Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

King David Kalākaua, the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi

Until the 1890s the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was an independent sovereign state, recognized by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Germany. Though there were threats to Hawaii's sovereignty throughout the Kingdom's history, it was not until the signing, under duress, of the Bayonet Constitution in 1887, that this threat began to be realized. On January 17, 1893, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, Queen Lili'uokalani, was deposed in a coup d'état which left her imprisoned at Iolani Palace under house arrest. The sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii was lost to a Provisional Government led by the conspirators, later briefly becoming the Republic of Hawaii, before eventual annexation to the United States in 1898. One hundred years, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 103-150, otherwise known as the Apology Resolution, signed by President Bill Clinton on November 23, 1993. The resolution apologized for the U.S. Government's role in supporting the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The coup d'état that overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani was led by Lorrin A. Thurston, a grandson of American missionaries who derived his support primarily from the American and European business class residing in Hawaii and other supporters of the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Most of the leaders of the Committee of Safety, which declared the queen deposed, were Kingdom subjects and included legislators, government officers, and even a Supreme Court Justice of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The coup itself was relatively bloodless, with only one policeman wounded, due to the Queen desire "to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life" for her subjects. After some deliberation, at the urging of advisers and friends, the Queen ordered her forces to surrender. Immediate annexation was prevented by the eloquent speech given by President Grover Cleveland to Congress at this time, in which he stated that the "military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war; unless made either with the consent of the government of Hawai`i or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the government of the queen ... the existing government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the vicinity of such property and so as to protect it, instead of at a distance and so as to command the Hawaiian Government Building and palace. ... When these armed men were landed, the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition. ... "

The Republic of Hawai'i was nonetheless declared in 1894 by the same parties which had established the Provisional Government after the coerced signing of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887. Among them wereLorrin A. Thurston, a drafter of the Bayonet Constitution, and Sanford Dole who appointed himself President of the forcibly instated Republic on July 4, 1894.

The Bayonet Constitution allowed the monarch to appoint cabinet ministers, but had stripped him of the power to dismiss them without approval from the Legislature. Eligibility to vote was also altered, stipulating property value, defined in non-traditional terms, as a condition of voting eligibility. One result of this was the disenfranchisement of poor native Hawaiians and other ethnic groups who had previously had the right to vote. This guaranteed a voting monopoly by the landed aristocracy. Asian who comprised a large proportion of the population, were stripped of their voting rights as many Japanese and Chinese members of the population who had previously become naturalized as subjects of the Kingdom, subsequently lost all voting rights. Many Americans and wealthy Europeans, in contrast, acquired full voting rights at this time, without the need for Hawaiian citizenship.

Liliʻuokalani's constitution

In 1891, Kalākaua died and his sister Liliʻuokalani assumed the throne in the middle of an economic crisis. The McKinley Act had crippled the Hawaiian sugar industry by reducing duties on imports from other countries, eliminating the previous Hawaiian advantage due to the Reciprocity Treaty of 1874. Many Hawaii businesses and citizens were feeling pressure from the loss of revenue. Liliʻuokalani proposed a lottery system to raise money for her government. Also proposed was a controversial opium licensing bill. Her ministers, and even her closest friends, were opposed to this plan and unsuccessfully tried to dissuade her from pursuing these initiatives, both of which came to be used against her in the brewing constitutional crisis that was also underway.

Liliʻuokalani's chief desire was to restore power to the monarch by abrogating the 1887 "Bayonet" Constitution and promugating a new one, an idea that seems to have been broadly supported by the Hawaian population. Her proposed constitution would have both widened suffrage by reducing some wealth requirements, but also would have eliminated the voting privileges of European and American residents, thus disenfranchising many resident European and American businessmen. The queen toured several of the islands on horseback, talking to the people about her ideas and receiving overwhelming support, including a lengthy petition in support of a new constitution. When the Queen informed her cabinet of her plans, they withheld their support due to their clear understanding of the response this was likely to provoke.

Besides the threatened loss of suffrage for European and American citizens of Hawaii, business interests within the Kingdom were concerned about the removal of foreign tariffs in the American sugar trade due to the McKinley Act (which effectively eliminated the favored status of Hawaiian sugar due to the Reciprocity Treaty), and considered the possibility of annexation to the United States (and enjoying the same sugar bounties as domestic producers) as a welcome side effect of ending the monarchy. A small but powerful group, led by Lorrin Thurston, had been set on the goal of annexation to the United States for years before the actual revolution.

Overthrow

Fine screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship's landing force on duty at the Arlington Hotel, Honolulu, at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, January 1893. Lieutenant Lucien Young, USN, commanded the detachment, and is presumably the officer at right.

The precipitating event leading to the Revolution of January 17, 1893 was the attempt by Queen Liliuokalani to promulgate a new constitution which would have strengthened the power of the monarch relative to the legislature in which Euro-American business elites held disproportionate power. The conspirators' stated goals were to depose the queen, overthrow the monarchy, and seek Hawaii's annexation to the United States. About 1,500 armed local (non-native) people under the leadership of the Committee of Safety, a 13 member council, organized the Honolulu Rifles to depose Queen Liliʻuokalani. They took over government buildings, disarmed the Royal Guard, and declared a Provisional Government.

As these events were unfolding, the Committee of Safety expressed concern for the safety and property of American residents in Honolulu. United States Government Minister John L. Stevens, advised about these supposed threats to non-combatant American lives and property by the Committee of Safety, obliged their request and summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the U.S.S. Boston and two companies of U.S. sailors to land on the Kingdom and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893. 162 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Boston in Honolulu Harbor came ashore well-armed but under orders of neutrality. The sailors and Marines did not enter the Palace grounds or take over any buildings, and never fired a shot, but their presence served effectively in intimidating royalist defenders. Historian William Russ states, "the injunction to prevent fighting of any kind made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself."

