Hawai’i is Not a Legally Valid State, But Almost No One Wants to Push the Matter for a Variety of Reasons
As recently as 20 years ago, schools still taught children the idea that colonists' treatment of Native Americans was cordial and nice (as opposed to racist and genocidal) by conveniently ignoring any event that could not be twisted to fit that idyllic idea.
So today we're going to talk about Hawaii: Because even when religious colonial missions were being portrayed as "helpful, kind, and raising the natives up from their terrible existence", no one ever talked about Hawaii.
We’re also going to go through the history of the place and its people first, for reasons that will become clear later. Yes, this is important, I promise, and it’s still going to be much briefer than it might need to be.
Hawai’i as a series of landmasses is formed by an oceanic plate hotspot, which is a superheated area under the crust, that causes things like volcanoes as the plates move around above it. This is the source of the almost lazily flowing lava that most people think of when they think about island volcanoes, due to the makeup of the oceanic plate melting into magma that is less sticky, and therefore more inclined to act like pancake batter than cookie dough.
The slow pace of the lava, and the minerals and nutrients it brings with it, mean that the land in Hawai’i is very fertile, and the lava flows easier to avoid. Though recent events have shown that it is still extremely dangerous and that proper precautions still need to be observed.
Polynesian navigators reached the island chain now known as Hawai’i somewhere around 1500 years ago (the exact century is heavily disputed it seems), formed multiple tribes that traded and warred between each other on a consistent (and in the case of war, constant) basis; and then consolidated under a previously termed “lesser chief” named Kamehameha (cue the Dragonball quotes) in the course of nearly three decades of battles and general conquesting.
Soon-’King’ Kamehameha took advantage of recent trade (starting in 1786, but really starting with Cook’s landing in 1778) with foreign ships and their advanced weaponry to overcome his rivals in all but a few cases, and compromised with those he could not defeat. He took the land and duties of rival chiefs away, and spread the lands for his allies over multiple islands, to complicate raising any revolutions against him. And he turned the culture of the islands from a general sense of ‘mutual obligation’, to one where exploitation of heavy taxation and labour was more the norm, through policies and the breaking up of traditional systems and tribal ties. Also a lot of slow buildup of commercialization to facilitate trade with the foreigners.
Gee, I wonder where he got those ideas from all of a sudden; not to say that native Hawai’ians had no similar systems before. Many largely continuous political structures were already in place before foreigners ever came to the islands, but apparently Kamehameha’s changes were still far beyond what most natives had come to expect.
Multiple ocean powers including ‘Murica, Russia, and Spain attempted to colonize, ally with, or gain as a protectorate the Hawai’ian Islands, and credit is given to Kamehameha for maneuvering around it all without entangling the country further than necessary.
Traders from many countries came to the ports that Hawai’i offered, for sandalwood and salt, and food and water for their long voyages across the Pacific Ocean to Eastern and South Eastern Asia. Kamehameha generally welcomed their goods and money, while allocating much of the profits to himself and his subordinate chiefs. O’ahu had the most preferable port for natural protection, an easy way in through treacherous reefs, and easily accessible clean water, and so the port of Honolulu became the largest and most profitable harbor in the Islands.
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As noted, up to and during Kamehameha’s reign, Hawaiians had followed a notably caste-like system of social hierarchy, mixed with various sexist ideas and mysticisms. Chiefs (ali’i) were at the top, followed by priests, common people, and then outcasts in addition to slaves from other tribes.
Women were disallowed from entering certain governmental and religious buildings for fear that they would inherently steal some magical energy from them, and no one was allowed to step on the shadow of a chief, for fear of a similar effect. The highest (though not necessarily most feared) gods were male. Women were disallowed from eating certain foods for various reasons, and could not eat at the same table as men.
The system was referred to as the “kapu” system, and participants in it could not hope to move upward, only downward to the outcast level. Common people worked for the ‘ali’i’ as labourers, and all taxes went through local ali’i to whoever was in charge.
It has been described as very close in nature to the serfdom system of the Dark Ages of Europe, though given that these descriptions often appear to be from the view of European traders, I suspect at least some bias is at play.
When Kamehameha died in 1819, his named heir of a son had many of the same issues that are described as plaguing European noble youngins, namely a fondness for drinking, feasting, and general party behavior. While it is unknown as to whether this was an actual order of Kamehameha’s, the conquering king’s favorite wife Ka’ahumanu (who was one of five, and not the mother of the son who was crowned next) announced that she had been named regent due to worries about the son Liholiho’s fitness for ruling. This was possibly the first time in centuries that a woman was in charge of areas of government in the islands.
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This sudden situation of women in power, and the alliance they formed between Ka’ahumanu, Liholiho’s mother Keopuolani, the current prime minister/treasurer Kalanimoku, and (cue shonen introduction) “the last high priest of the Pa'ao lineage” Hewahewa; set the stage for a radical change in the social hierarchy of the Hawai’ian people. For various reasons, some fairly obvious but most only speculatory, of their own; each of the people in this alliance wanted to break from the kapu system entirely. And due to both the partying lifestyle he followed, and general indecision and potentially a lack of confidence in his own suitability to rule, Liholiho was inclined to go along with his mother and step mother. After about six months worth of delay by partying in a far-enough-away district to avoid any decision making.
The people of the islands, as well, were seeing foreigners break the kapu system on a constant basis, without punishment from the capricious gods the islanders worshiped, while scoffing at the majority of the traditions the islanders held. This had started a trend of nation-wide skepticism in both the gods, and the system they were purported to enforce.
So when Ka’ahumanu organized a feast to welcome Liholiho back to Kailua, they also executed a plan for Liholiho to make a public statement via action. The feast was set up as it normally would be, with tables separated by sex, and various foreigners invited along with the natives. Liholiho proceeded to sit at the women’s table and order that normally prohibited food be brought to it, causing multiple chiefs present at the feast to do the same.
