What Were The Economic And Social Impacts Of The Great Mahele

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The Great Mahele was a land division that happened in 1848 due to mounting pressure from foreigners for Kauikeaouli to let them buy land. According to Lâm, Maivân Clech of, “The Kuleana Act Revisited: The Survival of Traditional Hawaiian Commoner Rights in Land.,” he states that due to the Great Mahele, and the confusing rules and high costs of it, it caused foreigners to own most of the land. The splitting up disrupted Hawaiians’ understanding and concept of land ownership and favored foreigners, who had pushed for private land ownership in Hawaii. Before the division happened, the Hawaiians believed that they all had a right to take care of the land, and the land was owned by a higher power than humans. Two impacts that the Great Mahele had on the Hawaiians were the economic impact of Hawaiians not able to make any money due to them not having any land to grow crops to sell and the social impact of …show more content…

“I worked and raised my crops, pineapple, bananas, onions, yams, pumpkins, watermelons, sugar cane, oranges, replanted and all began to grow again were all pulled up” (Puamana). This shows that the division of land had an economic impact on the Hawaiian people because it shows first-hand an account of how the division caused land to get taken away from natives. The sectioning off takes away room for crops to be grown, therefore, fewer crops to sell. Those lost crops could have been used to make money by selling to customers, therefore losing money for Hawaiian landowners who grew crops on their lands. Before the Mahele, people who used to grow crops on their lands would be able to sell most of those crops for money and save some for food. After that, Hawaiians especially have their crop output shrunk, necessitating a lower profit from selling crops to people and