Prologue Of History :: essays research papers

Prologue of HistoryUntil statehood, Hawaii was ruled economically by a consortium of corporationsknown as the " large vanadium" C. Brewer and Co., sugar, ranching, and chemicals,founded in 1826 Theo. H. Davies & Co., sugar, investments, insurance, andtransportation, founded in 1845 Amfac Inc. (originally H. Hackfield Inc.-aGerman firm that changed its name and ownership during the anti-German sentimentof WW I to American Factors), sugar, insurance, and land development, founded in1849 Castle and Cooke Inc., (Dole) pineapple, fare packing, and landdevelopment, founded 1851 and Alexander and Baldwin Inc., shipping, sugar, andpineapple, founded in 1895. This economic oligarchy ruled Hawaii with a velvetglove and a steel grip. With members on all important corporeal boards, theycontrolled all major commerce, including banking, shipping, insurance, hoteldevelopment, agriculture, utilities, and wholesale and retail merchandising.Anyone trying to buck the system was ground to dust, finding it suddenlyimpossible to do business in the islands. The Big quintuplet were made up of theislands oldest and most well-established haole families all includedbloodlines from Hawaiis own nobility and alii. They looked among themselvesfor suitable husbands and wives, so breaking in from the outside even donemarriage was hardly possible. The only time they were successfully challengedprior to statehood was when Sears, Roebuck and Co. opened a store on Oahu.Closing ranks, the Big Five decreed that their steamships would not carrySearss freight. When Sears threatened to buy its own steamship line, the BigFive relented. In the end, statehood, and more to the point, tourism, broketheir oligarchy. After 1960 too much money was at stake for Mainland-basedcorporations to ignore. Eventually the grip of the Big Five was loosened, butthey are still enormously proponentful and richer than ever, though these days theydont control everything. Now their power is land. With only fi ve other majorlandholders, the Big Five control 65 percent of all the privately held land inHawaii.Why was the 1946 bastinado so important?Before 1946, Hawaiis economy, politics and social structures were completelydominated by a corporate elite known as the Big Five (Alexander & Baldwin,American Factors, Castle & Cooke, C. Brewer, & Theo. Davies). The leaders ofthese factor companies exercised absolute control over Hawaiis plantationworkers and the majority of the islands multi-ethnic workforce. The 1946 strikeeternally changed the balance of power between workers and the plantations. Nolonger would living and working conditions be set unilaterally by the plantationowners or their parent corporations. Nor was the lesson baffled on the workersoutside the plantation either. As sugar workers were now successful in