 Okay, we're back. We're live here. It isn't a Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. And we're doing community matters with Adam Reverse, who is a deputy corporation counsel for the county of Kauai. He joins us by Skype from Lee Huey. Welcome to the show, Adam. Thanks, Jay. Great to have you on. Adam and I met at a leadership institute of the Hawaii State Bar Association last week. And I thought we were going to continue the conversation here on Think Tech. So we talked about what we could learn from Adam in terms of his experience as a deputy corporation counsel in Kauai. And we settled on a paper that he wrote about Wainiha Land Huey in Kauai, which is a very interesting story dating way back into the early days of the 19th century. So can you tell us a little about how you got involved in the subject? I guess it was in law school. Why you wrote about that? Why you researched that? And what essentially is the subject? Sure. For your listeners who don't know, Wainiha is an aho pa on the north shore of Kauai. Wainiha and Hiena are essentially the gateway to the Nepali coast at the end of the road here on Kauai. In my opinion, the luscious and most beautiful parts of our island. While I was in law school, I read a book about Hiena by a fellow named Carlos Andrade. That's not so much a legal book, but I thought it was fascinating. It made a reference to the Wainiha Land Huey, which I had never heard of. And I had an extended family living in Wainiha who was farming some of the last remaining taro lohe up there. And I'm a history buff, was a history major in undergrad and wanted to learn more and was required to do a semester-long paper in law school. So I chose to do a legal history about the Wainiha Land Huey as part of this project, which ended up being eventually published in the University of Hawaii Law Review. Outstanding. For those who don't know, that's the top publication at any law school. It's very important for a law school to have that. It helps the credibility of the law school, but it also is a great prestige point for anybody to have an article in a law review, whether you're on the editorial board or not. And so that's an achievement all in itself. So Adam, tell us what happened. What did you learn in your research? What did you write about? Sure. So you first to put it in context, modern context real quickly. As I'm sure it is on every island, there are continuing issues on Kauai about housing and the disenfranchisement of the local population, the gentrification of communities and the influx of vacation rentals, pushing local people out, et cetera. And I think in maybe as I described this further, I think that this historically dovetails into that. And I'll start out when I first started just googling information to learn about the Waini'a hui. I came across an article in the Hawaii Almanac from 1913 by a Reverend John Lidgate. And the Hawaii Almanac was essentially the reader's digest of Hawaii back in the 1900s, had shipping schedules and goings on. And John Lidgate described the formation of the Waini'a land hui. And the story went something like this, that the Ali Ikani Kaka'u Nohi who inherited in the great Mahelei, the entire of Waini'a took pity on his local subjects and decided that he would sell his land to them cheaply. They purchased it and immediately began infighting and fraught among each other. And they ended up in misery. Wouldn't say no. That was John Lidgate's story. But as soon as I started to do my own research, I discovered that virtually everything John Lidgate had to say was false. So another little contextual note. So not to go into the whole history of the great Mahelei and the creation of private property in Hawaii, but we mentioned in our initial conversation, what sets Kauai apart. One of the things that set Kauai apart during that period of time is that it had the smallest percentage of Kuliana awards to native Hawaiians of any island in the kingdom, aside from Lina'i. So Kauai, Kauaians were largely left out of this new private property regime, when Kuliana lots were awarded to tenants of the land. And one of the one of Kauai's solutions to that problem was to reform land whoies, which purchased enormous blocks of property. And specific to the Wainiha land whoie, Kekaua O'Noe had originally inherited off the 15,000 acre, not inherited, but had been granted the 15,000 acre of Wainiha, but died very soon after. And Kekaua O'Noe was actually a she, not a Lee Connie like John Lidgate had described. The property then went to, was inherited by her husband, who also died soon afterwards. And then to pay off his debts, the entire wa'a was sold off to a couple of investors from Honolulu. Shortly thereafter was purchased by Castle and Cook. And then in 1877, 71 native Hawaiian families pooled their resources and bought all 15,000 acres from Castle and Cook for $5,500. Castle and Cook made a profit? I'm not sure what Castle and, I wasn't able to find out what Castle and Cook