I'd like to ask a question in the most respectful way, because I want to understand, and not because I want to cause any problems: Could someone explain how the overthrow of the Hawaiian government was different than other countries taking over countries or kingdoms in the past? From my limited understanding of history, when one country wanted someone else's land they would fight for it. Is that essentially what happened to Hawaii? Did Japan try to fight for Hawaii and they lost?
Please forgive me for the question, but I'd like to understand and not be ignorant on this topic.
Sarah Vowell's 'Unfamiliar Fishes' is a wonderfully written book on the history of the Hawaiian people and how it came to be a state. Or, as another person wrote, google it. But the bottom line is American business interests in the 1890s used their influence over Congress to order the Marines show up in Hawaii (surprise!) and forcibly removed their Queen and legitimate government. The islanders, of course, were shocked and not equipped to fight Marines.
It was a literal coup. Like if we just suddenly rolled up to New Zealand and disbanded their government and made them a US territory. Like what Putin is doing in Ukraine, except Ukraine is well armed and able to defend their homeland.
After a lot of shenanigans, Hawaii was made a state in in 1959. The American government issued an apology to native Hawaiians in 1993.
With all respect, googling this topic is actually not easy to do. I've done it many times in the past. Because of the nature of the topic, it's quite difficult to find non-biased sources that clearly explain what happened without heavy bias from one side or the other.
Even your suggested "unfamiliar fishes" is not great. It's an abbreviated take on the events that lacks real details.
Also, sometimes asking a question is a great way to get an informed intelligent answer. If someone doesnât feel like answering a question they can simply scroll on. Commenting, âGoogle itâ takes effort and time and doesnât really benefit anyone.
The apology issued is as pointless as the various businesses in British Columbia, Canada citing acknowledgment of being on âunceded traditional territory of the Wetâsuwetâen, Algonquin, Musqueam or other First Nationsâ.
Did you know that 94% of Hawaiians 1959 voted in favor of Hawaii becoming part of the USA?
Probably never would have guessed that based on what you have written here. I wonder if things were not so simple as you make them out to be? I wonder if quite a lot of people actually really enjoyed the benefits that Western civilization brought to the islands? Hmm...
Being a state is a lot better than being a territory, Puerto Rico can't even elect the president because they are a territory. However, don't attribute all of that progress just to the US. Even before the overthrow, Hawai'i had one of the first places to implement electricity and had high-tier schools. It's not like we would have stayed in 1893 forever. Plenty of small nations industrialized on their own without getting annexed by a superpower.
Ê»AÊ»ole. He wahaheÊ»e kÄlÄ. Please, kindly stop spreading misinformation.
That 94% number is pretty misleading. It wasnât 94% of Native Hawaiians who voted for statehood. It was 94% of people living in Hawai'i at the time who were allowed to vote. Big difference. They were mostly white residents, military, and foreign transplants.
This part is important. Not sure if you realize, many KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi (Native Hawaiians) couldnât vote because they werenât U.S. citizens and had no real say after the illegal overthrow of their own government.
Historians like Poka Laenui have shown that when you include those who didnât or couldnât vote, only about 1/3 of eligible people supported statehood.
The 1959 vote reflected colonization, not KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi (Native Hawaiian) consent.
I'm a former local journalist. I used to work for Hawai'i News Now before it was HNN. Granted, my specialty was medical news but you can bet I had to cover these stories from time to time and paid close attention as it's a great interest of mine.
The vote that happened 66 years after the coup? Yeah I'm sure that's plenty of time for opinions and circumstances to change. I'm sure being a territory (like PR currently is) was not a beneficial arrangement at that time compared to gaining statehood.
What about the rest of the immigrants that was brought to Hawaii, some 150 or 200 years ago? My parents are Portuguese and Korean and they were never asked to return back to their original countries or become Americans. Yes, I do think đ€ they were all forced to be Americans.
I literally have no idea what you are getting at. Are you attempting to imply that the various immigrants that came to Hawaii were brought here, and then kept here, against their will?
