Crown Lands | Royal Family Hawaii

Mahele

Crown Lands

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In 1848, as a result of the Mahele, all land in the Hawaiian Kingdom was placed in three categories: The Lands of His Majesty King Kamehameha III which became the Crown Lands (for the preservation of the crown), the lands of the Chiefs and Konohiki, and the Government Lands, later in 1850, awards were given to Hoaʻaina

(native Hawaiians who cultivated the land they live on) known as Kuleana Lands.

The crown lands constitute a trust created by King Kamehameha III out of his personal and individual estate of nearly one million acres to maintain the state and dignity of the crown. The income is used for the sole prerogative of the reigning sovereign and has never belonged to the Hawaiian government.

It was the intention of His Majesty King Kamehameha III to protect the lands which he reserved to himself out of the domain which had been acquired by his family through the prowess and skill of his father, King Kamehameha the Great, the conqueror, from the danger of being treated as public domain or government property. It was also his intention to provide that those lands should descend to his heirs and successors, the future wearers of the crown which the conqueror had won.

The 1865 law noted that the Crown Lands “shall be henceforth inalienable, and shall descend

to the heirs and successors of the Hawaiian Crown forever”.

Following the illegal overthrow on January 17, 1893 and fraudulent annexation by the United States, the Crown Lands were illegally seized. Without a ruling monarch, the purpose of the Crown Land trust serves no more and is held in abeyance, but legally still remains as the private estate of His Majesty King Kamehameha III.

To help save the Crown Lands from being plundered and lost, a member of the Royal House, the High Chiefess Princess Elizabeth Kekaʻaniau protests against confiscating these lands and for the protection of her rights as a relative of H.M. King Kamehameha III who had made Princess Elizabeth Kekaʻaniau Pre-emptive to the Throne and an Eligible Ruler. She also protests whereby her rights in the premises should not be ignored or prejudiced under an act of injustice by the United States and leading to disastrous consequences as a loss of county and independence. Princess Elizabeth Kekaʻaniau and her family's rights are a violation under International Law as well as the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights of Indigenous People.