The Ahupua`a of Hīlea: A case study in the realities of applied historical archaeology

The phrase activist archaeology always conjured up notions of action, agency and intent – a whip-cracking, vine-swinging, leather-clad, action figure coming to the rescue of indigenous peoples everywhere. By focusing on plantation archaeology in Hawai`i I intended to steer clear of controversy. By sticking to modern industrial sites I hoped to dodge the stigma Hawaiians often associate with archaeologists. Following Fernand Braudel\u27s, the longue durée (from centuries to millennia); the conjuncture (from a decade to a century); and the event (a year to a decade), Hawai`i Island archaeologist Peter Mills goes one step further and breaks down the concept of mentalité or short-term events into what Mills calls moments. According to Mills, …[moments are] the critical period of time in which individuals make decisions and take action, redefining their perceptions of themselves and their universe in the process…. They are perceptual, subject specific and often communicative processes that could affect the direction of culture change. In the spring and summer of 2004, I came to better understand Mill\u27s concept of critical periods of time when I unwittingly found myself actively engaged in the creation of a moment. A contested landscape for well over a century, for the past decade, Hīlea was the subject of a lopsided power struggle involving fourteen Hawaiian families and one the corporate heavyweights in the archipelago, C. Brewer & Co. Materials recovered in 2004 cast archaeology center stage in a dramatic legal battle over the boyhood home of Kamehameha the Great – resulting in my research on the subject being entered into evidence at the Hawai`i State Supreme Court in 2007. This work is not a dissertation on the Great Māhele (Divisions of Land) or the history of land claim disputes in Hawai`i and it is not an analysis of the legal case. Rather, it is a story recounting events leading up to and surrounding the inadvertent discovery of a book of historic plantation maps in the spring of 2004, and how this unintentional act forever changed the course of my research and the way I understand landscape, meaning and the role of archaeology in Hawai`i