American History Hit - The Annexation of Hawaiʻi

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

How did Hawaiʻi - once an independent, internationally recognised kingdom - become America's 50th state? It's a tale of economic pressure, political manoeuvring, and ruthless military might. We’ll explore how a sovereign nation was overthrown, how annexation followed without consent, and why this history still matters today.Our guest today is Noah Dolim, Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Noah primarily focuses on the history of nineteenth-century Hawai’i.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It is the afternoon of January 17, 1893 in Honolulu. From the veranda of Ayelani Palace, Queen Liliu Okolani watches as an incredible scene unfolds.

U.S. Marines have come ashore from the USS Boston, marching into the city. They carry rifles, not for ceremony, but for effect. No request has been made of their government. No threat has been issued against American lives or, property. And yet as the Marines fan out across Honolulu, positioning near government buildings, the message is unmistakable. Inside the palace, the Queen's advisors argue. Some urge resistance. Thousands of Native Hawaiians stand ready to defend their Queen. Liliukalani knows this. She also knows resistance would bring bloodshed, the near certain destruction of her people,

at the hands of a far stronger power. The next day, a small group of a small group of her. The next day, a small A group of American and European businessmen proclaims a provisional government to rule Hawaii. Faced with force, she did not invite and cannot defeat. The queen makes her choice. She does not abdicate. She yields her authority under protest, placing her faith, however fragile, in the belief that the United States will correct an injustice committed in its name. In her written statement, she is precise. Hawaii's sovereignty has been seized, not surrendered.

No battle is fought, but a kingdom ends. Not because its people abandoned it, but because a foreign power arrived by sea and rendered resistance impossible. Good day American history hit listeners. Hello, or should I say Aloha? Well, perhaps not, given that I'm a guy raised in New Jersey, which, as the crow flies, is about 5,000 miles from a certain gleaming archipelago in the middle of the vast ocean, where one can hear that greeting uttered properly by a native-born speaker. We're all Americans, right? Well, at least officially since 1959, when the United States welcomed its 50th state into the Union, and finally our nation stretched from sea to shining sea and then beyond,

all the way to that paradise of the Pacific, Hawaii. How Hawaii's U.S. statehood came to pass is a painful tale, more so than most U.S. mainlanders realize. one rife with issues of colonization and exploitation, and even a good old-fashioned coup d'etat, a controversial history brewing discontent even today on those glorious islands. And for anyone lucky enough to be planning a trip there or going there to live and work, it is a fundamental chronology. We'll discuss today with Noah Dolom, assistant professor of history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,

focusing primarily on 19th century Hawaii. Professor Dolom, thank you for coming on the show. No, thank you for having me, Don. I appreciate it. I want to get one thing right just as we begin. What is the proper pronunciation of Hawaii? It is Hawaii. We call it an Okina. It looks like a backwards apostrophe.

It's a glottal stop. Yeah. So you say it Hawaii. Okay. And what does the word actually mean? We actually don't know what Hawaii means. It's such a old word. We have different stories of how the islands might have been named,

but for our actual definition of Hawaii, we actually just don't have one. It's such an old word in our culture. Interesting. But it's a Polynesian. Yeah. The language, yeah. There have been stories of cultural appropriation and destruction

throughout all of American history, but Hawaii is one example, as demonstrated by our mispronunciations of the language. Okay, so this episode specifically recounts the American overthrow of the Hawaiian sovereign leadership in 1898, the year of my grandmother's birth, interestingly, how we seize this territory and why. But first, let's understand what sort of nation we're talking about. Can you describe the kingdom of Hawaii before European settlers came politically, geographically? What were the islands and

how do they compare to what we have today? Right. So prior to the unification of the islands in 1810, Hawaii was actually not Hawaii. It was an archipelago of islands, each with its own name, right? You have Kaui, Maui, Oahu, Hovai Island. These were separate island chiefdoms or kingdoms. And then in the late 1700s, early 1800s, when you had one chief in particular, Kamamehah, or Kamehah the first, who goes on a military campaign to unify these islands. But the islands were basically ruled in a chief structure. Each island had a major chief, and then you kind of fell in line under that major chief with, Ranking Chiefs and then the common people living on the land.

And the year of Unification 1810, you say, by that time it was a functioning, internationally recognized sovereign nation with its own political institutions, economy, and diplomacy, correct? Not quite yet, actually. So 1810 is really the year when the islands first are formed under that blanket of that word, Hawaii. And the reason why Hawaii is called Hawaii is because Cameron had came from Hawaii Island or popularly known as a big island. So that word got applied to all the islands, but it was not yet recognized on a like international stage as a sovereign country.

So interesting. This is a movement that's happening throughout the 19th century. Eventually Italy has, is famously united, where all these city states come together. So essentially that's what you're saying. The islands were their own city states and finally Kamakamaicamai comes along and does that. 1778 is an important date, obviously. the initial contact with Europeans when British explorer James Cook lands on the islands, thus unfolds chapters that we see elsewhere around the world of the effect of this kind of arrival.

