“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

“The implication is that a small amount of knowledge can lead to overconfidence, leaping to invalid conclusions based on what you do know without taking into account the things that you don’t know. It’s contrasted with a large amount of knowledge, which would presumably lead one to be more cautious or to at least draw better conclusions.” Source: Quora.com

You can see this principle at work among many Hawaiian activists today.

Take the claims made about Royal Patents, land grants made during the Hawaiian monarchy.

Some activists appear to believe that once a Royal Patent was granted, it conveyed the property in perpetuity. A Royal Patent is the basis for the current occupation of site of the Coco Palms Hotel on Kauai.

Here’s one summary from the Garden Island Newspaper:

Mau-Espirito and his cousin, Kamuela Kapule O Kamehameha, say they have a royal patent called Palapala Sila Nui, which they say gives their family the rights to the land in perpetuity.

“Because my bloodline goes straight to Kaumualii, because Kamu’s bloodline goes straight to Kapule, we have vested rights and vested interests in this land that nobody can take away from us,” Mau-Espirito said. “Once a royal patent is made, it’s in that family’s name forever. All the kids in that bloodline will be able to come on this land.”

This belief that a Royal Patent gives the right to land in perpetuity is partially true. Only partially true because the same patent also includes the right for the owner to dispose of the land, to sell it, give it away, or otherwise transfer or assign it.

And a land patent would be granted to an individual, not to a family.

So the land remains “in the family’s name” only if the recipient of the original Royal Patent never transferred it to someone else, and the land was then handed down through inheritance within the family without being sold or transferred at any point.

In fact, modern land deeds contain a similar “perpetual” provision. For example, the deed for my own house says the right to the property was transferred “IN FEE SIMPLE, FOREVER.” The capitalization is in the original. However, it also grants “full powers to sell, convey, transfer, or otherwise dispose of….”

The idea of the perpetual land patent has provided fertile ground for con artists and frauds. Remember Mahealani Ventura-Oliver and her co-defendants, who were convicted of fraud and related offenses back in 2014?

…according to evidence produced in court, Ventura-Oliver and others were part of a group known as Ko Hawaii Pae Aina, the Registry and Hawaiiloa Foundation. Between 2008 and 2009, the group held weekly seminars on Maui, where Ventura-Oliver and others spoke about Hawaiian history and culture, and royal land patents. The evidence showed that, in return for the payment of a fee, the group offered to provide distressed homeowners with “bonds” and other documents that would pay off their mortgages and forestall collection efforts. The “bonds” purportedly directed the United States Treasury Department or the State of Hawaii Comptroller of the Currency to make payments on behalf of the homeowners….

At yesterday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Seabright said Ventura-Oliver portrayed herself as an expert in Hawaiian culture and history, and “sold herself as wanting to help Native Hawaiians.” The judge found that Ventura-Oliver actually knew that her program did not work but preyed on the vulnerabilities of her participants.

She is current serving her sentence in a federal facility in California, and is scheduled to be released in July 2019.

One question I have is this: Who is spreading the false belief that a Royal Patent lasts forever and allows a descendant of the original land recipient to state a claim on the property more than a century later, no matter what has transpired in the meantime? It’s obviously an attractive idea. My great-great-grandfather was granted about 16 acres in Hana back in the mid-19th century. According to the perpetual land grant theory, I would still have an interest in that property, presumably along with hundreds of “cousins” able to claim that common ancestor. Of course, anyone seeking to assert such a claim would find it a dead end.

Another Royal Patent was behind another land controversy when a group moved onto land owned by Kualoa Ranch and claimed they had title to several parcels originally granted to a distant ancestor. I wrote about this case back in 2015 (“Ian Lind: Land Dispute Goes Back to Hawaiian Kingdom Days“). Other land patent claims are more frivolous, such as the one involving a modern Royal Patent from one of the individuals claiming to represent the government of the “Hawaiian Kingdom” (see “Hawaii Monitor: Frivolous Claim Over Sovereignty Snags Homeowner“).

There can, of course, be valid historical property claims. But most of what you hear today about claims based on long-overlooked royal patents are legally baseless when examined closely.

And those claims of those occupying the Coco Palms property on Kauai? Check out Civil Beat’s latest story on the situation: “Coco Palms Developer Fights Back With Its Own Native Hawaiian Research.”