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Abstract

The humanitarian testimonials of the “concerned travellers,” Quakers Danieland Charles Wheeler, from Koloa Plantation on the Hawaiian Island of Kauaiin June 1836, problematised the early years of the sugar plantation’s wagelabour system. Although the newly introduced wage system was intended bythe resident missionaries and the founding company to liberate the plantationlabourers from existing feudal obligations, the Wheelers claimed a different formof “slavery” was being imposed on the indigenous Hawaiians employed withinthe new system. Produced in a climate of protectionist and abolitionist fervour inthe mid-1830s “age of reform,” the Quaker humanitarian publications reflectedwider contemporary concerns for indigenous populations and post-Britishemancipationlabour conditions. Through examination of the Wheelers’ critiqueof Koloa in the formative years of Hawaii’s foreign-owned sugar plantationsystem, this article contributes a new perspective on the critical question ofwhether earning wages under the conditions at Kauai in 1836 excluded theKoloa Plantation labourer from slavery

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Peyper, AJ
Keywords:	Quakers, workforce, slavery, capitalism, abolitionism, labor history, apprenticeships, sugar plantations, emancipation
Journal or Publication Title:	Labour History
Publisher:	Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
ISSN:	0023-6942
DOI / ID Number:	https://doi.org/10.5263/labourhistory.113.0079
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2017 Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
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