Explain what happens, tremendous amounts of disease eventually, yes? Right. So at the time of Captain Cook's arrival, 1778 and he dies a year later in 1779, or he doesn't die, he gets killed by Native Lions in 1779. 9. Kiz estimates by he and his crew, placed for the Hawaiian population at around, you know, conservative estimate, 400,000, upper estimate around 800,000 people. Wow, a lot of people. But a lot of people. And that number plummeted throughout the next century. So by the end of the 19th century, in just over a little over 100 years, the Hawaiian population was at 40,000. So you're looking at 90 to 95% population lost since the time of Captain Cook's arrival.

And we're chalking that up to smallpox and diseases like that. Smallpox, cholera. Yeah. The big one in the 19th century is leprosy, whooping cough, some unknown diseases. But yes, venereal diseases that cause people to become sterile. So different effects on the population. Oh, my Lord. Early 1800s, small numbers of Americans and Europeans begin settling there as traders, sailors,

and advisors. You say that, and now that is an amazing backdrop to that further colonization or at least arrivals. I mean, terrible things are happening there. If it's to that scale and in that time frame, amazing. Yes, it was because of disease, the Hawaiian leadership, the world, the Hawaii as a world, was quickly changing. Yes. You're seeing your population diminished, but you're also. we're seeing these new people starting to come into Hawaii,

not a major settlement of foreigners in that early period, but more so people coming and going. But it was definitely a quickly changing world, you know, technology, ships, Western weapons, food, clothing. Hawaii was really changing at a rapid piece in a very short time. And as happens elsewhere in the world, missionaries come. In this case, the first Protestant missionaries come from New England, And they begin to settle.

And this really marks a more entrenched beginning of that settlement, right? It's 1820 or so. Right. In 1820, the first Protestant missionaries are Calvinists who come from New England out of Boston and their connections to Yale and that religious community up in New England. They arrive in Hawaii in 1820. This is the first, like, real formal settlement of American foreigners. or actually any group of outsiders.

Again, you highlight more transient communities and people who deserted shifts, but this was a real intentional settlement in Hawaii by these missionaries. So by this time, this period from 1810, the unification onward over the decades of the 19th century, governance begins to develop. Hawaii is recognized as internationally as a sovereign nation.

They have diplomats. I mean, their first constitution was written and adopted in 1840, right? Yep, yeah. Yeah. So even prior, even in the early period, even though there wasn't that formal recognition into the 1840s,

the Hawaiian kingdom had been trying to, you know, engage in diplomacy, international diplomacy, primarily with Great Britain. And that's a long story. But, you know, it's reflected in our Hawaiian flag and why we have a union jet, Khmerameho, the first,

and then later his son, the second. We're trying to make, we're trying to bring the Hawaiian kingdom closer to Inouet and with King George. Later on in the 1840s, that finally kind of came true in those diplomatic trips under Command of the Third, who was another son of Camembera I first, in which that diplomatic trip in the 1840s secured international recognition from the United States, Britain, and France as well. And what was the attitude? I mean, we've talked about how wrecked the society must have been from the disease. but how was the attitude of the government towards these foreign governments? And economically, I suppose, they see their role in this trans-oceanic culture that's happening, especially the whaling industry, right? Right.

And actually prior to whaling, you had sandalwood, the collection of sandalwood, which is native tree here in Hawaii, but it was found that wines actually didn't really use sandalwood at all, but it was prized by, in the Chinese market, because it was used as incense. So that really became like the first export of the Hawaiian islands, Sandalwood, and then you transition to whaling, which again brings in more of these people coming in and out and connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific as well. Because a lot of those whaling ships were coming out of New England,

bringing foreigners to Hawaii, bringing Hawaiians into other places in the world around, you know, into China, into the Pacific Northwest, back to New England and the East Coast. So again, it was a world that was rapidly changing and rapidly broadening. So the Hawaiian monarchy had to adjust to those changes and build those relationships with other countries and other peoples.

And I was just about to ask you, that form of government practice is a monarchy, but without a bicameral legislature, very much in the British mode here, houses of nobles, houses of representatives, a judiciary with a codified laws and courts and a constitution, as we mentioned. I mean, all of this was in place in the mid-19th century. And I guess Hawaii at that time was looking down, the pike and seeing its role in this emerging industry of shipping, which was just advancing like crazy in those days.

And boy, right there, they are the important stopping point for all coaling stations as steamships come along and so forth, right? Right. And one of the reasons why the Hawaiian Kingdom went from absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy is that because now you have these foreigners settling in Hawaii, how do you make foreigners follow your laws? Yes. You have to make laws that were, you know, legible in all sense of that word, to these foreigners to make them respect Hawaiian law and make them fall under order.

And so, yeah, the Hawaiian constitution based off of British and the American constitution and legal system, but also taking parts of Hawaiian, traditional Hawaiian rule of which, you mentioned the House of Nobles, which was the Upper House or in our modern vernacular, we'd call it like the senators of Hawaii. that was really just what we call the Aho the Aha O'lelo or the Aha Alii, which was the chiefly council that existed prior to the Constitution. And they just took that body of chiefs and moved them and became the House of Nobles. So these were the high-ranking chiefs of the kingdom. And then the bottom house, the House of Representatives,

was the House of the People's. Right. Commoners. We're telling the story, though, of how all this is appropriated and destroyed, really, inside a matter of decades. And I can't help but think about this. when I arrive, I've maybe done Hawaii three or four times in my life.

