an attempt to untangle revisionism hawaiian sovereignty...

HawaiianSovereignty:

Do the Facts Matter?



T H U R S T O N T W I G G - S M I T HT H U R S T O N T W I G G - S M I T H

AN ATTEMPT TO UNTANGLE REVISIONISMAN ATTEMPT TO UNTANGLE REVISIONISM

GOODALE PUBLISHING

Honolulu, Hawai‘i

DO THE FACTS MATTER?

Hawaiian Sovereignty

By Thurston Twigg-Smith

© 1998 by Goodale Publishing. All rights reservedSecond edition, May 1998

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Twigg-Smith, Thurston, 1921-Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?

Bibliography: p.Includes index.1. History—Hawaii. 2. Politics—Hawaii.

Hardcover ISBN 0-9662945-0-5Softcover ISBN 0-9662945-1-3

Why the interest in Hawaiian? The first three generations of mygrandfather’s side of the family in these Islands were fluent in it: AsaThurston, the missionary, spoke it, preached in it and translated booksof the Bible into Hawaiian. His son, speaker of the Kingdom’s Houseof Representatives before his death at age 32, learned it in Kona as aboy and was as fluent in it as in English. His son, Lorrin A., the Rev-olutionist, was the same. He could catch the detailed nuances of otherspeakers in the Legislature when he was in it, especially if they thoughtthey could get away with a wisecrack to their colleagues about him.

And on my great-grandmother’s side of the family, her father, Lor-rin Andrews, put together the first Hawaiian dictionary in 1836 andfollowed it with an expanded edition in 1865. It was an unsophisti-cated product compared with the outstanding works of Mary Pukuiand Samuel Elbert, but they saluted it for its pioneering thoroughness.They quoted H.W. Williams, a critic of Hawaiian dictionaries, as say-ing in 1926: “In 1865, it was the most important work of its kind....Noother Polynesian dialect had received such thorough treatment...[it]remains a noble production.”

In a salute to the missionaries who saved the language by reducingit to a written form in the 1820s, the ultimate dictionary writers quot-ed the Reverend Lorenzo Lyons, who wrote in 1878:

“I’ve studied Hawaiian for 46 years but am by nomeans perfect...it is an interminable language...it is one ofthe oldest living languages of the earth, as some conjec-ture, and may well be classed among the best...the thoughtto displace it, or to doom it to oblivion by substituting theEnglish language, ought not for a moment to be indulged.Long live the grand old, sonorous, poetical Hawaiian lan-guage.”

If this book should happen to bring in revenue in excess ofexpenses, that profit will be donated to further support of the Hawai-ian language.

T his book is dedicated to the continuedpursuit of the Hawaiian language.

Sovereignty:The Claims Are Flawed

Colonialism & Missionaries: Facts of Life in the 19th Century

Seeds of Revolution

The Queen’s Own Men Wanted Her Out

Revolution

The Men Out Front

The Old Order Changes

The Investigators

The Road to Annexation

Land Is the Key

The Congressional Apology:A Travesty

Fact or Fiction?

Where Do We Go from Here?

Table of Contents

i

vii

xi

1

17

35

61

83

135

167

175

207

241

271

299

323

341359363367

Introduction

Prologue

Foreword

ChaptersOne

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Vignette

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Historical FiguresBibliography

FootnotesIndex

Illustrations

The BishopsThe ThurstonsLorrin A. ThurstonKamehameha I, IIKamehameha III, IVKamehameha V, LunaliloEmmaKala-kaua

Lili‘uokalaniKa‘iulaniWilliam L. LeeSome of the RevolutionistsMore of the RevolutionistsClaus Spreckels, J.E. BushAnnexation Committee, Kala-kaua’s crownCouncil of the Provisional Government, Citizens Guard

The Blounts and Mills, Ali‘io-lani HaleCabinet of the Republic‘Iolani Palace, Mrs. Hopper’s houseAnnexation Day ceremonyConstitutional Convention of 1894Prince Ku-hio-, Annexation Day Flag raising

Timeline through Hawai‘i’s History

Between pages88 and 89




s Will and Ariel Durant state in TheLessons of History, “Our knowledge ofany past event is always incomplete,

probably inaccurate, beclouded by ambivalent evi-dence and biased historians, and perhaps distortedby our own patriotic or religious partisanship.”

So it is with Hawai‘i’s 1893 Revolution andthe subsequent events that continue to reverberatetoday. History is being ignored or rewritten to servethe perceived needs of those partisans of the sover-eignty movement in Hawai‘i. One of the unfortunateaspects of this is that many tend to accept the revisedhistory without question and with no attempt torevisit the scene in 1893 to examine the events lead-ing up to and following the confrontations that tookplace.

That 1893 Revolution ended the HawaiianMonarchy, opened the door to Annexation ofHawai‘i by the United States five years later and ledto Statehood for the Island territory in 1959.

One might think that the political processhad run its course a century later, and all is well inparadise today. But for the past decade our fiftiethstate has been experiencing a difficult, often divisive,argument, whose roots lie in the history of the 1893

Introduction

i

Sovereignists’knowledge ofpast incomplete

One might think . . . all is well . . .

AA

Revolution. All Native Hawaiians became U.S. citi-zens at Annexation, but some Native Hawaiianstoday are denying their American citizenship and itsvalues. Instead, they are laying claim to sovereigntyrights, reparations, state-owned government landsand possible independence from the United States,all based on an interpretation of the history of therevolutionary period that calls what happened a coupby the United States instead of a revolution by a vol-unteer army of Hawai‘i residents. This is a major dif-ference!

Almost everything about the Revolution iscontroversial, even what to call it. The men who tookover the Kingdom called their action a counter-revo-lution, claiming Queen Lili‘uokalani herself was inrevolt. She called their action treason. Sovereigntyactivists today call it an overthrow.

Such distinctions are more than mere seman-tics, particularly in view of how current activistsattempt to defend their positions on the basis ofrevised history. As John Clive notes in his book Notby Fact Alone, “Let us then come to a preliminaryfinding, to the effect that the past lends itself all tooreadily to use by those who have a political axe togrind. Nothing works better to further a cause—goodor bad—than to lend it legitimacy by supplying itwith a long heritage.”

Caught up in today’s nationwide swirl ofpolitical correctness, many residents of the Islandsare reluctant to speak up against the extravagantclaims of some Native Hawaiian leaders. This is thefirst attempt in book form to question the claims ofsovereignty activists, and to dispute the accuracy andinterpretations of the historical basis for their goals.

