What Were The Benefits Of The Mahele Of 1848

The Mahele of 1848 was a very devastating event to the Hawaiians. The Hawaiians thought it would leave the common folk with a third of the land, but it instead left them with almost none (Cachola 87). At first, the Maka’ainana supported the Mahele because they thought it would ceace any problems with land with the foreigners. King Kamehameha the Third enacted the Mahele because he was afraid that there would be a forced takeover in Hawaii just like how the French took Tahiti if he didn’t (Borreca). His chiefs and advisors thought it was for the best, so he agreed. However, it wasn’t. The Mahele did not benefit the Hawaiians because it left many locals homeless with no money and made most of the chiefs lose their workers due to more attractive/feasible

First of all, many Hawaiians lost their land due to not meeting the requirements put up by the Land Commission, a five member committee. Cachola said the requirements were, “... “... they had to have their kuleana surveyed, or measured for size and boundaries. Then they had to present their claims to the Land Commission, showing that the land was cultivated to earn a living and that they had a right to those kuleana. Lastly, they also needed to file their claim by 185.”4” (94). Many of the maka’ainana did not make these requirements. Some of them could not afford the surveys since the Hawaiian’s did not Others could not get their claims to the Land Commission. Most of them, however, could not file their claim by the deadline (Cachola 95). All of their land was put up to auction. Even the ones that did get their claims through didn’t have any money to pay their taxes, and so their property was put up to auction too. Then, since foreigners were the only ones that had money, they bought the property, leaving the locals with nothing but rags and empty stomachs.

As the foreigners began to buy the land that was being auctioned off, businesses started springing up as well with the newly acquired land. Most of these businesses were sugar plantations, although some were cattle ranches and farms (Puamana). As these businesses started to grow in number, so did the amount of paid jobs, which were much more lucrative than the chief controlled farms that had no pay. According to “The Great Mahele”, this drew away the maka’ainana from the chief’s land, leaving the ali’i with no workers to maintain the land. The situation began to get desperate, and in the end the ali’i were forced to sell their lands to other foreigners for money. This weakened the grip that the ali’i once had upon Hawaii and slowly put it into the foreigner’s hands (Menton and Tamura 35).