purchased it from, but I do know that at the foreclosure proceeding, it was purchased for $3,200. So there's a couple of thousand dollars difference in there. So let me just do context with you. So the, see the unification of the state was back in the very early part of the 19th century. And Kawhi was never conquered by Kamehameha. And Kawhi was always a little different. What was the relationship of Kawhi and the rest of the state at this point? And what was his part? You suggested there was a, there was a participation, but it's sort of a low level participation in the Great Mahaley of what 1848 or so. What was the relationship in general of Kawhi and the rest of the state at that time? Um, you know, I can't tell you as official political status, but even though Kawhi wasn't ever conquered, it was, it was essentially brought into the kingdom by subterfuge when the then king of Kawhi was kidnapped and forced to marry into Kamehameha's family. So although it wasn't militarily conquered, it was effectively brought under the control of the kingdom by the time this who we, the who we event was taking place. And so one of the reasons that Kawhi was a part, I think, in the initial disbursement of Kuliana properties was that at least in the early stages of the Kuliana award process, you actually had to appear at the land commission, which was in Honolulu. In the 1850s, it was difficult for somebody from Kawhi to get 90 miles across the channel to Honolulu. So I think it was just simply physical physical barrier for Kawhi residents to make claims at the land commission. I think in the in the later stages of the land commission process, there was a local office opened. But that's that's at least part of the explanations just geographic isolation. Yeah, now the great Mahaley was in Honolulu, I guess it was well essentialized in that way. But it sounds like Kawhi had its own smaller Mahaley. And it was somehow resonant with the great Mahaley, wasn't it? Sure. Well, it was it was part and parcel of the Mahaley that was, you know, based at the land commission, which was housed in Honolulu, but it affected land ownership and on all the islands. Okay. All right. So now we have, what did you say 1877? And we have this group, the group of people Hawaiian native Hawaiian people who raised the money and and bought these 15,000 acres from Castle and Cook for $5,000. I take that deal today, by the way, I want to be clear about it. If it can be found for me, maybe you can help me with that. Sorry, I missed I missed that last question. I take that deal now. Oh, I would too. Yeah. So one of one of the fascinating things, at least fascinating to me about the land to me is that, you know, prior to the creation of private property in Hawaii, with the great Mahaley and the distribution of Culeano lands, essentially, the native tenants or native residents lived communally in Aho Pa, farming their own, their own individual plots and having a house lot, but also sharing the upland area and the lowland fisheries and communal farming lots. And once these 71 individuals purchased that 15,000 acre Aho Pa, they established a constitution for themselves to continue living in exactly that fashion. They had small allotments for each of themselves. But they established communal rules as to how the upland forest would be managed, how the fishery would be managed. They set limits on the number of livestock that every tenant in the Aho Pa could have. They had communal rounds ups and rules for branding. They had an elected Konoiki. They established couple times for fishing. They gave an exclusive right to fish for hay or octopus to a group of specific women. They regulated the numbers of nets that every tenant in the Aho Pa could have so that nobody would catch too many fish. They regulated how many fish traps every, every resident could have so that the fish in the stream wouldn't be overfished. So it was an incredibly well-organized system based in a written constitution to govern, essentially govern themselves. They even had their own sort of independent judiciary system where disputes between any member of the Huey had to be internally addressed first before they would be allowed to take their, get on their course or walk to the Huey and bring their case to court. Well, how interesting. So a constitution. Now, I guess the monarchy back in Honolulu and Elani Palace had to approve of that. But that's interesting to have a constitution within a constitutional monarchy. How did that work? I mean, there must have been some contention about it, no? Well, actually, part of my paper, the very involved sort of legalese part of it is how the Supreme Court through a whole series of decisions dealt with land who is on all the islands. And the Supreme Court initially viewed these Huey constitutions, which were common on all islands, actually as contracts, essentially binding contracts among the members. That's not unreasonable, is it? I mean, it's a reasonable interpretation. In