The author, Thurston Twigg-Smith, isuniquely entitled to raise these questions. He is a

Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?

ii

Past can be usedfor political ends

Major differencein interpretation

fifth-generation resident of Hawai‘i, a descendant ofmissionaries who arrived on the first mission vessel,the Brig Thaddeus, in 1820.

For the past fifty years he has been intimate-ly associated with The Honolulu Advertiser, Hawai‘i’sleading newspaper—from 1961 to 1993 as its pub-lisher and chief executive officer. His grandfather,Lorrin A. Thurston, was the leader of the revolu-tionary movement. Thurston’s Memoirs of theHawaiian Revolution contains a detailed and docu-mented record of the Revolutionists’ viewpoint of theevents before, during and after the confrontation.

Five years ago Twigg-Smith jumped intowhat had been largely a one-sided discourse by writ-ing an article that began: “The overthrow of QueenLili‘uokalani and subsequent annexation to the Unit-ed States were the best things that ever happened toHawai‘i and its people.”

The statement was ridiculed by sovereigntyactivists, but it got others, including some Hawai-ians, to thinking: “It isn’t so bad being an Americancitizen, and maybe some of the other claims anddemands being made by sovereignty activists arequestionable, too.”

The continuing flood of pro-sovereignty arti-cles and letters, particularly in his former newspaper,The Advertiser (he relinquished his leadership role in1993 when the newspaper was sold), made Twigg-Smith realize that the other side of the sovereigntystory was not being told.

This book, which might be called “the caseagainst sovereignty,” is the result. Based on booksand research not easily available, it presents a con-cerned journalist’s viewpoint of what actually tookplace at that crucial time. Many of the findings aresurprising, and the evidence rebuts many current

Introduction

iii

Other side notbeing told

Twigg-Smith is a fifth-generation resident

claims, including the one that no Hawaiians werehappy with Annexation or came to the AnnexationDay ceremonies at ‘Iolani Palace. Even the Queen isquoted in 1900 as approving Annexation and thebook contains photographs showing there were someHawaiians present on Annexation Day, both on thedais with President Dole and in the audience on thePalace grounds.

Twigg-Smith obviously hopes that facts likethose and others will give Hawaiians an awarenessthat the community, somewhat divided now, was nottorn apart at Annexation. There was disagreement atthe time, but many Hawaiian politicians supportedAnnexation and capitalized on the new voting powerU.S. citizenship gave Native Hawaiians. They domi-nated Hawai‘i politics until World War II.

Moving to the present day, Twigg-Smithdescribes how the community can come together andhow Hawaiian concerns can be addressed withoutfurther splintering our society. He believes thisunderstanding will help defuse the potential violencehe fears may lie ahead when—or if—key sovereigntygoals are not achieved.

This book will be read by different people fordifferent purposes, and this is as it should be. I hopethat those who dispute the findings of the book willdo so on the basis of historical fact rather than emo-tion or wishful thinking. Obviously, all history issubject to interpretation, but credit the author withdigging deeply into the record of the past, and withmaking his biases as objective as possible.

Historian Herbert J. Muller, in The Uses of thePast, points out that “...historians can never attainthe impersonal exactitude to which they must alwaysaspire. There can be no ‘pure history’—history initself, recorded from nobody’s point of view, for


iv

Credit theauthor

with digging

Some Hawaiianswanted Annexa-

tion

nobody’s sake. The most objective history conceiv-able is still a selection and an interpretation, neces-sarily governed by some special interests and basedon some particular beliefs. It can be more nearlyobjective if these interests are explicit, out in theopen, where they can be freely examined and criti-cized.”

In this book Twigg-Smith questions whetheranything as important as independence or sovereign-ty for Hawai‘i should be based on a one-sided view ofhistory, and he clearly shows that there are at leasttwo sides to this segment of the record of theseIslands. Coming at this time, it is an important refer-ence source for anyone interested in the sovereigntymovement—either for or against.

In 1993 historian David McCullough gave aspeech at Punahou School with the provocative title,“Why History?” This book answers that question.

Roderick F. McPheePresident Emeritus

Punahou School

November 1997

Introduction

v

Book is impor-tant referencesource

he little boy tugged at my shirt andlooked up with innocent eyes. “Why didyour grandpa steal my land?” he asked.“Yeah, and why did he steal our culture,

too?” his big sister added.I couldn’t believe my ears. Kids usually don’t

talk that way. Their mother was standing therebeaming and you could tell she liked what her kidswere doing. The sovereignty line is that the haole(foreigners) cheated the Hawaiians, and the kidswere talking as though it were a fact. She’d broughtthem with her to the picket line that was protestingmy presence on her island of Maui for an art showduring the 100th anniversary year of the HawaiianRevolution.

Around her another hundred or so peoplewith varying levels of Hawaiian ancestry added com-ments reflecting their views of haole and the prob-lems of Hawaiians.

The comments from the protest group thatday also reflected some of the other goals associatedwith the sovereignty movement. These include tak-ing over government lands and restoring the cultureof ancient Native Hawaiians. They’re wrong, butsovereignists believe the Revolution in 1893 that

Prologue

vii

Children learnuntruths

Revolution of’93 didn’t stealland, culture

T

overthrew Queen Lili‘uokalani’s regime also tookboth land and culture from the Hawaiian people.

The Maui protesters weren’t threatening, butI got the message: They wanted me to feel as thoughmy grandfather and others involved in the Revolu-tion and subsequent Annexation to the United Stateshad taken advantage of them.

Comments that day and by sovereigntyenthusiasts on many other occasions seem to be ele-ments of an orchestrated program to paint NativeHawaiians as victims and build up guilt among non-Hawaiians in a strategy to advance sovereignty.

It made me want to do something to showHawaiians that they are not victims, that the revi-sionist histories they are being fed these days arewrongheaded and can only lead to dangerous divi-sion within our community, that we can all worktogether to keep this divisiveness from happening.

This book is the result. I hope it will help setthe record straight.

