MAUI HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 1885.1903.
Hawaiian Government Survey. W.D. Alexander. Surveyor-General.
Primary Triangulation by W.D. Alexander and S.E. Bishop.
Boundaries and Topography by W.D. Alexander, C.J. Lyons, M.D. Monsarrat, F.S. Dodge, S.E. Bishop, E.D. Baldwin and W.R. Lawrence.
Map by F.S. Dodge. [Scale 1:60000] 1885. Brought up to date in 1903 by John M. Donn.
Andrew B. Graham Co., Lithographers, Washington, D.C. [1906]
multi-color lithograph
condition: very good, original color, professionally conserved and flattened, along lowest horizontal fold instances of minor paper loss, backed on white muslin
Dimensions: 53 3/8 " w x 43 1/8"h [map] 55" w x 45 3/8" h [map Sheet]
MOLOKAI. 1897.
Hawaiian Government Survey.
W.D. Alexander. Surveyor General.
Triangulation by W.D. Alexander and M.D. Monsarrat.
Topography and Boundaries by M.D. Monsarrat.
Map by F.S. Dodge. C.J.Willis and S.M. Kanakanui. [Scale 1:90000]
C.J. Willis. February. 1897.
Julius Bien & Co. Photo Lith. [New York]
condition: very good, original color, professionally flattened, backed on white muslin
Dimensions: 32.67" w x 15.35" h [ map] / 33.5" w x 16 1/2" h [map sheet]
OAHU HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 1902
Hawaii Territory Survey
Walter E. Wall Surveyor
Compiled from all available data in the office and also from private surveys, by John M. Donn 1902
Andrew B. Graham Co., Lithographers, Washington, D.C. [1906]
color lithograph
condition: very good, original color, professionally flattened, backed on white muslin
Dimensions: 33"w x 27 1/8" h [map]/ 34 1/2" w x 28 3/4" h [map sheet]
KAUAI HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 1903
Hawaii Territory Survey
Walter E. Wall Surveyor
Compiled by John M. Donn from all available data in the office and from private surveys.
color lithograph
Andrew B. Graham Co. Lithographers, Washington, D.C. [1906]
condition: very good, original color, professionally flattened, backed on white muslin
Dimensions: 30" w x 23 3/8" h [map]/ 31 1/2"w x 25 1/2"h [map sheet]
LANAI
Government Survey 1878
Walter E. Wall, Surveyor.
Triangulation, Topography, Boundaries and Map by J.F. Brown and M.D. Monsarrat.
Traced from Gov't Survey Reg.Map No. 1394. H.E. Newton. September, 1906.
Andrew B. Graham Co., Photo-Lithographers, Washington, D.C. [1906]
color photolithograph
condition: very good, original color, professionally flattened, backed on white muslin
Dimensions: 26 3/16" w x 20 1/8" h [map]/ 27 5/8 w" x 21 1/16 " [map sheet]
I. The Hawaiian Government Survey and Its Maps - Overview
More than a cartographic curiosity, the 19th c. Hawaiian Government Survey maps of the six principal Hawaiian Islands - Hawai‘i (1886), Maui (1885), O‘ahu (1881), Kaua‘i (1878), Moloka‘i (1897) and Lana‘i (1878) - are historic and unique cartography, the fruit of meticulous local mapmaking from the period 1870 to 1898 that embraced the geodetic survey system in the service of mapping for the first time native Hawaiian land tenure and cultural practices on the Hawaiian islands, the island shorelines and the islands' prominent volcanic features. These maps are the foundation for all subsequent surveying and mapping of the Hawaiian Islands and for its land title records. These maps have been described as the first such "mapping of Hawaii by and for Hawaiians."1/ Please see Moffat and Fitzpatrick 2/ and their multi-volume series on the history and mapping of Hawaii for in depth research and exceptional photographs of the Hawaiian Government Survey maps (1870-1898) including those not frequently published.
