Conversion from images into searchable text of the 1848-1852 Land Court Award Testimony Volumes 1848-1852

One of the unanticipated side impacts of moving the Land Court Award testimony for the Ahupua’a of Waititi into Google Earth was the need to transcribe the scanned images of the 1840-1850’s handwritten testimony into usable text to add to the individual award information. We came to the realization that as the project expanded there was a obvious need to convert all (or at least as much as possible) of all the LCA testimonies into functional text, as currently the testimony only exists as scanned images and as such is impossible to search and very difficult even to read.

Our initial efforts were in converting all the Foreign Testimony awards we found in the Ahupua’a of Waititi into functional pdf text form (which we have included in the Google Earth Waititi material), which can be found below as this file. Note that this is region-specific so includes material from a number of different volumes. It also does not include the Native Testimony material as we do not have the time currently to do an accurate transcription of those awards (nor an accurate translation).

Transcribing these initial files made us aware of the incredible richness of the the LCA testimony which to my knowledge is unique in historical geographical documentation-we essentially have a snapshot not only of land use, but also political relationships, social relationships and social networks for a very specific point in time that spans an entire society.

It’s worth remembering that for any other location (regardless of whether United States, France or Japan) documentation will pretty much be limited to bureaucratic records (such as taxation or land transfer) or wills (handing down property) and as such are place and/or individual specific. In Hawai’i because of the decision of Kamehameha III’s government the entire country and all the population went through a formal collective process of defining people and place. For a number of reasons it was a highly flawed process and a large percentage of the population, specifically the maka’ainana (common people) were not involved in the process, so it’s not by any means a complete ‘snapshot’ of land and people in Hawai’i in the 1840-1850’s. But as we have been transcribing the volumes we’ve noted that it also appears to be more inclusive in terms of testimony than has been generally been espoused by historians, who have (legitimately in many cases) been focused on who actually acquired property through the process, where as we’re more interested in who applied.

As a result of the realization that this is both an incredibly rich and also historically unique resource we are now putting major effort into transcribing all the volumes into standardized pdf format that is freely available. I would like to specifically thank AvaKonohiki for making all the testimony volumes digitally available as that has made this expansion of their work possible: http://avakonohiki.weebly.com/about-ava.html

At this time (2023) all the relevant Foreign Testimony claims (from vol.1-3 and 14) related to Waititi have been transcribed.

All of Volume 1 (largely Honolulu) of the Foreign Testimony has been completely transcribed.

Volume 7 (West Maui) has been completely transcribed.

All the pdf files are available below and you should be able to download them for your own use:

Volume 1 Complete Transcription:

Volume 7 West Maui-Lahaina Complete Transcription:

Volume 8 Transcription Complete (all Foreign Testimony only)

Below is the just completed Maui Foreign Testimony Vol. 8 (Central-East Maui but also other locations). The latter portion of this volume is not completed as it was completely Native Testimony so due to time constraints will be dealt with in the future.

Volume 14 Complete Transcription:

Below are a set of working documents, including the extent Waititi LCA awards first by Name (alpha), the second run by LCA number. The third is a tabulation of all the LCA claims for the moku of Lahaina (taken from the Mahele Index), the last being a compilation of all the claims made by the Government for themselves and also those given (or given up) by the various ari’i as part of the Mahele (from the Buke) for both the moku of Lahaina and also for Waititi. Of interest is the number of “Fort” claims made for Waititi by the Government.

Waititi Ahupua’a Claims compiled transcription All Alpha

Waititi Ahupua’a Claims compiled by Number

Below is my selection of quotes from Bryan Farrell’s 1982 Hawaii, the Legend That Sells. Apologies to the author but this very important work is nearly impossible to locate and despite my searches there is no e-doc version out there. This should be required reading for anyone involved in tourism and tourism development, especially those as decision-makers in the public sector. It would be interesting to see who (if anyone) at DBEDT has read this work.