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By 1950, Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HPCO) registered 88,930 acres of land through four land court applications.  The largest application, No. 862, was petitioned in 1929 for 88,416 acres that included all thirteen ahupuaʻa of Lānaʻi.  George Munro, resident manager of HPCO from 1911 - 1930, claims that at one time more than half of Lānaʻi was owned by natives.  By 1921, this number dwindled to 208 acres and the majority, 154 acres, were lost and reverted to the ahupuaʻa.  Munro writes that these lost kuleana were, "...unoccupied and unused...very troublesome in after years.  They were useless to the owners, but buying them to get them out of the way was quite an undertaking with which I had a good deal of experience finding the rightful owners, who at times were scattered over the islands....I worked out the descent of as many of the old families as possible."  While Munro claimed to negotiate the purchase of numerous kuleana lands for HPCO between 1923 and 1930, he leaves out the fact that he also aided HPCO with registering tens of thousands of acres of land some of which were done through the Act 56 provision of possessory title - adverse possession.  This case study is the untold story of how one native's lands were fraudulently dispossessed by HPCO using Act 56.  

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Munro, George C., The Story of Lānaʻi.

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Rep. Robertson requests more time be allowed for the commission to conduct its investigation.

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Laws of the Republic of Hawaii Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Regular Session 1896, LLMC Digital. https://llmc.com/OpenAccess/docDisplay5.aspx?textid=25752097

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Rep. Robertson introduces Joint Resolution #9 to appoint a commission to investigate land transfer systems "in vogue" in other countries and to report at the next session.

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According to Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer, "William Smith returned from New Zealand, having conducted a formal investigation of its system of land title and registration. The colonial government in both New Zealand and Australia had been successful in dispossessing natives of land through the Torrens title system."

Beamer, Kamanamaikalani. “6 Beyond the Occupation.” In No Mākou Ka Mana:  Liberating the Nation. Honolulu, Hawaiʻi: Kamehameha Publishing, 2014.

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Rep. Achi introduces a resolution to appoint a committee to examine the Commission of Registry of Deeds and Land Transfer appointed in 1895.  It was resolved that a special committee of one, Rep. Achi, examine the commission.

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House Journal 1898, page 37.

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Doubtful that the joint resolution of 1895 will move forward, Rep. Achi's committee of one reports that the issue of "expense connected with the transfer of real property and of the settling of titles" is of import to  to "every one in this country" and a special committee ought to be appointed to investigate.  Minister Smith adopted and Minister Damon amended.   

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1898 Mar 8 House Report #24 by Rep. Achi

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1898 Mar 8 House Report #24 by Rep. Achi

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Source: Journal of the House of Representatives, Regular Session of 1898. Republic of Hawaii. Volume I. http://punawaiola.org/generalrecordsleg.html

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On Mar 17, Rep. Robertson introduced HB #49 Limitation of time within which to commence actions to recover land.  This subsequent report is clear evidence that House Bill #49 is another attack on kānaka intended to work in concert with Act 56 in dispossessing land from the original kuleana land awardees through a method called adverse possession.  This is a legal mechanism by which an individual who does not have title to land can acquire title through open and hostile possession for a period of twenty years.  This bill seeks to shorten the time required for adverse possession from twenty years to ten years, thereby, allowing the perpetrator to accelerate the time to acquire title before the true owner can recover it.  Itʻs a race against time in which kānaka are the ultimate losers.  In what is a surprising move, Minister Damon proposed amending the length of time to fifteen years instead of ten.  On April 6, HB #49 will pass its third reading, voted unanimously for passage, and approved by President Dole as Act 19.   

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1898 Mar 31 House Report #62 for HB #49 Limiting time to recover land

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1898 Mar 31 House Report #62 for HB #49 Limiting time to recover land

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Source: Journal of the House of Representatives, Regular Session of 1898. Republic of Hawaii. Volume I. http://punawaiola.org/generalrecordsleg.html

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Rep. Achi submitted report #108 recommending a set of indexes be established as a step towards the Torrens land registry system.  This report is further evidence that Act 19 (HB #49 limiting time to recover land from twenty years to ten years) is complementary to land registry in dispossessing land. 

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1898 Apr 26 Report #108 on Resolution #4 Registry of Deeds and Land Transfer

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1898 Apr 26 Report #108 on Resolution #4 Registry of Deeds and Land Transfer

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Source: Journal of the House of Representatives, Regular Session of 1898. Republic of Hawaii. Volume I, page 339. http://punawaiola.org/generalrecordsleg.html

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This time, after eight years of inquiries, and with an actual bill in hand, Governor Dole elevates the priority of this land reform initiative by including it in his message to the Legislature. 

