Hanapepe massacre book to be published in 2021

The plan was to release the book (“Shrouded in Mystery: The Unveiling of the Hanapepe Massacre”) at the 18th biennial conference of FANHS (Filipino American National Historical Society) on July 15-18, 2020, at Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort &Spa, Honolulu, under the sponsorship of the society’s state chapter as conference host.

Regrettably, the event was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nonetheless, the committee continues to work on the book, and looks forward to its publication and dissemination to schools and libraries in 2021.

The Hanapepe massacre is a long story. To summarize, the tragic event at Hanapepe on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1924, started as a strike of Visayan plantation workers at Makaweli Plantation that began in August.

Evicted from their homes, the strikers and their families were homeless, and lived at the beach. Many took shelter at a two-story Japanese language school building in Hanapepe, which became the strikers’ camp.

On September 8, the strikers at Hanapepe held hostage two non-striking Ilocano Makaweli Plantation workers who went to town on their bicycles. I must interject here that the Ilocanos on all the plantations in the Territory of Hawai‘i did not go on strike on the advice of Cayetano Romero Ligot (1877-1973), Philippine labor commissioner in Hawai‘i, an Ilocano. On the other hand, the Visayans answered the call to strike by Pablo Manlapit (1881-1969), a labor leader of Tagalog descent. He was a plantation worker on Hawai‘i Island who left his plantation job, moved to O‘ahu, and worked in various offices while studying law. On April 1, 1924, Visayans on three plantations on O‘ahu went on strike. Visayans at Lihu‘e and Koloa plantations went on strike in July.

Failing to get the two kidnapped Ilocanos from the strikers’ camp on the night of September 8, Waimea Deputy Sheriff William Olin Crowell (1873-1935), who was notified of the missing men by the Makaweli camp police, returned to the strikers’ camp on the morning of September 9 with arrest warrants for the two Ilocanos, issued for their protection.

With Crowell were some 40 hunters and sharpshooters, mostly Hawaiians, who were deputized by the County of Kaua‘i as special police, several of whom climbed atop a small bluff across the road from the strikers’ camp.

As Crowell and his assistants returned to their cars with the two Ilocanos, a group of strikers armed with cane knives, sticks and a couple of pistols followed them.

We may never know who fired the first shot, but the preponderance of accounts points to the special police as having fired into the crowd of strikers, who quickly dispersed, many fleeing into a nearby banana patch and a pig pen.

A battle ensued.

Two strikers were killed by the first volley of the special police. When the battle ended, nine strikers and three special police were dead. The wounded were taken to Makaweli Hospital. Seven strikers and one special police officer died later that day, bringing the total to 18. Two strikers died on September 10. One wounded special policeman recovered.

Crowell was hurt, but after being treated at Makaweli Hospital he was at Waimea Hall, where the dead were moved to after being initially taken to Waimea Jail.

With 16 plantation workers killed, the Hanapepe massacre was the most tragic event in the history of labor in Hawai‘i.

The names of the four special police and where they were buried were published in The Garden Island and in three Honolulu newspapers, but the Filipino plantation workers were not fully and correctly identified in the Honolulu newspapers.

The Garden Island made no mention of them. Moreover, where they were buried was some kind of a guarded secret, shrouded in mystery for almost a century.

Michael Miranda, chairman of the FANHS Kaua‘i Historical Committee, called the first meeting on Feb. 18, 2019, at Ha Coffee Bar, and announced that the committee’s assignment for the conference was the Hanapepe massacre, an event unique to Kaua‘i, in keeping with the conference theme, “Kau Kau Tin: Sharing Our Filipino Plantation Stories.” I wondered how the committee would handle the assignment.

For a couple of months, we focused on newspaper accounts and on the interviews in “The 1924 Filipino Strike on Kaua‘i,” by the Ethnic Studies Oral History Program of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa published in 1979.

The two-volume publication embodies interviews with 32 Filipino plantation workers who went on strike, families of strikers, and folks in the community who had first-hand knowledge of the strike and the massacre. Chad Taniguchi, son of Waimea, Kaua‘i, was one of three interviewers, and served as Ethnic Studies Oral History Project coordinator.

The interviews were conducted from March 1978 to June 1979 on Kaua‘i and O‘ahu, more than half a century after that tragic Tuesday in 1924, and members of the committee were cognizant of the odds that what oral history interviewees remember as fact may not be what actually happened, especially when the event happened many years in the past. Nonetheless, the interviews shed light on what may have happened, and several of the interviewees showed clear recollection of what they did or witnessed.