I live in the east coast of the United States. It is a beautiful place, of course, but it's also incredibly welcoming. The culture is famously just a lovely feeling that you get that maybe Americans might chalk up to tourism and, you know, the capitalistic version of that. But the culture itself prides itself on that quality, doesn't it? Yes. Yes, it does. I mean, you can look out of that word hospitality in two ways like you mentioned. There's like the tourism version of hospitality in which I think there's some expectations for Hawaiian to act in a certain way, you know, providing for their guests and kind of being at the whim.

But that's very much in the kind of touristic expectations. But it is a value that is embedded within our culture and hospitality, you know, you making sure that your guests have food or safe, have culture. the Hawaiian Kingdom was a very inclusive space for foreigners, including, you know, it's a very small population, but even there was people who had escaped from slavery or former slaves who ended up ended up in the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Hawaiian Kingdom didn't practice slavery. I just really want to underscore this because it's obviously, we'll play an enormous part, and I think it had a huge theme to that for those Americans who were seeing opportunity.

sometimes that quality of a culture is misunderstood and played upon. The word is love. I mean, you literally feel a sense of love when you're there. And it's palpable everywhere you go. So that has gone back all the way. And to the indigenous culture, certainly. But even visitors in the 19th century were having that feeling. So it's some really important thing to keep in mind as we talk about how things change so quickly.

In 1887, we meet the first shift. Let's call it that. there are constitutional changes all the way along which favor the wealthy and are influenced heavily by foreign-born people, right? Yes, especially in the 1840s, Commandment of the Third starts allowing or chooses to involve former missionaries, new foreigners, to serve in the Hawaiian government as ministers, as lawyers, as judges. And so some of these effects on legislation and the way things are run in the country are definitely influenced by foreigners. You had one major shift prior in the 1860s under Commandment of the Fifth. Commandment of the Fifth saw particularly the United States as a problem. So he actually wanted to move the Hawaiian Kingdom back towards his grandfather's vision of being more aligned with the British.

but you had this influx of foreigners serving in politics and that eventually would lead or be a big part of the downhaul of the Hawaiian kingdom. Yeah. And was that done willingly on the Hawaiians part or was that a forced issue by outside interests that people would be serving within the government? That was willing, willingly. And of course, we benefit from hindsight. It's 2020, right? But the understanding was, you know, especially in the early part of the constitutional monarchy in the 1830, in the 40s, when you're trying to build out this system that is taking bits and pieces of, or not bits and pieces, but major pieces of American and European law, they needed people who were trained in American or European law. Yeah.

It made sense on the part of the chiefs to invite these lawyers or people who had been educated in the law. the West to serve in these positions. Even if they weren't always qualified, there's, I won't get too important to it, but there's some instances where they literally were picking people who had no qualifications in a particular area, but, you know, they had got to school in the U.S. or in Europe. It was definitely the Hawaiian Kingdom,

trying to put people in the right places, but it didn't always work out for the benefit of Hawaiian people in the White Kingdom. Because there's a modernization going on here. They're seeing their role in the world, and the world is changing. So one of the fundamental aspects of that is a land reform that goes on, right? There's a change in the way land is distributed and held. Can you explain that?

It's called the Great Mahele. Yep. Under Commandment of the Third. And I keep mentioning Commandment of the Third. He actually had the longest reign out of all the monarchs. He had a 30-year reign. So a lot of legal changes happened during his reign. And some of the context leading up to those land changes,

you know, again, more foreign settlers coming to Hawaii, and there's also a couple of events of European aggression towards Hawaii. So at one point, the British actually held or occupied the Hawaiian Kingdom for about eight months. And we actually lost our sovereignty for, you know, about half a year. What year was that? So this is in 1843. All right. And so this is the Paulette affair.

And so Camero III and his advisor are thinking, okay, how do we secure the sovereignty of the land and make sure that foreigners don't encroach further into Hawaiian land? And so their idea was that they were going to essentially redistribute the land and recategorize land. And then the second half of that was to make private land ownership. So until that point, it had been that land was held communally, I guess, by the royal government, is it? Yeah, so the land, all the, basically all the land in the archipelago was under the sovereign or what we call the moi. And then you had the lesser chiefs who kind of were like the land managers. And then, of course, again, the people who lived on those lands. So it was divisions of land that were managed in the system.

But yes, kind of communally held by the sovereign. Right. It's a system of stewardship that is intentionally changed in order to put land in the hands of Hawaiians. Native-born Hawaiians, it kind of backfires in some ways, right? Yes, yes. So basically out of that Mahele in 1848, all the land in Hawaii is split into three categories or three interests. So about a third of the land is kept by the sovereign as his private land.

