1874 foreclosure law took heavy farm toll When historian Robert
Stauffer started sifting through thousands of pages of old
documents that a trust company clerk had saved from the trash
bin, he knew he had come across an information gold mine. It
just wasn't clear at the time how valuable the find would be.
It's clear now. Based on those documents, many of them written
in Hawaiian, Stauffer produced ground-breaking research that is
detailed in his new book, "Kahana: How the Land Was Lost." The
book basically exposes the major role that an obscure but
controversial mortgage foreclosure law played in the widespread
loss of lands by native Hawaiians in the late 1800s and early
1900s. DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM| Ron Johnson and
Robert Stauffer enjoy the view in Kahana Valley. Ron hand-
cleared the area below to raise taro as did his family before
him. Stauffer's new book uses previously unexamined documents to
detail how an 1874 state law facilitated the loss of native
Hawaiian land. It's a state law that s