This apparently caused a stir amoung the people:
An indescribable scene ensued. "The tabu is broken! The tabu is broken!" passed from lip to lip, swelling louder and louder as it went, until it reached beyond the pavilion. There it was taken up in shouts by the multitude, and was soon wafted on the winds to the remotest corners of Kona. Feasts were at once provided, and men and women ate together indiscriminately. . . . At the conclusion of the royal feast a still greater surprise bewildered the people. "We have made a bold beginning," said Hewahewa to the king. . . "but the gods and heiaus cannot survive the death of the tabu." "Then let them perish with it!" exclaimed Liholiho, now nerved to desperation at what he had done. "If the gods can punish, we have done too much already to hope for grace. They can but kill, and we will test their powers by inviting the full measure of their wrath." -David Kalakaua, Legends and Myths of Hawaii, pp. 437-38
An order was sent out to destroy the religious paraphernalia around the kingdom, and the high priest proceeded to burn the nearest heiau or temple. The people themselves rushed out to burn whatever they could find of the gods that had supported their governmental system with promised terror and pain. The religion the native peoples had followed for centuries was mostly eradicated that day, in terms of the hold it had enjoyed over their lives.
However, Kamehameha had given Liholiho’s cousin Kekuaokalani the duty of watching over the temples and the gods they worshiped before the king’s death; and both Kekuaokalani and many priests and “middle chiefs” under the old system opposed the disposal of it.
This resulted in yet another battle, but Liholiho’s forces, who were armed with European and American weaponry, won the day; and in so doing proved that the gods would not intervene to protect their priesthood and chiefs, much less deliver punishment on those who would oppose either group.
Remnants of the religion stuck around for years after, partially encouraged by the former priesthood, and many caches of religious idols and other items were found to have been secreted in various remote locations, in the hope that one day a counter revolution would occur and bring them back into wide use, but this does not seem to have ever occurred.
However, some amount of lower pantheon gods, and household and familial guardian spirits, were still worshiped in many families. They had not been closely tied to the state religion if at all, and were often not even of the same general idea of how gods worked, so there wasn’t a large amount of pressure to remove them. Christianity, as well, did not really replace the state religion of Hawai’i. In fact most of the native inhabitants seemed to look upon it as simply “something to do” rather than anything to truly worship. However they were used to religious instruction in their daily lives, and so often went to church like it was the old times again.
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The entire affair is very similar in process, if not result, to the story of the first and only female Emperor of China, but that’s another paper entirely. Still recommend that people look it up though.
Also there’s a guy named Malcolm Webb, whom the NPS cite heavily, who argues that the severe changes and events noted here had far more basis behind them than two royal women, a treasurer/prime minister, and a high priest being absolutely done with the current restrictive system. Again, different paper, but the reference is apparently -Webb, "Abolition of the Taboo System in Hawaii"- if interest is peaked, as well as -Davenport, "Hawaiian Cultural Revolution"-.
What followed (and occasionally occurred simultaneously) was a welter of events, from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sending missionaries to
“convert and ‘civilize’ the people by introducing churches, schools, and the press”, to whalers suddenly vastly increasing the need for supplies in the harbors and commercial and governmental interests to that trend. The missionaries had been told to
“open your hearts wide and set your mark high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches and of raising up the whole people to an elevated state of Christian civilization.” So the usual for Christianity, as the Native Americans showed.
The ‘Murican missionaries instituted more burnings of old idols in a practice apparently common to New England ministers in particular, and laws against anything deemed sinful, which included much of Hawai’ian culture. They built churches and converted the royal family, and tried to drive off or prevent the landing of any other religious body that came ashore.
They actually did manage to convert most of the country by the 1830s, and only had a small revival in 1837 to tie things off. Soon the missionary stations were run by native islanders instead of ‘Murican religious officials, if not closed entirely.
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Surprisingly enough, these selfsame missionaries were partial architects of the written Hawai’ian language and general literacy; producing an alphabet, textbooks, Hawai’ian bibles, schools across the islands, and contributing to the creation of two newspapers in 1834. Most of the islanders could read and write by 1837, resulting in greater understanding of value in trade, and therefore far less scamming by foreign merchants; as well as several new methods of making goods and tools.
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1839 and 1840 saw laws that advocated religious tolerance, human rights, government-based schooling, and the construction of a legislative system of government. The new government was slowly shaped to heavily resemble the ‘Murican one, with a cabinet of ministers, a civil service, independent judiciary, and the three branches of lawmaking. Along with revision of a “land-tenure system” that was apparently (and predictably) used to give far more land rights to foreigners than natives.
The practice of overtaxation, despite the changes in religion and government, continued to assail the islanders, with the majority being too poor to afford most of the food they grew for their chiefs, even before the large-scale development of plantations after 1830. Even then, food was growing scarcer due to selling it to trade ships for voyages, labourers moving to the cities from the small farming villages, horses and cattle being introduced and destroying the local landscape, and the introduction of not working on the sabbath.
The native population had been in swift decline for decades, not only because of the now-past battles for control, but also because of the various diseases that the foreigners had brought with them, decimating the population.
“By Swanson’s estimates, 1-in-17 Native Hawaiians had died within two years of Cook’s arrival. By 1800, the population had declined by 48% since Cook set foot on Hawaii. By 1820, it had declined 71%; by 1840, it declined 84%.” The native people were simply not numerous enough to keep up with the demands of the labour market for food, much less the sandalwood that was Hawai’i’s main export otherwise. And the harvesting of said sandalwood was not only deforesting the islands, but also led to overwork and often death of the commoner natives made to harvest and transport it, all to fund the excesses of the chiefs they still worked under.
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This led to whaling becoming the next economic boom, as well as an influx of indentured workers from poor countries around the world, most of whom could not read and did not speak the same language. Later, some of these foreign workers and their lack of education were used to ‘validate’ the takeover of Hawai’i by plantation owners, by forcing them to vote for the new government despite not knowing what they were voting for.
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The 1860s saw a constitution and convention, as well as a sharp drop from the profits of whaling, as both the markets and the supply ran dry. ‘Murica was in the middle of their Civil War, and was buying sugar at a massive rate, and so that became the newest backbone of the Hawai’ian economy. In 1859, the fourth King of Hawai’i and his Queen Emma established Queen’s Hospital under the ‘Act to Provide Hospitals for the Relief of Hawaiians in the city of Honolulu and other Localities’.
The Hawaiian government appropriated funding for the maintenance of the hospital. “Native Hawaiians are admitted free of charge, while foreigners pay from seventy-five cents to two dollars a day, according to accommodations and attendance (Henry Witney, The Tourists’ Guide through the Hawaiian Islands Descriptive of Their Scenes and Scenery (1895), p. 21).” It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 1960’s that the Nordic countries followed what the Hawaiian Kingdom had already done with universal health care.
