Noah Dolim

I think it was 28,000 acres in total from that land ownership.

The first sugar plantations popped up, I believe, in the 1830s.

The first couple of decades weren't too successful.

Primarily, they needed labor.

There just wasn't enough Hawaiians to work in the plantations because of depopulation.

And also, Hawaiians didn't want to work in the sugar plantation.

It didn't make sense for them.

Why would we work in a sugar plantation where we can grow our own food, right?

So there's that.

And it also wasn't lucrative as well because they're primarily exporting to the United States, but the United States was growing its own sugar.

So sugar was somewhat slow in that first half of the century.

And the big change, the biggest change for Hawaiian sugar was the Civil War.

So this is the melding of U.S.

history and Hawaiian history coming together when the Civil War breaks out.

sugar production in the South, in the American South, comes to a halt.

And this is the prime opportunity for these sugar planters in Hawaii to fill that void.

And so the sugar plantation owners are making money like they've never seen before during the 1860s.

And of course, the Civil War is ended and that cash cow comes to a screeching halt and they are left

pretty desperate and begging the Hawaiian kingdom, begging the sovereign, hey, can you do something about this?

We just made a lot of money.