Hanapepe massacre

{{Short description|Interethnic dispute in Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi (1924)}}

{{Infobox civil conflict

|title = Hanapēpē Massacre

|image =

|caption =

|date = September 9, 1924

|place = Hanapepe, Hawaii

|result =

|goals= $2 daily wage
8 hour day

|side1 = Striking Filipino sugar workers

|side2 = Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association;
Kauai County Police Department

|leadfigures1 = Pablo Manlapit

|leadfigures2 = Jack Butler

|casualties1 = Deaths: 16 killed
Arrests: 161

|casualties2 = Deaths: 4}}

The Hanapēpē Massacre (also called the Battle of Hanapēpē) occurred on September 9, 1924, when a dispute amongst Filipino strike organizers in Hanapēpē, Kaua'i resulted in a violent exchange between local police officers and Filipinos.{{Cite book|last=Beechert|first=Edward D.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/906458431|title=Working in Hawaii: a Labor History|date=1985|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=0-8248-0890-8|pages=221–222|oclc=906458431}} The conflict began when two Ilocano youth, allegedly breaking the Filipino-led labor strike, were detained and harassed by a group of Visayans at the Hanapepe strike camp.{{Cite book|last=Reinecke|first=John E.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1024022244|title=The Filipino Piecemeal Sugar Strike of 1924–1925|date=1997|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0-8248-6253-4|pages=75–76|oclc=1024022244}} When the local police were called to settle the dispute, they arrived with a group of heavily armed special deputies. Upon arrival, the officers issued warrants of arrest for the two detained Illocanos, causing the collection of Filipino strikers to rally in opposition. Despite previously ridiculing the two Ilocanos, the remaining Filipinos armed themselves and demanded the boys be released. A violent exchange ensued wherein sixteen Filipino laborers and four police officers were left dead.

Background

By the 1920s, the sugarcane plantation owners in Hawai{{okina}}i had become disillusioned with both Japanese and Filipino workers. They spent the next few years trying to get the U.S. Congress to relax the Chinese Exclusion Act so that they could bring in new Chinese workers. Congress prevented the importation of Chinese labor.{{cite book|last=Chapin|first=Helen Geracimos|title=Shaping History: The Role of Newspapers in Hawai'i |year=1996|publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=978-0-8248-1718-3 |pages=131–138|chapter=Suppressing the News and Contributing to a Masscre}}

Organized labor in the 1920s' U.S. mainland supported the Congress in this action, so that for a while it looked as though militant unionism on the sugarcane plantations was dead. To oppose organized labor, the Hawaiian Territorial Legislature passed the Criminal Syndicalism Law of 1919, Anarchistic Publications law of 1921, and the Anti-Picketing Law of 1923.{{Cite report|last=Alcantara|first=Ruben|date=1988|title=Filipino History in Hawaii before 1946: The Sakada Years of Filipinos in Hawaii|url=http://hdl.handle.net/10125/17989|journal=|publisher=University of Hawaii|volume=Chapter 5: The 1924 Strike|hdl=10125/17989|via=ScholarSpace}}

These laws, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison, increased the discontent of the workers. The Filipinos, who were rapidly becoming the dominant plantation labor force, had deep-seated grievances: as the latest immigrants they were treated most poorly. Although the planters had claimed there was a labor shortage and they were actively recruiting workers from the Philippines, they wanted only illiterate workers and turned back any arrivals who could read or write, as many as one in six.{{cite web|url=http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/2012/11/26/blood-in-the-fields-the-hanapepe-massacre-and-the-1942-filipino-strike|title=Blood in the Fields: The Hanapepe Massacre and the 1924 Filipino Strike|first=Dean |via=Positively Filipino|last=Alegado|work=Filipinas Magazine |date=October 1997|access-date=24 February 2018}}{{cite web|url=http://www.thegardenisland.com/2006/04/09/news/massacre-strengthened-labor-unions/|title=Massacre strengthened labor unions |newspaper=The Garden Island|first=Lester |last=Chang | date= April 9, 2006|access-date=26 February 2018}}