Offered for sale here are editions of five of these Hawaiian Government Survey maps found in institutional collections: Maui (1885, 1903), Moloka‘i
(1897), O‘ahu (1902), Kaua‘i (1903), and Lana‘i (1878, 1906). These five survey maps are large scale, color lithographs filled with elements of the geodetic survey process itself 3/ including the initial base line and the surveying of the complex geography and ecology of the Hawaiian Islands. Public land grants, including large scale plantation leases and related infrastructure are shown. Historic land tenures, land uses and sacred sites are shown with Hawaiian names. These maps share two survey authors. The first author is the Hawaiian Government Survey from 1870 to 1898. The following year Hawaii was annexed by the United States. Thus the second author is the Hawaii [U.S.] Territory Survey, administered after April, 1900 when Hawaii became a U.S. Territory. 4/
Investor interest in the new U.S. Hawaii Territory was strong and public information lacking. 5/ To provide public details of new U.S. government initiatives on Hawaii, and of ongoing Hawaii Territory Government programs, finances, demographics, education, transportation etc. the U.S. appointed Territorial Governor issued an annual report to the U.S. Congress. The 1906 Annual Report finally included maps - these maps. The 1906 Annual Report also includes a remarkable Survey chapter about these Hawaii maps written by a veteran surveyor of the Hawaiian Government Survey, Walter E. Wall 6/, then the first appointed U.S. Territory Surveyor. His Survey chapter is an act of advocacy for native Hawaiian surveying principles. Four of the Hawaii color lithograph maps offered here were printed with the Report of The Governor of the Territory of Hawaii. 1906 7/ a report in such immediate demand that in 1907 the U.S. Secretary of the Interior wrote a letter to Congress to request that the edition be increased.8/ The Moloka'i map offered here was printed in 1897 for the Hawaiian Government Survey by Julius Bien & Co. of New York. 9/
A picture speaks a thousand words, as does a map. There is much to read in these Hawaiian Government Survey and Hawaii Territory Survey maps of Maui, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Lanai. Each survey map has a striking graphic layout of ungainly, organic shapes of of many sizes and colors. The organic shapes surveyed and drawn are in fact the traditional shapes of native Hawaiian land ownership claims and boundaries. Please see Part II below for a brief glossary of these Hawaiian land tenure names and sites. Please see Part III below for the highlights and distinctive features of each of the five (5) Hawaiian Government and Hawaii Territory maps offered for sale.
There is no precedent or other example in U.S. government territorial surveys of the geodetic survey system being used to create a mapped record of native land tenure, ancient and historic place names -with accompanying citations to such title records - as is present on the face of these Hawaiian Government Survey maps. Hawaii's first Surveyor General, native born William DeWitt Alexander's philosophy in preparing the first geodetic survey of Hawaii (1870-1898) is similarly unique, both for cartographic reasons, cultural reasons and historic legal reason that established native Hawaiian land titles. His use of surveying is unique advocacy for identifying native land titles in a landscape of dominant business interests. W.D. Alexander's legacy is a mapping of native Hawaiian society's principles of land use, ecology and cooperation for today's use.
These remarkable five maps of the Hawaiian Islands are a teaching collection unto themselves, and a counterpoint if not counter-argument to the 19th c. U.S. survey process10/ that mapped United States territory seized from coast to coast from Native Americans on a square grid, including lands of the original 13 states.11/ These singular 19th c. Hawaii maps in various editions are about the design and use of the survey process as much as they are about the Hawaiian Islands.
II. Hawaii Land Tenure Glossary:
Rarely do U.S. government survey maps require us to learn a native vocabulary of land tenure terms and lot shapes. The Hawaiian Government Survey and U.S. Hawaii Territory Survey maps do. Hawaiian land tenure terms define land boundaries, land ownership and land use, land stewardship and Hawaiian cultural values. These early Hawaiian terms originated centuries prior to mid-19th c. private land ownership in the Hawaiian Islands.
ahupua‘a -the largest, traditional (pre-1846) parcel and land tenure format, assigned to chiefs and consisting of land running from the mountain ridge to the sea and sometimes straddling an island coast to coast up one side of a volcanic mountain and down the other. The purpose of these long, organically shaped parcels was to encompass the soil and climate conditions present at the many latitudes of each mountainous, volcanic Hawaiian island. Settlements were small and members grew their own food. Each crop in traditional Hawaiian agriculture required different soils and climate zones as provided by the ahupua‘a. Small ahupua‘a may indicate fertile soil capable of providing adequate harvests for the community with rights in that parcel. Large ahupua‘a may alternatively indicate large areas of unproductive agricultural land which nonetheless has ecological value, such as water or fishing rights.
