The story goes that Kamehameha, the benevolent conqueror who promulgated the ground braking, (near skull breaking in reality), 'Law of the Sacred Paddle' and turned the diverse rule of Island chiefs into a Monarchy, brought peace to the islands and prosperity to the common man.
There can be little doubt that the 'Law of the Sacred Paddle' which enjoined chiefs and ali'i to limit their depredations on the weak and defenseless brought some relief to the most odious of actions by rapacious local chiefs. But if we examine the history of the islands, particularly as it is reflected in the 'Great Mahele', land division, we find that chiefs utilized central power to coerce the commoners under their control to a much greater extent, and at the same time, the ability of the common man to respond by violent resistance, or appeal to competing chiefs who vied for power, was almost extinguished.
The chiefs under Kamehameha, and his line of dependents were noted as a generally mad and avarice lot of secondary law enforcers who were quick to steal whatever the common man might possess, including wife and children. The notorious 'Sandalwood' era is perhaps the most odious period in this sad history of plunder of people and resources. The King is said to have demanded vast quantities of sandalwood from his chiefs, who forced the common people into the hills for months on end in order to collect the living gold. This was then sold to Traders who exchanged it with the besotted King for European goods, which generally rotted in store houses stuffed with other such items. The people received nothing for their efforts, and suffered not only from deprivation of decent shelter for months on end, but came home to find their fields stripped, and were then forced to face long periods of famine.
Seeing the vast riches accumulated by the King, the ruling chiefs demanded the rights to the sandalwood harvest and proceeded to even greater levels of exploitation and coercion of the common people in order to gain vast quantities of goods that served as little more than status symbols, and provided very little benefit to the Islands and its people.
This corrupt cycle was finally overthrown by the people who simple went into the hills and cut down every sandalwood tree they could find, effectively destroying the trade.
The Ali'i then went on to rape the lands, evicting the old and weak, stealing from the healthy, and finally during the 'Great Mahele', simply ignoring the patterns of agriculture of the common man to gain title to vast areas that had been worked by kama'aina for generations.
Nothing new really. But if these truths make you uncomfortable then perhaps you are still clinging to the fairy tales of grade school which were meant to keep you feeling warm and fuzzy-- as most 'education' is now a days. The fact is that if life is a fairy tale then it is a Grimm's Tale and certainly not some epic Disney honey coating of exploitation, death and destruction. Where is the hula and mele celebrating this benevolence?
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