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And here is where I leave off with the National Park Service’s source (which I only stayed with for so long because they were the only verbose source on most of this previous information), because they suddenly become shockingly less verbose around the reigns of Kings Lunalilo (the sixth king) and Kalakaua (the seventh), and Queen Lili’uokalani (the eighth), during the 1870s – 90s. And I think I can see exactly why, given what happens when the story is picked up again by non-federal recountings.
---THE CHARACTER OF THE HAWAI’IAN MONARCHY
Lunalilo admittedly only ruled for a year before keeling over, and doesn’t come up often, if at all, in most recountings of Hawai’i’s history that I’ve found. But he was also Hawai’i’s first elected monarch, though that appears to partially be due to being related to Kamehameha as a grandnephew. However, there was also an “unofficial” country-wide vote held, since the constitution said that the legislature should be the ones to elect a new monarch if no heir was named, and Lunalilo won by a massive majority before being unanimously elected by said legislature.
He composed the first national anthem of his country in fifteen minutes, as it was for a contest. It remained the national anthem for six years. He wanted to remove property qualifications for voting; wanted to make the currently singular legislative house, into a bicameral one again, which was a change that had been brought about by the previous king; wanted to force all future kings to add an explanation to any veto they made; and he wanted to bring Hawai’i back from the current economic depression that had come about as a result of slow loss of the whaling industry.
Apparently a mutiny of army members occurred during Lunalilo’s tenure, and he managed to convince them to cease hostilities; then he disbanded most of the military, until his successor built them up again. With a case of alcoholism that may have led to his contracting tuberculosis and subsequent death, this guy’s story was practically made for an award winning movie about the tragedies of his life and his country. Buuuut he’s not European or ‘Murican, so that’s unlikely to come out of Hollywood any time soon, if ever.
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Kalakaua was the more conservative option to Lunalilo, and the people were mad enough at his election to violently protest against their legislature in the event of Lunalilo’s death, apparently wishing for Queen Emma (the wife of the fourth king) to be installed instead. But he was crowned King in 1874, and he proceeded to reign for almost 20 years; as well as reinstituted the dancing of the hula, which had been banned since the early days of missionary influence; created government funding to send students to other parts of the world to study; rebuilt the Iolani Palace; and commissioned a statue of the first Hawai’ian King Kamehameha.
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However, what Kalakaua is most known for is the time when a bunch of white men decided to put a gun to his head, and force him to rewrite the country’s constitution in their favour, and theirs alone.
A group made up of; William L. Green, Godfrey Brown, Lorrin A. Thurston, and Clarence W. Ashford, amoung uncounted (literally, no one seems to have records of how many, but possibly around ten to twenty?) others, actively conspired to take over the government of the country. They bought and issued munitions to conspiracy members, and acted under the idea that the “native [was] unfit for government and his power must be curtailed.” Most of the groups’ members worked on or owned sugar plantations on the islands, and may have been partially driven by threats of high tariffs on said sugar from the US (despite the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875), as well as some enshrinement of worker’s rights in the previous constitution.
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The only reason I even have those names mentioned above, is because those particular conspirators also demanded that they be made top officials in various governmental positions, so that they could use the king as a figurehead while getting things to go even more their way. Which is an interesting comparison to now in the US, where it seems to be far more common to bribe someone else to be in a governmental position that does things you want. Presumably they just didn’t think they’d suffer any consequences for their actions, and due to the decisions of others later, they indeed seem to have suffered none.
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What were the changes exactly? Well the currently occupied Hawai’ian Kingdom’s website has a pdf of the Bayonet Constitution, despite being unable to collect taxes and therefore fund large amounts of record keeping; but the United States of America, one of the largest economies on the planet, hasn’t seen fit to record it anywhere. So let’s go through it just to see why everyone who talks about it, says that it removed the rights of native islanders.
- The Bayonet Constitution largely seems to follow the course of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights initially, though it emphasizes a right to “acquiring, possessing, and protecting property” in the very first clause for some reason.
- It also bans slavery and involuntary servitude, BUT with the exception that criminals are fine to be forced to work.
- It has an article that talks about “a right to be protected in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property…. And therefore he shall be obliged to contribute his proportional share to the expense of this protection…” which is weird, and sounds very abusable.
- One article is simply “No retroactive laws shall ever be enacted.” for some reason.
- The legislature is allowed to quarter soldiers in people’s houses, but no one else is.
- Electors are immune to arrest on election days except “in case of treason, felony, or breach of the peace”.
- Government contractors and employees aren’t allowed to join the legislature and vice versa, but legislative members can be elected to the Cabinet.
- There’s an article locking the monarchy to only Kalakaua or Lili’uokalani, or their children, with males going first in the line of succession. And in that same article, if an heir isn’t around or cannot be named within a monarch's lifetime, the Cabinet chooses a native chief instead.
- There’s a part about how marriage of people in the royal line has to now be approved by the current monarch, or the offender loses the right to the throne.
- Kalakaua was forced by an article to uphold this forced constitution. No one was allowed to hold the throne who was convicted of an “infamous crime”, or insane or neurologically divergent.
- They kept the idea of the King being the commander of the armed forces, but then stripped it of any power by requiring the legislature's approval on everything.
- The King couldn’t pardon anyone without the consent of his now gun pointing, conspirator filled Cabinet. If the King died and left an heir under the age of eighteen, and left no will, the legislature could pick and choose who would be Regents for the underage monarch. “No act of the King shall have any effect unless it be countersigned by a member of the Cabinet”.
- The Cabinet each had a vote in the legislature despite being part of the Executive Branch.
- The legislature swore to uphold the constitution, and only that, as well as being the only ones allowed to amend it. Only the legislature could judge its own members “qualifications”, and it made its own rules as to how to operate.
- There was a previous very early article about absolute free speech, but that is then bellied by Article 51, which allows the legislature to imprison people who “publish insulting comments” about them, or assault them (gee I wonder why they would do that after an insurrection) or tried to “rescue” someone imprisoned for such. The legislature could not have anything said in a speech or debate in session, held against them in court.