heiau - religious structure
‘ili - the next size parcel down from an ahupua‘a and granted by a chief to the next rank down as a special privilege to an individual who gained status and a resource
kuleana - From the ahupua‘a smaller land grants were made to farmers, and called kuleana parcels. A farmer would receive multiple parcels in different zones of the ahupua‘a to plant seasonal crops and crops that required a variety of climates, soils and water and thus provide the household with a complete diet.
moku - political districts
Plantations - Large commercial farming operations primarily by American investors who purchased major parcels beginning in the 1840's. Irrigation made formerly non-arable land useful as plantation land for certain crops, including sugar cane and diverted water from its natural course to the detriment of the natural landscape and other societal needs.
III. Map Highlights, Maui, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Lanai:
1. Maui 1885, 1903, [1906]
The Hawaiian Government Survey was founded in 1870 and began its work on Maui under the Hawaiian Government's first Surveyor General William DeWitt Alexander (1833-1913), native born and fluent in Hawaiian who spent early months assembling survey equipment and his team of surveyors, all of whom were fluent in Hawaiian. Field research involved speaking with native Hawaiians about land use histories. The Maui survey team first established the two base stations that provided the survey base line measurement for the geodetic survey of the Hawaiian Islands in its entirety. Maui consists of two volcanic regions joined by an isthmus which is a low plain. These essential Hawaiian Government survey base stations are located on the map in the white shaded isthmus region: "So.Base" just below the "L" in "ILUKU" and "No.Base" near "KAA" and the KW&P R.R.
The Maui map is graphically complex and colorful. The land forms are organic products of volcanic birth and the parcel boundaries are unusual. Please see Part II, the glossary of land tenure terms. Maui notably does not have a legend or color key. M1/ The Oahu map below, does have a key that provides only some guidance. The Maui map makes a primary distinction between solid green government lands and parcels that are white or yellow. Areas are outlined in bright orange, blue, yellow and red solid and hatch lines that overlay these green, white and yellow parcels and underlying hachured volcanoes and volcanic terrain. Some areas are labeled Pineapples, Rubber, Homesteads and include as title references numbered grants. A red dot locates post offices and a solid blue dot locates schools. The historic Lahainaluna Seminary established in 1831 by the Boston based American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions and its engraving studio is located with a blue dot just outside Lahaina.
Topographical mapping dominates the Maui map. Altitudes on Maui from sea level to mountain top are noted throughout at frequent contour lines. The peak of volcanic craters, such as the two mile high Haleakala (10,023') [House of the Sun] are located with a triangle symbol.M2/ Linear texture suggests lava fields. The extraordinary challenges in the field and complex surveying performed by Alexander and his small surveyor staff are described by Moffat and Fitzgerald in vivid detail.
Anchorages are identified around Maui's shoreline with a ship anchor symbol, for example at Lahaina and Honolua on the small section of Maui and at La Perouse Bay and Makenna near the larger volcanic region of Haleakala. Sugar was shipped to the United States and elsewhere. Railroads primarily built on the isthmus are drawn and labeled. These rail lines connect numerous sugar plantations to mill towns, mills and for export, such as the K.W. & P. R.R. and the Sprecklesville R.R. to Spreckleville (a very small plantation town grid). On the isthmus is the "HGU & S Co. Ditch" (Hana Ditch aqueduct), an essential irrigation ditch dug to irrigate this otherwise arid land and support the sugar plantations. Roads are shown with a black hatch line that follows the coast and certain inland areas. A reservoir is labeled. There are modern map comparisons since the major fire on Maui that destroyed Lahaina.M4/
2. Molokai 1897
The Molokai 1897 map reflects the Hawaiian Government Survey's 20-year field survey work of a fast developing, plantation island. The Molokai 1897 map is the first accurate survey of the island's shoreline and thus a correct map of the shape of the island. Along the island's south shore, we see numerous historic Hawaiian fish ponds at the shoreline of several ahupua‘a and of certain single parcels. Moffat and Fitzgerald comment that some of these agricultural fish ponds date to the 14th century.
