Way of the West--Hawaiian Style : Homesteading Gives Islanders Chance to Improve Lives

Ethel Andrade, 52, stood in the lush green pasture of her 305-acre ranch on the northern slopes of Mauna Kea dressed in blue jeans, cowboy shirt and cowboy hat, her face beaming as she surveyed the surroundings.

“When I work my cattle on horseback, I feel like a homesteader of the Old West. I feel I am part of the American dream come true--Hawaiian style,” said the Big Island rancher. “Homesteading opened the American West to pioneers in the 1800s and early 1900s. Homesteading today is giving native Hawaiians a chance to do something positive with their lives.”

Andrade’s den is filled with trophies and blue ribbons testifying to the success of her cattle operation: Outstanding Rancher of the Year, Island of Hawaii; 50th State Soil Conservation Award; Reserve Champion Brangus Bull, and so on.

“My husband and I never have had the kind of money it would take to buy a spread like this,” explained the petite paniola (Hawaiian cowpoke).

Because her husband, Alfred, a heavy equipment operator, is French Portuguese and thus not eligible for Hawaii’s homestead program, the 99-year homestead lease is in Andrade’s name. A full-time rancher, she runs 200 head of beef cattle, feeding, branding and helping cows deliver calves. Her husband works the ranch in his spare time.

Back to King Kamehameha

Andrade has documents tracing her ancestry to Hawaii’s King Kamehameha the Great, who was born in the Kohala District of the Big Island where her ranch is located. By 1810, Kamehameha I united all the Hawaiian Islands, launching the Kamehameha dynasty.

Although a direct descendant of royalty one time had title to all the lands of the Hawaiian Islands, none of it remained in her lineage by the time Andrade came along.

She applied for a homestead ranch in 1951. Six years later 48 ranches--averaging 300 acres each--were awarded on the Island of Hawaii in a lottery of several hundred names selected at random. Ethel Andrade was the 15th name called. She pays $1 a year to lease the land.

To be a homesteader in the Islands, applicants must be at least half native Hawaiian. Andrade is 1/4 Chinese and 3/4 Hawaiian and a descendant of the race inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778--as required by the homestead act.

On the islands of Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu there are 4,346 homesteaders like Ethel Andrade and their families living on 3,549 homestead residential lots, 727 homestead farms and 70 homestead ranches.

For Arlon Richardson, 33, a state probation officer for the island of Kauai, June 30 was “a banner day in my life. I had been waiting 10 years for it, ever since I applied for a homestead when I was in college. It finally came through.”

Because real estate is at a premium in Hawaii, Richardson said he would have had to pay at least $500,000 for his six-acre homestead farm on a bluff overlooking the Pacific at Anahola.

“I knew some day it would pay off to be Hawaiian,” said Richardson, a bachelor who is 5/8 Hawaiian, 1/4 Chinese, 1/8 Irish. He and two friends, Jim Olsen, 42, a school teacher, and George Hennessey, 64, a retired security officer, were taking a breather after spending the morning staking out part of the farm for a warehouse and barn they would be constructing in coming weeks.

Richardson plans to grow taro and raise hogs on his land to supplement the $18,000 a year he earns from the probation department.

He has a 99-year lease on the land at $1 a year. The land is tax exempt the first seven years. Richardson’s homestead, at the foot of the spectacular Makalena mountains, is one of 44 farm lots that have gone to native Hawaiians this year at Anahola, located on the northeast coast of Kauai.

Low Interest Rates

The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, administrator for 203,500 acres of land set aside for homesteading, spent $2 million constructing roads, installing irrigation and domestic waterlines and electrical power for development of the 44 Anahola farm homesteads ranging for three to 16 acres. Homesteaders also may borrow money at low interest rates from the department for agricultural improvements and home construction.

When Ethel Andrade received her homestead in the 1950s it was by luck of the draw. Today homesteads are given out according to the date of application on island-wide waiting lists.

If qualified--at least 21 years old and half or more Hawaiian--a person may apply for a residential, farm or ranch homestead and get his or her name on the appropriate list.

It was concern for the plight of the native Hawaiian people that prompted the homestead program. The number of full-blooded Hawaiians dropped from 142,650 in 1826 to 22,600 in 1919.

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was signed into law July 21, 1921 by President Woodrow Wilson after being passed by Congress for the stated purpose of “rehabilitating the Hawaiian race.”

At the time, natives of the islands (the descendants of the original islanders who once owned all of the lands of the island chain) were considered members of a dying race and were, for the most part, jobless, homeless and landless.