- There was a qualifier to be a “Noble”, who was one of the only people who could be part of the legislature at all, of owning taxable property of 3 thousand dollars (90.5k today) or more, or having an income of six hundred dollars (3.2k) or more per year. Said Nobles could impeach any Representative, the only other way to enter the legislature, with impunity.
- Only male island residents could vote, and only if they met the qualifications for Nobility, i.e. the large amount of personal wealth, as well as having to be able to read, and having taken an oath to support this fake constitution. You could avoid the requirement to be able to read by registering with the first vote to take place after this fake constitution was signed, but you could not get around the wealth requirement.
- Representatives had to match around 3/4s of the wealth required to be a Noble, to be eligible. The wealth requirements could be increased, but not decreased.
- The legislature could remove Supreme Court Justices more or less whenever they wanted. If a Supreme Court justice was impeached, the King (or more likely the Cabinet, who were again, in the legislature as well) was to commission a new judge to run the trial. The King (read, the Cabinet) appointed Supreme Court justices.
- You could not vote if you had been convicted of what appears to be every crime the conspirators could think of, unless the King, which meant the Cabinet, which meant the conspirators, pardoned you.
- All laws that might contradict this new constitution were null and void, unless the legislature wanted to keep them.
- The Cabinet was in charge of publishing the rules for elections. Because we’ve seen how well that goes with racists running an election where they don’t want minorities to vote.
Yup, that probably took away most of the islanders rights. They couldn’t vote, couldn’t be represented by people from their own community, their King was hamstrung, and the legislature controlled everything, while starting from the perspective that the natives should not have power. Also all of these bullet points are in order of appearance in this mess of a constitution the conspirators wrote; did they just write things down as people shouted about whatever came to mind, and then shoved it at the King with a bunch of guns and no first pass?
[17]
For again later reasons, as well as the trouble I had in finding anything about Hawai’i’s history that wasn’t just from the University of Hawai’i; the lack of widespread sources isn’t surprising, but it is saddening. I could probably internet search reams of articles and examinations on everything that happened in the mainland states of ‘Murica, but the history of how a bunch of white guys took over a country of brown islanders? Nah, not interesting or important enough, apparently.
Despite the current law of the land stating that, yes, constitutional amendments must be approved by the current Legislature, the conspirators proceeded to kidnap the King, drag him in from of the then Chief Justice Albert F. Judd, who was also a conspirator, and force him to pretend to sign the constitution into law or die. The Kings’ immediate acquiescence to their demands is thought to have been a surprise, and as Charles Gulick, the then Minister of the Interior said,
“The ready acquiescence of the King to their demands seriously disconcerted the conspirators, as they had hoped that his refusal would have given them an excuse for deposing him, and a show of resistance a justification for assassinating him. Then everything would have been plain sailing for their little oligarchy, with a sham republican constitution.”
Even for those few islanders who could meet the requirements for voting, there was no hope in defeating this sham by ‘legal’ means. The conspirators forced contract labourers from other countries to vote as their overseers told them to, in the electing of legislative members to outweigh the native vote; even though most of them could not read or write at all, and had no idea what they were voting for. The Chief Justice who was in on the conspiracy even later told the Special Commissioner sent by President Cleveland at a later date, that the point was “to balance the native vote with the Portuguese vote.” Even violent uprising was risky for the islanders, as there were many foreign ships anchored in the nearby harbors that held the possibility of cannon and rifle-backed retaliation to any such thing. They tried regardless, both peacefully and violently, to revolt against the takeover of their government, as 85% of the citizenry of Hawai’i, forming multiple groups and militias. Any attempt to physically dethrone the conspirators resulted in being tried for various crimes until you were convicted, no matter how long it took.
[18]
Eventually, the absolute mess of a three year failed revolt by white plantation owners took its toll on Kalakaua, and despite going on a trip to San Francisco for his health, he died after spending a little more than a month there, in January of 1891.
Luckily, he had been able to proclaim his sister regent while he was gone, and so the sham legislature had no choice, by their own rules, but to proclaim her Queen on hearing of Kalakaua’s death. Lili’uokalani swore to uphold the constitution, but did not specify which one, and since the mess of a conspirators constitution had never been ratified, legally it was not the law of the land, and therefore she swore to uphold the one from 1864 by default.
Lili’uokalani confirmed her niece Ka‘iulani Cleghorn as her heir, but because the Nobles had refused to meet since 1887, apparently feeling that running the country they had just stolen was not worth their time, they could not confirm it under the sham constitution. This will be important in a bit.
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Because Lili’uokalani had sworn to uphold the actual Constitution of Hawai’i, her (admittedly over a year later) next move should come as no surprise. She announced rewriting the sham constitution to better reflect the actual one her country had ratified. At this time the US had also passed laws removing sugar tariffs for countries aside from Hawai’i, leveling the playing field and causing prices of sugar to drop massively. This caused the plantation owners, who already controlled the Hawai’ian government by occupation, to start asking the US to annex the islands, in the hopes of bringing their profits back up again.
Lili’uokalani’s attempt to fix what the conspirators had broken, in January 1893, meant that she was a threat to their wealth, and in yet another coup, the white plantation owners in the Cabinet proceeded to call upon the local US Minister, a diplomat in those days, to provide them with Marines to overthrow the monarchy entirely. They contacted John Stevens, who responded with a perhaps surprising amount of enthusiasm to the idea, and pledged to support the new “provisional government”.
The ship the conspirators chose, of whom Stevens was now a part, to source Marines from was the USS Boston. The ship had only arrived in fall of 1892, after being delayed by its Captain Gilbert Wiltse suffering a stroke off the coast of Rio De Janeiro, and thereafter showing symptoms that would today probably be classified as severe brain damage or dementia. However the Captain would have responded to the orders had he been in his right mind, he responded while out of it as members of the military were expected to: without question. In the aftermath of the coup, the success of his men became the only thing on his mind during conversation, delighted as he was that the ‘Murican flag was raised upon the islands thereafter. He died of what may have been complications of the stroke (reported as “congestion of the brain” or “a stroke of apoplexy”) two months later, after receiving news that the flag had been hauled down due to the defeat of an annexation proposition in the Senate. His officers commented that “a very different man sailed from New York” than arrived in Hawai’i.