The next third was put aside for the government. So this is going to be for the Hawaiian kingdom to build infrastructure, you know, agriculture, or whatever, but it was government land. And the last third went to the rest of the chief. And then following the Mahele in Ithu-48 is the second half of that legislation, which was the Kuleana Act in 1850, which helped spur that transition to private tenureship. So it required the common people or the Makayana to put in land claims for the pieces of property they had already been living on.

And so ultimately, Makai-in-ana or the common people got there. very, very little land. Because that land was seized by large plantations for the most part, which has been a huge. Well, actually, not yet. So there is limitations on how much land they could claim in those applications for their title. And a lot of people, they just didn't understand the point of privatizing land. So you had people like, you know, oh, what is this like private land? Like, why doesn't, this doesn't make sense.

We've been living, our family's been living here for centuries. Why do we need to show the government that we live on this land? So you had people who this kind of ignored it. There's also a financial aspect. You have to pay the surveyor to formally survey your property, which I think it was like $12, which was big money for, you know, basically a peasant,

quote-unquote peasant for that time. So there's these different factors that lead to the commoner people, Mamakainana, are receiving, like, a, like, I feel what the exact person percentages, but, you know, it was barely a fraction of the total land. I think it was 28,000 acres in total from that landfisher. It's so interesting. Yeah, you, there's so many parallels between what's happened with Native, indigenous peoples here on the mainland and what happens on Hawaii, but it's different because it's a more modern version of it. And also the Hawaiians

were energetically trying to master the system and, and redistribute those lands very energetically. Unfortunately, already there is a huge amount of interest strategically and economically by European and American interests in the Hawaiian area. The location itself, as I've mentioned before, this is one thing when everybody was going through with sales, you know, the wind's free. But once you need to coal up your ships, you're going to need a coaling station. And boy, is it perfect for that? It's halfway across. It's not that far away you can get there and find your needs. but also economically is, of course, the idea of planting, and sugar is in such a profitable

product in the Atlantic. It's bound to become big here. And so that becomes the primary agricultural product. Is that true? Yes. The first sugar plantations popped up, I believe, in the 1830s. The first couple of decades weren't too successful. Primarily, they needed labor.

Hawaiians, there just wasn't enough Hawaiians to work in the plantations because of the population. And also, wines didn't want to work in the sugar plantation. Yeah. Did it make sense for them? Why would we work in a sugar plantation where we can grow our own food, right? Right. So there's that.

And it also wasn't lucrative as well because they're mainly exporting to the United States, where the United States was growing its own sugar. So sugar was somewhat slow in that first half of the century. And the big change, the biggest change for Hawaiian sugar was the Civil War. So this is the melding of U.S. history and Hawaiian history come together. When the Civil War breaks out, the sugar production in the South, in the American South comes to a halt.

And this is the prime opportunity for these sugar planters in Hawaii to fill that void. And so the sugar plantation owners are making money like they've never seen before during the 1860s. And of course, the Civil War is ended. And that cash cow comes to a screeching halt, and they are left pretty desperate and begging the Hawaiian kingdom, begging the sovereign, hey, can you do something about this? We just made a lot of money. It stopped. We have to figure some kind of trade agreement or something with the United States that will allow us to continue these profitable gains. And is that accomplished?

Yes, that actually is eventually. And that is under the reign of Kalakawa. King Kalakawa, who takes office in 1874. Okay. Kalakawa agrees to a major piece of international diplomacy called the reciprocity treaty. The reciprocity treaty, as in its name reciprocity, there's a benefit for the United States, and there's a benefit for the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Hawaiian Kingdom was able to export sugar to the U.S.

tariff-free. There's sugar and a whole bunch of other products, but primarily sugar was the cornerstone of that agreement. And then for the U.S., and this is kind of tying economic and then military advantage together, the U.S. wanted exclusive rights to a place called Poo Loha in Hawaii. And Poo Loha is the traditional name for what most people in the United States and around the world might know as Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor. There we are. It was a natural harbor.

It was deep. It is essentially a perfect harbor, naturally formed harbor for big ships. And so the U.S. asked the Kwite Kingdom, if we do this treaty with you, then we want exclusive rights to build a coaling station in Pearl Harbor. No other country can come into Pearl Harbor except for the United States. And this goes into agreement in 1874 and it's renegotiated again in 1887. Yeah, be careful letting the U.S. military come in. because watch up. And there we are.

And we're talking about this era. There's a bookend to this. So it starts kind of 1810, as we say, the unification. But it's going to end this period. And then we'll take a break with 1887 and what's called the Bayonet Constitution. Explain that to me. It's probably 10 years after what you're talking about, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So again, I had mentioned in Kolokawa is probably the most misunderstood, controversial, all the different adjectives you can. think of, of his reign and his personality. But what he was primarily known for was his interest in restoring Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian traditions. So he was interested in the study of genealogy, of publishing traditional Hawaiian stories, bringing back the performance of Hula. Hula had, the public practice of Hula had been banned for the past like 40, 50 years. So when he has his birthday party, when he has his coronation, he allows the public practice of Hula at the palace grounds.

