Kuleana Act of 1850 (Hawaii)

Last updated

The Kuleana Act of 1850, proposed by the King in Privy Council passed by the Hawaii legislature created a system for private land ownership in seven parts. [1] Section 1 recognized ownership of government plots occupied and improved by families. Section 2 expanded title to other types of land. Section 3 defined land boundaries and the ability to exchange portions of land. Section 4 established a system for the Hawaiian government to distribute larger parcels of land. Section 5 established the largest size of family owned lots. Section 6 attempted to distinguish between cultivated and waste lands. Section 7 established access to roads, water sources, and other natural resources.

Contents

Kuleana is a Hawaiian word, defined in the Hawaii Electronic Library as a "Right, privilege, concern, responsibility, title, business, property, estate, portion, jurisdiction, authority, liability, interest, claim, ownership, tenure, affair, province; reason, cause, function, justification; small piece of property, as within an ahupuaʻa; blood relative through whom a relationship to less close relatives is traced, as to in-laws." [2]

Contemporary examples

The Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg came under scrutiny in 2017 when he attempted to integrate property titles that had been established by the Kuleana Act into a 700-acre (280 ha) estate, which he intended to assemble in Hawaii by using quiet title lawsuits to establish the ownership of ambiguously-titled parcels of land. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lanai</span> Sixth-largest Hawaiian island

Lanai is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation. The island's only settlement of note is the small town of Lanai City. As of 2012, the island is 98% owned by Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation; the remaining 2% is owned by the state of Hawaii or individual homeowners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adverse possession</span> Property law concept

Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land —may acquire legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation of the property without the permission (licence) of its legal owner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crown land</span> Territory belonging to a monarch

Crown land, also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realms, crown land is considered public land and is apart from the monarch's private estate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plat</span> Map showing divisions of a piece of land in America

In the United States, a plat (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bearing between section corners, sometimes including topographic or vegetation information. City, town or village plats show subdivisions broken into blocks with streets and alleys. Further refinement often splits blocks into individual lots, usually for the purpose of selling the described lots; this has become known as subdivision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Section (United States land surveying)</span> One square mile

In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), a section is an area nominally one square mile, containing 640 acres, with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid.

Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system, in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the conclusive evidence of title of the person recorded on the register as the proprietor (owner), and of all other interests recorded on the register.

A land patent is a form of letters patent assigning official ownership of a particular tract of land that has gone through various legally-prescribed processes like surveying and documentation, followed by the letter's signing, sealing, and publishing in public records, made by a sovereign entity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feoffment</span> Transfer of land under feudalism

In the Middle Ages, especially under the European feudal system, feoffment or enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service. This mechanism was later used to avoid restrictions on the passage of title in land by a system in which a landowner would give land to one person for the use of another. The common law of estates in land grew from this concept.

The Great Māhele 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadastre</span> Comprehensive register of the real estate or real propertys metes-and-bounds of a country

A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country. Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahupuaʻa</span> Traditional Hawaiian subdivision of land

Ahupuaʻa is a Hawaiian term for a large traditional socioeconomic, geologic, and climatic subdivision of land. It usually extends from the mountains to the sea and generally includes one or more complete watersheds and marine resources. The predominant traditional system in the eight high islands of the main Hawaiian Islands was based on the ahupua’a. Each ahupua‘a contained a cross section of island resources and they were managed within a complex social system associated with each area. The general belief is that each ahupua‘a met the needs of the local population, with excess for tribute and trade.

Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, and prevent unlawful disposal. The information recorded and the protection provided by land registration varies widely by jurisdiction.

