User:Metzli 672/Haiku, Hawaii

Haiku Plantation
Ha’ikū, Maui, has a vast history of sugar plantations. The biggest plantation in the area was the Haiku Plantation, owned by the Haiku Sugar Company, which was active from 1858 to 1905 while some sources claim it was only operational until 1883. On May 31, 1858, to discuss the possibility of plantations in Ha’ikū. At the time there were ten other sugar companies, five of which were on Maui: East Maui Plantation at Kaluanui, Brewer Plantation at Hallimalie, L. L. Torbert and Captain James Makee's plantation at Ulupalakua, Haiku Plantation, and Hana. The shareholders of Captain & Cooke (investors of the Haiku Sugar Company) determined that plantations should be established in Ha’ikū. The shareholders were H. Holdsworth, R. Armstrong, G. Robertson, A.S. Cooke, M.B. Beckwith, and F.S. Lyman.

Haiku Plantation History
In 1858 the Haiku Plantation became active. The Haiku Plantation was part of the Makawao plantation center, which also included the East Maui plantation, the Grove ranch plantation, Makee’s plantation and the Baldwin & Company–Pā‘ia plantation. In 1859 construction started on the Haiku mill which was needed to grind the sugarcane. The mill was completed in 1861. During the mill's first year of operation it made 260 tons of sugar and 32,015 gallons of molasses. The Haiku Mill was the first steam powered mill and ran from 1861-1879. It was capable of grinding 1,200 tons of sugarcane.

After building the mill, the Haiku Sugar Company expanded rapidly. The Haiku Plantation had several thousand acres and was growing larger than its neighbors. The Haiku Plantation became the primary plantation in the Makawao center. The Haiku Plantation offered independent growers to plant sugar cane on their plantations, but in return profited off grinding their cane for them with the Haiku mill. To do this the Haiku mill was built larger than it originally was meant to be. The Haiku Sugar Company bought 5,300 acres in Hāmākua Poko, and in 1863 the company owned 5,500 acres plus one undivided third of 9,000 acres with assets of  $82,078. The next year their assets jumped to $91,563 and they were producing an estimated 700-1,000 tons of sugar. The East Maui Plantation (Makawao plantation center) was also sold to Haiku Sugar Company sometime after 1885.

Since the amount of sugar produced varied heavily based on rainfall, the manager of Haiku Plantations, Samuel T. Alexander, and his business partner Henry Perrine Baldwin, decided to construct the Hāmākua ditch. Drought had been a problem for the plantations since 1857, so in 1876 the Haiku sugar company sponsored and built the Hāmākua Ditch to bring water to all the plantations. The ditch was the largest water project at the time and could irrigate up to 3,000 acres of sugarcane, the Haiku Sugar Company claimed ownership of half and gave the rest to the other plantations. The Haiku Sugar plantations were moved to where they’d have better access. As a result, the mill met its end in 1879 and was abandoned. A new mill was built closer to the ditch.



Hardships
Like most plantations, the Haiku plantation also had a history of violence. The Haiku plantation employed a number of different indentured workers like Native Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese and even some Europeans or American settlers. The largest group of people who worked on sugar plantations were Hawaiian men and women. Women were paid less. Hawaiians usually had contracts of 3-6 months, while Chinese workers had contracts of up to 5 years. However by the 1860’s Hawaiians took on contracts of one year. A tactic used by plantation managers to keep Hawaiians employed on the plantations, was to raise their taxes and then offer them plantation work to pay off their debts. The Haiku plantation also had a store where all workers could buy provisions like food and cloth, however whatever they bought was taken out of their paycheck. As a result, many workers became in debt, requiring them to sign new contracts with the company to work and pay off their debts. In 1872 it was reported that their roughly 200 workers collective debt was $4,819.73.

In 1853, two hundred Chinese endured workers were shipped to Hawaiʻi to work on the Haiku plantation. To keep racial tensions high and divide their workers, Hawaiians and Chinese were paid differently and punished differently. Around 1870 the monthly wage was $4 for Chinese workers and $7 for Hawaiian workers. On the Haiku Plantations, Chinese workers were flogged as punishment, and Hawaiians (the preferred workers) were scolded or fined. They were separated from each other completely and housed on different parts of the plantation and worked on different parts of the plantation. The Chinese were housed in the barracks near Hāmākua Poko while the Hawaiians were housed near the fields by the Haiku mill. Hawaiians often lived locally and had their own houses, or made grass houses if they weren’t local. Chinese workers had to be provided housing, since they had been brought to Hawaiʻi. This was another reason plantation managers preferred Hawaiian workers. To be able to house all the workers, Haiku’s manager had to build 22 houses in 1871, and continued construction into the next year.

There were several cases of famine throughout the plantations. In approximately 1866 it was reported that Haiku only had enough food for 3 weeks. The food consisted of mostly poi, salted fish and rice, which were both major expenses. The sugar plantations also competed with the taro patches for water. Eventually they found a source of taro at Keʻanae on East Maui. Salted fish was expensive and so was rice. The plantation managers complained that the Chinese workers were twice as expensive to feed (because of the rice) than the Hawaiian workers. As a result, the manager of Haiku at the time, George Beckwith, cut rice rations. This, along with the unfair treatment and punishment of the Chinese led to the 1865 rebellion on the Haiku plantation.

The rebellion seemed short lived and ended when an overseer shot one of the protesters in the leg. One of the protesters committed suicide, which was reportedly common among Chinese plantation workers. In an attempt to calm the protesters Beckwith requested a ton of rice per month to maintain proper rations, but the Chinese appealed to the district magistrate and he was required to provide 2 pounds of rice per day. As a result of the rebellion, stricter laws were enforced on plantation workers, particularly in regards to punishments for runaways.

The Haiku plantation closed down when it merged with Paia Plantation in 1905, and the two became the Maui Agricultural Company. Eventually, the Maui Agricultural Company merged with the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in 1948.