The Molokai 1897 map does more than identify historic agricultural use. In 1866, the Hawaiian government established a village for individuals with leprosy at the west end of the island. The Report of 1906, which includes a different edition of the Molokai 1897 map, updates the scope of ongoing operations at this greatly expanded set of government villages. By 1905 a new Hawaii Territory county system designated the west end a separate county. Ever cognizant of the cost of health care, the Report of 1906 credits the local government for retaining full financial responsibility for the care of all who live in this county, noting with some contemporary resonance: "The Territory of Hawaii is entitled to the admiration of the civilized world, for it most willingly bears the burden of this one disease at a cost which would relatively cause the mainland of the United States, if similarly afflicted, to care for 532,513 persons at an annual expenditure of $72,278,458."at p.97
A note on the face of the Molokai 1897 map speaks volumes about Surveyor General Alexander's opinion about the mid-19th c. breakdowns in the Hawaiian native land tenure system and native land rights dating from the mahele. The note expresses his ire about the coup that led to the current territorial government (boldface added): "The lands comprising the public domain are now classed as public lands. Formerly, they were of two classes, (1) the Crown lands, being those reserved by Kamehameha III for his private use in the great division of 1848, and which have been transferred by descent, conveyance and legislation to be a part of the public domain, and (2) Government lands, the revenues from which were to be used for the maintenance of the government.
The Crown lands are colored yellow and the Government lands are green. The boundaries are the same as were designated in the division of 1848. In general these lands have Land Commission Awards, Grants, etc., throughout the choice sections owned by private parties."
Finally, a highlight of the Molokai 1897 map is the presence of survey staff member S.D. Kanakanui, the one native Hawaiian survey team member. Samuel D. Kanakanui attended the Lahainaluna Seminary School where he studied surveying. Fitzgerald notes that other native Hawaiian graduates chose private surveying roles.
3. Oahu Hawaii Territory Survey 1902/1906
The Oahu 1902 map has a Legend on its face "Specially Prepared Map of the County of Oahu for Governor's Annual Report, Illustrating Conditions as of June 30, 1906" and another Legend that assists the reader in decoding the colors used for each land use shown on the map. The dominant land use is large scale agricultural development, designated forests, open mountainous land and town settlements for large plantations. A street grid describes Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian Territory. The Report of 1906 distinguishes Oahu as being the seat of Honolulu, the political capital of the Territory and its commercial capital. The audience for the Oahu 1902/1906 map therefore included government staff and investors, existing businesses, real estate developers and residents. The twenty-five year span of mapping Oahu shows the rapid displacement of native Hawaiians due to immigration, foreign land development and plantation farming. By 1906, the U.S. Congress further reshaped the land uses of Oahu as funds were appropriated for major federal and private investment, including allocating large tracts of lands for a U.S. Navy Reservation and dredging Pearl Harbor to permit access by large commercial ships.
The Oahu topography is described with extensive graphic delineation using hachures for volcanic mountains, and extensive cross hatching, linear textures and stippling to show wetlands, coastal areas, mountain streams, ridges, gorges and lowlands. The high altitude volcanic topography of Oahu (as on Maui) creates different climates and levels of rainfall. The Oahu map expresses these climate zones as rivers, streams and forest. Natural and manmade features are drawn. The Report of 1906 explains that Oahu's soils are enhanced by having water "impounded". Near Waialua Harbor these reservoirs are shown. Sugar, rice and taro are major, thirsty plantation crops that were fed by diverting natural water flows into irrigation tunnels and systems.
The Oahu map illustrates the transportation infrastructure that radiates from plantations and from Honolulu in Pearl Harbor. Oahu is accessible, according to the Report of 1906 almost entirely by railway and public roads. The Oahu 1902/1906 map shows one railway that runs 70 miles. Railroad expansion is another primary update from 1881 to 1906. The map shows railroad lines serve plantations, sugar mills, plantation towns and anchorages. Regardless of the relative size of plantations to each other, this surveyed land use bears no resemblance to native, subsistence or community agriculture. M3/
The Oahu map should also be read with the accompanying Report of 1906 as a kind of complementary holographic map that renders visible the joined shores of Hawaii and the United States. Tax incentives and markets for the large scale agricultural output of the large, export based plantations explain the irrigation systems that now frustrate the virtues of the native Hawaiian ahupua‘a land tenure system. The 1906 Report describes the Hawaii Territory Bonds that financed the public water system, and hydropower that electrified streetcars to Oahu suburbs. The Oahu map shows that American immigration included a "Mormon colony" at Laie on Laie Bay, with its red its sugar plantation. Brigham Young currently has its campus at Laie, Oahu.