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1903 Governor Dole's Message to the Legislature

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1903 Governor Dole's Message to the Legislature

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Source: A Message to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii 1903. State of Hawaii Archives, Series 228 MFL143-9.

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In his opening address, Governor Dole asks the Legislature to give attention to a Torrens System bill prepared for them.  According to P. H. Mulholland, Registrar of the Land Court, this bill was prepared by the Research Club of Honolulu and written by P. L. Weaver (assistant to Attorney-General of Territory of Hawaii), C. H. Merriam, Walter E. Wall (surveyor), Geo. B. McClelland, and F. J. Lowrey (merchant).  The bill was introduced in the House by Rep. W. W. Harris on Feb. 24, 1903, and in the Senate by Sen. C. H. Dickey.   These identical bills passed through each house relatively quickly with overwhelming aye votes of nine in the Senate and twenty-three in the House. On Apr 17, House Report # 304 tabled HB #9 as a duplicate of SB #115 which will subsequently become Act 56.

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1903 House Bill #9 / Senate Bill #115 An Act to Provide for Registering and Confirming Titles to Land

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1903 House Bill #9 / Senate Bill #115 An Act to Provide for Registering and Confirming Titles to Land

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House Bill No. 9 An Act to Provide for Registering and Confirming Titles to Land. State of Hawaii Digital Archives, Series 228 MFL143-10.

Journal of the Senate, Regular Session. Territory of Hawaii.Journal of the Senate, Regular Session. Territory of Hawaii. State of Hawaii Digital Archives, Series 228 MFL-143-7.

Journal of Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Second Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii in Regular Session. Google Books.

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1903 Legislative Session House Bill 9 Land Registry.pdf

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The committee continues to promote the benefit of quick and reduced expenses of the Torrens System while being conveniently silent on disparities within the bill that differentiates it from the South Australian and Massachusetts versions.  One such disparity is the qualification of who may register land and the type of title claimed for registry.  These disparities will be discussed in a later section.

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1903 Mar 25 Senate Report #31 for Senate Bill #115

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1903 Mar 25 Senate Report #31 for Senate Bill #115

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Dickey, C. H., et. al., Report No. 31 The Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii Senate Session 1903. Committee on Miscellaneous Petition on Senate Bill No. 115. Hawaii State Digital Archives, Series 228 MFL143-9.

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Hawai'i law was heavily borrowed from Massachusetts law which was heavily influenced by the South Australia law.  However, the authors of the Hawai'i law, the Research Club of Honolulu, fundamentally altered key aspects of the legislation, such as the ability to register land that was seized by adverse possession, and tailored it to facilitate appropriation of land. 

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Warning: Laws by nature are complex, thus, this is full disclosure that this interpretation is from an untrained and non-legal professional perspective.

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Section 37 Applicant does not have absolute title

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Section 37 Applicant does not have absolute title

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38.  Possessory Title May Be Registered as Fee Simple

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38.  Possessory Title May Be Registered as Fee Simple

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With the exception of Moloka'i, most lands were registered within the first 35 years of the existence of Act 56.

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Mulholland, P. H. Land Court Registration in First Progress Report, An historic inventory of the social and economic and industrial resources of the Territory of Hawaii.

Mardfin, Jean Kadooka. Two Land Recording Systems.

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Almost all of Lānaʻi is registered while Mauʻi is the least.

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On August 8, 1950, HPCO submitted application 1590 to register thirty-three parcels that were previously listed as exclusions (these are lands not being registered) on application 862.  It can be inferred that at the time HPCO submitted application No. 862, they could not, perhaps because they did not fulfill the requirements for adverse possession, register these thirty-three parcels.  Thirty of these parcels were awards to native tenants, two of which were my ancestor's lands.  HPCO purported to have thirteen deeds recorded but the remaining lands were claimed under Hawaiʻi's unique provision of possessory title - adverse possession.

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Land Court Application 1590 of Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd.

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Land Court Application 1590 of Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd.

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Source: Men of Hawaii: being a biographical reference library, complete and authentic, of the men of note and substantial achievement in the Hawaiian Islands

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Hawaiian-Chinese lawyer, politician, businessman and stock investor, real estate broker and investor.  "Mr. Achi has always given considerable attention to real estate and has opened up more tracts in Honolulu than any other individual and his firm now has more city property for sale than many other firms, and they also deal extensively in stocks.  Few individuals have a better knowledge of property and values here than Mr. Achi."  Undoubtedly, he stands to benefit from land title registration. 