And this was a big deal amongst the foreign community, which is still adhering to those missionary values of not being promiscuous and not spending money. So he drew the negative attention from a lot of those settlers. And a lot of these settlers were also these plantation owners as well. And they were, and it was a mixed group of people. you had these white plantation owners were missionary descendants, so people who had been born in Hawaii to missionary parents, and also newer foreigners who made up those plantation ownership. And they grew very dissatisfied with Kalakawa's reign.

Okay. Coupled on, coupled on with that post-Civil War downturn and sugar. Okay. So by 1887, they had formed secret society, which plotted against Kalakawa. they write a new constitution that basically shifted all of these executive power into the legislative branch, and then they forced Kolokal to sign this constitution under the threat of violence, which is why it's called the Baynett Constitution. And who was these, these were American interests, these were American businessmen who were threatening this?

So these were a mix of American and other European settlers. So they didn't, it's kind of funky because, They are American, but they're not acting on behalf of the United States. They are domestic to Hawaii. A lot of them are citizens of the Hawaiian kingdom. Gotcha. But they come from those American families. The takeaway is they've stripped the monarchy of most of its power, much of its power,

shifting that to the legislature, disenfranchising many native Hawaiians while empowering American and European residents. Petitions, public meetings, political organization was already taking place prior to this overthrow, but this changes everything. And so let's take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the new legacy of the bayonet constitution and what happens towards the end of the century. Welcome back. We're speaking with Professor Noah Dolom of the University of Hawaii. Noa, in the late 19th century, as events unfold, the monarch in power, what we're about to speak about, her name is Queen Liliu Okolani, who has ascended the throne after the death of her brother. Who was this queen

and what were her goals? Right. So, Queen Liliu Okolani was one of the younger sisters of Kalakawa, who had been of the previous monarch. Liliu, even more so than her brother, came into a horrible situation as a monarch. Her brother had been forced to sign that had been in a constitution, and it was thus the constitution that Liliu Okolani herself inherited.

So she was under a tremendous amount of pressure to kind of figure this thing out. and where the Hawaiian kingdom was going to go. And between 1887 and her ascent to the throne, there's a lot of pressure from Hawaiians to get rid of the Baynett Constitution, to write a new constitution, and Elieu heard those calls. And that was her main goal during her reign, was to write a new constitution for the Hawaiian kingdom. But this was a very hard task because of the limitations of the Bayonet Constitution

that the being a constitution had placed on her as a monarch. Right. So she basically wants to take back the power that the monarch used to have and so forth. And this was a legal proposal, but it threatened the American and European elites who had benefited from the 1887 constitution. 1893, a small group of mainly American businessman and plantation owners set up a committee of safety. We know that from the American Revolution. I mean, they're getting together to figure out what to do here. January of 1893, it's all comprised.

of descendants of missionaries, sugar planters, they represent, this is important, a tiny fraction of the population. And some members openly supported American annexation. Yes. I have to wonder, was this talked about for decades or was this a brand new idea? Actually, the first talks of annexation were in the mid-century in the 1850s. Okay. And Hoy was actually quite close to annexing or giving itself. up to the United States to be annexed, but it was eventually chop.

And then, you know, there's kind of whispers in each decade, but it wasn't a real, you know, kind of reality until that last period where, oh, this could actually really happen under this new Committee of Safety. And I just wanted to remind the listeners too, this Committee of Safety that was working against Liliu Oklania and eventually orchestrated the oath there were the same group of men that had forced Kalakawa to sign the Baynett Constitution. as well. Yeah. What was the decisive factor that causes the overthrow of the Hawaiian government, 1893?

Right. So as I was saying, you know, again, Li Yu had inherited that constitution at her main goal, the people, the Hawaiian people were asking the queen, please, please write a new constitution because that constitution, it didn't just affect, you know, the monocator, it did affect the people. that constitution brought in stricter voting qualifications, stricter qualifications for serving in the House of Representatives. So Hawaiian people themselves were disenfranchised from the government. They also, the Committee of Safety also were able to gain seats in the House of Nobles as well. Some of the same men who wrote that Constitution were now sitting in the House of Nobles in that upper house. So Lili Okanai goes, she's hard at work writing a new constitution. She actually finishes a draft of that constitution.

She wants to put it before the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom. And the Committee of Safety, they have spies all over. We don't know who exactly it was, but there is allegedly, you know, somebody within Liliu's camp who is relaying information to the Committee of Safety. So they get win that, hey, the Queen is done with this Constitution. And she's going to put it before the legislature. And that's when they decide to app upon that and basically cut off the queen before she can do any damage to their goals. And that's the catalyst for the whole time.

John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to the Hawaii is the central figure in this. January 1893, Stevens orders the U.S. Marines to land in Honolulu. They take up positions near the government building show of force was not authorized by the Hawaiian government. their presence intimidates royalist forces, made resistance very risky. It was pretty much exactly what they wanted to do, these forces coming on. And in the end, the queen seeks to avoid bloodshed and yields authority, stating she trusted the U.S. government to reverse the illegal action. Okay, there you go. That's the Hawaiian love at work here. We're looking for the best in humanity and not the worst. In this case, that's going to get you in trouble. What was the reaction to the Hawaiian people to this?