4. Kauai 1903
The brightly colored Kauai 1903/1906 map is the other map in this set with a color and symbol Legend and note on its face "Specially Prepared Map of the County of Kauai for Governor's Annual Report, Illustrating Conditions as of June 30, 1906" The Kauai map author is Walter E. Wall, Surveyor who separately is the surveyor of the 1878 Lanai map.
A prominent feature shown on the Kauai map are the island's fresh waters. According to the 1906 Report, Kauai's population was 27,672 of whom at most 500 are American and among these Kauai residents 7,000 work on the sugar plantations. The map shows that most land of Kauai is privately controlled by plantations. The agricultural land is irrigated from mountain rivers, using aqueducts and ditches shown on the map. Little public domain or government land remained.
The 1906 Report explains that the future land use of Kauai will be defined by the 138,000 acres of land under right of sugar plantations and that these lands carry water rights. This land is described as the most valuable of the island. The report notes that these government leases are soon to expire, and that land grants in the form of homesteads will instead be made for housing development so that residents can become independent citizens who own their own homes "along traditional American lines." America exported residential subdivisions to Hawaii. The 1906 Report warns
"At present Kauai is the land of the homeless employee who holds the roof over his head by the sufferance of his employer, and whose only refuge in case of discharge is the steamer that bears him to Honolulu. Of the entire population of the county of Kauai, excluding Hawaiians, a few of whom have been wise enough to hold onto their inherited kuleanas, not 50 people own their own homes." The 1906 Report alludes to labor brought in to work on the plantations.
5. Lanai 1878/1906
The Lanai Government Survey 1878/1906 map shows large ahupua‘a of which several reach from coast to coast over the island's central volcanic ridge, an unusual feature in Hawaiian Government surveys. The Lanai map locates the survey base line itself which straddles the slender Kealiakapu ahupua‘a. Land ownership is color coded: Crown (yellow) and Government (Green). There is no color legend to explain the blue hatch line at the top of the ridge, or the solid yellow border at the top of the ridge, and around the perimeter of the island.
Moffat and Fitzgerald describe Lanai at the time of the 1878 survey as a "desolate island" with a population of only 214, a fraction of its population before the arrival of Westerners. The considerable individual ahupua‘a acreage of 19,468 acres, 9,677, 6,078, 9,078, and 5,897 acres for example, suggests that such amounts of land were required for earlier subsistence farming because of poor soil quality. Today that has changed dramatically as Lanai in the 20th c. has become a privately owned island in its entirety. M5/
Lanai historic ahupua‘a names include references to the early gods. M6/ A Heiau, or religious site is located and labeled in the Kaohai ahupua‘a and in the Kealiakapu ahupua‘a on the southern coast. The Alawai ahupua‘a at the shore includes two fish ponds and a site plan of several structures. Trails are indicated with hatch lines. Towns are located, including a settlement plan at Pohaku loa. Maunalei Village on the coast includes a street plan and a church.
Volcanic geology on Lanai includes extensive areas of lava flows, ridges and mountains shown graphically and with hachures. A fresh water spring high up in the mountains of Kaohai is labeled. A school house is located. Harbors are marked with a boat anchor symbol.
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V. Footnotes - Overview:
1. Vol. 3, Palapala‘aina Mapping the Land and Waters of Hawai‘i, Riley M. Moffat and Gary L. Fitzpatrick, Editions Limited, Honolulu 2004. This beautifully illustrated and deeply researched text is the volume in this series that presents and documents the 19th c. mapping of the Hawaiian islands and waters, a twenty year project by scholars of mapping and of the Hawaiian Islands. Please see the Preface, p.7.
2. Vol. 3, Palapala‘aina Mapping the Land and Waters of Hawai‘i, is the primary source for much of my research about these Hawaiian Government Survey maps. No comparable cartographic research exists. The book is cited by the authors' names Moffat and Fitzpatrick. Volume 3 is illustrated with photographs of the original Hawaiian Government Survey color lithograph maps, surveys, charts other plans and studies primarily in the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress and the Hawaii State Survey Division. Other Hawaii survey collections cited are the Hawaii State Archives for its holdings of nautical charts of George E. Gresley Jackson; and the Hawaiian Historical Society for photographs of the surveyors et al. Moffat and Fitzpatrick remark that certain maps illustrated in their book have not otherwise been published, especially G.E.G. Jackson's working sheets for surveys of the waters of Hawaii and certain surveys of Hawaiian volcanoes. Id. at p.78.
