Ford Island
Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It has been known as Rabbit Island, Marín's Island, and Little Goats Island; its native Hawaiian name is Mokuumeume. The island had an area of when it was surveyed in 1825, which was increased during the 1930s to with fill dredged out of Pearl Harbor by the United States Navy to deepen the harbor.
The island was the site of an ancient Hawaiian fertility ritual, which was stopped by Christian missionaries during the 1830s. The island was given by Kamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de Paula Marín, and later returned to the monarchy. After the island was bought at auction by James Isaac Dowsett and sold to Caroline Jackson, it became the property of Dr. Seth Porter Ford by marriage and was renamed Ford Island. After Ford's death, his son sold the island to the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate and it was converted into a sugarcane plantation.
In 1916, part of Ford Island was sold to the U.S. Army for use by an aviation division in Hawaii, and by 1939 the island was taken over by the U.S. Navy as a station for battleship and submarine maintenance. From the 1910s to the 1940s, the island continued to grow as a strategic center of operations for the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Ocean. Ford Island was at the center of the attack on Pearl Harbor and on the U.S. Pacific Fleet by the Imperial Japanese fleet on December 7, 1941. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the island as one of the United States' most-endangered historic sites.
By the late 1990s, hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in real estate development and infrastructure on and around Ford Island, including a new bridge, the Admiral Clarey Bridge. The island continues to serve an active role in the Pacific, hosting military functions at the Pacific Warfighting Center and civilian functions at NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The island has been featured in films such as Tora! Tora! Tora! and Pearl Harbor and receives tourists from the U.S. and abroad at the USS Arizona memorial and the USS Missouri museum.
Geography
Ford Island is inside Pearl Harbor, South Oahu of the Hawaiian Islands. Pearl Harbor is divided into three large bodies of water: the West Loch, Middle Loch and East Loch, with Ford Island in the center of the East Loch. It is long and wide, and was enlarged from between 1930 and 1940 with landfill dredged from the surrounding harbor. The land is a relatively flat plain rising from above mean water level, and slopes toward Pearl Harbor. It connects to the larger island of Oahu, surrounding Pearl Harbor, via a bridge at its northern tip that crosses east to Halawa Landing.The island's soil is composed primarily of volcanic material, lagoonal deposits and coralline debris, with silty sand from the dredging. Its volcanic material is Aeolian ash, weathered tuff and basalt. Ford Island proper is a coral outcrop. There are two smaller islets near the island: Mokunui and Mokuiki.
Contamination
In 1991, the Navy discovered nine metals, two semi-volatile organic compounds and a polychlorinated biphenyl in Ford Island's soil, groundwater and marine sediment. Suspected sources were nine fuel tanks on the east-central side of the island, a landfill on the southwestern shore and ordnance bunkers on the northeastern side. An investigation suggested covering the contaminated areas with clean soil. In 1994, the Navy considered removing the contaminated soil and installed six wells to monitor groundwater, but decided to follow the original recommendation in 1995 and capped the contaminated soil with topsoil and erosion-resistant vegetation. The containment system was completed in 1996.Flora and fauna
The wildlife on Ford Island is likely very similar to that on Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Wildlife is sparse and dominated by invasive species such as the house mouse, mongoose, brown rat, black rat, house sparrow, Java sparrow and common mynah. An endangered owl, the endemic pueo, has been seen hunting on the island. Nearly all the plant life on the island is non-native, including edible cacti from California introduced in the late 1700s by Francisco de Paula Marín. The island's harbor was important to ancient Hawaiians for its ample supply of fish, including mullet, milkfish and Hawaiian anchovy. The National Park Service oversees and administers the Pearl Harbor National Memorial sites at Pearl Harbor and Ford Island.History
Ancient Hawaiians
s called the island Mokuumeume, after the ceremony held during the Makahiki festival for married couples who were having difficulty conceiving children. In the Hawaiian language the word moku means to cut or sever in two, as well as an island or inlet. The word ume means to draw, attract or entice and was used to name the ceremony for the common people. Hawaii historian Herb Kawainui Kāne considered ume to be a courtship game. Those selected for ume would sing around a large bonfire while a tribal leader with a maile chanted, touching individual men and women. Those who were touched would find a secluded part of the island to have sex. Husbands and wives were not paired, and jealousy was discouraged. Children born of these unions were considered children of the husband, not the biological father. By 1830, this activity was forbidden by Christian missionaries.The native Hawaiian people of the area were called Ke Awalau o Puuloa. They used the island to cultivate watermelon and to harvest pili grass for the construction of thatched roofs. According to Hawaiian legend, the goddess Kaʻahupahau killed a girl on the island; remorseful, she then proclaimed a law forbidding further killing. Kaahupa-hau's brother Kahiuka was said to live in an underwater cavern off Ford Island with Kanekuaana, a giant water lizard which supplied food to the people of ʻEwa Beach.