Do the measures taken by the U.S.? Yeah, so leading up to the actual January 17th, you know, Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii and the community safety were, they were in cahoots already. Minister Stevens was acting on his own accord in which, which leads to him getting fired by the United States because it was not an authorized call to land those Marines that ship the U.S. Boston. I had actually been in Honolulu Harvard for quite a while, but Minister Stevens took it upon himself to call those Marines ashore as a show of force and, you know, quote unquote, you know, to protect the American people and property. How about those really to be the, you know, unofficial or part of the unofficial militia for this Hawaiian League, sorry, Committee of Safety? As far as the responses of Hawaiian people, I mean, this is devastating, right? you've seen the last five years where Bonnecy is stripped of its power and then this is kind of like the nail in the coffin with the actual overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. And I might also remind of years too, especially with some of these men who are missionary descendants.

These are men that people knew over time. You know, people like even amongst the chiefs, they had grown up with some of these people. So they're, you know, this was a huge, this wasn't this like a random piggo. This is people who are who betrayed the queen out of the country. Well, that's the thing about this. And what I've tried to pepper throughout this conversation is that there's a unique quality to Hawaiian culture that in the end gets them in trouble in this situation. Ends up being great for tourism. But in this political situation, foreign interests are going to use that vulnerability to their own benefit.

Where does the U.S. government come down on this situation? Right. So over that span of the 1890s, on the United States, you know, switching back to the U.S. history side, this is the United States had kind of reached the end of the quote unquote frontier. They had essentially, you know, quelled at least the major wars in the West against Native American people. And there's this question of where should the United States go? Should the United States remain in isolationist country? Does it need to expand and now look for new markets? And that was a question that had, you know, that kind of determined the presidencies that was being talked about in the American legislature, especially amongst very powerful senators. But when the overthrow happens, it's the end of William Harrison's presidency, the what is called the provisional government, which is formed in Hawaii. They try and offer Hawaii up for annexation, but it's just too late in Harrison's presidency. And then for the bulk of the 1890s, it's President Cleveland,

but over Cleveland, who is very sympathetic towards Liliu. Liliu goes back and forth between Hawaii and D.C. to talk to Cleveland, and Cleveland, you know, does its own investigation. Are they determined? Yes, you know, this was a law, you know, just unlawful overthrow. But unfortunately, Cleveland has his hands tied in, especially in his relationship with Congress because of very, again, very, very powerful expansionist senators who are kind of waiting for this moment to see.

how these other chips would fall, I guess. Yeah, I want to really underscore Grover Cleveland's role in this. We're talking about 1893. This is the first of his two terms that he ends up doing. He is opposed to international expansion, and that's an important point at this point in American history. There are

those who do want us to stay home. Don't get into foreign affairs. He ends up launching an investigation into this overthrow. It ends up with a report, the blunt report, which establishes that there's an overthrow carried out by an improper U.S. involvement, all those interests, American officials abused their authority. The Queen was unlawfully deposed. At this point, Queen Lillia would have thought, good,

my strategy worked out. They're going to reverse all of this. But why doesn't that happen? I think there's thinking about the ground that are happening. And there's also, again, in that kind of global, in that global international situation with global politics and, again, the U.S. questioning whether it wants to go overseas or not. And also, and most kind of ironically, the provisional government changed its name to the formal Republic of Hawaii in 1894. They pull we're an independent country card on the United States and tell Cleveland to stay out of our business, which is incredibly ironic, right? Now they're telling the United States President, hey, we're actually a sovereign country and you can't just meddle into international affairs. And that's a trick,

A chess game, isn't it? Yes. U.S. government acknowledges their wrongdoing, but they failed to reverse what happened. 1895, a failed royalist counter rebellion led to the queen then being arrested and imprisoned in Ayelani Palace, the building that still stands in the middle of Honolulu. And she is forced to abdicate when her supporters are threatened with execution. Things get really ugly.

Yes. The overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom was not a popular revolution, but a small organized coup driven by foreign economic interest enabled by U.S. military and diplomatic support. We learned a lot from the Hawaiian situation that we carry forth into the 20th century, don't we? Yes. This was, we call it, there's actually a documentary called Act of War. It was an Act of War against the Hawaiian kingdom, orchestrated by business interests,

and all really to secure an economic feature for a small group of people who are, you know, committed to agriculture and it's, you know, kind of supporting industries and, you know, greed, but also, of course, with the racialized undertones of, you know, why they thought they were justified in doing this because they saw Hawaiians as inferior as well. Exactly. And weak and vulnerable, which was actually a welcoming thing. They were taking advantage of. So Hawaii at that point has lost its queen, its constitution, its independence, very tragic. But it was not yet officially part of the United States. And we'll be discussing how that happens after. this break.