3. The Maui survey map shows the survey baseline, from which all points in the geodetic system on Maui originate. This was the first Hawaiian Government Survey. Benchmarks are shown on the survey maps. Altitudes at survey stations are represented with a triangle. Please see Moffat and Fitzgerald at p.47-58. The subsequent Hawaiian Government Survey survey work references this first baseline, including for locating the other Hawaiian Island shorelines. Each subsequent map also shows a survey base line for that island. Thus, the survey process itself is mapped.
4. This set of antique Hawaii survey maps are an edition issued early in Hawaii's new status as a U.S. Territory. These maps bear two different governmental officers because these maps present a compilation of mapping done beginning in 1871 under the direction of W.D. Alexander as Surveyor General of the Government of Hawaii and his survey staff through 1898 and during an interim period until Alexander's resignation in 1901. The Hawaiian Government Survey performed the original surveying and drew the first edition of each map (1870- 1898). From annexation in 1898 through 1901 W.D. Alexander, whose new title became Superintendent of Government Survey, continued to report on the progress of the Hawaiian Government Survey work to the U.S. Hawaii Territory Interior Minister. Alexander next assumed the position of Director of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. U.S. Territory land surveying was administered by a new Hawaii Territory Survey led by Walter E. Wall (formerly on Alexander's field staff). Please see Susan Shaner, A Brief History of the Hawaiian Government Survey 1870-1915 posted also as, hsa_DAGS6_SurveyHG_1870-1915_fa.pdf Her dates vary somewhat from those of Moffat and Fitzpatrick.
5. The 1906 Annual Report predicts at p. 42 that investment, both public and private would soon increase dramatically: "...The world's greatest development is now taking place in the countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean...." resulting in changes to Hawaii's infrastructure, anchorages, land development and place in the Pacific Rim economy.
6. Formerly a member of Hawaii Surveyor General W.D. Alexander's 1870-1898 survey team, Wall was familiar with the impacts of land speculation and politically driven mapping that preceded the appointment of Alexander to the newly created post of Surveyor General in 1870. Walter E. Wall now as Surveyor of the U.S. Territory Survey, is the author of the Survey chapter in the 1906 Report. He points out that leases of major land tracts are about to expire and therefore maintaining the high survey standards and the ecological safeguards of traditional Hawaiian land use were essential. Wall also anticipates the need for new engineering to protect aquifers, handle high density residential development infrastructure and sanitary systems or risk losing Hawaii as a natural paradise. Prophetic words in 1906.
7. Report of the Governor of the Territory of Hawaii to the Secretary of the Interior.1906. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1906.[G.R. Carter] The Governor's 1906 Report details that year's U.S. Territorial government land grants, public works and infrastructure, public finance, immigration, acts of the legislature, public health, education and transportation and upcoming impacts on Hawaii. The 1906 Report contains these folded color maps of each island, and smaller county outline maps showing counties that consist of more than one island.
8. Letter from the Secretary of the Interior. 1907, 59th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Document No. 605. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office. In support of a resolution that additional copies of the 1906 Report be printed, The Secretary of the Interior submitted a letter to Congress requesting a resolution be submitted to the Congressional Committee on Printing to increase the requisition for the standard number (1,000) of copies of the 1906 Report of the Governor of Hawaii, because the Governor of Hawaii who was allotted half of the edition, and written to the Secretary that he had already run out of copies to give to his constituents who relied on the report as a reference work for their own activities. The political and practical context of the 1906 Report of the Governor - and its maps - is that Hawaii had only been a designated U.S. Territory in 1900 and new government administrative offices took some time to staff and operate. U.S. government reports about the new U.S. Territory, especially maps, were in demand both within the government and outside of the government, concerning federal and local investments and objectives.
9. see example in the Library of Congress. Molokai | Library of Congress
10. Please see A History of the Rectangular Survey System, by U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, C. Albert White, 1983. histrect.pdf
Please see also, Indian Territory - Native American Spaces: Cartographic Resources at the Library of Congress - Research Guides at Library of Congress
The distinction being drawn here is between land surveys and maps based on ethnographic studies such as tribal identity, language or regional origins.
