The Trail They Left in the Clouds

An Archival Discovery by Mrs. Yvette

Some chapters of Black history are repeated so often that they have become familiar landmarks of their own. Others remain tucked away in old photographs, military records, handwritten letters, and places most people pass without ever knowing what happened there.

The Mauna Loa Trail in Hawaiʻi is one of those places.

Stretching across the volcanic landscape of Hawaiʻi Island, the trail climbs through hardened lava fields toward the summit of Mauna Loa. Visitors come to admire the mountain, photograph the clouds drifting across the dark volcanic slopes, and take in the Pacific sky spreading beyond the horizon.

What many of them do not know is that Black soldiers helped create the path beneath their feet.

The Buffalo Soldiers Arrive in Hawaiʻi

In 1913, members of the United States Army’s 25th Infantry Regiment arrived in Hawaiʻi. The regiment was made up of Black soldiers who belonged to the proud military tradition now remembered as the Buffalo Soldiers.

They served their country during a time when that same country continued to deny Black Americans equal rights. Even in uniform, they lived and worked under the restrictions of segregation and racial discrimination.

Two years after their arrival, soldiers from the 25th Infantry were given an extraordinary assignment.

In 1915, they were sent into the rugged volcanic terrain of Hawaiʻi Island to help construct a trail leading from the area near Kīlauea toward Mauna Loa. Working with picks, shovels, and hand tools, the soldiers cut a route through sharp lava rock, steep slopes, unpredictable weather, and difficult mountain conditions.

The work was physically demanding, yet the trail was completed with remarkable speed.

Their labor created greater access to the mountain for military personnel, scientists, researchers, and future visitors. The soldiers also helped build a shelter near the summit that could be used by those studying the volcano.

Black hands helped create a passage into the clouds.

Yet, like so many places shaped by Black labor, the trail became better known than the men who built it.

That is why historical landmarks must sometimes be viewed with more than a tourist’s eye. A beautiful landscape can also be a worksite. A hiking trail can also be a record. The ground itself can carry a history that was never properly marked.

Black Life in the Hawaiian Kingdom

The story of Black people in Hawaiʻi did not begin with the Buffalo Soldiers.

During the nineteenth century, Black sailors, craftsmen, laborers, and businessmen traveled across the Pacific aboard whaling vessels and merchant ships. Some remained in the Hawaiian Kingdom and established lives far beyond the racial boundaries imposed upon them in the United States.

One of the best-known early Black residents was Anthony D. Allen.

Born into slavery in New York, Allen eventually gained his freedom and settled in Hawaiʻi during the early 1800s. There, he became a respected businessman, landowner, and member of Hawaiian society.

His life challenges the narrow way Black history is often presented. Black people were not confined to Southern plantations or Northern cities. They crossed oceans, entered kingdoms, built businesses, purchased land, and created new lives in unfamiliar places.

Their presence in Hawaiʻi reminds us that Black history has always been larger than the borders America attempted to place around it.

Two Histories That Must Be Told With Care

Any discussion of Black history in Hawaiʻi must also honor the Kanaka Maoli, the Indigenous Native Hawaiian people whose culture, land, and sovereign kingdom existed long before Hawaiʻi became part of the United States.

Native Hawaiian history and Black American history are not interchangeable. They are separate histories shaped by different cultures, experiences, and struggles.

Still, there are places where those histories meet.

Both communities have endured displacement, cultural erasure, political domination, and the struggle to preserve their identities in the face of American expansion. Both histories show what happens when powerful institutions attempt to rename, control, or forget a people.

Recognizing those connections does not require blending the two stories together. It requires telling each one honestly and respectfully.

What the Trail Still Carries

Standing along the Mauna Loa Trail, I would not see only a pathway carved through volcanic stone.

I would see evidence.

Evidence that Black soldiers were present.

Evidence that their labor mattered.

Evidence that even when history failed to place their names on a monument, the land continued to carry their footsteps.

Some landmarks rise above cities in bronze and marble. Others are marked by plaques, statues, and carefully preserved buildings.

But some landmarks are quieter.

Sometimes a historic place is a road, a cabin, a trail, or a stretch of land whose full story has been waiting for someone to ask the right questions:

Who built this?

Who lived here?

Who benefited from their labor?

And whose name was left out?

That is the purpose of archival work.

We are not rewriting history.

We are returning the missing pages.

— Mrs. YvetteKeeper of Memory, Solari Archive