Noah, with Hawaiian sovereignty, effectively non-existent, what was stopping the U.S. from just immediate annexation? Right. So from the 1880s and particularly post-overthrow, there was massive, massive resistance from Hawaiian people, not just of the monarchy and the chiefs, but of the people of the land. Yeah. And this resulted in petitions.

it resulted in actually formalized groups, political groups, that were going actually to the U.S. They were writing in newspapers, doing all types of things, and, you know, kind of in conversations with the Queen as well. One of the big outcomes of this political organization by Native Hawaiians was the 1897 petitions against annexation. And these petitions were hand-delivered across the Hawaiian Islands. islands by a group called Huayaloha Ayna, which is generally translated as the Hawaiian petriotically, these petitions in total were about 28,000 signatures, which was, you know, kind of like the bulk of the adult population of Native Hawaiians. The Ku'i population.

Yeah, Ku'a, yeah, Ku'a. Ku'a petitions. And Ku'a, the word Ku'a is important. I'm glad you brought that up, Don. Ku'a means to, Ku' means to stand, and A means, like, different or in opposition to, so to stand in opposition to. So a resistance petition. So my great, great, great, great, great grandparents actually have their signatures on that petition and some of our other family.

We have, you know, high definition scans of those petitions today. They're actually located in Washington, D.C., in the National Archives, because they're hand-delivered to Washington, D.C. in 1897, and it actually stops an attempt at annexation in that. year. Amazing. Yeah. And so yes, the U.S. on the U.S. side, they realize, hey, this whole annexation thing, it seems like the actual Hawaiian people or the bulk of the population is not a board with this annexation thing. So they start rethinking and to actually go through with annexation. It would have required the majority of Congress to approve annexation. So they see these petitions as kind of evidence that, hey, this might not be a popular movement in Hawaii.

And in the midst of that, the Spanish American War breaks out. And this brings in the whole conversation we don't have time for today, but about the Philippines and all of that effect. And Hawaiians must have been looking very close at what was happening to the Philippines. Yes. Yes. The Americans there taken over. But the fighting in the

Pacific, especially in the Philippines, makes it obvious, if it wasn't already, that we were going to need the United States would need a strategic outpost in the Pacific. So all of what has happened and, you know, makes that that much more strategic and urgent for America. The new president is going to be William McKinley, who's all about expansion.

Yes. And he sees this as a military necessity. So in a sense, Hawaii is annexed through a joint resolution passed by a simple majority in Congress. It's called the Newlands resolution. Again, too much rabbit hole there. But there's a lot of little chapters is the point, moving onwards to the next. 1950s, which seems like, you know, a blink ago when you're talking about all this other stuff that happens. It is formerly made a U.S. territory in 1900. All that while, Queen Liliu

continues to fight, right? Right. Right. So, and I just want to point out one thing about the annexation, again, for listeners, there is no treaty of annexation that ever existed between No, no, I met from the American standpoint. From the American standpoint, we annexed. Yeah. But it's funny because, you know, we have a, we have a high school in Honolulu called, named after McKinley, McKinley High School. There's a statue of McKinley there. And in his hand, he's holding a document called the Treaty of Annexation. So the joke here in Hawaii is that that's the only treaty that exists is on that statue. And they recently put, they recently put up a sign explaining that, the actual real history. But going back to your question about Li Li Li Li Lu and the end of her life,

So, Liliu, you know, she doesn't pass away into 1917. So she has another like almost 20 years after annexation, and when she has, she's living her life. But she doesn't just fade away into, you know, obscurity. She's trying to fight for the return of her land. So going back to that Mahele in 1848, which set aside about a third of all the lands in Hawaii as the private lands of the monarch, liliu was never compensated for those lands.

The provisional government, when it ceded power to the United States and a transition to territoriality, it combined the government lands and the private lands together. And the private lands, we also refer to those as crown lands, so, you know, belonging to the crown. And so Liliu tries to ask the United States, hey, I would like these lands back there. It's supposed to be in my private lands. The United States says, no. And she says, oh, if you're not going to give me the lands, I'm going to, you know, sue you. for a sum of money.

So her last request, I believe, was in like 1912. It was like for $400,000, which now seems absurdly low for how much land that was. It was, you know, over a million acres of land. And the United States, again, says no. And so Luluk, Okalani is never properly compensated for those lands that were lost, those crown lands. I mean, those crown lands until today, until, or now in 2026, are a huge part of land issues in Hawaii. because of their suspect transition between the Republic and the United States and also because a lot of important infrastructure in Hawaii was built upon those particular

lands like airports and other forms of economic infrastructure. A lot happens in the 20th century, obviously. Much of it reflects the way other native populations are treated in all of this expansionism of the United States. Hawaiian language education eventually is banned in schools, traditional practices discouraged, even criminalized, land dispossession, as you're suggesting, continues throughout all this time period. We're not even talking about the industrial side of this, the dull plantations, the rise of the pineapple, and all sorts of agricultural aspects of this. And never mind tourism, of course.