A provisional government was set up with the strong support of the Honolulu Rifles, a militia group which had defended the Kingdom against a counter-revolution in 1889. Under this pressure, to "avoid any collision of armed forces", Liliʻuokalani gave up her throne to the Committee of Safety. Once organized and declared, the policies outlined by the Provisional Government were 1) absolute abolition of the monarchy, 2) establishment of a Provisional Government until annexation to the United States, 3) the declaration of an "Executive Council" of four members, 4) retaining all government officials in their posts except for the Queen, her cabinet and her Marshal, and 5) "laws not inconsistent with the new order of things were to cointinue"..

The Queen's statement yielding authority, on January 17, 1893, protested the overthrow:

I Liliʻuokalani, 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 any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

=United States

Newly inaugurated President Cleveland called for an investigation into the overthrow. This investigation was conducted by former Congressman James Henderson Blount. Blount concluded on July 17 1893, "United States diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority and were responsible for the change in government." Minister Stevens was recalled, and the military commander of forces in Hawaiʻi was forced to resign his commission. President Cleveland stated, "Substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair the monarchy." Cleveland further stated in his 1893 State of the Union Address that, "Upon the facts developed it seemed to me the only honorable course for our Government to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore as far as practicable the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention." The matter was referred by Cleveland to Congress on December 18, 1893 after the Queen refused to accept amnesty for the revolutionaries as a condition of reinstatement. Hawaii President Sanford Dole was presented a demand for reinstatement by Minister Willis, who had not realized Cleveland had already sent the matter to Congress — Dole flatly refused Cleveland's demands to reinstate the Queen.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Tyler Morgan, continued investigation into the matter based both on Blount's earlier report, affidavits from Hawaii, and testimony provided to the U.S. Senate in Washington, DC. The Morgan Report contradicted the Blount Report, and found Minister Stevens and the U.S. military troops "not guilty" of involvement in the overthrow. Cleveland ended his earlier efforts to restore the queen, and adopted a position of official U.S. recognition of the Provisional Government and the Republic of Hawaii which followed.

The Native Hawaiian Study Commission of the United States Congress in its 1983 final report found no historical, legal, or moral obligation for the U.S. government to provide reparations, assistance, or group rights to Native Hawaiians.

In 1993, the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Congress passed a resolution, which President Clinton signed into law, offering an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States. This law is known as the Apology Resolution.

International

Every government with a diplomatic presence in Hawaii recognized the Provisional Government within 48 hours of the overthrow, including the United States, although the recognition by the United States government and its further response is detailed in the section above on "American Response". Countries recognizing the new Provisional Government included Chile, Austro-Hungary, Mexico, Russia, the Netherlands, Imperial Germany, Sweden, Spain, Imperial Japan, Italy, Portugal, Britain, Denmark, Belgium, China, Peru, and France. When the Republic of Hawaii was declared on July 4, 1894, immediate recognition was given by every nation with diplomatic relations with Hawaii, except for Britain, whose response came in November of 1894.

Provisional Government and Republic of Hawaii

Main articles: Provisional Government of Hawaii and Republic of Hawaii

Sanford B. Dole and his committee declared itself the Provisional Government of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi on July 17, 1893, removing only the Queen, her cabinet, and her marshal from office. On July 4, 1894 the Republic of Hawaiʻi was proclaimed. Dole was president of both governments. As a republic, it was the intention of the government to campaign for annexation with the United States of America. The rationale behind annextion included a strong economic component — Hawaiian goods and services exported to the mainland would not be subject to American tariffs, and would benefit from domestic bounties, if Hawaii was part of the United States. This was especially important to the Hawaiian economy after the McKinley Act reduced the effectiveness of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1874 by lowering tariffs on all foreign sugar, and eliminating Hawaii's previous advantage.

Later, after a weapons cache was found on the palace grounds after an attempted rebellion in 1895, Queen Liliʻuokalani was placed under arrest, tried by a military tribunal of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, convicted of misprision of treason and then imprisoned in her own home.

File:Hawaii petition against annexation image1.jpg

Several pro-royalist groups submitted petitions against annexation in 1898. In 1900 those groups disbanded and formed the Hawaiian Independent Party, under the leadership of Robert Wilcox, the first Congressional Representative from the Territory of Hawaii

Annexation

Annexation of Hawaii

In 1896, William McKinley succeeded Cleveland as president. Two years later, he signed the Newlands Resolution which provided for the official annexation of Hawaii on July 7, 1898. The formal ceremony marking the annexation was held at Iolani Palace on August 12, 1896. Almost no Native Hawaiians attended, and those few who were on the streets wore royalist ilima blossoms in their hats or hair, and, on their breasts Hawaiian flags with the motto: KUU HAE ALOHA ("my beloved flag"). Most of the 40,000 Native Hawaiians, including Lili'uokalani and the royal family, shuttered themselves in their homes, protesting what they considered an illegal transaction. "When the news of Annexation came it was bitterer than death to me," Liliuokalani's niece, Princess Ka'iulani, told the San Franciso Chronicle. "It was bad enough to lose the throne, but infinitely worse to have the flag go down..." On August 12, 1898 the Hawaiian flag was lowered for the last time while the Royal Hawaiian Band played the mournful tune, "Hawaii Ponoi". One Hawaiian said "...Our beloved flag, quivered as though itself in protest of the final quavering notes of Hawaii Pono'i..."

The Hawaiian Islands officially became Hawaii Territory, a United States territory, on February 22, 1900. Dole was appointed to be the first governor of the Territory of Hawaii. Hawaii was granted autonomous rule by 1900, with Sanford B. Dole as the first governor. Iolani Palace served as the capitol of the Hawaiian government until 1969.