other words, it isn't a question of sovereignty. There really is no sovereignty because it comes with on within the sovereign. But you can treat it as a contract and about how people are going to conduct themselves. I guess where I get stuck is in the judicial side of things when they have a judicial system that operates sort of under another judicial system. I gather, although there's not a lot of details in the record books, which actually which notably are housed at the State Archives, I believe that they're one of the only if not the only written Huey Constitution and record book that's still in existence. And anybody could go to the State Archives and see copies of that today. Yeah, and you have the original, actually. You have you have seen the original you have gone to the State Archives and part of your paper, I'm sure is is built on reading it and looking at it and handling it. Yes, I actually had to have a very willing friend of mine do the translation because unfortunately, I don't speak Hawaiian, and it's actually written in Hawaiian language. Is it handwritten? Correct. Yeah. Interesting. How long is it? I think it's about 120 pages, which is the original Constitution that has the records of all the meetings and the and the transactions of the organization. Well, this is an elected treasurer, secretary and the Constitution set out to regular meetings and elections of the Konohi Gate for the land to another one of the fascinating aspects of this land to eat. But from my research, all land who is across the islands is that at least when they are first founded, they had specific provisions in their Constitution to maintain the integrity of their land base in that you weren't allowed to sell to outsiders. So if somebody that had each individual would own a share in the Huey, so there were 71 shares. If somebody died, didn't have an heir or wanted to sell, they had to they had to offer the shares for sale to the Huey for what they purchased it for. So not only could they not alienate the land, but they couldn't make a profit. Huh, it sounds like a co-op in Manhattan. But hey, let's take a short break. That's Adam Reversy, the county deputy county attorney in Kauai. He's did a research paper. We're talking about whihina and whihina land who is all around the state. In fact, why why why why Nihá? Yeah, why Nihá in Kauai. We'll be right back after this break. Hi, I'm Carol Cox. I'm the new host of Eyes on Hawaii. Make sure you stay in the know on Hawaii. Join us on Tuesdays at 12 noon. We will see you then. Aloha. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week, helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. You can be the greatest. You can be the best. You can be the king. Come play in your chest. You can be the world. You can be the war. You could talk to God. Don't bring it on him. Okay, we're back. We're live with Adam Reversy, a deputy county attorney in Kauai, talking about some research that he did on whihina valley in Kauai and the whihina land who we not unlike a number of land who he's that existed in the 19th century. So Adam, as we left it, these families successfully operated under that land who we for a while. But over time, you know, I'm only guessing here that we don't have that anymore. What happened to it? Sure. Yeah, they actually persisted for almost 100 years until 1947. So there was there was a couple of things that came together to for the death knell of the whihina, but for who is all over the entire state or then kingdom. So and they they arose from a series of Supreme Court decisions. So the very first decision involves deciding whether these who is were tendencies in common or joint tenants or joint tendencies. Those are two legal phrases. But the practical effect is that if if something is a tendency in common, and an owner dies, the ownership interest passes to their heirs. If something is a joint tendency, and the owner dies, then the ownership interest reverts to the other owners. So the court in 1886 decided that land who he's were tendencies in common, which mean whenever we watch meant that whenever we remember passed away, their ownership interest would go to their heirs. And that what that decision did is it quickly fractionalized the ownership in land who is the whine he obviously specifically, but all land who is across the state. So instead of having 71 members within a generation or two, you quickly have hundreds, if not thousands, the old story and nobody Well, I guess had had one of those members had a will, which disposed of that property to say one person or two, you wouldn't have this fragmentation. But I guess nobody had a will in those days. There weren't enough lawyers around a no, that didn't seem to be a tradition among the native Hawaiians to do wills at a second decision. So as I mentioned earlier, originally the Supreme Court viewed who we constitutions as binding contracts that fit in with native Hawaiian traditional customary practices. So