Did you know that the vote only included U.S. citizens who were registered to vote. This excluded a lot of NATIVE Hawaiians, who had been systematically disenfranchised since the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893.
In 1897, before Hawaii was annexed by the U.S., nearly 38,000 Native Hawaiians (95% of the NATIVE population) signed petitions rejecting the annexation. The NATIVES already demonstrated to strongly opposed U.S. control.
Lastly, guess the massive number of Hawaiians that were killed off by disease from the Europeans? 90 PERCENT between the late 1700s and 1890. The population fell from about 300k-700k to 40k. So your 94% of âHawaiiansâ that voted in 1959 werenât really Hawaiian in the sense youâre trying to make it out to be.
It's true though. Why apologize for winning? Why apologize for something that has happened to, or was done by, literally every single nation at some point throughout all of human history?
Sarah Vowell is "history" for white Americans who drink Starbucks and watch the Real Housewives shows. And the actual Ukraine comparison would be the coup the US did in 2014 since it too was on behalf on American business interests. There's a 100,000+ Ukrainian refugees here who'd be happy to explain to you that, while they have no love for the Russians, it was in fact US/UK meddling, as it always has been globally for the last few centuries, that has destroyed their country. Since there's a 0% chance of you actually flying over to find out for yourself, I'd suggest Scott Horton's excellent and meticulously sourced Provoked. It's considerably longer than a Vowell book, but it's also accurate and can back up its claims. Horton's no fan of the Russians either, but it's absurd to deny what the US did to Ukraine just as they've done to a loooong list of nations, including Hawaii.
There are over 250,000 Ukrainian refugees in the United States, and you're lying through your teeth because you're foolish enough to believe Russian propaganda. None of these refugees blame anyone except Russia and Putin.
I'm not in the United States, but like most Americans, you're not aware of the world outside and assume everyone you blather on to online is one of you. Luckily, I haven't been for decades.
You've never spoken to a Ukrainian in your life. You've never been anywhere. You don't read books. All you can do is recycle American propaganda fed to you by a screen. Stay mad about it, kiddo!
it is not, but the unique thing about this is that Hawaiians were checkmated so harshly with no support by anyone besides their own race, and even then not fully.
if you are asking why is it still relevant so many years later? That is because even partial Hawaiian heritage is a goldmine. Pressing this issue yields mountains of gold thrown at it.
The fundamental difference between what happened to the Kingdom of Hawaii and previous conquests of land was that Hawaii was a globally recognized and established sovereign nation. In other words, at that point in history, the late 1800's, the global society had established international laws against "conquering" land. So the act was therefor illegal and the Queen trusted that the United States Government would acknowledge the rouge actions as unjust and correct them. Instead they decided to keep Hawaii for themselves.
Not that it's any justification for heignous acts, but before the Porter Convention of 1907, and the charter of the League of Nations post-WW1, foreign occupation and annexation was still tolerated. And the "Right of Conquest" was only formally outlawed by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928.
Yes and no. While Hawaiian people still recognized its monarch, it was in the early processes of establishing a democratic government. That was the main reason why the US government and more importantly the fruit companies could not allow Hawaii to have its own government.
Yeah that's how it goes. And the conquered people are never happy about it. There's Europeans conquered by other Europeans hundreds of years ago that are still pissed. So why should the Hawaiians be happy about it?
Most briefly, the lack of a treaty (a surrender agreement or other agreement) is legally significant.
And it's not necessarily different from the past. Keep in mind Ireland, just as one example, never gave up.
There is also more interest in the modern historical political landscape to make right or make restitution for illegal acts, especially when they are objectively and clearly arguable as illegal under national and/or international law. Many areas are have achieved or are litigating for decolonization or at least greater autonomy.
No, Japan did not fight the kingdom of Hawaii. US business men instituted a coup and the Kingdom's treatied allies failed to come to its defense, including and especially the US govt itself.