11. Moffat and Fitzpatrick at p. 101, "By completing its high quality geodetic network and defining these ancient divisions in detail, the government survey made it difficult for a federal agency of the United States to impose a different landscape on the islands. This situation has not been the case in most of the United States, ..." Id. at p.20-21. American 19th c. Public Land Surveys imposed an arbitrary rectilinear grid on Native American territory. The grid survey system rendered historic land uses null. This survey grid while ahistorical was not apolitical.
VI. Map Footnotes - Maps of Maui, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Lanai
M1. Several of these Hawaii maps do not have a Legend explaining the meaning of colors on the map. Only Oahu 1902 and Kauai 1903 have a color Legend. The scope of these legends does not include all features of the other maps, especially Maui. Molokai 1897 has a text Note explaining the historical use of yellow for Crown lands and green for Government Lands, adding that Crown lands became Public Domain. The Oahu map legend reads as follows:
Green - Public Lands.
Hatch mark green and white - Sisal
Yellow dot matrix-Homestead Settlement Tracts
Yellow square frame around white - Grazing lands
Yellow and White Diagonal Stripes - Pineapple Lands
Red Dot Matrix Federal Reservations
Red square frame around white - Sugar Plantations
Blue square frame around white - Forest Reserves.
Blue square hatch frame around white - Forest Lands not in Reserves.
Blue and white diagonal stripe Area of Wet Lands (Rice,Taro).
Blue Dot - Schools.
Red Dot - Post Offices.
M2. Surveyor General Alexander's 1869 seminal surveys of Haleakalea predate his Surveyor General Appointment. See, Moffat and Fitzpatrick pp. 16-19 for volcano survey map photographs.
M3. In the Report of 1906, Walter E. Wall, U.S. Territory Surveyor reports on survey work completed with an eloquent defense of native Hawaiian land use, land tenure and laws."...The native Hawaiian rarely cultivates over half of an acre of land; this and a small area for pasturage meets his apparent needs. Many Portuguese, now American citizens, who make good settlers, are well satisfied with from 25 to 30 acres. Where the nature of the country requires or the amount of land permits, lots up to 100 acres may be acquired.
To meet the requirements of the various classes and needs of the community, a variety of methods is needed by which the lands may be divided up and disposed of according the nature and location of the land, the demand for it, and the quantity available to meet the demand. The present land laws were intended to meet existing conditions, and as far as possible prevent land grabbing and speculation and have well served their purpose.
The speculative tendency in taking up land should not be encouraged. " pp.74-77.
M4. The New York Times, December 25, 2023, article reference, and full page spread and map of Lahaina.
M5. Today, the 140 square mile island of Lanai is privately owned and has been for decades. The former Dole pineapple plantation island was owned up to 1985 by a real estate company, Castle & Cook that included in its holdings the Dole pineapple estates and other Lanai land. In 1985, David Murdock, a businessman bought Castle & Cook. Murdock owned the Dole pineapple business until 2012. That year he sold his Lanai holdings to Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle. See The Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2024 for "Dole Food Billionaire Lists Home on Tiny Hawaiian Island" for this timely update about who owns and lives on Lanai today.
Please see, Do They Still Grow Pineapples in Hawaii? | Aaron Smith , UC Davis, for a detailed discussion of fruit crops on Lanai and the other Hawaiian islands.
M6. Please see Lāna‘i Water Company | History of Water on Lāna‘i for a discussion of the waters of Lanai.
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Bibliography:
Moffat, Riley M. and Fitzpatrick, Gary L.
Mapping the Lands and Waters of Hawai‘i,The Hawaiian Government Survey (Volume 3 Palapala‘aina )
Editions Limited, Honolulu 2004
Fitzpatrick, Gary L. and Moffat, Riley M.
Surveying the Mahele, (Volume 2 Palapala‘aina)
Editions Limited, Honolulu 1995
Fitzpatrick, Gary L. with contributions by Moffat, Riley M.
The Early Mapping of Hawaii, (Volume 1 Palapala‘aina )
Editions Limited, Honolulu 1986
Report of the Governor of the Territory of Hawaii to the Secretary of the Interior.1906. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1906.
[G.R. Carter, Gov.] (pdf. available on the web)