Acknowledgments

If errors have crept into this book, it is myfault. The many good people who helped me pull ittogether have set me straight on numerous occasions,whether my deviations involved conceptual errors,errors of fact, repetition (they couldn’t get it all outbecause I believe in repetition when revisionism isbeing debunked!), excess stridency or just plain mis-statements. Agnes Conrad, knowledgeable historian,was an early steersman; Barbara Hastings has beena prime mover of the entire project as well as aninvaluable critic, editor and layout artist. In nomeasure of importance or order, these other friendsdid their part to keep me on course: Bob Midkiff,


viii

Acknowledgingassistance

Attempts topaint Hawaiians

as victims

Prologue

ix

whose files got me started; John Strobel, whose ableeditor’s eye worked overtime; Kelvin Taketa, JeffWatanabe and David Cole, who forewent precious skitime to read and critique the midcourse manuscript;Rubellite Johnson; Rod McPhee, whose flatteringintroduction means a great deal more than he canever realize; Mary Judd, the Punahou archivist;Michael Thurston Pfeffer; David McCullough,whose counsel and advice were a strong and calmingforce; George Chaplin, who took time out from hisown book to read and critique this one; Robert VanDyke, a mother lode of source books; John Goemans;Jolene Taga; Pat Fong; Randy Roth, constantly cast-ing light on the subject; Marilyn Reppun of theHawaiian Mission Children’s Society library andBarbara Dunn of the Hawaiian Historical Societylibrary, both of whom went out of their way to behelpful; and mostly Sharon, who became Mrs.Twigg-Smith midway through the project, remaineda loyal critic and put up untiringly with the foibles ofan embryonic writer. There were countlessunnamed others along the way who helped turnevery gathering, every party, into an information ses-sion. It couldn’t have been done without all of you.

xi

Two ministerscame to favorU.S. tie

RespectedHawaiian spokefor Annexation

nnexation to the United States was“the best thing that could happen forHawai‘i, both for the native and for-eign population . . . I rejoice heartilythat it has come.”

—John L. Kaulukou, speaker of the House of Repre-sentatives of the Republic of Hawai‘i, earlier long-time ally of Kala-kaua and his sister, Lili‘uokalani;former judge, legislator, marshal under the Monar-chy. San Francisco Chronicle, July 28, 1898.

“As you well know, the best thing that hashappened for Hawai‘i is the foolish and ill-advisedmove that was made by Royalists on the 6th of Janu-ary (1895) (Ed.—the unsuccessful counter-revolu-tion)....For myself I am in for Annexation and willuse my best endeavors . . . to bring it about as soon aspossible, the sooner the better . . . . Lili‘uokalani hasabdicated and my hands are untied. Annexationnow is the goal for me. You will find more of us,Samuel Parker for one . . .”

—John F. Colburn, Hawaiian member with SamParker of Lili‘uokalani’s last Cabinet. He and Park-er were key planners in the move by that Cabinet thefirst day of the 1893 Revolution to depose the Queenif she did not withdraw her notion of a new Consti-tution; in a letter to Lorrin A. Thurston dated Jan-uary 30, 1895. Archives of Hawai‘i.

Foreword

AA


xii

“. . . a peoplewho can vote.”

Lili‘uokalanisaw hope inAnnexation

“Be it Resolved, by the Senate and House ofRepresentatives of the Territory of Hawai‘i, that theCongress of the United States . . . is hereby respect-fully requested to pass . . . an Act enabling the peopleof this Territory . . . to meet in convention and frameand . . . adopt a State Constitution where under . . .this Territory may be admitted as a State into theUnion.”

—First action of the 1903 Hawai‘i Legislature,adopted unanimously by the Senate and the NativeHawaiian-dominated House and delivered to Con-gress by Hawai‘i’s Native Hawaiian delegate toCongress, Prince Ku-hio- Kalaniana‘ole.

“Tho’ for a moment it [the overthrow] costme a pang of pain for my people it was only momen-tary, for the present has a hope for the future of mypeople.”

—Former Queen Lili‘uokalani in her diary on Sun-day, September 2, 1900.

“The question of the restoration of theMonarchy is gone from us forever. We are now apeople, however, who can vote. You all know wehave two-thirds of the votes in this country. . . . If youwant to rule, it is for you to decide.”

—Robert W. Wilcox in 1900, from The Unconquer-able Rebel, University Press of Colorado, 1996.

These and other comments of the time painta picture of Hawaiian satisfaction with American cit-izenship, American law, American benefits, quitedifferent from the picture painted by sovereignty pro-ponents today.

Sovereignty activists are saying NativeHawaiians did not have a voice in our present

xiii

Plebisciteinconclusive

What doesmajority say?

Chargingtoward division?

alliance with America, that therefore some sort ofsovereignty must be restored, reparations must bepaid, lands must be turned over to Native Hawaiians,even though most by this time have a minority ofHawaiian blood in their veins.

What’s happened? Does the quest for sover-eignty represent the will of the people or the desire ofa minority for power? What are its goals? Are wecharging down the road toward a divided society forno particularly good reason?

This book attempts to answer some of thequestions, present some of the facts that need to beconsidered before a valid and balanced judgment canbe made.

The viewpoint of the majority of Hawai‘i’spopulation needs to be expressed. Its approval isessential for anything involving state lands ormonies to be achieved from sovereignty efforts. Eventhe non-monetary but no less valuable goals of devel-oping cultural awareness, ethnic pride and social andeconomic improvement would benefit from majorityapproval. Will the majority let its legislative repre-sentatives give away state land or allocate major seg-ments of overall tax monies for the benefit of onlyone of Hawai‘i’s ethnic groups? Without agreementof the majority of the people of Hawai‘i, it is hard tosee how anything significant can be put into law.

A plebiscite within the Hawaiian communityon the question: “Shall the Nation of Hawaiian peo-ple elect delegates to propose a Native Hawaiian gov-ernment?” brought inconclusive results as to howeven that community feels about sovereignty. (Putaside for the moment that at the time the questionwas asked, there was no “Nation of Hawaiian peo-ple” nor any widely accepted definition of what con-stitutes a “Native Hawaiian.”)

Foreword


xiv

Queen wasineffectual

Are revisionsthe basis ofmovement?

Interpretation of the actual plebiscite vote,announced in September 1996, was clouded by avery low level of voter participation. Only some 28percent of the seventy-nine thousand four hundredballots sent to eligible Hawaiian voters were cast infavor of the proposal. More than forty-six thousandballots were returned unmarked or not returned atall. Of the thirty-three thousand ballots that werereturned, twenty-two thousand were marked “yes”and eleven thousand “no”. Combining the “no”votes with those not returned or returned blankmeans some 72 percent of Hawaiians eligible to votechose not to vote at all or voted against the conven-tion.

