The Overthrow of Hawaii – ALOHA
Read Time:3 Minute, 21 Second
Until the 1890s, Hawaii was a sovereign state, recognized by all the major powers of the day. The United States, UK, Germany, France and Japan all acknowledged the independence of Hawaii. Their history became more turbulent after Europeans and Americans started to move into the islands. After King David was forced to sign the Constitution of 1887, lovers of Hawaiian independence began to get concerned.
Queen Liliuokalani, the last Monarch of Hawaii
When King David died in 1891, his sister Lili’uokalani inherited the throne. She was the last monarch and only Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Shortly after taking the throne, she received petitions from the two main political parties of the day, Hui Kala’aina and the National Reform Party.
Queen Lilioukalani was being asked to consider the rights of all Hawaiians, who had been of stripped of participation after The Bayonet Constitution of 1897 was forced upon her brother, King David. Believing she had enough support, she moved to draft a new constitution that would restore the veto power to the monarchy and voting rights to economically disenfranchised native Hawaiians. The effort to draft a new constitution never came to fruition, and indeed it was the cause of the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
In the 1850s sugarcane processing began to transform the landscape of Hawaii. By the 1880s five companies dominated the industry.They became known as The Big Five. They were: Castle and Cooke; Alexander and Baldwin; C. Brewer and Co; Amfac (Hawaii) and Theo H. Davies and Co. With their success came political influence and land ownership. They did not compete with each other but sat on each others boards and plotted to keep the prices for their goods and service high, they were also involved in banking and shipping. They were represented in the Hawaiian Legislature and laws were passed for their benefit, by 1880, Europeans and Americans owned 80% of the land and native farmers were forced off their land.
The Committee of Safety was a 13-member council, led by Sanford B. Dole (a cousin of the founder of Dole Food) and Lorrin A. Thurston. It represented the business interests of the Big Five, their goal was annexation to the United States and the removal of the monarchy. When they got wind of the Queen’s intentions they mobilized the Honolulu Rifles, a mainly white militia. They were formed by the Missionary Party, later the Reform Party, who were represented by the Committee of Safety. The Queen’s Palace Guard were at the ready to protect her. Armed conflict looked inevitable.
John L. Stevens was the US State Department representative to the Kingdom of Hawaii and he stepped into the fray. In league with Dole and Thurston, he decided that American interests and innocent American lives were in danger and he called out the US Marines from USS Boston. No shots were fired, within hours the Monarchy was overthrown.
A new government was formed, with Sanford B. Dole named as president. Stevens immediately recognized Hawaii as a protectorate on behalf of the United States and representatives were sent to Washington to lobby for annexation. New president Grover Cleveland sent a message to the Senate, canceling all further talk of annexation. He then sent a commissioner to the Islands to assess the situation, who reported that the newly-established protectorate be withdrawn as unnecessary. Envoy Stevens immediately resigned and returned to his home in Maine, where he spent his time in public denunciation of the new administration’s Hawaiian policy.
The initial Blount Report commissioned by President Cleveland was submitted on July 17, 1893 and found Stevens guilty of inappropriate conduct in support of the conspiracy to overthrow Hawaii’s Queen. Answering the charges from his Augusta, Maine, home, Stevens supplied his rationale: the Queen was immoral, and so needed to be dethroned. The later Morgan investigation conducted by the US Congress which led to the Morgan Report on February 26, 1894 found Stevens and other U.S. agents not guilty, after which Cleveland abandoned the matter.
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OSO – Everybody has to toil at sometime in their life, but not everyone who toils has everything they hold dear taken away from them by force of arms or, sometimes by force of charms.
Holte,
Let me join the others in thanking you for these posts on Hawaii. In our ignorance many of us imagine carefree natives singing happily as they smile and work in the canefields much like slaves here happily toiled in the cottonfields before skipping home to sit around the fireplace and thank God for their benefactors.
TOM – Isn’t it amazing how things do not change. Things just keep on rolling along, just like the Mississippi, inexorably to the the sea.
The more things change, the more they remain the same…
The 5 biggest sugarcane processing companies in the 1800s “did not compete with each other but sat on each others boards and plotted to keep the prices for their goods and service high, they were also involved in banking and shipping. They were represented in the Hawaiian Legislature and laws were passed for their benefit.”
Sounds like typical corporate behavior today. Remember now, Hawaiians hate us for our freedom.
Holte I agree with you there!
well done, Holte! In the vernacular of the day, some real old fashioned American Carpet Bagging. And worse. Aloha.
Thanks Gwendolyn – I think those guys were as bad or worse than any carpetbagger in reconstruction.
Very true Bill. I doubt that there are many people who know Hawaii’s true history and the role we played. I am loving this story however, then again I am a lover of history. Thanks Holte!
History lovers of the world unite.
Really interesting material Holte. It seems that we weren’t satisfied with just running over the the Native Americans to take their land we also went plundering looking for other peoples to run over in the interests of profit. These are the things that get dressed up in new clothes in the history classes in our schools so know one knows our greedy past.
LAZER – It’s funny how you stumble across stuff, with all the BS about Obama’s birth certificate, I started reading about Hawaii and thought Hmm. I wonder how many people know this?