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Whether Stevens knew just how much the conspirators had done and how much power they held is unknown, as their letter to him only mentioned that “the lives and property of the American people are in peril”; though I would argue that as Stevens was the ‘Murican Minister at Honolulu, and was therefore on the ground as the changes at gunpoint were being made (and the revolts happened around him), that he had every reason to know what they actually meant and no reason not to investigate further if he did not know. He was in consistent written contact as the group entered the public hall across the street from the main Government Building and “in plain view of the Queen's palace”, which he had secured for the accomodation of the US Marines he had commanded to support the conspirators. That, and the troops being landed so quickly, shows far more joint planning than I think Blount was ever able to get any of them to admit.
The conspirators and the Marines proceeded to refuse to explain why troops had been stationed in the building, despite constant requests for an explanation from the Queen and the other ministers of the islands. After making sure the Government Building was unguarded (and really, they were the only ones who would need it guarded, as unpopular an attempted takeover as theirs had been), they entered the building.
The conspirators proceeded to decide that this meant they had done something along the lines of capturing ‘home base’, and declared the government of Hawai’i, which they largely represented at this point bar the Queen, overthrown. They stated their intent to put their ‘provisional government’ in its place, until ‘Murica annexed the country into the union. They then contacted Stevens again, who immediately recognized their government as de facto, but refused their request for the
Commander of the United States Forces to take over control, to “protect the city and maintain order”.
I feel like I’m reading the uninformed ramblings of a sovereign citizen here. “Hey (Ambassador), can you get the President of the United States of America to take over command of our little coup? We’re scared that we can’t handle it. Also annex us faster please.” Please imagine the whiniest tone you possibly can while comprehending this request.
Lili’uokalani was, from what I can tell, better at this general thing than her brother, despite a lack of information that may have changed her decisions from now on. The station house, one of the few government buildings the coup couldn’t take over, was guarded heavily, and she and her actual ministers held a conference at her palace to deliberate as to their next course of action. On her refusal to recognize the ‘provisional government’, she was informed by the coup members that they were backed by the United States minister and troops from said country, and more things that amounted to an old timey “resistance is futile”. A man from the coup known as Damon, told the Queen that “she could surrender under protest and her case would be considered later at Washington.” And then threatened to put soldiers loyal to her, who had been captured not long before, to death for ‘treason’ if she did not do so. As well, that the ‘Murican President would consider her case fairly, which is an interesting claim as you will soon see.
“For myself, I would have chosen death rather than sign it,” she wrote in her autobiography. “Think of my position…the stream of blood ready to flow unless it was stayed by my pen.”
Lili’uokalani eventually decided to do as Damon suggested, in the bluntest way possible:
I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for this Kingdom.
That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, his excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government.
Now, to avoid and collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representative and reinstate me and the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
The coup members were so confident in their soon success, that they apparently did not even contradict this truth of how Lili’uokalani surrendered until quite a while later.
Stevens proceeded to lie to then Secretary Foster of the US Government, saying that the ‘provisional government’ had not been recognized by him until the Queen surrendered, and that no US troops took any part in what had happened that day. Foster passed these falsehoods onto then President Benjamin Harrison, who seemed to agree with the idea of annexation. Certainly everything was looking good for the rich white plantation owners; and as they told Blount later, they did not see any need or want to submit to a vote of the local people, or to give suffrage to anyone but “foreigners or whites”.
(It should be noted here, that the National Geographic article omits a lot of information at this stage, so the information therein is suspect. But it’s also one of the only in print publications that talks about the times before and during the coup that I could find, shockingly.
Additionally, many articles name this a “bloodless coup” for whatever reason. Somehow I suspect that they are lying or are misinformed, because the capture of belligerent defensive forces in an era with next to no non-lethal weapons, against a racist group and their pet Marines, sounds unlikely in the extreme.)
[24][25]
Unfortunately for the coup members, it was an election year, sort of given the sheer distances involved. Their request for annexation and a ‘treaty’ along with it did not arrive in Washington until near the end of Harrison’s term. More’s the pity for them, as Harrison did sign their ‘treaty’, but the Senate had not had time to ratify it. And then Grover Cleveland was elected and installed, whom took one look at the ‘treaty’ and decided to withdraw it, while sending Special Investigator James Blount to look into things further.
Blount sent back 1000 pages of reports and documents, detailing much of what you’ve read here and so much more. Cleveland took the report, and what Stevens had done, and sent to Congress, on December 18, 1893, a message that the United States had illegally invaded and overthrew the rightful government of Hawai’i. It had been an act of war, in a time when states were either at war or at peace, with no inbetween.
President Cleveland wrote that
"the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States. By an act of war...a substantial wrong has been done."
Damon had been far more correct than he had realized, and the ‘treaty’ the coup members had so hoped for not only was never signed, but they were also ordered to lower the ‘Murican flag outside the Honolulu Government Building.
Cleveland recommended to Congress that the monarchy of Hawai’i be restored, but they apparently rejected it. It’s hard to say for sure what happened here, because there are differing opinions on just how much power Cleveland had in terms of unilateral reaction to the coup. The University of Houston seems to think that Congress would have had to approve removing the coup members by force and reinstating the Queen. However the National Education Association argues that
“...the President’s manifesto is paramount and serves as actual notice to all States of the conduct and course of action of the United States. These actions led to the unlawful overthrow of the government of an independent and sovereign State. When the United States commits acts of hostilities, the President, says Associate Justice Sutherland in his book Constitutional Power and World Affairs (1919), “possesses sole authority, and is charged with sole responsibility, and Congress is excluded from any direct interference (p. 75).”
So whether Cleveland had the power to send the military and for some reason did not want to, or whether he actually needed Congress’s approval, seems to be down to what the Presidential powers were thought to be at the time. Certainly Cleveland had the evidence necessary to validate doing almost whatever he wanted to drag the coup members out of power by the ankles; Congress, while rejecting restoration, DID vote in favour of censuring Stevens and a resolution directly opposing annexation. Nobody seemed to be heavily in favor of the new ‘provisional government’ except those few in favor of annexation. But Cleveland did nothing.
Buffalo News (which has a fact check of ‘least biased’ so… Ok.), thinks that the President had overstepped his power just by asking Congress to restore the monarchy. The article, if relevant, is from 1994, but has apparently been updated since.