Set aside in 1921 for native Hawaiian homesteading were 9,000 acres on Oahu; 22,500 acres on Kauai; 31,000 acres on Maui; 33,700 acres on Molokai and 107,300 acres on Hawaii.

“What prompted the act was the death of so many Hawaiians from Western-introduced illnesses,” explained Marie McDonald, 58, for years a teacher of Hawaiian studies and art. “The act was passed to make certain our people would survive by going back to the traditional family style of living on farms and ranches.

‘A Beautiful Act’

“It was a beautiful act. Trouble was, for years only a relative handful of people were granted homestead lands. There wasn’t enough money available to prepare the homestead land for development or funds available for homesteaders to borrow from to build their homes and get started farming or ranching,” said McDonald, Hawaii’s most famous lei maker and author of “Ka Lei, the Leis of Hawaii.”

She was granted her 10-acre homestead at Waimea on the Big Island six years ago. She owns and operates a nursery business on the land, specializing in growing flowers for lei makers and hotels.

The Hawaiian homesteading program is in its greatest period of acceleration since its establishment 64 years ago. From July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985, 1,036 residential, farm and ranch homesteads were awarded. During the current fiscal year at least 1,500 homestead land awards are scheduled to be presented and another 1,500 the following year.

More land has been awarded since Gov. George Ariyoshi took office in 1973 than in all the previous years since the program’s inception, according to Bob Wernet, the governor’s press secretary. “The governor felt very strong about the program when he came into office. He felt it was bogged down and ought to get moving. And, at long last, there is movement.”

It was on Molokai that the first lands were awarded in 1922. Molokai, 37 miles long, 10 miles wide, is often called Hawaii’s Homestead Island. Half of the 6,000 people living on the island are members of homestead families living on 384 small farms, eight ranches and in homes on 289 homestead residential lots.

According to the original concept to save the Hawaiian race, it was important that Hawaiians be relocated from city slums to farms and ranches to resume their traditional lives.

However, over the years, residential homestead applications and awards have far exceeded those for farms and ranches, with 86% receiving town lots, 12% farms (from three to 40 acres) and 2% ranches (from 100 to 1,000 acres).

Only 15% of the available land for homesteading has been awarded; 45% is leased as an income source to shopping centers, industrial developments, businesses, ranches, the military, churches and others. The rest is set aside for forest conservation or is vacant.

Vacant Land Leased

“The law says the department (of Hawaiian Home Lands) can lease vacant land set aside for homesteading until that land is awarded,” noted Bruce Taylor, 54, manager of the Hawaiian Home Lands West Hawaii Island district office.

“In my district 27,000 acres are leased to Parker Ranch. At Hilo the new 39-acre Prince Kuhio Plaza, second-largest shopping center in the state, is on HHL land. Kuhio Plaza was dedicated last March and once in full operation, it is expected it will generate $500,000 in lease payments a year.”

The shopping center includes a large Liberty House department store, Sears, Woolworth and numerous shops. The state agency also owns a runway at the Hilo Airport. It has parcels of land not yet developed for homesteading scattered throughout the Islands.

How many islanders can qualify for homesteads?

“Nobody knows the answer to that,” said Taylor. “As land is given out the list of applicants continues to grow. It never shrinks.

“There were 8,000 people on the waiting list a little over a year ago, before the 1,036 awards were made during the 1984-85 fiscal year. Now there are more than 9,000 on the waiting list. The 1980 census reported 18% of the population, or about 180,000 Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian people, living in the Islands.

“But how many are at least half Hawaiian will not be known until all who qualify and want to apply for land have brought in their documents to prove adequate blood lines.”

Under current law a homestead property lease may be inherited by a spouse, child or children of the current lessee, providing that person or persons are also 50% Hawaiian.

Entitled to Payment

If the heir or heirs do not meet that requirement the land reverts to the Hawaiian Home Lands to be released to another qualified person. The heirs are entitled to payment for all improvements and the fair market value increase on structure value.

The children of Waimea fire Capt. Manny Veincent, for example, know they will be able to remain on the family ranch if anything happens to their father and mother. The fire captain’s wife is 3/4 Hawaiian. Their children are 5/8 Hawaiian.

Veincent, 52, applied for a ranch in 1958 and was awarded 300 acres on the Big Island in 1970. In addition to his job as fire captain, he runs 100 head of cattle on his homestead ranch. The land he leases at $1 a year is valued at $10,000 an acre or $3 million for the 300 acres.

“No way would a fire captain in a small town ever be able to begin to have something like this,” said Veincent, who is half Portuguese, half Hawaiian.

“Thanks to the Hawaiian homesteading program, for all practical purposes I own and operate a ranch that only a millionaire could afford.”