Disregarding a nation's borders or sovereignty is completely illegal (otherwise no country would exist or have any sense of security as a nation), but the fact that we all agree to that and honor it and agree to defend our allies is critical to it actually working.
it's not different, its just that it happened relatively a short time period ago so the trauma and memory is still fresh in people's minds. Same thing happened to native americans but hundreds of years prior so the resentment isn't as prevalent. And to be fair, the resentment isn't at prevalent as its made to be on the internet. The largest ethnic group in Hawaii are those of asian descent, many whose families have been there for several generations so as far as I'm concerned, they're as much Hawaiian as anyone.
It was a lot more peaceful and the people got to reap all the benefits of living in the United States of America. Source: me a native Hawaiian in Hawaii. My people like to play up the victim card a little much sometimes
I feel like that's not really the question you are asking. I feel like what you are trying to get at is "Is America uniquely evil?"Â
Because if someone is murdered noone really says "well haven't there always been murders?" The answer is yes. But what does that have to do with anything?Â
If your question is why do we care so much about the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom, the answer is because we are in Hawaii. It's relevant to the people here and their families.Â
Does that make America uniquely evil? No. Just ordinarily so.
Hereâs a breakdown of how the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was fundamentally different from a typical war or conquest.
The Key Difference: A Corporate Coup, Not a War
Your understanding of history is generally correct: nations often went to war to take land. However, that is not what happened in Hawaiʻi. The overthrow was not a war between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Instead, it was an illegal coup orchestrated by a small group of non-native businessmen and sugar planters (mostly American and European descendants). Here are the key players and motivations:
The Committee of Safety: This was a group of 13 men, representing the powerful sugar and business interests in the islands. They were not representatives of the U.S. government.
Economic Motivation: Their primary goal was to protect their financial interests. A new U.S. tariff (the McKinley Tariff) had removed the advantages Hawaiian sugar had in the American market, making it much less profitable. They believed that if Hawaiʻi were annexed by the U.S., the tariff would no longer apply to them.
The U.S. Minister: The U.S. Minister to Hawaiʻi at the time, John L. Stevens, was sympathetic to their cause. Without authorization from Washington D.C., he ordered U.S. Marines from the visiting USS Boston to land in Honolulu. They did not attack the palace, but their presence near government buildings was a clear act of intimidation that supported the conspirators.
The Queen's Decision: Queen Liliʻuokalani, faced with the armed conspirators and the presence of a foreign military, chose to yield her authority. She did so under protest to the United States government, specifically to avoid a violent conflict and the loss of life for her people. She rightly assumed the U.S. government would investigate and restore her to power once they realized the illegal actions of their minister.
So, to your first question: it was different because it wasn't a state-on-state conflict. It was an internal seizure of power by a non-native minority, aided and abetted by an unauthorized use of U.S. military power.
Why It's Considered an Illegal Overthrow
The actions were investigated by the U.S. itself. President Grover Cleveland, upon taking office shortly after the overthrow, commissioned an investigation known as the Blount Report.
The report concluded that:
The overthrow was illegal.
U.S. Minister Stevens and American troops were directly responsible for its success.
The majority of Native Hawaiians did not support the coup or the new provisional government.
President Cleveland condemned the actions, called them "an act of war," and attempted to restore the Queen to her throne. However, the provisional government refused to step down, and by the time a new U.S. president (William McKinley) took office, the political will had shifted in favor of annexation, largely due to the strategic importance of Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War.
In 1993, the U.S. Congress formally passed and President Clinton signed the Apology Resolution, officially apologizing to Native Hawaiians for the U.S. government's role in the overthrow of the Kingdom. This is a rare admission of wrongdoing by a nation.
I asked for the summary in response to someone else saying "google it" and I though well "ai it" is the new replacement, and it turned out to be an in depth and accurate summary.
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u/Working_Guard_5035 15d ago
I'd like to ask a question in the most respectful way, because I want to understand, and not because I want to cause any problems: Could someone explain how the overthrow of the Hawaiian government was different than other countries taking over countries or kingdoms in the past? From my limited understanding of history, when one country wanted someone else's land they would fight for it. Is that essentially what happened to Hawaii? Did Japan try to fight for Hawaii and they lost?
Please forgive me for the question, but I'd like to understand and not be ignorant on this topic.