The King Kamehameha III had noticed that the hawaiian population was dieing out and foreigners were taking over the hawaiian islands. Whalers and traders had the idea that they buy the lands and challenge the rights of the chiefs. Kamehameha did not want non natives owning land. He divided the land, 1,000,000 acres to kamehameha and 1,500,000 acres for government. The land that Kamehameha owned was called the crown land and the government. This was called The Great Mahele. This affected the hawaiians socially, politically and economically. The Mehele had economic impacts on the makaainana. If you lived on the land had to pay taxes they paid with what they made. They paid the chief with things that they would make out of the island like baskets or clothing. According to the letters of distress it states “it is not right, that when we wish to buy our own …show more content…
If you did not have forest on the land you got then you would have a hard time surviving or even getting anything for their house. According to the letters in distress “All right for those present who are living with lands which forest ,but , we who live eon lands which have no forest, we are in trouble” This is social because if you don 't have forest the way you live is to eat very little and have very little but if you have forest then you can turn trees into lumber, firewood. The Mehele also had a political The Mehele also had social impacts on the makaainana. To the hawaiians it was a silly idea to own land because it belonged to the gods, but then the land was spit and the two parts were crown land and government land . According to the letters in distress it states “Running the price of the land up to 250.00 an acre for taro land,and we know that he made the bids himself until the price is too high,and the government gets it, he pays no attention to the Hawaiians.” the government gets most of the good land and the hawaiians get hardly any land