High Wage Movement

In the fall of 1922, Filipino labor activist Pablo Manlapit and George Wright, the head of the American Federation of Labor, founded the High Wage Movement (HWM).{{Cite book|last=Jung|first=Moon-Kie|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/727940744|title=Reworking Race: the Making of Hawaii's Interracial Labor Movement|date=2010|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-13535-1|oclc=727940744}} Building from the networks Manlapit established through the Filipino Labor Union (FLU), Manlapit and Wright drafted a petition of demands that garnered over 6,000 signatures. Primarily, the HWM demanded an increase of the minimum wage to two dollars alongside the reduction of the workday to eight hours. When their petition was ignored by the Hawaiian Sugar Planter's Association (HSPA) in 1923, the HWM proceeded with an organized labor strike in 1924.

As they had previously, the plantation owners used armed forces, the National Guard, and strike breakers paid a higher wage than the strikers demanded. Again workers were turned out of their homes. Propaganda was distributed to whip up racism. Spying and infiltration of the strikers' ranks was acknowledged by Jack Butler, executive head of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

= Violence at Hanapēpē =

Strike leaders were arrested in attempts to disrupt workers' solidarity, and people were bribed to testify against them. On September 9, 1924, outraged strikers kidnapped two strike breakers at Hanapēpē and prevented them from going to work.{{Cite news|url=https://www.thegardenisland.com/2019/09/09/hawaii-news/investigating-a-massacre/|title=Investigating a massacre|date=September 9, 2019|newspaper=The Garden Island|language=en-US|access-date=September 10, 2019}} The police, armed with clubs and guns, came to union headquarters to rescue them.{{cite news|url=http://www.thegardenisland.com/2006/09/10/news/pablo-manlapit-and-the-hanapepe-massacre/|title=Pablo Manlapit and the Hanapepe Massacre |work=The Garden Island|first=Hank |last=Soboleski| date=September 10, 2006 |access-date=25 February 2018}} Between 100 and 200 Filipino strikers were armed with pistols, knives, and clubs.{{cite news |last1=Bernardo |first1=Rosemarie |title=Documentary, research team hope to solve mystery of 1924's Hanapepe Massacre |url=https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/10/07/hawaii-news/documentary-research-team-hope-to-solve-mystery-of-1924s-hanapepe-massacre |access-date=7 October 2019 |work=Honolulu Star-Advertiser |date=7 October 2019}}

The Associated Press flashed the story of what followed across the United States in the following words:

Honolulu. - Twenty persons dead, unnumbered injured lying in hospital, officers under orders to shoot strikers as they approached, distracted widows with children tracking from jails to hospitals and morgues in search of missing strikers - this was the aftermath of a clash between cane strikers and workers on the McBryde plantation, Tuesday at Hanapepe, island of Kauai. The dead included sixteen Filipinos and four policemen.{{Cite web|title=History of Labor in Hawai'i|url=https://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/home/HawaiiLaborHistory.html|access-date=2019-09-28|website=Center for Labor Education & Research {{!}} University of Hawai‘i - West O‘ahu}}

Aftermath

After the massacre police rounded up all male protesters they could find, and a total of 101 Filipino men were arrested. 76 were brought to trial,{{cite book|last=Matsuoka|first=Fumitaka|year=2003|title=Realizing the America of Our Hearts: Theological Voices of Asian Americans |isbn=978-0-8272-3251-8 |publisher=Chalice Press |author2=Fernandez, Eleazar S|page=91}} and of these 60 received four-year jail sentences. However, these numbers are disputed among historians, and another source claims 130 strikers and their leaders were arrested and tried, of which 56 were found guilty and imprisoned, with many later deported.{{cite news |last1=Soboleski |first1=Hank |title=A look back at 'The Hanapepe Massacre' |url=https://www.thegardenisland.com/2019/10/01/lifestyles/a-look-back-at-the-hanapepe-massacre/ |access-date=7 October 2019 |work=The Garden Island |date=1 October 2019}} Pablo Manlapit was charged with subornation of perjury and was sentenced to two to ten years in prison.{{cite book|last=Raymundo|first=Rizaline R|title=Tomorrow's Memories: A Diary, 1924–1928 |year=2003|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0-8248-2688-8 |page=233}} The Hawai{{okina}}i Hochi claimed that he had been railroaded into prison, a victim of framed-up evidence, perjured testimony, racial prejudice and class hatred. Shortly thereafter, he was paroled on condition that he leave Hawai{{okina}}i. After eight months the strike disintegrated.

