The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-04-22
Colonel Armstrong Returns From
Labor Commission Journey.
CHISAMEN PUTTING IN TREES.
Going Ahead While the Whites Sleep
windbreaks Necessary on the Wind
ward Side-Reminiscences of Father
Green and Anti Slavery.

Col Armstrong returned from
Maui yesterday morning, where he
has been working up material for the
Labor Commission report. Although
Mr.. Armstrong made a short stay he
looked over the field thoroughly. In
an interview yesterday he said, 'I
have spent several days in looking
over the situation in Maui with refer
ence to the cultivation of coffee. Some
question has been raised as to the ex-
tent it could be carried on there, ow-
ing to the prevalence Of strong winds
on the windward side of the island.
cit is well known that it can be car
ried on well enough on the Ieeward
side in many places. Observation
shows that there is little trouble on
the windward side, and if experience
should show that the winds shake off
the berries, wind breaks can easily be
constructed. There is a very large
area of land suitable for it. The soil
is good and the rain abundant, especi-
ally through Hamakua-loa and to-
wards Hama.
"The Portuguese have already be-
gun the cultivation. Nearly sixty
families are owners of considerable
patches of land, and [ am told that
nearly every family has from an acre
upwards in coffee cultivation at pres
ent.
81 noticed one farm of about seven
acres in excellent condition. Judge
Copp has about fourteen acres planted,
and the larger trees are quite up to
the plants in Hawaii. A Chinaman
in Kula has fifty acres planted, and
will soon have fifty more under cult
walton. These people are working
while the Anglo-Saxon is sleeping in
this section, and they are acquiring
an experience which will, in a short
time, make them strong rivals in the
race for the possession of the soil.
They are quite ready to take up much
of the land which the government
may throw open for settlement.
SIN this rather remote district of
Maui a fine and large schoolhouse is
about finished, where the young Por-
tuguese will get excellent instruction.
"In visiting Makawao, I recalled
little incident which shows the con-
nectiOn of Hawaii and the United
States. FOrty-five years ago, Father
Green cut loose from the American
slave holders, and supported himself.
He was a staunch abOlitiOnist and
regularly held, every month, an anti
slavery meeting away up in the soli-
tude of the mountain. His audience
was his own family and any one else
he could corral. One day in 1847
several of us, small boys, living for
the time in the neighborhood, rode
over to Father Green's on donkey,
and he invited us in to the anti slavery
meeting, which he was holding. The
smallest boy curled up on the sofa
and went to sleep, while Father Green
of slavery and then |
started up a hymn to the effect that |
all slaves must be free.
Seventeen years after, the small |
boy, who attended this meeting and
went to sleep, commanded a brigade |
of colored regulars in the Federal |
army before Petersburg, every men, |
Der of the brigade having been slave, |
and in a charge on the Confederate |
lines lost nearly one half of the men |
in fifteen minutes, and not one of |
them flinched or ran away, and then |
this commander gave up the rest of |
by slavery. One can almost trace the |
line of evolution between the quiet |
mountain home, near the MakawaO |
gulch, and the great emancipation. !
Old Father Green, singing the songs |
of freedom, never dreamed that the |
small boy curled up in the chair
would be called, forty-siX years later,
by Phillips Brooks, the successor of |
Lincoln in completing the |
work of enfranchising and educating
the negro slaves"