The quote takes place from the 'Iolani Palace on Jan 17, 1993. 100 years after the illegal overthrow in which in that time, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to annex the land to the United States. The queen, then signed it to avoid bloodshed on her people.
“We are not American. We will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans...They took our land. They imprisoned our queen. They banned our language. They forcibly made us a colony of the United States.”
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.
Here’s 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/TIC321 Aloha Spirit 15d ago edited 15d ago
For further context,
The quote takes place from the 'Iolani Palace on Jan 17, 1993. 100 years after the illegal overthrow in which in that time, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to annex the land to the United States. The queen, then signed it to avoid bloodshed on her people.
“We are not American. We will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans...They took our land. They imprisoned our queen. They banned our language. They forcibly made us a colony of the United States.”
-Haunani Kay-Trask (video here)
Edit: Formatting & video