The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-10-28
FROM
THEIR BIRTHPLACE
THE REMNANT OF MANY IN
FORMATIONS OF GILBERTEsE
WAITING TO BE TAKEN HOME.

There are about two hundred Gilbert
Islanders out at the Kalihi detention
camp who are awaiting some means of
transport to their home on the equator.
They have been waiting for fifteen
years, some of them. Very many of
them never will get home for death Is
claiming many victims among them
These people are the remnant of the
time a good many years ago now, when
the theory of "cognate races" had con-
siderable influence in the Hawaiian ISL
ands and made itself felt, in numerous
directions. The theory was that in
seeking for supplies of laborers to meet
the needs of the expanding plantations,
a COgnate race to that of the Hawaiians
should be sought as source so that to
the extent that the introduced laborers
remained here they would amalgamate
with the Hawaiians into homogeneous
race.
The Gilbert Islanders were chosen az
meeting the requirements of this theory
and a good many hundreds of them
were brought here under contracts to
labor for a specific number of years at
a specified rate of wages, the planta-
tons agreeing to furnish them trans
portation back to their homes at the
expiration of their contracts
When the contracts of the first sew
tl al lOlS tA Gu u ais POI ltllOll DdCh "
the Gilbert Islands was offered and
many of them went back. There were
some however who had nothing to show
for their years of exile and labor in to
them a foreign country, and they were
ashamed to go back to their friends
empty handed. So these remained and
most of those who are still living, re-
main yet.
About fifteen years ago another ex-
Nt-itb iaJ M
another lot of them were imported 1t
seems that in some way a larger pro-
portion of these were left here. OF the
whole. lot there remain about two hum
dred or a few more, of whom about
half are at Kalihi and the other half at
Lahaina.
They are waiting for transportation.
The Gilbert Islands are about POO miles
southwest of here right on the equator.
1t takes from eighteen to twenty-five
days for sailing vessel to go there
from here and thirty-five or forty to
come back. In the days of the mission
AIRY bark Morning Star some of them
were taken to their homes almost every
trip. But since then the vessels going
from here to there have been very few.
Tie Obligations of the plantations to
take them back long since expired, and
even the contracts originally entered in
" nave IGdIlS all DGell ueSlIOyeu. lie
government destroyed its copies If
these contracts when the immigration
office of the territory was moved from
the custom house building to the capt.
toll. The poor Gilbertese themselves
lost their copies when they We're driven
out of Chinatown by the big fire Jan
uary 20, 1900. However the destruction
of these contracts makes no differen &c
as the obligation to return them long
since ceased.
Offers have been made time and again
to take the Gilbertese back en- masse in
a schooner but $1,000 was wanted as
compensation, and where was the So,
to come from? A great many of the
men are old and unable to do mucn
work and anyway $4,000 is a good deal
of money for Gilbert Islanders to raise
Rev. Hiram Bingham says that tuber-
culosis is rapidly decimating the COM
munity of Gilbertese, although when
ne was in the Gilbert Islands, tuber-
culoss was unknown there.