So who wants sovereignty, and how muchand what kind do they want? Are the claims of sov-ereignty activists based on fact or are they based onerroneous revisions of Hawaiian history?

This book takes the position that much of thesovereignty argument is based on rewritten Islandhistory. For example, Lili‘uokalani today is picturedas a good Queen, beloved by all her people. In actu-ality, while she was a charming and erudite lady, shewas an ineffectual ruler. The historian WilliamAdam Russ, Jr., in his “Summing Up” at the conclu-sion of his definitive history of the period, TheHawaiian Revolution, called her government “ineffi-cient, corrupt, and undependable.” Her own hand-picked Cabinet, as we’ll see in Chapter Four, cameclose to deposing her at the start of the Revolution of1893. Today, the focus of admiration is on her musi-cal ability, her charm as a person, the memory of aQueen with royal bearing. Forgotten are her weak-nesses, her arrogance, her duplicity, her failures as aleader of the Kingdom.

History does involve interpretation, and

xv

Foreword

Some factsirrefutable

Kingdom was indire condition

Understandingshouldn’t belimited

interpreters can look at the same facts and come upwith different stories. But there are some absolutesin Hawaiian history.

The Hawaiian Kingdom took foreignersunder its wing from the time of first Western contact.Once sworn in as subjects of the Kingdom, as themajority of the Revolution’s leaders were, their inputinto the history of Hawai‘i should have validity evenfor a native historian. Our understanding of whathappened at the time of the Revolution in 1893should not be limited to a Hawaiian activist view ora haole view. If the Kingdom was corrupt and ineffi-cient in the eyes of many of its subjects—native-bornand naturalized alike—it was not an evil act on itsface for those subjects to seek change.

It is a fact that the Kingdom was in dire con-dition by any measure of its financial strength, itsdwindling population or its standing in the view ofother nations. Its monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani, hadprepared and was trying to promulgate a new Con-stitution that included a half-dozen moves backwardtoward a more absolute Monarchy. Among otherthings it would have disenfranchised her foreign-born subjects, taken away the right of her native-born subjects to elect the upper house of the Legisla-ture by giving her the power to appoint it and emas-culated the strong Cabinet system that had been putin place as a check against King Kala-kaua’s extrava-gances. These facts are irrefutable whether a histo-rian is looking at the era through Hawaiian eyes orforeign eyes. As the quotations at the start of thisforeword show, Hawaiian eyes themselves sawAnnexation in different ways. The viewpoints ofthose leaders of the period, which belie the notion of“stolen,” are not mentioned by new-age Hawaiiansovereignty writers in their newly written histories.

xvi


Thurston needsno defense

I am aware that charges will be made that thisaccount is merely an attempt to defend the revolu-tionary actions of my grandfather, Lorrin A.Thurston. Thurston needs no defending. He waspassionate in his belief that the removal of theMonarchy and the achievement of Annexation to theUnited States were goals that would benefit all of thepeople of Hawai‘i. Sensing a mood thirty years afterthe Revolution to romanticize the Queen and herrule, he and President Sanford B. Dole in the 1920swrote their personal memoirs of the tumultuousevents of 1893, supplementing them with consider-able documentary evidence. Their love for Hawai‘i isapparent.

Enough facts exist to enable one to argue thatmuch of the current version of Hawaiian history ofthe revolutionary period is wrong, revisionist andpolitically motivated. This book attempts to point outwhere activists attempting to write history one hun-dred years after the events have ignored facts andstrayed away from established reports to create a biasthat is being used erroneously and divisively to sup-port the cause of sovereignty. It is time to find outwhat really happened in Hawai‘i at the end of the19th century.

TT-SKona

January 1998

n the 1970s, at a time when they fearedtheir culture was facing oblivion and theirlanguage was being left to history, NativeHawaiians began the long struggle backtoward pride and self-esteem in what came

to be called the sovereignty movement. In one sense, future historians are likely to

look on this preservation and perpetuation of theHawaiian culture as a model for the globe. The pro-gram already deserves applause and support. Butmaybe because it’s easier to rally the troops whenthere’s an enemy, the sovereignty people felt they hadto blame someone else for their problems—the Revo-lutionists, the haole, the United States, the mission-aries—anyone but themselves or their ali‘i (rulers).Their leadership began this process as the centenni-al of the 1893 Revolution grew nearer, and by 1991 arevisionist view of Hawaiian history was in fullswing. Facts get in the way of such an approach,however, and dangers for all of us lie ahead.

Characterizing the Revolutionists as villainsengaged in an illegal act and building up expectationsin the next generation by setting forth extravagantclaims appear to be key parts of the game plan.Whether it is part of the plan or not, divisiveness isa result. Sovereignty leaders hope to justify claims

Sovereignty — The Claims Are FlawedChapter One

1

Struggle forpride and self-esteem

Distorting factsbodes ill forfuture

I

against the U.S. government and they need to rewritehistory to make the claims stick.

Within this approach, however, lies thepotential for a huge problem. Blame someone else forthe failures, make the kids think something wasstolen from them, make everyone with any amountof Native Hawaiian blood think he or she is one ofthe aggrieved, a victim. Then you have the ingredi-ents for possible violence on the part of those whoseexpectations have been stretched beyond any ration-al dimension, and thus can’t be fulfilled.

At the moment the various Hawaiian groupsare making their claims in a peaceful if occasionallystrident manner. They are slowed by the fact they arefar apart on defining many of their goals and meth-ods of reaching them. But the next generation, orhot-headed members of the current generation, eas-ily could lash out in a quick and violent manner iflands they erroneously believe are theirs are notturned over to them or if other of their unrealisticgoals are not achieved.

One vital part of the Hawai‘i economy isclearly vulnerable: tourism. Our economic future, atleast in the near term, depends on visitors. Morethan 30 percent of Hawai‘i’s people derive theirincome directly from the visitor industry and morethan that gain their income indirectly from visitors.Success of tourism is tied to the Aloha Spirit, a blend-ing of all races in a place of rare beauty. This peace-ful and productive combination distinguishesHawai‘i from the world’s other scenic spots. Thefeeling, the spirit, needs to be protected—and keptfrom misuse and commercialization. Divisive tacticscould severely damage it.

To help stop the divisiveness, we in Hawai‘imust lay to rest unfounded claims regarding land

2


Vulnerability oftourism

Victimization isdangerous

ownership and expose the falsity of the myth that theMonarchy, particularly in the Kingdom’s last decade,was a benevolent and widely loved institution. Wemust explore the reasons for current Hawaiian socialconditions and clarify other sovereignty positionsthat are based on false accounts of Hawaiian history.

