Natural History

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Arts & Culture

Sugar Plantation Stores

The lives of the workers imported into the islands to work for the sugar plantations was structured around the services provided for them by their employers. They did not make much cash money, but the companies did provide many of the necessities of life, including housing, medical care, some kind of transportation and a way to buy food, clothing and other services.

The stores operated by the sugar plantations played an important role in Hawaii's plantation communities. One study, completed in 1980 by the University of Hawaii's Ethnic Studies Oral History Project, compiled the oral history collected by interviewers of a select group of Paia store-keepers that included several who worked in the plantation-run stores. The study provides an interesting look at a way of life that no longer exists on Maui.

Before 1945, the plantation stores provided the workers and other plantation residents with their basic needs. They catered to the various ethnic preferences in food, clothing and medicine and they also served as social gathering places. Often there were adjuncts to the stores, like a bakery or a small eatery, that were the result of ingenuity and talent of enterprising plantation workers. Everyone connected to the plantations ended up shopping at the stores and they became a natural meeting-place.

The plantation-run stores frequently did not make a profit since their function was to service the needs of the plantation workers. There was no profit incentive. Because of this, they were able to charge lower prices for their goods than stores that were not connected to the plantation.

The stores were set up to take orders and make free deliveries to workers who lived in outlying places. This was an especially valuable service for people who did not own a car and were not able to travel very far.

Extending store credit to the workers locked them into being regular customers at the plantation store (and, in those times of very small wages, made the stores the only choice for some families).  The plantation workers were allowed to run up a tab that became due every payday.

In 1930, the average weekly wages for male workers was $11.04. Women were paid an average of $7.80 per week. Workers were paid once a month and many times there was a lot more month left after the money was spent. At the plantation store the workers were allowed to charge their purchases at the company store by using their plantation identification (or "bango") number when they had no money.

But when payday came, the store got paid first. Customers with large families were not required to pay off their entire balance at once. They could maintain a credit balance and make partial payments each payday.  Meanwhile, the credit balance grew. If the balance of the worker's credit account got too large or the worker was having trouble paying the bill, the store could obtain the worker's pay envelope from the company office and the worker had to get his pay from the store…after the requisite payment to the store was "deducted." This practice gave the plantation-run stores a huge advantage over the independent stores who also tried offering credit. (Collection was not a problem unless the worker got fired from his job. Then the plantation store wrote off the tab as a bad debt. )

There were also tiny, independently operated "camp stores" within the individual camps. These were run by families living in the camps for the convenience of their neighbors. They had to get permission from the plantation office to set up a little store that sold small necessities like canned milk and toothpaste and razor blades as well as treats like soda and chips. They bought the goods they carried from the plantation wholesaler stores and often rounded out their offerings with homemade snacks. These stores were cash-only.

In 1930, the two major sugar companies were Maui Agricultural Company in Paia and Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in Puunene. In 1948, the two companies merged becoming a single company, A&B (Alexander and Baldwin) Commercial Company.

Before the merger, there were two "lineages" of plantation-run stores. In 1930, Maui Agricultural Company's main store was the Paia Store, one of the island's largest stores.  It was located in Upper Paia, next to the Railroad Depot, across from the Paia Mill. Concrete steps across from the Paia Mill still mark the place where the store was located. The store opened in 1896 to serve Paia Plantation workers and their familes. The original store burned down in 1910 (along with the first Maui Agricultural Company office). A bigger store was built to replace it. The store closed down in 1961.

The Paia Service Station and the Paia Meat Market were also run by the company. About a quarter of a mile from the main store, the smaller Paia Camp Store was a convenience store for the workers in the camps and was located in a central area amid the ethnically segregated camps where the plantation workers lived. 

Six smaller branch stores serviced the outlying areas: two in Hamakuapoko, and one each in Keahua, Haliimaile, Pulehu and Kailua.

The Hawaii Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) stores were structured differently. The branch stores at Camp 1 (in Spreckelsville) and at Camp 5 (in Puunene) were fairly large and carried a variety of goods, serving as the main retail outlets for the residents. The Kahului Store, which was built in 1914, was almost exclusively a wholesaler, supplying independent, non-plantation stores as well as the HC&S plantation store system.

The Camp 1 Store at Spreckelsville was built in 1923. A fire in 1928 resulted in the store being rebuilt.

The branch store at Camp 5 also included a service station. There was a Puunene Store, which was opened by the HC&S in Kahului in 1908. The Puunene Meat Market and the Kihei Store were also a part of the HC&S "lineage."

Changes came with the passing of the years. World War II brought a tide of soldiers to Maui. The free-spending boys helped to spur on the development of the cash-and-carry, independent stores and many of the little camp store owners also benefitted.

In 1945, after the war ended, the plantation workers organized under the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union. The first ILWU sugar strike involving all 35 plantations in Hawaii lasted 72 days in 1946. During the strike, the workers at the plantation stores continued to extend credit to any worker…even the ones on strike. "People have to eat," they said. Not everyone took advantage of the extended credit. They were not sure they could pay the tab, and the union set up soup kitchens that fed the families of the strikers so they were not so dependent on the stores.

The strike ended with the conversion of perquisites to cash pay. The time of store credit was coming to an end. As the perquisites were eliminated in exchange for higher wages, plantation workers gained greater buying power. When the union negotiated for twice-monthly paydays, instead of the previous once-monthly, it meant that the plantation workers were able to budget better. Then, as the use of the automobile increased, the decline of the old-style credit-and-order-taking plantation stores picked up speed.

In 1948, planning began on the new town of Kahului, Maui. It was called "Dream City" back then. Sponsored by both HC&S Company and the Kahului Railroad Company, the new town was located approximately one mile from Kahului Harbor. It marked the beginning of a 25-year plan to centralize the homes in one area. Commercial and business needs, schools and recreational facilities were also planned and eventually implemented.

The actual building of "Dream City" began in 1949. The first home was sold a year later. (The cost to an HC&S Company employee for a house and lot ranged in price from $6,000 to $9,200.)  By the early 1950's, the sugar plantations began closing down the camps. Remote plantation camps were being razed and the camp residents migrated to Dream City in Kahului. 

In 1959, just as Hawaii was celebrating Statehood, HC&S began closing down the plantation camps in earnest. Kahului was becoming the major population center, with modern supermarkets and shopping centers. The end of the camps meant the demise of the plantation-run stores. By mid-1961, HC&S had shut down all of the remaining plantation-run stores and closed out its wholesaling department.  Maui's oldest continuing merchandising operation, dating back over a century, was done.

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Braddah-Nics Lexicon

Local Grinds

Kalua Pork and Cabbage

Ingredients:

• 3 - 4 lb. Pork butt
  
• Hawaiian salt
  
• Liquid smoke
  
• 4-6 ti leaves
  
• 2 cups water
  
• 1 small head cabbage
  
  
  

Procedure:

Rub the pork butt with salt and dribble liquid smoke over the pork butt. Wrap the pork with several layers of ti leaves. Place the wrapped pork into the crock pot and pour the 2 cups of water around it. Cook on high for 4 hours.

When cooking is complete, take out the pork and removes ti leaves, while leaving the juices in the crock pot. When pork is cooled, shred the pork with hands or with 2 forks.

After shredding pork, cut the cabbage. Put shredded pork back into crock pot with cabbage and let cook for 30 - 60 minutes or until cabbage is softens. 

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