But President Cleveland had overstepped his power. Despite an eloquent speech to Congress, all President he would get was a HOuse censure of Stevens and a resolution opposing annexation. The Senate acted, too, finding that Queen Liliuokalani alone, certainly not the Americans was the one guilty of wrongdoing.
Not that they explain why they think this at all, but hey a new perspective I guess. They’re also the only ones to claim that the Senate found the Queen guilty of doing something wrong, which is interesting.
[26][27][28][29][30]
By far the biggest thing here is why Cleveland, with multiple military ships in the area of Hawaii, did not simply use the powers of the Presidency as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, to roust the wannabe oligarchs in Honolulu. Certainly the coup members were practically begging him to send troops, though for a different purpose. Both recorded history and the Blount Report show quite heavily just how bad the actions of the US minister and the coup members were.
Treaties with the US were signed on a consistent basis across the entire span of time of governmental development of Hawaii, from the ‘US Recognition of Hawai’an Independence’ and ‘Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Between the United States and the Sandwich Islands (which is what they were calling Hawai’i)’ in 1826, to the ‘Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation and Extradition’ in 1849, the ‘Treaty of Reciprocity’ in 1875, and the ‘Reciprocity Convention’ in 1884.
The US had multiple consular presences in the islands from 1820 to 1898. The Hawai’ian government had been officially recognized in every way that mattered to ‘Murican, Hawai’ian, and International law.
Hawai’i was very clearly, historically, openly, and widely recognized as a sovereign state that was a major trading and provisioning hub for the Pacific Ocean. The coup members claimed to Blount that
“In truth the monarchy here is an absurd anachronism. It has nothing on which it logically or legitimately stands. The feudal basis on which it once stood no longer existing, the monarchy now is only an impediment to good government—an obstruction to the prosperity and progress of the islands.”
This was very clearly then, as I have shown and is now with hindsight, not the case. And I think Cleveland and at least a large chunk of Congress knew that.
[31][32]
Cleveland was on his second term already, no fear of not being reelected. There were quite frankly no barriers that I can see that would cause him to be unable to simply deal with the problem, and probably secure a grateful national ally in the process.
And instead of routing them, Cleveland
“commend(ed) this subject to the extended powers and wide discretion of the Congress, I desire to add the assurance that I shall be much gratified to coöperate in any legislative plan which may be devised for the solution of the problem before us which is consistent with American honor, integrity, and morality.”
[33]
And to be honest, after weeks of looking, I have no direct idea why. I can’t tell if most of the thoughts and discussion documents are just unavailable due to classification or collector nonsense, or if most of it was merely unrecorded spoken word. There was certainly a LOT of passing of documentation to the Senate and Congress, the Office of the Historian has links upon links of it.
But Cleveland just kinda threw up his hands after dumping the entire thing in the laps of the Legislature. He never officially sent forces to Hawai’i to restore the Queen. Minister Albert Willis actually managed to secure a real treaty with the Queen in Honolulu to restore her power, in return for granting amnesty to the coup members. Cleveland didn’t know about it at the time he was addressing Congress, but it did exist, and he could have carried it out at some point in his tenure. But he didn’t, and so the Queen never followed it either.
There was, according to Wikipedia, some amount of “leave it be, it’s someone else’s problem” and general critique of the conduct of Cleveland and Willis during this time, but that came after the initial decision making they had done. No one else seems to have an opinion in easily accessible media.
Of course, there’s always the Wilsonian racism angle. And honestly in the absence of any other evidence despite searching hard, I’m going to assume that.
So yes, I think the reason that Stevens committed an act of war and lied to his boss, that Cleveland didn’t take action to right the wrong Stevens and the coup members caused, the reason Congress didn’t care enough to ok such a thing, and the reason missionaries were sent from ‘Murica to the Hawai’ian Islands in the first place; was because of the Wilsonianism idea of “better the natives, who are so much worse than we, we must show them our greatness” and racism. I can find no other reason that fits the evidence.
[34][35]
Instead, the coup members proceeded to throw a hissy fit on learning that they would not be annexed, and set up an oligarchical “Republic of Hawaii” without consultation or consent of any other inhabitants of the islands. They proceeded to put down armed rebellions against their false rule, and during the Wilcox Rebellion (1895), they “found weapons buried in the Queen’s backyard”, and proceeded to arrest her as a co-conspirator in an act of rebellion and treason. She was sentenced to five years in prison, but almost immediately allowed to return home to her palace with no explanation.
If I had to guess, I’d say that she was allowed to return because the coup members genuinely felt that they couldn’t keep the natives from destroying them utterly, if pushed too far. But that is purely speculation on my part.
[36]
In 1897, Cleveland left office and was replaced by William McKinley. McKinley was fine with annexing an occupied country, and met with three of the coup members to draft another ‘treaty’ to that effect.
Lili’uokalani and the native islanders managed to drive off ratification of this ‘treaty’ with petitions on a grand scale.
“In the fall of 1897, a Petition Against Annexation was signed by 21,269 native Hawaiian people – more than half of the 39,000 native Hawaiians and mixed-blood persons reported by the Hawaiian Commission census that year. A Hawaiian delegation brought the petition to Washington, DC; and the delegates and Lili'uokalani met with Senators. Their petition was read to the Senate and formally accepted. By the time the delegates left Washington in February 1898, only 46 senators were willing to vote for annexation and the treaty was defeated.”
However they couldn’t keep the grubby fingers of Congress away forever. In 1898 the Spanish-American War arrived, and annexation of Hawai’i was passed, as a joint resolution of Congress, on the idea that Hawai’i would make a good naval base for the coming conflict.
[37][38]
There’s a problem with this though, as the NEA points out:
Three days later in Washington, D.C., Congressman Francis Newlands submitted a joint resolution for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 4. On May 17, the joint resolution was reported out of the committee and headed to the floor of the House of Representatives.
On June 15, 1898, Congressman Thomas H. Ball from Texas emphatically stated, “The annexation of Hawai‘i by joint resolution is unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unwise. …Why, sir, the very presence of this measure here is the result of a deliberate attempt to do unlawfully that which can not be done lawfully (31 Cong. Rec. 5975).”
