The Government Promised to Return Ancestral Hawaiian Land, Then Never Finished the Job

Twenty-five years ago, the state of Hawaii and the U.S. government promised Native Hawaiians to correct a historic wrong.

Public agencies had occupied thousands of acres intended to return Native people to their ancestral lands, paying little or no compensation for decades as the sites were used for military bases, game preserves, schools and other purposes. In 1995, state and federal legislation pledged to provide reparations.

Then-U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said it was “a step toward righting a great wrong against the original people of this land.” Then-Sen. Daniel Akaka, a Native Hawaiian who steered the bill through the Senate, called the legislation “a vindication for Hawaiians who had lost hope that this long-standing issue would ever be resolved.”

But as 2020 draws to a close, Native Hawaiians are still waiting for all of what was promised.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-government-promised-to-return-ancestral-hawaiian-land-then-never-finished-the-job