the court took a very positive view of who is and actually their decisions really supported their rights to self governance and to govern themselves and to control their members. In the early 1900s, a new Supreme Court all appointed after the overthrow of Queen Leo Kalani took a much different view of the who is and essentially decided in two different court cases, ultimately the Mahalo case that the land who is were legally not recognizable entities. They were just collections of individuals that had their own rights. So with that Supreme Court decision, the land who we could no longer stop its individual members from selling off their portions or could no longer control the fragmentation of their land. That's interesting because today right now in 2017 you can do that. You could make a co-tenancy agreement and have exactly the same effect. But I guess they weren't in the mood to help perpetuate the land who is back right after territoriality. Yeah. So that then led to the Partition Act of 1923, which allowed, just as an abstract example, if a piece of property were owned by 100 individuals and one individual wanted to sell, he could force the partition of the property in order to get his money out. That paralleled one other important fact for Wainiha. Back in 1903, the Wainiha who then still a powerful collective entity leased the water rights in the Wainiha River to the McBride sugar company to create a power plant. And McBride used the energy generated from that power plant to drive the water pumps on the south shore in order to irrigate the sugar plantation. So that was in 1903, the who re granted McBride a 50 year lease to the water rights in the Wainiha stream. For a generator, a hydropower generator, which I think still exists, no? It does. It's still there today, still generated power for KIUC. Amazing. So that was a 50 year lease, right after, shortly after the Mahalo case that I mentioned that's just determined that the individual shared individual sales could not be stopped by the who we McBride sugar began buying up shares in the Wainiha who we and by the 1940s, McBride had managed to accumulate nearly 50% of the Wainiha who he shares they were outstanding. And a matter of only four or five years before their lease to the water expired, they instituted partition proceedings in court here on Kauai to divide up Wainiha Valley. Into multiple discrete parts. And so the idea was that they could because they held certain parts, they could call for the separation of the land, their part and the parts of everybody else. That must have been in a pretty scraggly boundary. It was quite involved proceeding the court record here on Kauai, which have actually gone and looked out on microfetches, four or five hundred pages of details. But the end result was that in 1947, the Wainiha who we that had been established way back in 1869 was forced forcibly broken apart through this judicial proceeding. The practical end result was that the lower valley, which is closest to the ocean was divided into 250 house lots, which were given or sold to the then residents of the area and the upland 10,000 acres of all became private property of McBride sugar along with the power plant and water rights to Wainiha River. And of course McBride was already in the sugar business by then. But when it confirmed title, it probably expanded its sugar operations. And they ended up, let's see, that they ended up that ended up costing McBride at the time for their 10,000 acres as well as the rights to the water. Forty thousand dollars. That was I take that deal too. I want to be clear. I would take that deal just as much right now today. Inter interestingly part of that partition proceeding provided that and this is to McBride's benefit, I guess that all of the deeds that were handed out to the individual property owners ostensibly required the preservation of all the traditional irrigation, a Y that were feeding the tarot. Lowy and Wainiha, which had traditionally been a huge tarot growing area. But unfortunately, as of today, virtually all of them have been destroyed, just despite the fact that they were supposedly protected in connection with this partition proceeding. They not many exist today. I think there's only maybe 20 acres that are still being farmed and tarot in Wainiha today. So interesting. So but there are still native Hawaiians on that land, huh? It is a pocket of continued native Hawaiian land ownership here on Kauai. And once you asked when we when we talked a few days ago, you know, what's going on on Kauai now. And I sort of reverted back to this historical paper. But one thing that was happening just recently here on Kauai that was all over our front page of the paper is there was a land dispute in Wainiha down by the main highway. And a group of young native Hawaiian activists were attempting to reclaim an area that had once been a tarot growing area. And we're planting kalo and had built a small shed area. And they were all