili’u in 1902, two members of the Crown Lands Commission said no. They didn’t own the title, and neither did the queen. If she could have proven that she owned the title, the committee advised her that it would return to her the value of the Crown Lands to the amount of revenue annually to which she was entitled to the Crown Lands as the private purse of the sovereign. If the Crown was the government, why didn’t the Hawaiian Crown own the Crown Lands?
It did, but only that portion of the one-third ali’i title owned by the sovereign (Kamehameha III) in 1848 which the Great Mahele gave to the government which became the ‘aina o ka lei ali’i, meaning “lands of the Crown”, managed by the Minister of Finance (revenues, budget), or kingdom Exchequer, and the Minister of Interior as government territory. In other words, the public domain. The other “Crown Lands” had been the original private estate of Kamehameha III and IV before Kamehameha V attached them to the Crown as a private purse (revenues) of the sovereign. So the monarch had two sources of revenue. For the Crown which he wore, support for the office. For himself an account held by the Crown Lands Commission which paid him another amount. In Lot’s case and Lunalilo’s, they received compensation from three sources of revenue. From lands they received in the Great Mahele, Crown Lands of the government (‘aina o ka lei ali’i) and Crown Lands of the Kamehameha sovereigns’ private estate (III, IV). Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho) had received no lands in the Great Mahele, but from his late uncle’s private estate, also true of Kalakaua and Lili’uokalani because the recipient of the Great Mahele award to titled ali’i in their family went to her mother, Keohokalole, descending to them as heirs after her death. From the Crown Lands 1 (government), support for their office, and from the Crown Lands 2 (Kamehameha IV) a private purse. When Lot Kamehameha became king after Alexander Liholiho’s death, Lot intercepted the normal transfer of half of the estate to his brother’s wife, Emma, and Alec’s father, Matthew Kekuanaoa. To smooth over this transition, Lot created annuities payable by the government to Emma and her father in law, but at no time did the title transfer to either of them nor to Lot as the king, so the lands that had belonged to the private estate of the former kings, uncle and brother of Kamehameha V, were assigned to the Crown Lands Commission to lease for no more than 30 years.
The day after the overthrow the Provisional Government combined the Crown Lands (2 )revenues with the other Crown Lands (1) revenues, those of the government Exchequer which was owned by the Crown and constituted the funds of the government treasury. So, did all the Hawaiians of today lose the Crown Lands estate of Kamehameha III and IV? Whose lands were they, originally? From whose lands did they descend to Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III? His mother was Keopuolani. So, her lands. His father was Kamehameha the Great. His lands.
To whom, then, should Kamehameha private lands be returned, if they were not really stolen from the sovereign Hawaiian Crown as the lands of the Hawaiian people, but rather from the lands of Kamehameha ancestors before 1778 A.D. and after the Great Mahele of 1848. Nobody else, and no other ali’i family lost their private estates after the overthrow of 1893. That is only one side of a difficult right to wrong, if taking that away from the Hawaiian people, dispossessed them unfairly, so give them the Kamehameha Crown Lands. How would you compensate those who really suffered that land loss with the ‘Akaka Bill? How would you pay back the United States for paying off the public debt, or how would you give the lands back to the Kamehamehas today and ask them to pay the debt to the U.S. if the government has been using those lands for government revenues providing services to the whole public? Where and how is restitution possible?
The 200,000 acres of Hawaiian homestead lands are from Crown lands (2), so why not make restitution from there? Hawaiians who have been paying taxes on their homesteads since 1920 should (under the Hawaiian Land Act of 1895) be given the fee. Homesteaders who can prove descent from Kamehameha I, II, III, IV, V, and Lunalilo (who could have been the VIth Kamehameha) should also be given their homesteads in fee.
How would that benefit the state? The Hawaiians then become owners of private lands in the homesteads and no longer wards of the state in perpetuity. They continue to pay property taxes, and those fund the counties. How does that create a better society? It creates free men. No banks accept Hawaiian homestead land as collateral on loans because they are government leases.
Notice that the ‘Akaka Bill, however doesn’t stop increasing its Native Hawaiian property rights portfolio to include not only Crown Lands but also all “submerged lands, natural resources, and all revenues (therefrom)”. How far do the submerged lands of the Hawaiian Islands go, if the Crown held title to what the government today claims as all submerged lands of the archipelago. All the way to Kure Island north and all the way to Johnson Island west? Two-hundred mile limit? International Law of the Sea? Question mark. Who’s to say?
Very truly yours,
Rubellite Kawena Johnson
A recent letter in the newspaper from Clyde Namu’o [Administator,Office of Hawaiian Affairs) justifies the ‘Akaka Bill by reason ofthe following, and in this order:
(1) What occurred during the period before annexation and the transfer of Hawaiian crown lands;
(2) The illegal overthrow of 1893;
(3) The subsequent Ku’e Petitions (no date, but approximately, 1897-98, five years after the overthrow).
The annexation of Hawaii to the U.S. in 1898 transferred the publiclands to the United States as a condition (requested by the U.S.) ofthe Treaty of Annexation in 1898 in exchange for U.S. payment of a $ 4-millionpublic debt. If it had been just a debt, the payment would look like another ordinary purchase or payment of debt characteristic of American annexations of many areas of the continental U.S. In the case of Hawaii’s debt, it had been incurred from borrowing during the monarchy, starting in the time of Kalakaua, so that by the time of the overthrow of Lili’uokalani in 1893, it had not yet been paid, having risen to about 2 million dollars or more, increasing under the Provisional Government and the Republic to about 4 million dollars by the time of its cancellation by the U.S. between 1898 and 1900 A.D. May I remind the public that at that time the U.S. dollar and the Hawaii dollar were coined in gold, not paper?
