![]() 600-Japanese laborers worked on its construction in the process, 17 lost their lives. The Kohala Ditch, built by the Kohala Sugar Company, diverted water from the Honokāne Nui Stream to Hikapoloa, west of Hawi. Among the engineers was Michael Maurice O’Shaugnessy he was both an investor in the Kohala Ditch Company and the Chief Engineer for the aqueduct. Notable engineers and other professionals became involved in the construction of irrigation ditches that were the forerunners of large irrigation projects in the Western US. In 1904, JS Low acquired a license from the Territory of Hawaiʻi to “enter upon, confine, conserve, collect, impound and divert all the running natural surface waters on the Kohala-Hāmākua Watershed ” he assigned the license to the Kohala Ditch Company. To water the crop, John Hind first conceived of an irrigation system tapping into the abundant, wild and inaccessible rivers that ribbon the Kohala Mountains. (In 1937, all of the mills were consolidated into Kohala Sugar Company.) With the exception of Star, which existed for only a brief period of time, each was the nucleus of a community of plantation managers, supervisors, and laborers. Seven sugar mills operated in Kohala: Kohala, Union, Niuliʻi, Hawi, Halawa, Hōʻea and Star. The construction of the railroad and the Kohala Ditch acted to encourage the further development of these more centrally-located communities. But in the goodness of God we came through.” (Schweitzer)įrom the mid-1800s, the sugar industry developed and commercial centers sprung up around the processing mills, especially in Kapaʻau and Hawi. ![]() Bond gave all his dividends and profits beyond his living expenses to the Board of Missions.īond included the following in a letter: “So this was the ‘Missionary Plantation’, and the prophecies were many and loud that it would not live five years”. He was then assigned to Kohala.Īs a means to provide employment to the people in the region and support his church and schools, in 1862, Reverend Bond founded Kohala Sugar Company, known as “The Missionary Plantation ” it produced its first sugar crop in 1865. ![]() Unlike the traditional Hawaiian system, which never diverted more than 50% of stream flow, the sugar plantations diverted large quantities of water from perennial streams and moved water from one ahupuaʻa to another.īoston missionary Reverend Elias Bond sailed with the Ninth Company of Protestant Missionaries, arriving in the Islands in 1841. ![]() These irrigation systems were modeled largely after the elaborate and extensive diversion and ditches developed by the ancient Hawaiians. These irrigation systems enabled the planters to expand their sugar production. Pioneer sugar planters solved water shortages by diverting stream water and building irrigation systems that included aqueducts (the first in 1856), artesian wells (the first in 1879), and tunnels and mountain wells (the first in 1898). Sugarcane requires a lot of water to grow. It provided Hawai`i’s major sources of employment, tax revenues, and new capital through exports of raw sugar and other farm products. Through the treaty, the US received a station at Pearl Harbor and Hawaiʻi’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets for their sugar.įor nearly a century, agriculture was the Island’s leading economic activity. The 1876 Treaty of Reciprocity between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai`i’s closest and major market. About the same time, the closing of the Hawaiian mission left the previously supported missionaries in search of new means of income. The Pacific whaling trade collapsed after 1860, pushing Honolulu merchants into the sugar trade. In addition, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai’i to compete in a California market that paid elevated prices for sugar. What encouraged the development of plantation centers? For one, the American settlement of California opened lucrative avenues of trade in the Pacific. Hawaiʻi’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 18 these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. And, with it, Hawai`i’s environmental, social and economic fabric changed. Initially brought to the islands by early Polynesians, the first successful commercial sugar plantation started in 1835. Central to Hawaiʻi’s use of water has been agriculture, sugar in particular. ![]()
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