Slavery in Hawaii: Did Hawaii Ever Have African Slaves?

The Nation of Hawaii records show no imported African slaves were ever shipped into Hawai'i. The long answer is, before white contact, there existed a slave class called kauwa, and that human trafficking is a modern global problem.

The first inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands arrived around 500 AD from Marquesas and then 500 years later, the first Tahitians, who enslaved the Marquesans. The Tahitian word for outcast is menehune and the legacy of industrious menial workers may have arisen from the subjugated Marquesans. Part of the menehune legend is that they worked only at night, never seen.

In ancient Hawai'i, the kauwa were outcasts; war captives, or descendents of, who were used as human sacrifices at the luakini, (temple), when no criminals were available. Tradition has it that at Kewaloa, Sand Island, the place is haunted by the ghosts of those victims of the ceremony called "sliding kaua underneath the sea."

The traditional insulting epithets of old Hawai'i were used in reference to the outcasts include "Pe'epe'e pu hala", "hiders among the hala tree" and "Lau'i pekepeke", short-leaved ti plants - which are useless. The term was then later used to translate 'biblical servant', as in "Kaua a ke Akua," servant of God. (Bishop Museum.)

1778, Captain James Cook wrote, "A landless, untouchable caste group, called kauwa, were confined to living on reservations. They appeared to be descendants of castaways who had survived and become the aboriginals of Hawaii before the main migrations. It was kapu, (taboo), for anyone to go onto kauwa lands, and doing so meant instant death. If a human sacrifice was needed, the kahuna (mystic priest), would simply summon a kauwa."

1783, Kamehameha establishes Mamalahoa Kanawai, (law of the broken paddle), to protect the weak, helpless and all those in need - including the concept of amnesty and non-retribution, (HawaiiHistory.)

1852, Slavery abolished except for servitude for the punishment of a crime, a decade before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the United States Civil War.

1870 it was published locally, "Today, with the breaking down of class barriers, members of the slave class are indistinguishable from the ruling classes." (Kepelino, 142-147; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, November 3, 1870.)

This indistinguishability is probably more due to the loss of power by the ruling class Ali'i, whose conspicuous consumption indebted themselves when the forests of sandalwood were exhausted rather than the elevation of former kaua.

Perhaps it is easier for society to reconcile abject destitution with myth of dwarfish, unseen industrious workers instead of acknowledging that the stratification of human status is acceptable to those who are unencumbered by the suffering of the underclass. The mere speculation of an economic insurgency, culminating in the leveling between the moneyed and the impoverished is revolting to the empowered class.

The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality and for the United States, the Gini index is the highest for a "first-world" nation and is rising at an exponential rate. The globalization wave crest of increasing inequality creates an ever-larger vortex of economic doom for most people.

Modern Menehune?

Methamphetamine fueled, industrious homeless toiled throughout the night stripping stolen copper wire underneath the bridge until in March 2007, Honolulu police arrested a trio of pilferers, after a man died falling in his attempt to steal copper from a live power line. An estimated million dollars of copper was stolen from the public's infrastructure in 2006.

Housing refugees from the uncontrolled real estate speculation are criticized for their own financial collapse - excluded from the "deserving poor" because it's their own fault for "making bad choices." Segregated onto approved reservations called homeless shelters, the urban underclasses are the community's untouchables. Government efforts to reduce visible homelessness reduce the abject poor to the invisible class.

The empty words of political rhetoric by helping with shelters but refusing to legislate more protective regulations of the real estate market is self evident pandering to the voters. Some states in the Union have regulations that are more protective in real estate than Hawai'i does.

There is no limit on the increase of rentals or property taxes. Some states have laws that limit increases to no more than 10% per year. Hawai'i has a super heated real estate market due to scarcity and the local government is currently reaping a landslide in taxes. The prevailing political incumbency counts hotel rooms as normal "rental vacancies", inflating a surreal vacancy rate, in effect - turning down additional federal housing entitlement dollars. The average hotel room a night in Honolulu is $185.

Modern Chattel Trade

According to the International Organization for Migration, IOM, "over a million instances of human trafficking occur annually and is the third largest source of profits for transnational criminal organizations, behind drugs and weaponry."

Although there is no data, Hawaii could be a site for modern-day servitude as a way station. In 2004 a Waipahu man was convicted of smuggling seven Tongan men, where the victims were underpaid or not at all and beaten repeatedly.

In 2006, it was reported in June that contracted Micronesian workers, mistreated, denied pay and passports by their boat captains is legal because less than 7 crewmembers on a small boat with men contracted in other countries is legal - even though fishing in U.S. waters.

The United Nations Development Program published a "Best Practice Law Enforcement Manual for Fighting Against Trafficking of Human Beings," (although written for Romania), may be applied universally in it's description of the modus operandi of the recruitment of captives. Victims are abducted, drugged or freely sign themselves into a work contract. The unfortunate worker is usually completely deceived about the nature of the business and 'debt-bondage' arrangement and quickly becomes engulfed in debt.