The Federationist, the official publication of the American Federation of Labor, reported that in 1924 the ten leading sugar companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange paid dividends averaging 17 percent. From 1913 to 1923, the eleven leading sugar companies paid cash dividends of 172.45 percent, and most of them issued large stock dividends.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

After the 1924 strike, the labor movement in Hawai{{okina}}i dwindledand discontent among the workers rarely surfaced again. Pablo Manlapit, who had been imprisoned and exiled, returned to the islands in 1932 and started a new labor organization, this time hoping to include other ethnic groups. But the time was not ripe in the Depression years. There were small nuisance strikes in 1933 that made no headway and involved mostly Filipinos. Protests since the massacre have discouraged carrying guns at demonstrations.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Legacy

The burial site of the killed strikers was believed to have been found 95 years after the strike. Until then, the location of the graves was unknown,{{Cite news|url=https://www.thegardenisland.com/2019/09/27/hawaii-news/the-hanapepe-massacre-mystery/|title=The Hanapepe Massacre Mystery|date=2019-09-27|work=The Garden Island|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-28}} and a commemorative marker was placed in the Hanapepe Town Park in 2006.{{Cite news|url=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Sep/10/ln/FP609100394.html|title=Plaque remembers Hanapepe Massacre|agency=Associated Press|date=September 10, 2006|work=The Honolulu Advertiser|access-date=2019-09-28}} In 2024, The Kaua‘i County Planning Department commemorated the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Hanapēpē Massacre with a ceremony attended by nearly 150 participants, including officials, dignitaries, community members, and descendants.{{cite web |title=Kaua‘i remembers Hanapēpē Massacre 100 years later |url=https://kauainownews.com/2024/09/11/kauai-remembers-hanapepe-massacre-100-years-later/ |website=Kauai Now |access-date=October 9, 2024 |date=September 11, 2024}}{{cite web |title=Kauai officials gather on the 100-year anniversary of Hanapepe Massacre |url=https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/news/2024/09/11/hanapepe-massacre-rememberance |website=Spectrum Local News |access-date=October 9, 2024 |date=September 11, 2024}}

= 2019 grave discovery=

On October 20, 2019, the Hawaii State Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society, assisted by a technician and an engineer, found a trench at the Hanapepe Filipino Cemetery which they believe may be the grave of twelve of the strikers. The finding was reported in West Hawaii Today, and the results were to be presented at the Filipino American National Historical Society biennial conference in Waikiki in July 2020. The researchers also said that they would continue research to identify the 16 strikers by combing through court records and Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association records.{{Cite news |url=https://usa.inquirer.net/44641/searchers-find-mass-grave-of-16-filipinos-killed-in-24-hawaii-strike |title=Searchers find mass grave of 16 Filipinos killed in '24 Hawaii strike |date=2019-10-28 |work=The Philippine Daily Inquirer |access-date=2019-10-29 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191029080154/https://usa.inquirer.net/44641/searchers-find-mass-grave-of-16-filipinos-killed-in-24-hawaii-strike |archive-date=2019-10-29 |language=en}}

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090505043132/http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/abstracts-centennial-conference.html Aquino, Belinda A. Understanding the ‘Hanapepe Massacre.' "The Filipino Century Beyond Hawaii," International Conference On The Hawaii Filipino Centennial, Honolulu, Hawaii.]

Category:1924 in Hawaii

Category:1924 labor disputes and strikes

Category:Conflicts in 1924

Category:September 1924 in the United States

Category:Massacres in 1924

Category:Filipino-American culture in Hawaii

Category:Filipino-American history

Category:Deaths by firearm in Hawaii

Category:History of Kauai

Category:Massacres in the United States

Category:Gun politics in the United States

Category:History of sugar