How can we do this? Certainly one way is toexpose the revisionism that has been used to leadsovereignty groups to insupportable demands. Oncethe revisionism is recognized, I believe the good judg-ment and common sense possessed by the majorityof Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians will bring peopletogether again. We can help shift the focus of sover-eignty efforts from unachievable, damaging andwidely varied goals to worthy goals that could beachieved without harming Hawai‘i or dividing itspeople.

Many false claims need to be discussed andfacts set forth. The distorted story of the Revolutionespoused by the activists and their exaggerated listsof grievances have been publicized so well that hard-ly a soul today knows what is fact and what is fic-tion. In a sense the leaders of the various sovereign-ty movements are doing to the Hawaiians what someof the kings and their chiefs of old did for centuries:rallying them to warfare and pointing them towardgoals that might benefit the leadership but not themasses.

The question of ancestry is a good place tobegin to set the record straight. Statistics are criticalto measuring progress. But what is the definition ofa Hawaiian? More than 80 percent of Hawai‘i resi-dents said in a Honolulu Advertiser poll in November1995 that they didn’t want sovereignty if it meantisolating and separating Hawaiians from the rest ofthe community. One of the reasons for that is under-

3

Sovereignty—The Claims Are Flawed

Communitydoesn’t want tobe split

Goal might ben-efit leadership,not people

Revisionism canlead to insup-portable claims

standable: Hawaiians, for the most part, are sowoven with the rest of us by intermarriage and fam-ily relationships that they are themselves the “rest ofthe community.”

So what is a Hawaiian? Before KamehamehaI, natives living on the Big Island may have calledthemselves Hawaiians. Those on Maui or O‘ahuwould have been called Mauians or Oahuans. Any-one from another island usually was viewed as anenemy. Today, anyone living in the state is, in onesense, a Hawaiian—a resident of Hawai‘i just as anOregonian or New Yorker is a resident of thosestates. But the term has been adopted to refer only tothose residents with Native Hawaiian blood, no mat-ter how small may be their percentage of it.

The failure to define “Hawaiian” in terms ofa reasonable level of blood quantum already creates astatistical nightmare in analyzing matters related torace. It’s a failure that renders suspect many general-izations involving groups of Hawai‘i residents, suchas measures of social welfare, crime and prisonrecords, susceptibility to illnesses, and so forth.

Except for those comparatively few who have50 percent or more of Hawaiian blood, most of thosewe label Hawaiians are predominantly somethingother than Hawaiian. They have love and aloha fortheir parents and grandparents of other ethnic back-grounds.

Many Islanders, of course, “feel Hawaiian.”It is hard for anyone living in these Islands not tohave this feeling, including most of us who have noHawaiian blood at all. As a fifth-generation resident,this writer considers himself every bit as much a“Hawaiian” as anyone whose family roots here canbe traced back ten generations but who might at thisdistance from his native ancestor possess only one-

4


A clear defini-tion is needed

Defining“Hawaiian”

isn’t easy

thirty-second Hawaiian blood. Quite aside from how it could cast a different

and more accurate light on sovereignty portrayals ofHawaiians as victims, a widely accepted, clear quan-tum-level definition of “Hawaiian” would be helpfulto everyone. To be assured of wide acceptance, sucha definition probably should be set forth by the Leg-islature or the courts. Fifty percent already isrequired for purposes of the Hawaiian Homes Com-mission, an agency created by the U.S. Congress in1920 to provide homesteads for Native Hawaiians.And much of the trust money administered by theOffice of Hawaiian Affairs, created in 1980 by theHawai‘i Legislature to direct support for NativeHawaiians, comes to OHA with the restriction it beused only for those with 50 percent or more nativeblood. But that high standard may not be necessaryfor the evaluation and administration of social wel-fare programs that are needed to help residents indistress, be they Hawaiian or otherwise. At the otherend of the scale, a reduction to one-sixteenth, say,seems low. In practice, the standard is often lower. In1997, Kamehameha Schools, recognized as beingavailable only to children of Hawaiian descent, hadno fixed blood quantum as an admissions require-ment. The school says a trace is sufficient, althoughit must be documented.

Past census practice, where the governmentaccepted from a master list whatever label one put onone’s self, also seems of questionable value. In mid-1997, Congress ruled out “Native American” as adesignation for Hawaiians, staying with “PacificIslanders,” and there were proposals on the table for“multi-racial” as a catchall designation replacing thepresent racial variations. U.S. Senator Daniel Akakaand the Office of Hawaiian Affairs sought a new

5


Census classifi-cation changed

KamehamehaSchools hasloose qualifi-cation for“Hawaiian”

Who’s aHawaiianbeneficiary?

ethnicity classification of “Native Hawaiian.” InOctober 1997, the Office of Management and Budgetapproved “Native Hawaiian or other PacificIslander” as one of the five race categories for the2000 census. The data will be used for federal civilrights compliance, statistical reporting and grantadministration. Still unresolved by the October deci-sion is the definition of Hawaiian. Presumably it willbe left to individuals to decide which ethnic root theywish to recognize.

In human terms the definition of Hawaiianalready is a critical problem for those who espouse aHawaiian nation. What do they propose for theirancestral Chinese, Filipino, Japanese or Caucasianfamily members? Would they expect them to give upthe American citizenship they or an ancestor workedso hard to achieve?

The second and perhaps most importantissue that needs clarification involves the 1893 Rev-olution and Hawai‘i’s land. The land issue arisesfrom the Revolution that overturned the Monarchy.In order to understand the land problem, the Revolu-tion itself needs to be better understood.

The emotional and economic basis for eachof the various sovereignty efforts is the carefullycrafted, controversial and misleading double-edgedclaim that land (a) was taken from the Hawaiian peo-ple by the United States in the 1893 Revolution and(b) it was done without their approval—and there-fore the United States should make some kind ofreparation. The process toward reparations has start-ed with the misunderstood congressional apologyresolution passed in 1993.

The land argument is based on the contro-versial claim that the U.S. government was a party tothe Revolution, took the lands from the Monarchy,

6


“Theft” of landsan erroneous

cry

Cast aside U.S.citizenship?

and therefore should pay its former Native Hawaiiansubjects for the “theft.”