When the resolution reached the Senate, Senator Augustus Bacon from Georgia sarcastically remarked that, the “friends of annexation, seeing that it was not possible to make this treaty in the manner pointed out by the Constitution, attempted then to nullify the provision of in the Constitution by putting that treaty in the form of a statute, and here we have embodied the provisions of the treaty in the joint resolution which comes to us from the House (31 Cong. Rec. 6150).” Senator Bacon further explained, “That a joint resolution for the annexation of foreign territory was necessarily and essentially the subject matter of a treaty, and that it could not be accomplished legally and constitutionally by a statute or joint resolution (31 Cong. Rec. 6148).”
Essentially, because we as a nation entered war with the Hawai’ian Kingdom in 1893, by the actions of Stevens and Captain Wiltse; because no peace agreement has ever been reached with the Hawai’ian Kingdom; because peace treaties can only be proposed by the President or Senate, and then ‘ratified’ by the Senate itself; because international law still recognizes the Hawai’ian Kingdom as a legitimate state under an over century-long occupation.
We do not own Hawai’i. It is not a state, because the annexation of Hawai’i is not, by the laws of anyone relevant, legal. Hawai’i is not a state, it’s our version of Crimea or Hong Kong, or potentially, in the future, Taiwan. If we do not support the annexation of any of these nations, we cannot support counting Hawai’i as a state of the union.
And our occupation of Hawai’i has not gone well for the natives.
[39][40][41]
Native Hawai’ians live shorter, poorer, unhealthier, frequently homeless lives in Hawai’i. Their culture was nearly stamped out by religious persecution and cultural erasure, they have only recently managed to claw back some form of ethnic representation in the government of their own island nation, and the only remnant of the Hawai’ian government cannot levy taxes or easily raise funds, and therefore cannot govern effectively.
[42, 8 links grouped]
(LOOK at all the things I found for current issues, versus how little I could find for the history of the coup and beforehand. This isn’t even all of it, I cut it in half to reduce the paper I’m going to have to print out! There is almost NO research into Hawai’is history compared to other equivalent subjects, it’s horrifying.)
Is this better or worse than what we as a nation did to the Native Americans? Honestly, I think the only checkbox we missed was inflicting something akin to the Trail of Tears on the people of the islands. But they get even less recognition for their plight than the other, we’ve only seen a resurgence of research in the past two decades into their history and what actually occurred in the 1800s.
But hey, at least Bill Clinton said sorry once, so that makes it all good, right?
[43]
As to what we can do about it now? Well….
That barely-hanging-on government does exist. We very well could give over to them and end the occupation. There’s some question as to whether it would end up being akin to the clustertruck that was giving Afghanistan to the Taliban, though in this case we wouldn’t be, as far as I know, ceding the islands over to an actual terrorist organization. It would probably still need to hold elections as soon as possible though.
Letting go of Hawai’i would probably negate the property ownership of most of the corporations and rich outside investors currently making life so much harder on the people who live there. It might even let the land heal by giving it time to rest from constant overuse from farming and tourism, even better than Covid did; since people would be less likely to travel to a “destabilized country”.
But, Hawai’i has no protection outside of the US, we destroyed their militaries and substituted our own. There are at least two or three different nations that are looking to expand their territory, so unless we continued to protect the islands, they might have the same thing happen again. If Hawai’i was set back to a territory, they’d have to deal with the same “taxation with no representation” that Puerto Rico and other US territories have to manage. If it became a protectorate, same problem but now we have even more leverage for some bad actor to exploit.
Also, nobody wants to lose Hawai’i, because that would disrupt the “delicate balance” of the Senate and House in terms of the two party system, which is the same excuse given for not allowing multiple current US Territories to become states.
I heavily favor the US pulling out everyone who is a US citizen, but not descended from a Hawai’ian citizen, who is above a certain income and value threshold, in an ironic twist of the false constitution they made Kalakaua sign. Kick out all the rich people making everyone else’s lives $%#!, and then let the Hawai’ians decide as a country if they want them to come back. I think that would solve a lot of the issues plaguing the islands, assuming all the rich people’s assets were frozen in the process.
But that would require competent, thought out, and coordinated action. And I don’t know if that will happen in anything like the immediate future.
--------------------
Sauces:
[1]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli...a/history4.htm
[2]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli...a/history5.htm
[3]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli.../history5a.htm
[4]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli.../history5b.htm
[5]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli.../history5c.htm
[6]
Goo, Sarah Kehaulani; “After 200 years, Native Hawaiians make a comeback.” Pew Research Center
(April 6th, 2015)
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-re...an-population/
[7]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli.../history5d.htm
[8]
Blount, James; “Letter to the State Department.” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix II, Affairs in Hawai (July 17, 1893)
https://history.state.gov/historical...s1894app2/d265
[9]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/onli.../history5h.htm
[10]
Sai, Keanu PhD; “The Impact of the US Occupation on the Hawaiian People.” NEA Today (October 13, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...awaiian-people
[11]
Miscellaneous; “Lunalilo.” Wikipedia (last edited November 18, 2023)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunalilo
[12]
Miscellaneous, “E Ola Ke Aliʻi Ke Akua.” Wikipedia (last edited September 23, 2023)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ola_...CA%BBi_Ke_Akua
[13]
Miscellaneous; “Kalakaua.” Wikipedia (last edited November 27, 2023)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81kaua
[14]
Rhodes, Diana Lee; Greene, Linda Wedel; “Overview of Hawaiian History.” A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island, (September 1993)
https://history.state.gov/historical...app2/ch7subch1
[15]
‘Hawaiian Kingdom’, “The 1887 Bayonet Constitution: The Beginning of the Insurgency.” Hawaiian Kingdom Blog (August 25, 2014)
https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/the...he-insurgency/
[16] (yeah I don’t know how to cite this one soooo… gonna go with what they provided)
“Joint Resolution to Provide for Annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States” (July 7, 1898); Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress; General Records of the United States Government, 1778-1992; Record Group 11; National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-d...waiian-islands
[17]
Unattributed (but definitely the conspirators); “Constitution.” (July ?-6, 1887)
https://hawaiiankingdom.org/pdf/Bayo...nstitution.pdf
[18]
‘Hawaiian Kingdom’, “The 1887 Bayonet Constitution: The Beginning of the Insurgency.” Hawaiian Kingdom Blog (August 25, 2014)
https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/the...he-insurgency/
[19]
National Geographic Society, “Jul 6, 1887 CE: Bayonet Constitution.” National Geographic Society (October 19, 2023)
https://education.nationalgeographic...-constitution/
[20]
‘Hawaiian Kingdom’, “The 1887 Bayonet Constitution: The Beginning of the Insurgency.” Hawaiian Kingdom Blog (August 25, 2014)
https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/the...he-insurgency/
[21]
Blakemore, Erin; “How white planters usurped Hawaii's last queen.” National Geographic (May 13, 2021)
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/h...hawaiian-queen
[22]
Wetmore, Claude H.?; “Story of Wiltse, Hallucinations of the Naval Officer.” San Francisco Call (November 19, 1893)
https://www.newspapers.com/article/t...-of/112282745/
[23]
Kam, Thomas Ralph; “The Private Sorrows of the Overthrow.” The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol. 50 (2016)
https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.e...e79c91/content
[24]
Gresham, W. Q.; “Letter from W. Q. Gresham of the US Department of State to President Cleveland.” Department of State (October 18, 1893)
https://www.hawaii-nation.org/gresham.html
[25]
Blakemore, Erin; “How white planters usurped Hawaii's last queen.” National Geographic (May 13, 2021)
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/h...hawaiian-queen
[26]
“Joint Resolution to Provide for Annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States” (July 7, 1898); Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress; General Records of the United States Government, 1778-1992; Record Group 11; National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-d...waiian-islands
[27]
Blount, James Henderson, Associated Name, and United States Congress. House Author. Foreign Relations of the United States, . Appendix 2: Affairs in Hawaii. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1895.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666777/
[28]
Cleveland, Grover (no author provided for the annotation); “Grover Cleveland on the Overthrow of Hawaii's Royal Government.” (Digital History ID 1283) Digital History (1893, 2021?)
