Hawaii's Forbidden Island Has Stayed Private for a Century
Niihau, 17 miles from Kauai, has had no outside visitors since 1915 — by the family's choice.
Elizabeth Sinclair bought Niihau from King Kamehameha V in 1864 for $10,000 in gold. The 70-square-mile island, the smallest inhabited island in the Hawaiian chain, has remained in her family — now the Robinsons — ever since. Outside visitors have been almost entirely excluded since 1915, when Elizabeth's daughter-in-law decided the arrangement wasn't working.
About 70 people live there permanently, nearly all of them Native Hawaiian. The island has no paved roads, no stores, no indoor plumbing in most homes, and no internet access for residents. It has a school that teaches in Hawaiian, and that language remains the primary spoken language of the community — one of the few places on earth where it is still a first language for children.
The Robinsons have defended the policy on cultural preservation grounds: Niihau is, they argue, the last place where pre-contact Hawaiian culture survives at any scale. Critics have noted that the policy also gives the family near-total control over the island's roughly 70 residents, who cannot easily leave without giving up their homes and community.
The US Navy used the island as a restricted airspace zone after Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, a Japanese Zero made an emergency landing on Niihau after the attack. In the confusion that followed — the Niihauans didn't know about Pearl Harbor until several days later — one resident was killed before the pilot was overpowered. The incident became known as the Niihau Incident.
Short helicopter tours are now permitted to one beach on the uninhabited southwest coast, keeping the main population center off-limits.
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