Founded in 1895, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) was an unincorporated, voluntary organization of sugar plantation owners in the Hawaiian Islands. Its objective was to promote the mutual benefits of its members and the development of the sugar industry in the islands. It conducted scientific studies and gathered accurate records about the sugar industry. The HSPA practiced paternalistic management. Plantation owners introduced welfare programs, sometimes out of concern for the workers, but often designed to suit their economic ends. Threats, coercion, and "divide and rule" tactics were employed, particularly to keep the plantation workers ethnically segregated.
The HSPA also actively campaigned to bring workers to Hawaii. For instance, they opened offices in Manila and Vigan, Ilocos Sur, to recruit Filipino workers and provide them free passage to Hawaii. Similarly, the HSPA became a powerful organization with tentacles reaching as far as Washington, D.C., where it successfully lobbied for legislation and labor and immigration policies beneficial to the sugar industry of Hawaii. On March 24, 1934, the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act (Philippine Independence Act), which reclassified all Filipinos living in the United States as aliens and restricted entry of laborers from the Philippines to 50 per year.
HSPA now operates under the name Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC). HSPA's and HARC's archives are kept at HARC's office.
A significant project undertaken by HSPA was to archive Hawaii's sugar company records. Between 1983-1994, archivists hired by HSPA received and processed records from dozens of sugar companies and related entities. The archival collection, now called the HSPA Plantation Archives, was donated to the University of Hawaii at Mānoa Library.
Famous quotes containing the words sugar and/or association:
“The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)