He gives in to plantation settler advisers about the division of lands (called Mahele). This policy contributes to the rise and power of sugar plantations and initiates massive land dispossession, transferring lands from families and communities via the traditional land division system (ahupua’a) to foreign ownership, with claims made and fees paid for land titles. Native Hawaiians, unfamiliar with this foreign system, fail to make claims. By 1888, three-quarters of all arable land is controlled by non-Native Hawaiian settlers (Native Voices, "1848: Hawaiian monarch divides land; paves way for foreign ownership").