What are 4 million gold dollars worth in today’s coin? One gold dollar during the kingdom was the standard price for an acre. One dollar today buys chocolate candy at the store. It will hardly buy a loaf of bread. What would have happened if the overthrow never happened when it did? If the debt was never paid off when Hawaii was annexed by the United States? What happens to you if you borrow money to pay the mortgage and when the note matured you owed four millions plus interest? What happens to your house then if your neighbor says he’ll pay the mortgage off and during many years you paid almost nothing toward the principal?
That’s how theCrown Lands in the Ceded Lands trust became Public Lands by constitutionalconveyance in the1894 Constitution (Republic of Hawaii although no land in the United States has ever been conveyed into public domain from private estates without due compensation. Is land conveyed by constitutional law okay? No it isn’t. Not without compensation by the government to the owners of the title.
Did the Crown own the Crown Lands when Lili’uokalani was queen? No, it did not. Kalakaua’s proclamation acknowledging her as his successor told her the Crown Lands did not belong to her. Did the Crown Lands Commission created by Lot Kamehameha V in 1865 own the Crown Lands? In testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to consider returning the Crown Lands to Lili’u in 1902, two members of the Crown Lands Commission said no. They didn’t own the title, and neither did the queen. If she could have proven that she owned the title, the committee advised her that it would return to her the value of the Crown Lands to the amount of revenue annually to which she was entitled to the Crown Lands as the private purse of the sovereign. If the Crown was the government, why didn’t the Hawaiian Crown own the Crown Lands?
It did, but only that portion of the one-third ali’i title owned by the sovereign (Kamehameha III) in 1848 which the Great Mahele gave to the government which became the ‘aina o ka lei ali’i, meaning “lands of the Crown”, managed by the Minister of Finance (revenues, budget), or kingdom Exchequer, and the Minister of Interior as government territory. In other words, the public domain. The other “Crown Lands” had been the original private estate of Kamehameha III and IV before Kamehameha V attached them to the Crown as a private purse (revenues) of the sovereign. So the monarch had two sources of revenue. For the Crown which he wore, support for the office. For himself an account held by the Crown Lands Commission which paid him another amount. In Lot’s case and Lunalilo’s, they received compensation from three sources of revenue. From lands they received in the Great Mahele, Crown Lands of the government (‘aina o ka lei ali’i) and Crown Lands of the Kamehameha sovereigns’ private estate (III, IV). Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho) had received no lands in the Great Mahele, but from his late uncle’s private estate, also true of Kalakaua and Lili’uokalani because the recipient of the Great Mahele award to titled ali’i in their family went to her mother, Keohokalole, descending to them as heirs after her death. From the Crown Lands 1 (government), support for their office, and from the Crown Lands 2 (Kamehameha IV) a private purse. When Lot Kamehameha became king after Alexander Liholiho’s death, Lot intercepted the normal transfer of half of the estate to his brother’s wife, Emma, and Alec’s father, Matthew Kekuanaoa. To smooth over this transition, Lot created annuities payable by the government to Emma and her father in law, but at no time did the title transfer to either of them nor to Lot as the king, so the lands that had belonged to the private estate of the former kings, uncle and brother of Kamehameha V, were assigned to the Crown Lands Commission to lease for no more than 30 years.
The day after the overthrow the Provisional Government combined the Crown Lands (2 )revenues with the other Crown Lands (1) revenues, those of the government Exchequer which was owned by the Crown and constituted the funds of the government treasury. So, did all the Hawaiians of today lose the Crown Lands estate of Kamehameha III and IV? Whose lands were they, originally? From whose lands did they descend to Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III? His mother was Keopuolani. So, her lands. His father was Kamehameha the Great. His lands.
To whom, then, should Kamehameha private lands be returned, if they were not really stolen from the sovereign Hawaiian Crown as the lands of the Hawaiian people, but rather from the lands of Kamehameha ancestors before 1778 A.D. and after the Great Mahele of 1848. Nobody else, and no other ali’i family lost their private estates after the overthrow of 1893. That is only one side of a difficult right to wrong, if taking that away from the Hawaiian people, dispossessed them unfairly, so give them the Kamehameha Crown Lands. How would you compensate those who really suffered that land loss with the ‘Akaka Bill? How would you pay back the United States for paying off the public debt, or how would you give the lands back to the Kamehamehas today and ask them to pay the debt to the U.S. if the government has been using those lands for government revenues providing services to the whole public? Where and how is restitution possible?
The 200,000 acres of Hawaiian homestead lands are from Crown lands (2), so why not make restitution from there? Hawaiians who have been paying taxes on their homesteads since 1920 should (under the Hawaiian Land Act of 1895) be given the fee. Homesteaders who can prove descent from Kamehameha I, II, III, IV, V, and Lunalilo (who could have been the VIth Kamehameha) should also be given their homesteads in fee.
How would that benefit the state? The Hawaiians then become owners of private lands in the homesteads and no longer wards of the state in perpetuity. They continue to pay property taxes, and those fund the counties. How does that create a better society? It creates free men. No banks accept Hawaiian homestead land as collateral on loans because they are government leases.
Notice that the ‘Akaka Bill, however doesn’t stop increasing its Native Hawaiian property rights portfolio to include not only Crown Lands but also all “submerged lands, natural resources, and all revenues (therefrom)”. How far do the submerged lands of the Hawaiian Islands go, if the Crown held title to what the government today claims as all submerged lands of the archipelago. All the way to Kure Island north and all the way to Johnson Island west? Two-hundred mile limit? International Law of the Sea? Question mark. Who’s to say?
Very truly yours,
Rubellite Kawena Johnson
