The Great Mahele Research Paper

The Great Mahele was the division of land created by Kamehameha III in 1848. There are four parts in the Great Mahele, and the parts of the division belonged to the king, the ali’i, the maka’ainana, the foreigners, and whoever wanted to buy land, bought land. The Mahele was created because Kamehameha III was afraid that the foreigners who had a lot of power, would take over all of the Hawaiian Islands. Previously on the islands of Tahiti, the French had taken over by force and Kamehameha III was worried the same would happen to them. The Mahele was an unjustified act because first, the foreigners treated the Hawaiians unfairly, secondly the property of the Hawaiians was destroyed, and lastly the Hawaiians were short on supplies to live (Borreca).
The first reason the Hawaiians were treated unfairly was because of the land agents. According to Kuloku, the land agents did not listen to the Hawaiians, did not confer with them, and only talked in the foreign language, which the Hawaiians did not understand. The land agents had no interest in selling the land to the Hawaiians, only to the foreigners. They had auctions and land was sold to the people with the highest bids, even though that was not supposed to happen. The land agents were supposed to give the Hawaiians the first choice and whatever was left over was supposed to go to the

The Hawaiians had a very limited amount of resources to live on because the konohiki withheld all of them. Before the foreigners came, the Hawaiians had an unlimited amount of resources and was not in any trouble. According to Hio, the Hawaiians had been in trouble for three months because they did not have timber and la'i to build homes, and not even firewood to cook food. The children had swollen mouths because they were eating raw potato and taro. The adults were concerned that all the natives would die from