I was asked to provide some historical context to the ongoing horror of the wildfire that destroyed the town on Aug. 9.

I am not kamaʻāina to Lahaina or to Maui island, but our lāhui (nation) lives everywhere in this pae ʻāina, and what transpired on Maui, and not just in Lahaina, could happen to any of our communities, and so this is very much an expression of aloha between cousins.

The town of Lahaina is deeply connected to haole (American and European) economic imperialism and religious conversion that grew exponentially in Oceania through the 19th and 20th centuries.

A home away from home for whaling crews and their ships in the early 1800s, Lahaina was a focal point of tension between Aliʻi (chiefs) who tried to stem the contagion of venereal diseases and alcoholism that sailors brought ashore employing missionary inspired regulations, and other aliʻi who worked more cooperatively with haole merchants and were suspicious of missionary intentions.

The early kingdom’s seat of power in the 1820s was in Lahaina and it was there at Luaehu that Kamehameha III, instituted constitutional government in 1839 and set our nation on the path of modernizing its political and economic foundations in an attempt to coexist peacefully with global powers.

The Americans’ illegal and unwarranted seizure of our government and lands in 1898 ushered in the U.S. militarization of hundreds of thousands of acres throughout Hawaii, and an almost feudal control of Maui island by a handful of missionary descended sugar and pineapple plantation owners.

By the early 1960s, as sugar and pineapple faded, the emergence of colorful and historic towns like Lahaina as tourist destinations were emblematic of Hawaii’s shift to massive corporate tourism and land speculation, which has left the Kanaka Maoli (native people) with little political representation, many living without shelter, sufficient nutrition and adequate health care.

But Hawaii is home to our people as well as a magnet for investment and entertainment and so first and foremost is that this is a horrible tragedy that has likely killed hundreds of people, erased their livelihoods, destroying artifacts and buildings that are significant historical resources for Kanaka Maoli, and instantly adding to a houseless population that could suffer enormous hardship for years to come.

At the same time, we see in this tragedy the results of climate change driven by the same industrial economy that surged into the Pacific more than 250 years ago. The worst effects of climate change are maintained by the refusal of those industrial giants to restrain themselves despite decades of dire warning.

What is happening to us in Hawaii has already been demonstrated to hundreds of communities on other Pacific islands who have seen ocean rise inundate their homes and livelihoods and forced them to migrate, and there is much more of that to come.

The unwillingness of the wealthy nations to seriously deal with this means consigning hundreds of thousands of Oceanic people to a very uncertain future, although at least Native people are refusing to simply surrender, and are employing community organization, political advocacy and legal opposition to try and carve a way for people to manage the environmental changes that are upon us.

Lahaina Town is gone. But Lahaina is still there. May it be rebuilt, not as a tourist spot but a place for people to live, as Kanaka Maoli once lived.

With resources and will, Lahaina can very quickly be restored to productivity to be a place, again, for the people who once sang songs of praise and gratitude for their home beside the sea.

Kuʻu home, i ka ulu o ka niu
ʻo ka niu kū kilakila
Napenape mālie
(My home is surrounded by coconut trees
That stand majestically
In the gentle breeze)
—“Pua Mana,” composed by Irmgard Farden Aluli