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The Great Māhele ("to divide or portion") or just the Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III. The Māhele was one of the most important episodes of Hawaiian history, second only to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. While intended to provide secure title to Indigenous Hawaiians, it separated many of them from their land.
Hawaiian chiefs for centuries had administered lands, however unlike Western serfdom, individual people were free to move on and off these lands. Ordinary people were still required to pay tribute to ruling chiefs, but were still allowed to use natural resources as long as they respected the chiefs and environment.
Western concepts of land tenure came with the arrival of British Captain James Cook. With the unification of the islands by Kamehameha I, western styled land tenure began to spread to the ruling aliʻi with great influence from foreign missionaries.
After the 1839 Laplace Affair, advisors close to King Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III sought to protect the rights of Native Hawaiians given the growing presence of foreign gunboats. Many scholars knowledgeable in constitutional government were brought in to assist Kamehameha III and the aliʻi in drafting a new document to protect the people. This document would become the "Hawaiian Magna Carta," also known as the 1839 Hawaiian Bill of Rights.
The 1839 Hawaiian Bill of Rights was drafted by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to guarantee that the Hawaiian people would not lose their tenured land, and provided the groundwork for a free enterprise system. It guaranteed many civil liberties for Hawaiian citizens, while also ensuring their lands would not be taken without official law, nor could the government force people off their lands without official cause. The bill, however, did not guarantee any citizen the right to acquire the land they lived on.
The Hawaiian Bill of Rights document, which had an attached code of laws, was drafted by Lahainaluna missionary school alumnus Boaz Mahune, revised by the Council of Chiefs and by Kamehameha III in June 1839. The bill also served as the precursor to the 1840 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
The 1840 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii established a constitutional monarchy. It stated that the land belonged to its people and was to be managed by the king. It established executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The document established allodial title property rights which maintained the lands in the hands of Hawaiian subjects to mālama (nurture and sustain).
In order to protect Hawaiian lands from foreigners, Kamehameha III divided the lands among all the people of Hawaiʻi, aliʻi, konohiki and makaʻainana alike. The Mahele changed the previous land system under which the kuleana (responsibility and obligation) to mālama ʻāina was given by the mōʻī (king) to an aliʻi nui (high chief), his subordinate aliʻi and konohiki who received taxes and tribute from the people who worked the land collectively.[citation needed]
The Māhele came into effect on March 7, 1848. It allocated one-third of the land to the mōʻī (monarch), known as Hawaiian crown lands. Another third was allocated among the aliʻi and konohiki (chiefs and managers of each ahupuaʻa (traditional land division running from the coast to the mountaintop). The remaining one-third was given to the makaʻāinana (common people). The law required land claims to be filed within two years under the Kuleana Act of 1850. Many Hawaiians made no claim.
Most of the land was sold by the government of the Republic of Hawaii to settlers from the continental United States or auctioned to the Big Five corporations.
While opponents Kamehameha IV, Kamehameha V and missionary physician Gerrit Judd were traveling, on July 10, 1850 the legislature passed the Alien Land Ownership Act. It allowed foreigners to hold title to land. The Act was written by Chief Justice William Little Lee. The justification was the promise of prosperity resulting from an influx of capital and labor.
The Kuleana Act of 1850 allowed commoners to petition for title to land that they cultivated and lived on, similar to the homesteading laws used to manage land tenure in territories of the United States in the nineteenth century. It abolished the right of cultivation and pasturage on the larger, common lands, title of which went to the chief, the crown or the government.
Commoners previously could not own land and lived as tenants on land owned by their chiefs. Although the Kuleana Act gave them the opportunity to purchase land, many were not informed of this right, with communication depending upon word-of-mouth or literacy. Making a claim required money to pay for a pre-claim land survey, which many did not have. The system also required two witnesses to confirm that the claimant had worked the land. In practice, these conditions made land purchases difficult for most commoners.
About 18,000 plots of 3 acres (1.2 hectares) each were successfully claimed, representing 28,658 acres (11,597 hectares), or less than 1% of Hawaii’s land area, partly because of the commoners' unfamiliarity with the concept of private land ownership. The Kingdom's native population at the time was some 82,000. Members of higher classes and aliʻi obtained most Hawaiian land. Many successful claimants later lost their property due to the ongoing effect of Western diseases and property taxes.
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