The charge of American participation comesabout because U.S. Minister to Hawai‘i John L.Stevens brought U.S. troops ashore in 1893 to protectAmerican lives and property. In itself, this was notunusual. It had been done by his predecessors a num-ber of times in earlier Hawai‘i history. When theRevolution looked as if it were going to succeed, herecognized the rebels as the new government ofHawai‘i. The Republican president at the time, Ben-jamin Harrison, approved, confirmed recognition ofthe new government and submitted to the U.S. Sen-ate a treaty of Annexation.

Two months later, Democrat Grover Cleve-land took over in Washington. Cleveland withdrewthe treaty but did not withdraw recognition of thenew government. However, he said Stevens had rec-ognized it too early, before it had complete control,and that the Revolution would not have succeededwithout the U.S. troops standing by. Therefore, hesaid, the U.S. government should reject the rebelsand restore the Queen to power.

Whether the United States was accountablefor success of the Revolution is a gray area, at best.My studies convince me it was not; that as testifiedto by those who brought it off, the Revolution wouldhave succeeded if there had been no U.S. troopsonshore. There are others who disagree completely.But all historians recognize that at Annexation fiveyears later, the situation had changed; the UnitedStates was an arms-length negotiator when the treatywas put together that made Hawai‘i a Territory.

At the time of the Revolution, following thetime-honored international practice of revolt as alast-ditch means for people to change their govern-

7


Author believesU.S. troopsweren’t needed

Cleveland with-drew treaty; apolitical act

HarrisonAdministrationfavored Annexation

ments, control of the Islands was seized from theQueen by a volunteer army of Hawai‘i residents.They created a Republic whose leadership was notHawaiian.

The new leadership took over administrationof the government lands. These lands had been setaside by King Kamehameha III in 1848 for the sup-port of all Hawai‘i residents and have been used bysuccessor governments only for that purpose fromthen until now. The lands never were owned by indi-viduals. The Republic negotiated an Annexationtreaty with the United States in 1898, transferring toit control of the lands. The United States thereafteracted only as a trustee before returning the lands toHawai‘i at Statehood in 1959.

Thus, however one characterizes theexchanges themselves, the undisputed sequence ofevents makes clear that the United States did not getthe lands from Native Hawaiians or from the Monar-chy. The transfer of lands was made by the inde-pendent, five-year-old Republic that had been fullyrecognized by the international community.1 TheRepublic Senate, moreover, which by 1898 includedseveral Native Hawaiians, voted unanimously forAnnexation, approving the transfer of lands to beheld in trust for Hawai‘i residents. The House of theRepublic, with a majority of Native Hawaiians, didnot have to act on the proposed treaty, but undoubt-edly would have voted the same way. Speaker of theHouse John L. Kaulukou was a highly respected, full-blooded Hawaiian who spoke out strongly forAnnexation. As a later chapter discusses, the alliancewith America in 1898, contrary to sovereignty views,was approved by residents of all races—a majority ofeach, incidentally, in the case of all except for NativeHawaiians. The five thousand-member Annexation

8


AnnexationClub had many

Hawaiian members

Lands weretransferred by

Republic

Club—out of the thirteen thousand registered voterswhen it was formed in 1892 and ’93—included onethousand and two Native Hawaiians.

As mentioned above, the Revolution, whichtook place two months before the end of the Harri-son presidency, was not challenged by that adminis-tration. Along with every other nation with interestsin the Pacific, the United States recognized the newProvisional Government. Subsequently, under theCleveland administration, it recognized the Republicof Hawai‘i.

A change in U.S. administration does not initself automatically undo diplomatic relationships,and while President Cleveland denounced theHawaiian Revolution and tried personally andunsuccessfully to reinstate the Monarchy, he did nottry to undo the diplomatic relationship with theHawaiian Provisional Government.2 He withdrewthe treaty of Annexation proposed by President Har-rison, but even while trying to subvert the revolu-tionary government, he superficially observed thediplomatic niceties of dealing with it as a recognizedforeign nation. Cleveland did apologize to QueenLili‘uokalani for what he called U.S. involvementand withdrew U.S. Minister John Stevens, who hecharged had overstepped his bounds.

Cleveland also sent a new minister toHawai‘i, A.S. Willis, to order leaders of the Provi-sional Government, a majority of whom had Ameri-can ties, to return the Kingdom to the Queen. Theyrefused, and Cleveland backed off. Politically, hecould not bring war against the independent nationof Hawai‘i. He was on risky political ground even tointerfere in its internal affairs.

It is possible he could have found some wayto sanction the U.S. citizens involved, but it would

9


Willis missionto restoreQueen ended infailure

Cleveland triedto reinstate theMonarchy

U.S. recognition

have been politically difficult for him to try to punishAmerican citizens for helping to create a republic byoverthrowing a monarchy. As William A. Russ, Jr.notes in The Hawaiian Revolution, the Russian min-ister, Prince Cantacuzene, put it succinctly to U.S.Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham in 1893: “. . . isit not a little singular that your Government, aRepublic, should establish a Monarchy?”

Further, even before the Revolutionistsrejected Cleveland’s demand that they give back theMonarchy, it had become clear to the president’sminister that there were problems with that tactic.

Russ notes further in The Hawaiian Revolu-tion:

“Already Willis was evidencing some skepti-cism regarding the results of his mission, forhe informed Gresham, in a regular despatch,that if the Queen were reinstated ‘there willbe a concerted movement [by the Queen] . . .for the overthrow of that constitution [of1887] which would mean the overthrow ofconstitutional and limited government and[reinstatement of] the absolute dominion ofthe Queen.’”

Willis knew this would not sit well with thecommunity, nor would it have lasted. History hadshown it was an unacceptable condition to theAnnexation-minded businessmen, attorneys andother residents. The Queen’s efforts to make such achange in January 1893 had led to the very Revolu-tion he had been sent to overturn. Moreover, hequestioned the political ability and personal honestyof most of her advisers, naming “such as J.E. Bush,R.W. Wilcox, Joseph Nawahi, and John Richardson.”

10


Willis doubtedabilities of

ex-Queen’sadvisers

Willis sawtrouble withLili‘uokalani

[Brackets] inquoted materialindicate words

added by authorfor clarity

Willis’ actions made clear at that point, mid-1893, that the new government was not a U.S.-backed endeavor. In fact, in what the Republic latercharged was a breach of international neutralitylaws, the Cleveland administration in November1894 did not stop a shipment of arms from the WestCoast to the Queen’s forces who were plotting acounter-revolution in 1895. The Hawaiian Republichad notified U.S. officials that the shipment wasbeing loaded in San Francisco and was about to besmuggled into the Islands, and demanded the UnitedStates impound the ship under neutrality laws.3

When the shipment went through despite that, it setoff an international brouhaha. The counter-revolu-tion did not succeed, but the protests to the UnitedStates over the arms smuggling went on.

