Native Hawaiians of the Reinstated Hawaiian Government briefly occupied Kaho’olawe on Aug. 1, 2006, on the grounds that the 1993 Apology Resolution (public law 103-150) recognizes that the American involvement in the overthrow of 1893 was illegal therefore recognizing their right to claim the land as part of a sovereign nation.

This act prompted some interesting comments from trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) setting the record straight as to who can and cannot occupy the island, and making it perfectly clear that the Hawaiians of the Reinstated Hawaiian Government were trespassers on Kahoolawe. OHA also seized the opportunity in a letter to the editor on Aug. 5, 2006, to call on Hawaiians, regardless of opinion, to come together in support of a governing body for Hawaiians only.

Judging by the comments of OHA trustees the message is clear: This is your park; keep off the grass. This is an indication of how Hawaiians can expect to be treated if caught trespassing on properties which are held as part of the public trust on their behalf. The entities entrusted with the administration of these properties will choose who is invited and who is excluded.

To quote from the article in The Honolulu Advertiser, Aug. 1, 2006, “It's too bad that people are trespassing," Namu'o said. "The United States was apologetic, but I'm not sure you can say that's the basis for reclaiming land."

The apology has been cited as justification for the (failed) Akaka bill which was written to claim much more than land. It was written to grant titles of nobility to all Hawaiians; to make anyone with at least one ancestor indigenous to Hawaii an ali’i entitling them to be served by all others by way of taxes in perpetuity.

The OHA administrator and trustees gave their full support for the bill in the all-too-obvious expectation that they would have a leadership role as the Alii nui of the new Hawaiian government; just as the “chiefs” of federally recognized Native American tribes reap the harvest of casino, oil, and federal largesse while their members remain in abject poverty.

The opening of public law 103-150 reads, “Whereas, prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in 1778, the Native Hawaiian people lived in a highly organized, self-sufficient, subsistent social system based on communal land tenure with a sophisticated language, culture, and religion.”

What British explorer Captain James Cook found in 1778 was the most hierarchical of the Polynesian chiefdoms. Each of the major Hawaiian islands was separately ruled by a paramount chief or alii nui.

Except for the managerial skills of the konohiki (lesser chiefs who served as property managers), the ruling classes generally did not engage in economically productive work.

Chiefs, from the head of the smallest ahupuaa (land district) to the alii nui, basically lived off the labor of the makaainana (commoners or tillers of the soil), as did their courtiers, warriors, priests, administrators, policemen, servants and hangers-on.

Estimates vary as to the size of the tax burden that commoners bore to support this upper structure, ranging from more than half to about two-thirds of the fruit of the commoners’ labor. Between the death of Kamehameha I in 1819 and the death of King Kalakaua in January 1891, the alii nui themselves had abolished the kapu system and adopted a Bill of Rights laying the legal basis for a free-enterprise economy.

The people of Hawaii were set free to work and otherwise manage their affairs as they wanted and to accumulate personal property and pass it along to their heirs.

They adopted an American-style constitution giving commoners an institutional voice in the government and guaranteed a regime of law for business transactions and property holding. Kamehameha III and 245 chiefs had agreed among themselves how much land should go to the crown and how much to the chiefs. In 1850 the legislature had ordered a grant of fee-simple titles to native tenants for their kuleanas; the parcels of land cultivated by them.

By the end of the mahele, or land division, in 1855, less than 30,000 acres were awarded to the native tenants. However, these tracts of land consisted chiefly of taro lands and were considered the more valuable lands in the Islands. The kuleana grant put land into the hands of about two out of every three Hawaiian families; said to be “a record of fee simple ownership among natives unique in the early 19th century.”

Kahoolawe was transferred from the U.S. Navy to the state of Hawaii on Nov. 11, 2003, and is being managed in trust by the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission “until such time and circumstances as a sovereign Hawaiian entity is recognized by the federal and state governments.”

If that transfer is valid, people should be free to visit Kaho’olawe at their own risk. Hawaiians occupying land that is held for them are exercising their right. This is the government’s own public policy. OHA is out of line for calling them trespassers.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources, Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission (division of DLNR), the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs all have published statements on their websites ultimately supporting sovereignty.

What the Hawaiians have today from those agencies is a modified version of the ancient system which has evolved under new administrators but with the same control on the native population as existed under the ancient system.

The State of Hawaii government is guilty of using entitlement programs to keep Hawaiians wards of the state in the status of maka’ainana in perpetuity.

Many Hawaiians fail to see how they have been manipulated by the government and managed just like the natural resources. Governments’ excuse for recognizing and maintaining aboriginal status as a means to preserve the people and their ancient customs is a facade.

The Hawaii State Government is the largest landholder in the state and it is in their best interests to retain these assets instead of it belonging to the private sector. By assuming a protectionist role for the aborigines, they are able to retain and accumulate land as part of the public domain.

If the Hawaiians had continued with the constant warfare and lifestyle of Pre-European contact their population would have diminished beyond recovery, as Easter Islanders did. Discovery was inevitable and it was through adaptation that Hawaiians were able to survive and multiply.

The proposal to exchange our present republican form of government for a restored Hawaiian monarchy with communal or feudal tenures, rather than private property, would surely bring chains and slavery instead of the freedom and opportunity for prosperity we have as American citizens.

So, please, with the track record you agencies have, don’t tell us to keep off the grass.

Hana Johnson, Director of Youth Programs for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Hawaii's first and only free market public policy institute focused on individual freedom and liberty, can be reached at: mailto:hana@grassrootinstitute.org