Great Māhele

The Great Māhele ("to divide or portion") or just the Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III Hawaiian history]], second only to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. While intended to provide secure title to Hawaiians, it would eventually end up separating many of them from their land.

The 1839 Hawaiian Bill of Rights, also known as the 1839 Constitution of Hawaii, was an attempt by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to guarantee that the Hawaiian people would not lose their tenured land, and provided the groundwork for a free enterprise system. The document, which had an attached code of laws, was drafted by Lahainaluna missionary school alumnus Boaz Mahune, revised by the Council of Chiefs and by Kamehameha III in June 1839.

The 1840 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii established a constitutional monarchy. It stated that the land belonged to its people and was to be managed by the king. It established executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The document established allodial title property rights which maintained the lands in the hands of Hawaiian subjects to mālama (nurture and sustain).

In order to protect Hawaiian lands from foreigners, Kamehameha III divided the lands among all the people of Hawaiʻi. aliʻi, konohiki and makaʻainana alike. The Mahele changed the previous land system under which the kuleana (responsibility and obligation) ahupuaʻa to mālama ʻāina was given by the mōʻī (king) to an aliʻi nui (high chief), his subordinate aliʻi and konohiki who received taxes and tribute from the people who worked the land collectively. Private land ownership did not exist since the concept of "owning nature" was a western construct based on the concept of the commodification of nature as "private property" to create a potential source of wealth and profit.

The Great Māhele reallocated of one-third of the land to the mōʻī (monarch) Hawaiian crown lands. Another third was allocated among the aliʻi and konohiki (chiefs and managers of ahupuaʻa) . The remaining one-third was given to the makaʻāinana (the people). The law required land claims to be filed within two years under the Kuleana Act of 1850 and many Hawaiians made no claim but regardless the makaʻāinana kuleana lands remain the protected land right of the makaʻāinana under the protection of alluvial land title to this day.

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