1846 : peak year: 429 whaling ships visit Lahaina (population 3,000) ,
as opposed to only 167 Honolulu;
( p.111: "eight times before 1860, the annual total ship arrivals in Hawaiian ports was more than 500.")
Decline began in the late 1850's:
"In 1859, oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, and the consequent production of cheap kerosene spelled the doom of whaling.")
1848: California Gold Rush, Hawaiian islands sent supplies, incl. potatoes (Maui fields were named Nu Kaliponi);
1851: use of centrifugals reduced time to separate molasses from sugar from weeks to minutes
1852: first shipload of Chinese coolies arrives
1861-1865 Civil War: 40 whalers sunk to block southern harbors, Southern sugar disappeared from market, Hawaii took over:
|
Year |
number of plantations |
millions of pounds of sugar exported |
|
1860 |
12 |
1.5 |
|
1866 |
32 |
17.9 |
1876: Claus Spreckels arrives in Hawaii just after Reciprocity Treaty between USA and Hawaii, and buys up over 1/2 of 1877 sugar crop;
1878: Spreckels established Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in Maui and starts planning irrigation.
(NOTE: before trickle irrigation, production of 1 ton of sugar used up 500,000 gallons of water)
irrigation
works:
|
directed
by: |
year
completed: |
cost
(US$) |
length
(miles) |
million gallons per day |
|
Hamakua Ditch
|
Alexander &Baldwin
|
1878 |
80,000
|
17 |
40 |
|
Spreckels Ditch |
Claus Spreckels (Hermann Schussler) |
1879 (?) |
500,000 |
30 |
60 |
BLO fecit 20030117
|
 |
