Nicole Pasulka explores the history of Hawaiian land grabs:
The standard tourist narrative downplays or disregards disease epidemics, violence against native Hawaiians, and movements for native sovereignty. Because who wants to be reminded they’re taking a holiday on illegally annexed land? …
For around a thousand years, Hawaiian kings and chiefs—known as ali’i—controlled the land, and access was determined by social order. As the Hawaiian monarchy adopted a constitution and began to democratize in the 1830s and ’40s, a series of land-ownership laws called "the Great Mahele" made it possible for private citizens to own property on the islands for the first time. The Great Mahele was intended to provide a substantial amount of land for Hawaiian commoners, but the concept of property ownership was alien to Hawaiians, and only about 1 percent of native Hawaiians ended up being able to take advantage of the law. American entrepreneurs and industrialists managed to acquire land that would become hugely lucrative sugar, pineapple, and coffee plantations, and 70 percent of native Hawaiians found themselves landless by the end of the nineteenth century.
The Dish 