By the mid-20th century, Native Hawaiians faced disproportionate poverty, health issues, and lawlessness due to all of these populate, all these annexes. era policies that had gone on. The United States' attention, of course, has been shifting back and forth all over the place from the Philippines and Spanish-American War to the World War I to World War II. A lot happens in this period of time, and we're letting that sit for a while. It is when probably the Cold War, it plays a big part of this, when the United States really has to nail this down as far as they're concerned that Pearl Harbor is ours, and this is how it's going to be. And that's when 1959, the Hawaii becomes

the 50th state after a plebiscite. Now, let's talk about that because how do we go from all of this intricacies of what happened over the previous decades to the final resolution, which is we're going to make you a state. How many Hawaiians were even in favor of that? Right. So that

place site in 1959 and really the push for statehood began in the 1840. So post-World War II, again, it's a long history that we don't have, you know, Hours to talk about, but a lot of it was driven by returning Japanese-American veterans, so the second generations who had fought in World War II. And of course, Poy has a very big Japanese-American population and also push back against

what we call the Big Five. So the Big Five were these five corporations who began in the Hawaiian Kingdom period. Again, this is missionary descendants, other American and European businessmen who basically formed the oligarchy, and this is again the same group of men that we've been talking about, but their power and their grip, the economic and social grip over Hawaii last well into the 20th century.

So there's this pushback there. And also, like you explained, not only just World War I, but definitely World War II kind of proved the need for the United States to hold on to Pearl Harbor as a, you know, imparting geopolitical location as well.

And the attack on it, of course is the iconic reason for all of that. 1959, Hawaii officially becomes the 50th U.S. state. We're past that point. It's still a controversial issue for decades afterwards. That remains so today. 1993, the Congress passes the apology resolution, formally acknowledging all of what was already known a century before,

which is that this was all done in an illegal overthrow with lack of native consent, no reparations or restoration of sovereignty. And today, that remains the real sticking point, isn't it? Yeah. So like you said, 1993, which was the 100th year anniversary of the overthrow. Bill Clinton signs the apology resolution, which if you read it, it's the apology for, primarily for their role in the overthrow and, you know, the landing of the Marines, but it doesn't address the annexation part.

So it's very calculated. And it also, I think there's a stipulation in there that, you know, like the United States cannot be held liable, yada, yada, yada. Of course. So, but it was an important moment, you know, the 1990s spurred Native Hawaiians to really think about sovereignty and like what does sovereignty mean from a national perspective or national meaning within like, like Hawaiian national perspective. And what does that feature look like? So since then, that was really the catalyst for that, that really deep political. thought about sovereignty, which again continues until today. Is there any chance of some major change and sovereignty being replaced or not?

That's the million dollar question. And since the 1990s, you know, there's different facets of the community that have very different ideas about what sovereignty might look like. You know, one other obvious, you know, kind of example would be full sovereignty, a break off from the United States and going back to some kind of independent. whatever that may look like. On the other side of the spectrum, you have like the nation within a nation or, you know, Native American tribal model. That has kind of been pushed top down, like more from the federal and some federal agencies. And there was several attempts to move towards a nation within the nation status. But that's primarily been resisted by Native Hawaiians for a number of reasons that I won't get into for sake of time. I think where we're at, at now, especially with our economy and especially in the post-COVID world where a lot of local families have moved from Hawaii. And, you know, there's now, sadly, there's more

Native Hawaiians that live outside of Hawaii than in Hawaii. I think there's some particular issues in Hawaii that people have turned their energy towards. And kind of thinking of sovereignty and thinking of those issues as other forms of sovereignty to take care of. So like food security, housing, education, because what's the point of having a, you know, politically sovereign nation if you don't have sovereignty over those building blocks of community first? I think the energy has been to kind of take care of those things before we can like move forward to like some grand idea of sovereignty.

What a mission you must feel as a professor of history there. Right. And it's, you know, and I'm very blessed to have my position. And just to see, you know, the generation that I grew up in, seeing like my mom's generation of how much education they got, like in, you know, specifically Hawaiian education versus my grandparents generation. I was also very lucky to spend a lot of, you know, 25 years of my great grandfather being alive in my life. And my great grandfather, he was born in 1920 and his parents didn't teach him Hawaiian. language. Interesting. So he, that was, you know, that kind of, that was the break in our family for like, at least language. You know, we kind of kept parts of culture, of course, because we live it. But seeing that, I was looked at that. I was like, well, that was a break in our family in terms of language. And then the ability for me growing up to learn Hawaiian language from middle school until now, and then now you can, you know, you can do a Hawaiian language degree in the University of Hawaii system or Hawaiian culture. Both changes.

have been amazing to see, even within my time. Like, I thought we were so far ahead. And then I see the kids now where they're learning about all the, you know, the overthrow and annexation when they're like in elementary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't even know anything really about the kingdom itself until like middle school, high school. So seeing that kind of education and reach the children earlier has been really special to see.

And, you know, it contributes to the work that I'm trying to do. Exactly. Well, still go there. You got to go there and now keep that in mind as you loll on the beach, you know, and order your cocktails. There's a whole other aspect of this experience for you. Noah Dolom is an assistant professor of history of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, specializing 19th century Hawaii. I hope to speak with you again, sir. It was a real honor. Thank you. Thank you so much, Don. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Monday, and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements

to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.