No further efforts were made by Cleveland tooverturn the Revolution or nullify the original recog-nition by the United States of the new government.He turned the whole problem over to Congress withan impassioned speech repeating his charges of U.S.participation. His charges were rebutted by themajority of the members of the U.S. Senate Commit-tee on Foreign Relations in a subsequent hearingwhich produced the Morgan Report.

Obviously there are two sides, then, to thequestion of U.S. involvement in the Revolution, andpolitics appears to have played a major part in the so-called “findings of fact.” If you supported Annexa-tion, you generally did not find Stevens’ sympathywith the Revolutionist viewpoint to be an indictmentof his actions. If you were opposed to Annexation,you could build a case for his possible support—or atleast too-quick recognition—of the Revolutionists’new government.

Facts behind the larger issue that grows out

11


Two sides toquestion ofAmericaninvolvement

ClevelandAdministrationcharged withbreaching neu-trality

of the Revolution itself, the status of governmentland, have been needlessly confused. They are veryclear. Most sovereignists speak of the lands as“stolen.” They say the lands were wrested from theHawaiian people without their consent and withoutremuneration. The facts are simple. They show theland was not stolen, no matter which side of theoverthrow argument you prefer. This book willdevelop the argument more fully, but the followingnine paragraphs outline the facts that show the landsin question were not “stolen.”

We are talking about the public, governmentlands of Hawai‘i, the so-called “ceded lands.” Theselands were set aside by Kamehameha III in the 19thcentury for the benefit of all residents of the King-dom. Today the income from these lands still is usedfor the benefit of all residents of the state, thoughone-fifth of the income is being earmarked for theuse only of persons with 50 percent Native Hawaiianblood. At the time of the 1893 Revolution, the cededlands included lands set aside as government landsby Kamehameha III in 1848, combined with lands hehad retained as crown lands. He and his successorsconsidered the crown lands their personal property,but court and legislative actions, in 1865, made thecrown lands an inalienable part of the governmentlands. Today the combination is known as “cededlands” because they were ceded to the United Statesby the Republic at Annexation, as detailed below.These are lands that Lili‘uokalani controlled whenshe was Queen, but did not own personally. No indi-vidual has owned any part of them personally sinceKamehameha III made his magnificent gift for, hesaid, “the benefit of the Hawaiian Government.”

When the Provisional Government took overon January 17, 1893, the control and administration

12


Monarch didn’town these lands

“Ceded lands”benefit all residents

of those public lands became a responsibility of thenew government. None of the lands went into pri-vate hands at that time. (Homestead acts of the vari-ous governments put a small fraction into privatehands at later dates.)

No government workers were replaced by thenew government except for the Queen, her four Cab-inet officers and Charles B. Wilson, her marshal. Theproclamation that set up the new government askedall other officers and employees of the old govern-ment to continue to serve.

The government workers in the land depart-ment were the same individuals who had beenappointed or hired under the Queen’s rule. Theincome from those government lands still flowed forthe benefit of the same residents who had enjoyedbenefits of that income under the Queen, includingthe Queen herself.

The Republic of Hawai‘i was formed in 1894and the lands became an administrative and controlresponsibility of that new government. Nothing elsechanged; the lands were still public lands and theincome still went to the benefit of the same people italways had.

Annexation occurred in 1898 and control ofthe lands shifted from the Republic to the U.S. gov-ernment. Terms of the Annexation agreementrequired the United States to hold these ceded lands separate from federal lands as a whole, in a sort oftrust for the people of Hawai‘i. Administration of thelands, however, remained with the new Territorialgovernment and the income remained in Hawai‘i forthe benefit of all of its residents.

Statehood came along in 1959. Control of thelands came back from the federal government to gounder the control and administration of the new

13


Income fromlands stayed inHawai‘i

Lands passedfrom govern-ment to govern-ment

Governmentworkers stayedon

state government, intact except for lands that hadbeen removed for national parks, the military, otherfederal government uses and homesteading. A rela-tively small percentage of the whole, these retainedfederal lands were significant and valuable lands. Butalthough still under control of the federal govern-ment, they were and are of considerable benefit tothe people of Hawai‘i, too.

So today we have under our control and forour benefit pretty much all of the lands that wereunder the control of Queen Lili‘uokalani. She tried incourt to get title to some of them for herself but boththe Hawai‘i Supreme Court, earlier, and the U.S.Court of Claims, on May 16, 1910, ruled that theywere government lands and not lands owned by anyindividual, royal or otherwise.

So what was “stolen”? Obviously nothing.No lands were taken from the Hawaiian people oranyone else in the Revolution. They were govern-ment lands then and they still are. It is a divisivedisservice and clearly wrong for sovereignty leadersand others to continue claiming falsely that theselands were stolen from the Hawaiian people.

In the process of trying to set the recordstraight, this book will undertake a quick review ofHawai‘i’s history after Western contact. It will showamong other things that the Hawaiian leadership ofthe Kingdom wanted Annexation to the UnitedStates as early as 1848 but that U.S. policy then, aswell as in 1893, did not include taking over theseIslands. It will also document, as indicated above,that the lands the sovereignists call theirs were neverstolen from the Hawaiian people, that the Revolutionwas not a missionary movement and that its leaderswere not land-lusting sugar plantation owners, norwere they trying to kill the language or eliminate

14


Lands were not“stolen”

False claim ofstolen land is

divisive

Hawaiian culture. False claims like these are oftenmade by those attempting to rewrite the history ofthese Islands. They would like to make their follow-ers look and feel like victims. They think it makes abetter case for sovereignty.

We need to look at the character and cultureof the Hawaiian people and how ordinary peoplewere treated by early rulers in order to understandwhy the Revolution clearly benefited Hawaiians whowere not members of the royal family. Things aremuch better for today’s Native Hawaiians than ifthey were still subjects of a Monarchy.

Objective consideration of all this may leadmany to question whether sovereignty in any of theforms now being promoted is something that wouldbe good for Hawai‘i. Frankly, in most of its proposedforms sovereignty would not be good except possiblyfor those few who might emerge as sovereigns ifthere were a new nation. Sovereignty would do littleto meet the needs of today’s Hawaiians and it coulddivide this community as nothing has done before. Itcould be a tragedy.