Kamehamehas and 18th-century settlers
Although no historical records provide an exact date, researchers at the Hawaiian Historical Society believe that the island was given to Francisco de Paula Marín on February 9, 1818, and later named after him for his assistance in providing weapons used by Kamehameha I to conquer the island of Oahu. However, Marín wrote in an 1809 journal entry that he was given the island and its adjacent fishing waters as early as 1791. He used the land to raise sheep, hogs, goats and rabbits as provisions for ships, and grew plants and vegetables which he had imported.In 1825, Admiral George Byron, the 7th Baron Byron arrived, commanding, to return the remains of Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu after their deaths in England of Measles. While on Oahu, he would map the Pearl River. The ship's naturalist, Andrew Bloxam, spent time on Ford Island hunting rabbits and wild ducks; its surveyor, Lieutenant Charles Robert Malden, called it Rabbits Island. In 1826, Hiram Paulding became the first American naval officer to visit the island. Marín's ownership claim to the island was cloudy; Hawaiians generally refused to recognize land ownership by foreigners. Kamehameha II believed that the island had been loaned to Marín and by the 1850s the island was split between Kamehameha IV—who purchased —and High Chiefess Kekauōnohi, granddaughter of Kamehameha I, who was awarded in the Great Māhele. On August 28, 1865, the island was bought at public auction for $1,040 by James I. Dowsett, who sold it to Caroline Jackson for $1 on December 28.
Dr. Seth Porter Ford arrived in 1851 from Boston, and practiced medicine at the U.S. Seamen's Hospital. Ford married Caroline Jackson in June 1866, taking control of the island and changing its name from Marín Island to Ford Island. When Ford died in 1866, it was transferred to his son, Seth Porter Ford, Jr. The island was managed by Sanford B. Dole on behalf of Ford's minor children until Ford, Jr. came of age and sold the island in 1891 to the John Papa ʻĪʻī land trust.
Sugar reciprocity
Sugar had been a major export from Hawaii since Captain James Cook's arrival in 1778. During the 1850s, the U.S. import tariff on sugar from Hawaii was much higher than the import tariffs Hawaiians were charging the U.S., and Kamehameha III sought reciprocity.As early as 1873, a United States military commission recommended attempting to obtain Ford Island in exchange for the tax-free importation of sugar to the U.S. At that time Major General John Schofield, U.S. commander of the military division of the Pacific, and Brevet Brigadier General Burton S. Alexander arrived in Hawaii to ascertain its defensive capabilities. U.S. control of Hawaii was considered vital for the defense of the west coast of the United States, and they were especially interested in Pu'uloa, Pearl Harbor. The sale of one of Hawaii's harbors was proposed by Charles Reed Bishop, a foreigner who had married into the Kamehameha family, had risen in the government to be Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and owned a country home near Pu'uloa. He showed the two U.S. officers around the lochs, although his wife, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, privately disapproved of selling Hawaiian lands. As monarch, William Charles Lunalilo, was content to let Bishop run almost all business affairs but the ceding of lands would become unpopular with the native Hawaiians. Many islanders thought that all the islands, rather than just Pearl Harbor, might be lost and opposed any cession of land. By November 1873, Lunalilo canceled negotiations and returned to drinking, against his doctor's advice; his health declined swiftly, and he died on February 3, 1874.
Lunalilo left no heirs. The legislature was empowered by the constitution to elect the monarch in these instances and chose David Kalākaua as the next monarch. The new ruler was pressured by the U.S. government to surrender Pearl Harbor to the Navy. Kalākaua was concerned that this would lead to annexation by the U.S. and to the contravening of the traditions of the Hawaiian people, who believed that the land was fertile, sacred, and not for sale to anyone. In 1875, the United States Congress agreed to seven years of reciprocity in exchange for Ford Island. At the end of the seven-year reciprocity agreement, the United States showed little interest in renewal.
On January 20, 1887, the United States began leasing Pearl Harbor. Shortly afterwards, a group of mostly non-Hawaiians calling themselves the Hawaiian Patriotic League began the Rebellion of 1887. They drafted their own constitution on July 6, 1887. The new constitution was written by Lorrin Thurston, the Hawaiian Minister of the Interior who used the Hawaiian militia as threat against Kalākaua. Kalākaua was forced to dismiss his cabinet ministers and sign a new constitution which greatly lessened his power. It would become known as the "Bayonet Constitution" due to the force used.
With support from California, Kalākaua again approached Congress. When the United States still seemed uninterested in reciprocity, he threatened to forge more favorable export agreements with Australia or New Zealand. Congress feared that a treaty between Hawaii and Australia or New Zealand would result in annexation by one of those countries instead of the United States. Although Kalākaua was loath to give any foreign country land in Hawaii, he signed the treaty in September 1887.
The Oahu Sugar Company leased about from the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate to harvest sugar in 1899. The business was successful, and the company sublet land from Benjamin Dillingham on the Waipi'o peninsula to build a 12-roller mill and railroad. Sugarcane was grown and harvested on Ford Island with a network of aqueducts from freshwater reservoirs, transported to Waipio by barge and then by rail to the mills.
In 1902, the nearby estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop lost a crucial lawsuit brought by the United States to purchase land around Pearl Harbor for below its market value. Although the Bishop estate valued the land at $600 per acre, the United States was only willing to pay $30 per acre. A jury determined that the land would be sold to the United States at $75 per acre. Facing a similar lawsuit and interest in its land on Ford Island, the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate settled with the United States to deed twenty-five acres at no cost. In exchange, the U.S. dropped its suit for the entire island.
The military leased sections of the north and south sides of the island— for $3,000—from the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate to build gun batteries: Battery Boyd and Battery Henry Adair. In 1917, the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate agreed to sell part of the Island to the United States for construction of an airfield, despite the Oahu Sugar Company complaining in court that the sale would hurt their business.