Ceded Lands? or Seized Lands!?!

The Myth of Ceded Lands and the State of Hawai`i’s
Claim to Perfect Title

In the recent Ceded lands hearing at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on February 25, 2009, Attorney General Mark Bennett repeatedly asserted in the hearings that the State of Hawai`i has perfect title to over one million acres of land that were transferred to the United States government upon annexation in 1898 and then transferred to the State of Hawai`i in 1959. This is an incorrect statement. This falsehood, however, is not based on arguments for or against the highly charged Hawaiian sovereignty movement; rather, it is a simple question to answer since ownership of land is not a matter of rhetoric but dependent on a sequence of deeds in a chain of title between the party granting title and the party receiving title. In fact, the term "perfect title" in real estate terms means “a title that is free of liens and legal questions as to ownership of the property. A requirement for the sale of real estate.”

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