arrested for trespassing. It was in the news they had the mayor go down to try to assuage everyone. And it became it became a big deal politically. And in the news here on Kauai. Got me thinking back about this paper that I'd read several years ago the context, historical context in which that current dispute is still ongoing. Oh, really, it hasn't been resolved. Not with this particular parcel. I think, you know, these young guys are still pending their day in court for their trespassing charges, etc. And continuing to fight with the landowner who owns that property. And McBride is not doing sugar anymore. McBride is essentially out of the sugar business. But what is the condition of the land? And you suggested that McBride had the dispose of its title. So who owns it? I mean, it's part of it. I'm not sure what the I know that the the predice, whatever the name of it is, the predecessor of McBride still owns the upper 10,000 acres of the valley. And I think it's actually in a partnership of some sort. I could be wrong about this, but I think it's still in partnership of some sort with the Nature Conservancy, who is a who is fenced the area to do native white plant restoration and eliminate feral pigs, etc. as part of the statewide watershed rehabilitation plan. So the Upper Wainiha Valley is still unoccupied, just forest land and the stream. It's fairly steep valley. And I guess that the folks controlling it are doing their best to restore it to the extent that they can. Yeah. But it's, you know, when you when you have sugar growing a long time, it's hard to restore it. And I suppose a lot of it is really not yet re re forested and replanting sugar. Sugar was never grown in Wainiha. Wainiha is too steep for sugar. Ah, the white McBride's operations were on the opposite side of the island and they actually ran the power lines from Wainiha around it over the mountain to get to the their sugar operations on the other side. So Wainiha never had sugar. It's too steep in mountainous for for that. So why did McBride want it in the first place? 15,000 acres, 48,000 dollars. Why? Why did they go to that trouble if they weren't going to do sugar on it? They wanted it for the power plant for the water. OK, OK, water was important. You know, it strikes me that this could be the the mythical valley in in the in the that book that was written. I'm trying to remember the name, the Descendants, the Descendants book. Is this the mythical valley at him? No, the the mythical valley from the Descendants is, I believe, Kibukai over on the southeast corner of Kauai. Yeah, yeah. But so what do you take? What do you take from the study from this discussion about, you know, what what can we learn here? The Ahapua was a valuable way of living and certainly preserved the land to preserve the community. There were a lot of positive aspects to it. And little by little, you've described the story about how it came apart. But what do you take from it? You studied it, you spent the time, you did the research. What do you learn from it? Well, one take away from me, a lot of the history that you read about the Mehalai is as native Hawaiians solely as victims. You know, this thing happened to them, was imposed on them, and everything was downhill from there. But I think that the Waini Hauui in particular, but the Hui movement generally on all the islands demonstrated that native Hawaiian tenants at the time were not necessarily helpless victims. They mobilized themselves in an organized fashion. They used this new regime of private property to buy large blocks of land to continue living the way that they had lived. And they were they were able to successfully do so for quite a while until the law in modernity caught up with them. But it, for me, at least, changed the predominant story that I learned about the Mehalai and you know, the passive role that native Hawaiians played in it. I think this demonstrates that the native Hawaiians at the time were not passive. They took an active role in trying to make their lives better and continue living the way they had lived. Yeah, and it did a good job at it for quite a while. Profoundly affected by the overthrow and what followed in territorialization. So very interesting. If I wanted to learn more, if I wanted to read your article, where would I look? I think that the University of Hawai'i Law Review is available online via the university's website. And I'm not sure if you actually have to pay something or if it's for free. It's been a long time since I've looked. But I'd also be I'd also be happy to share copies of it to people by email. I don't know if giving out my email is a good idea or not. Do you do that? Sure, you can. Sure. So it's just my name, Adam Roversy, which is R-O-V like Victor, E-R-S-I at gmail.com. And I'd be happy to send anybody a PDF of the paper. Thank you, Adam. Wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a great discussion. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Aloha.