In July, the committee started to focus on locating the gravesite and finding the names of the dead. It was a daunting task, but if the committee achieves the two goals, it would be adding some closure — long overdue — to the Hanapepe massacre narrative.

On Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, at the Kaua‘i Historical Committee’s field trip to the Hanapepe Filipino Cemetery, I greeted Bill Buley, former editor of The Garden Island, with the comment on the Hanapepe massacre. He quoted me as saying in his article on Sunday, Sept. 29, “It is shrouded in mystery. And today, we begin to unveil that shroud.”

Likewise, Rosemarie Bernardo, Honolulu Star-Advertiser staff writer, quoted me in her article on Monday, Oct. 7, 2019, as saying, “The Hanapepe massacre is shrouded in mystery, and today we are here to begin unveiling that shroud, I hope.”

Indeed, the Kaua‘i Historical Committee succeeded to unveil part of the shroud in September and October 2019, with the help of many, who will be listed on the acknowledgements page of the book.

The shroud that kept the location of the “long grave” a mystery for almost a century was unveiled with the aid of a 1924 gravestone that committee members located on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019, with the help of Ed Edwards of Kekaha, who photographed it in 2014.

The triangular cement headstone on which “BORN 1886 DIED SEP. 9, 1924” is inscribed had been there for almost a century, and loved ones undoubtedly placed it there. But it remained insignificant until the Kaua‘i Historical Committee realized its connection to the Hanapepe massacre. The marker led to the location of the long grave, which was confirmed on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2019, with the use of a divining rod by Jerry Nakasone and ground-penetrating-radar equipment by Kawika Wilson, through the generosity and aloha of Hawai‘i Utility Locators.

The dead were buried in coffins six feet long, 24 inches wide, that were laid in the long grave end to end. With 15 of the 16 plantation workers buried in the long grave, the grave was 90 feet long, and only three to four feet deep because the sandy soil kept caving in. Regrettably, the GPR detected only 12 “voids and anomalies” because three burials were made over one end of the long grave. That was bound to happen, given that the grave was not marked off in any way.

As a member of the Kaua‘i Historical Committee, I am often asked whether or not we have found the names of the 16 Filipinos who lost their lives at the Hanapepe massacre.

Unveiling the shroud that obscured the names was a long process. My training and years of experience as a librarian compelled me to spend long, countless hours for six months researching the names of the 16 Filipinos who were massacred on Sept. 9, 1924. On Sept. 10, The Honolulu Times published 15 names. On Sept. 11, 1924, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin published 15 names; The Honolulu Advertiser, 14 names.

All lists had six names that were first or last names only. Moreover, most of the names had variant spellings. My familiarity with Filipino names, knowing how they are spelled, greatly helped in what seemed like a futile exercise in patience and perseverance.

Fortunately, persistence brought desired results. First, the long search revealed that 12 worked for Makaweli Plantation and three for Koloa Plantation. Second, 15 were Visayans, and one was Ilocano. Third, the Ilocano, a native of Baguey, Cagayan, worked for Hakalau Plantation in Hilo. Obviously, he traveled to Kaua‘i to join the strike.

Bill Buley quoted me as saying, “Their story must be told,” in his Sept. 29 article.

I was articulating the hope of the Kaua‘i Historical Committee that the story of the Filipino plantation workers of Visayan ancestry at Makaweli and Koloa plantations who went on strike to increase workers’ pay from $1 to $2 a day, decrease the work hours from 10 to eight hours a day, and get better housing, must be told.

They lost their lives in the process. Their lives mattered, and the committee has an obligation to tell their story. Indeed, their story, and much more, will be told with the publication of “Shrouded in Mystery: The Unveiling of the Hanapepe Massacre,” in 2021.

Moreover, the committee hopes to complete their addition to the Hanapepe massacre narrative by enclosing the long grave and the burial site with the triangular gravestone with a low wall or fencing, and placing a plaque at the grave site with the 16 names to honor the Filipino plantation workers who lost their lives for workers’ rights a century ago. Their gravestone is long overdue, and the committee hopes it can get funding for the project.

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Catherine Pascual Lo, former head librarian at Kaua‘i Community College, was a public, school, and academic librarian. A writer and a poet, she is the author of “The Filipinos of Koloa” (2017), a history of Koloa Plantation from 1835 to 1996 with emphasis on the Filipino plantation workers and their families. She and her husband, Karl Lo, reside in Kukui‘ula, a short distance from the birthplace of Prince Kuhio.