SUGAR: <span> "Sugar cane had long been an important crop planted by the Hawaiians of old. Its sweet and nourishing sap was a favorite of chiefs and commoners alike. Industrial production of sugar began at Koloa plantation on Kaua‘i in 1840. It soon became clear that it required a lot of manpower, and manpower was in short supply. Where it is estimated that in the days of Captain Cook the population stood at 300,000, in the middle of the nineteenth century about one fourth of that number of Hawaiians were left. </span> <span> Native Hawaiians, who had been accustomed to working only for their chiefs and only on a temporary basis as a "labor tax" or </span>‘Auhau Hana<span>, naturally had difficulty in adjusting to the back-breaking work of clearing the land, digging irrigation ditches, planting, fertilizing, weeding, and harvesting the cane, for an alien planter and on a daily ten to twelve hour shift. A song of the day captures the feelings of these first Hawaiian laborers."
