Sunday, July 19, 2009
“Everything about it, the island is beautiful”: Olohega
by Larry Geller
(Thanks to Mike Reitz for pointer to this series)
Here’s a series of three YouTube videos originally produced in cooperation with TVNZ (New Zealand). The poster writes:
Olohega. A small, idyllic Pacific island north of Samoa and just south of Tokelau. Bought for a bottle of gin and 15 shillings an acre. Annexed to the United States. Its former inhabitants were evicted almost sixty years ago from their island and long to return.
The Wikipedia article has none of that. Reading it, you would think that the primary interest in the island is a spot for ham radio expeditions. It says nothing about the evictions.
The video explains why the US wants this island, and how it got signed away. Most of those evicted live right here in Hawaii.
If you live in Hawaii, have you heard of Olohega before? Check out the videos.
You can watch full screen by clicking the little box near the lower right of each video player.
More here. I bet you also didn’t know about the “American Guano Act of 1856 which asserted Washington ownership over a large number of islands including the three now-New Zealand Tokelau atolls.” I didn’t either. There is so much to learn.
Post a Comment
Requiring those Captcha codes at least temporarily, in the hopes that it quells the flood of comment spam I've been receiving.