In 1898, the United States Congress annexed Hawaiʻi based on a Joint Resolution of Annexation. Questions about the legitimacy of the U.S. acquiring Hawaii through a joint resolution, rather than a treaty, were actively debated in Congress in 1898, and is the subject of ongoing debate. Upon annexation, the Republic of Hawai‘i transferred approximately 1.8 million acres of Hawaiian Government and Crown Lands to the United States (U.S.), which are today held by the State of Hawaiʻi. In the 1993 Apology Resolution, the U.S. government officially apologized to the Native Hawaiian people, acknowledging that the Republic of Hawaiʻi transferred these lands "without the consent of or any compensation to the Native Hawaiian people of Hawaiʻi or their sovereign government" and that "the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims. .. over their national lands to the United States." Although the lands are commonly referred to as "ceded lands" or "public lands," some refer to them as "seized lands" or "Hawaiian national lands" to highlight the illegal nature of the land transfer, acknowledge different interpretations of the legal effect of the Joint Resolution, and to recognize that Native Hawaiians maintain claims to these lands. Many Native Hawaiian individuals and organizations insist on the return of title, which would be consistent with international law and recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples, whereas others seek back rent for the use of the land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Organic Act</span> Statute used by the United States Congress

An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history an explanation of the Oklahoma Organic Act needs a historic perspective. In general, the Oklahoma Organic Act may be viewed as one of a series of legislative acts, from the time of Reconstruction, enacted by Congress in preparation for the creation of a united State of Oklahoma. The Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory that were Organized incorporated territories of the United States out of the old "unorganized" Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Organic Act was one of several acts whose intent was the assimilation of the tribes in Oklahoma and Indian Territories through the elimination of tribes' communal ownership of property.

Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 556 U.S. 163 (2009), was a United States Supreme Court case about the former crown lands of the Hawaiian monarchy, and whether the state's right to sell them was restricted by the 1993 Apology Resolution. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, ruled unanimously that the state had the power to sell the lands free of encumbrances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaniela Ing</span> American politician

Mark Kaniela Saito Ing is an American politician and community organizer who was a member of the Hawaii House of Representatives from the 11th District, representing south Maui from November 7, 2012 until November 6, 2018. He unsuccessfully ran to represent Hawaii's 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 federal election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Real property</span> Legal term; property consisting of land and the buildings on it

In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. In order for a structure to be considered part of the real property, it must be integrated with or affixed to the land. Examples include crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal property, or personalty, was, and continues to be, all property that is not real property.

ʻAkahi was a high chiefess and female landholder of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Also known as "Akahi-a-Kaleiwohi", she was named after her great-grandmother Akahi-a-Kuleana. ʻAkahi was also the name of Akahi-a-Kuleana, the mother of 15th-century Hawaiian king ʻUmi-a-Līloa. A relation of the ruling House of Kamehameha, ʻAkahi was married to Kahekili Keʻeaumoku II and Kalanimoku, two prominent Hawaiian high chiefs and politicians during the early 19th century. She lived most of her life on the island of Hawaii where she was allocated vast landholdings after the Great Mahele of 1848. After her death in 1877, these lands were inherited by her relative Bernice Pauahi Bishop and upon the latter's death became part of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, which now funds the Kamehameha Schools.

Kuleana rights arose in the mid-1800s and protected the entitlement of Hawaiian tenant farmers and their descendants to, among other things, access landlocked real estate parcels.

Denise Mahealani Cypher DeCosta is a historian, community advocate, Hawaiian cultural practitioner, and owner of Native Knowledge LLC. Cypher was a former president of the Oʻahu Association of Hawaiian Civic Club, and the Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club. She is a born and raised kamaʻāina of Kāneʻohe and has authored Distinguished Kamaʻāina of Kāneʻohe Bay Koʻolaupoko II (2017). Of her recognitions she was awarded the Frank Haines Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Hawaiʻi Historic Foundation (2019). She has helped to create the Ahupuaʻa Boundary Marker project on the island of Oʻahu, and is renowned for her advocacy on the windward side, in particular for native rights, prevention of urban sprawl, and her opposition to the construction of the Interstate Highway known as the H-3.

References

  1. "The Kuleana Act of 1850". Hawaii State Archives, DLNR, 2–4. Hoakalei Cultural Foundation. Retrieved 2017-01-28. The Kuleana Act remains the foundation of law pertaining to native tenant rights.
  2. "Nā Puke Wehewehe ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi" [Hawaii Electronic Library]. Retrieved 2017-01-28.
  3. Uria, Daniel (2017-01-28). "Mark Zuckerberg drops property lawsuits to force sale of Hawaiian lands". United Press International. United Press International. Retrieved 2017-01-28.