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Wondering who Rep. Achi is and why he is interested in land title registration?

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Wondering who Rep. Achi is and why he is interested in land title registration?

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Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 1/1/1902 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1902-01-01/ed-1/seq-40/

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There are 117 sections to Act 56.  This is a short list of sections that can be interpreted as facilitating dispossession of land.   

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Laws of the Territory of Hawaii Act 56 An Act to Provide for Registering and Confirming Titles to Land.

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A critical aspect of the Torrens system of land registry is the examination of title by a qualified and appointed independent examiner.  The examiner produces a report which states whether the applicant has or has not good title.  In application 1590, the examiner found that HPCO "had NOT good title" for thirty-one of the thirty-three lots.   The main reason for this finding is that, although Munro claims he negotiated the purchase of numerous lands, many were not transacted with the original awardee of the land but by prospective heirs most of which were not supported by a probate (a court case distributing property and determining heirs) or a will.  These are the "evils" the supporters of Act 56 sought to resolve and is known as a break in the title chain, clouded title, or defective title.  The image is the examiner's findings for Lot 9 of application 1590.

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This correspondence between George Munro, a manager at HPCO handling negotiation of land purchases, and their attorney can be construed as evidence of fraud.  Page 1 indicates HPCO's intent was to settle the claim in order to register the title in their land court application.  Page 2 is a letter from Munro to the attorney explaining the disposition of the settlement for claims to LCAw 8588 to Kaleo.   Munro writes that he was informed there are survivors of two deceased siblings but he does not plan to settle as "the sister's children [one of these children is my grandmother] will not likely show up."  On page 3, Munro states that these payments are being made voluntarily "and will not say we are holding anything for the others."   What makes this evidence of fraud is the violation of Section 26 that states, "The applicant shall file with the application a plan of the land, and all original muniments of title (i.e., deeds or any other evidence of title) within his control mentioned in the schedule of documents."    Further, since HPCO did not disclose this muniment of title that was within their control, proper notice, as is required in Section 31, was not given to these heirs of the pending action to register the lands.   Moreover, these letters attest to the immorality of these companies in how they "negotiated" with the families to the point they were behooved to accept whatever was being offered to them. 

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Dole Plantation Archives, Hawaiian and Pacific Collections, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library.

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Unfortunately, even if there is evidence of fraud, the law limits the time for recourse to one year - yet another way the law works against kānaka. Act 56 perfected these thirty-one titles when the court issued a certificate of title. It was a permanent erasure of history - of the story of Kaleo and his descendants. This photo is of my great-grandmother, Lucy Kamalu, mentioned in the letter as the deceased sister that left surviving children. The child in the photo is my grandmotherʻs sister, Kanonohi, mentioned in the letter as being settled with by HPCO for $25. My grandmother never received compensation and, instead, went to her grave thinking "my uncles when cock-a-roach the land." She was right about something, the land was cock-a-roach but not by her uncles. It was fraudulently taken by the biggest cock-a-roach in Lānaʻi history - Hawaiian Pineapple Company.

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The Kuleana Act of 1850 provided for the rights of native tenants in lands. Approximately 8,200 Land Commission Awards of fee simple title were issued to native tenants for a combined total of 28,000 acres of land. While many more kānaka attained fee simple government land grants as provided for in Section 4 of the Kuleana Act, these lands held none of the deep physical, spiritual, and emotional connection of a homeland as the kuleana land did.

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Act 56, An Act to Provide for Registering and Confirming Title to Land, worked in concert with other land reform initiatives, such as the Land Act of 1895 (the homestead act) and Act 19 (limitation of time to recover land) to incentivize white settlers. The role of Act 56 toward this goal, as discussed in the legislative journals, was to eradicate the "evils" of title discrepancies that, purportedly, was increasing the cost of land title researches associated with land transfers. In truth though, in the words of Robert Torrens, the creative force behind the land registry system the territory based Act 56 on, the chief benefit of the land registry system is "restoring to its intrinsic value a large amount of property depreciated or unmarketable through defective evidence or technical imperfection of title." In other words, to dispossess land by erasing the history of the native tenants who were originally awarded the land in order to enhance its value, usefulness, and worth for those who desired to capitalize it.

Torrens, Robert R., A handy book on the Real Property Act of South Australia.