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/di...ID=3&psid=1283
[29]
Sai, Keanu, PhD; “The Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government.” NEA TODAY (April 2, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...dom-government
[30]
(deep breath)
-BOB BUYER, ANNE NEVILLE AND BOB BUYER, BOB BUYER, BOB BUYER AND ANTHONY CARDINALE, BOB BUYER AND BARBARA J. O'BRIEN, BOB BUYER AND BARBARA O'BRIEN, BOB BUYER AND CAROLYN RAEKE, BOB BUYER AND DAVE ERNST, BOB BUYER AND JON R. SORENSEN, BOB BUYER AND MIKE VOGEL- ; “GROVER CLEVELAND TRIED TO SAVE HAWAII'S QUEEN FROM U.S. IMPERIALISTS.” The Buffalo News (May 29, 1994; Updated July 22, 2020)
https://buffalonews.com/news/grover-...a904ac856.html
[31]
Unattributed; “A Guide to the United States’ History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Hawaii.” Office of the Historian, Department of State (Unknown)
https://history.state.gov/countries/hawaii
[32]
Cleveland, Grover; Gresham, W. Q.; “Message (to Congress).” (Documents 245–247) Office of the Historian, Department of State (December 18, 1893)
https://history.state.gov/historical...app2/ch7subch1
[33]
Cleveland, Grover; Gresham, W. Q.; “Message (to Congress).” (Documents 245–247) Office of the Historian, Department of State (December 18, 1893)
https://history.state.gov/historical...app2/ch7subch1
[34]
Sai, Keanu, PhD; “The U.S. Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” NEA TODAY (October 1, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...waiian-kingdom
[35]
Miscellaneous; “Opposition to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” Wikipedia (last edited June 17, 2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposi...waiian_Kingdom
[36]
“Joint Resolution to Provide for Annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States” (July 7, 1898); Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress; General Records of the United States Government, 1778-1992; Record Group 11; National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-d...waiian-islands
[37]
“Joint Resolution to Provide for Annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States” (July 7, 1898); Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress; General Records of the United States Government, 1778-1992; Record Group 11; National Archives.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-d...waiian-islands
[38]
Cleveland, Grover (no author provided for the annotation); “Grover Cleveland on the Overthrow of Hawaii's Royal Government.” (Digital History ID 1283) Digital History (1893, 2021?)
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/di...ID=3&psid=1283
[39]
Sai, Keanu, PhD; “The U.S. Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” NEA TODAY (October 1, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...waiian-kingdom
[40]
Sai, Keanu, PhD; “The Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government.” NEA TODAY (April 2, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...dom-government
[41]
Unattributed; “About Treaties.” United States Senate (Unknown)
https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-...s/treaties.htm
[42]
-Sai, Keanu PhD; “The Impact of the US Occupation on the Hawaiian People.” NEA Today (October 13, 2018)
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-ne...awaiian-people
-Unattributed; “Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Health.” US Department of Health and Human Services (Unknown)
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/nativ...slander-health
-Goo, Sarah Kehaulani; “After 200 years, Native Hawaiians make a comeback.” Pew Research Center
(April 6th, 2015)
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-re...an-population/
-Noreen Mokuau, Patrick H. DeLeon, Joseph Keawe’aimoku Kaholokula, Sade Soares, JoAnn U. Tsark, and Coti Haia; “Challenges and Promise of Health Equity for Native Hawaiians.” National Academy of Medicine (October 13, 2016)
https://nam.edu/challenges-and-promi...ive-hawaiians/
-Unattributed; “Study: Native Hawaiians have fewer healthy years than others.” AP News (November 11, 2019)
https://apnews.com/general-news-ab42...95f17aac872311
-Jedra, Christine; “Hawaii Is No Longer No. 1 For Homelessness. New York Is Worse.” Honolulu Civil Beat (January 7, 2020)
https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/01/ha...york-is-worse/
-Magbual, Noah Jordan; “Paradise for Tourists, a Struggle for Natives: Native Hawaiian Homelessness in the Hawaiian Islands.” Stanford Med? (Unknown)
https://med.stanford.edu/content/dam...licy-Brief.pdf
-Pallett-Wiesel, Katie; “Over Tourism: Native Hawaiians Pay the Price.” Catalyst (February 28, 2022)
https://catalystmcgill.com/over-tour...pay-the-price/
[43]
Clinton, William?; UNITED STATES PUBLIC LAW 103-150, 103d Congress Joint Resolution 19 (November 23, 1993)
https://www.hawaii-nation.org/publawall.html
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