In one sense, some sovereignty activists seemto be trying to move Native Hawaiians against thetide of human events. They seem to be seeking to putHawaiians back on the land, to re-establish them asagriculturists at a time when the rest of the advancednations of the world are looking to new horizons.

As Alvin Toffler put it in his 1981 book, TheThird Wave, the world has seen two major waves ofchange and is currently being swept over by a third.He describes the first as the agricultural revolution,which started perhaps ten thousand years ago. Theworld was changed forever by the second wave, theindustrial revolution, beginning in the 18th Century,and today it is undergoing a third, most overwhelm-

15


Sovereigntymight only ben-efit leaders

Caution againstvictimization

ing wave of all, what Toffler calls the brain wave. Toignore these powerful events and seek to put Hawai-ians, in effect, back into the Third World doesn’tmake much sense.

We need to consider instead other courses ofaction that could be productive and fulfilling todayand in the future for all of the people of Hawai‘i,whatever their ancestry.

The next chapter will attempt to put in per-spective how Hawai‘i related to the rest of the worldat the time of the 1893 Revolution. It will show thatassociation of Hawai‘i with some stronger, foreign,nation was virtually inevitable.

16


Look to what’sbest for all

he international context inwhich the government of

Hawai‘i changed from Monarchy to democracy madethat change virtually unavoidable and, in 1893, itseemed overdue. It was an inevitable step along withthe decline of the native population in the evolutionof today’s Hawai‘i. The demise of the HawaiianKingdom was simply part of the process, the Revolu-tion, but a step along the way.

When Captain James Cook opened Hawai‘i tothe Western world in 1778, he also set in motion fac-tors that were life-threatening to its status as an inde-pendent kingdom: exposure to diseases that devastat-ed the native population and exposure to the ambi-tions and greed of colonial powers.

Most of the arguments for sovereignty payscant attention to what was going on in the rest ofthe world during the 19th Century and what thismeant for Hawai‘i. Colonialism, unacceptable to ustoday, was a way of life then, and actions taken in itsname were a normal part of international relations.Hawai‘i could expect to be viewed with covetous eyesby every colonial power, and it was.

Chapter Two

17

Global contextof late 19thCentury

Colonialism hadbeen way of life

TT

Colonialism and Missionaries: Facts of Life in the 19th Century

Discoverybrought disease,colonial greed

In fact, although attempts to seize it weremade variously by French, British and Russianrepresentatives, Hawai‘i remained one of only fivePacific-area kingdoms still independent toward theend of the 19th Century, the others being Japan,China, Tonga and Thailand. Hawai‘i’s strategic loca-tion and limited powers, however, made its eventualacquisition by some foreign power a certainty. Partlyfor this reason Kamehameha I had discussed cessionto Britain with Captain George Vancouver as early as1793, and his son, Liholiho, Kamehameha II, hadplaced the Islands under the protectorate of Britain’sKing George IV in 1824. Kala-kaua threw a Far Easttwist into this equation some sixty years later withhis attempt to arrange for his niece, PrincessKa‘iulani, to marry the nephew of the Emperor ofJapan. Queen Lili‘uokalani’s diary entry of January29, 1894, outlines this proposed Asian tie for heranticipated successor if she were reinstated. Earlierkings had sought closer ties to America (in the caseof Kamehameha III) or Britain again (in the case ofhis successor, Kamehameha IV).

Other Pacific island groups had, or wereabout to become, colonial outposts throughout the19th and into the early part of the 20th centuries. Infact, a Naval Chart filed with the Morgan Report shows all of the Pacific islands except Hawai‘i andthe Carolines clearly under control of some colonialpower, and the Carolines probably were under con-trol of Japan or Germany, which claimed the adjoin-ing Marshall and Solomon Islands.

France was making a sweep through thePacific during the period and laying claim to much ofPolynesia, particularly Tahiti. France’s flag was firstraised there in 1768. In 1843 France establishedTahiti as a protectorate, and in 1880 annexed it. It

18


Pacific Islandsunder foreign

control

Kamehameha Iexplored

protection

also claimed the Marquesas, the Loyalty and Tuamo-tu Islands as well as the rest of the Society Islands besides Tahiti.

Samoa was divided between Germany (West-ern Samoa) and the United States in 1900. TheDutch took possession of the western sector of NewGuinea in 1828; in 1884, a British protectorate wasestablished in Southeast New Guinea and a Germanprotectorate in the northeast. By 1905, Australia washandling administration of the British area and in1914 occupied the former German territory. TheGilbert Islands (Kiribati) fell into British hands in1877.

Spain had control of the Mariana Islandsfrom the 16th Century, but sold them to Germany in1899. The Japanese had been covetous of thoseislands and assumed control of them by 1914. Japanand China fought for centuries over Okinawa, andthe Japanese took it over in the 1870s.

As Lorrin A. Thurston stated in his widelydistributed 1894 Handbook on the Annexation ofHawai‘i:

“Within the past eighty-five years,Hawai‘i has been taken possession of (Ed.—though not for long):

“Once by Russia.“Once by England.“Twice by France.“And by reason of hostile demonstrations

by foreign governments, creating the fear offoreign conquest, an absolute cession of thesovereignty of the country to the UnitedStates was executed and delivered in 1851,and a treaty of annexation negotiated in1854.

“Since 1874, on four separate occasions, internal disturbances have required the land-

19

Colonialism and Missionaries

Hawai‘i was aprized jewel

The state ofother Pacificcountries

ing of foreign troops from war ships, for theprotection of the interests of the severalnations there represented.”

A permanent takeover of some kind was aconstant threat, and what happened to Hawai‘i in1893 could be viewed simply as an event that wasinevitable. Its sizable land area, splendid harbors andstrategic position as a refueling station in the mid-Pacific made it the most valuable outpost in that vastocean.

Hawaiian monarchs, using the advice andskills of trusted foreigners, had adroitly played worldpowers off one another in the first century of West-ern contact and thus no takeover lasted more than afew months. When the French threatened a secondtime in the late 1840s, Kamehameha III signed atreaty of “friendship, commerce and navigation”with the United States in 1849. In 1851, he orderedhis ministers to negotiate Annexation with Americadespite objections from the French and the British,but the United States wasn’t eager then, nor was it in1893, to accept these Pacific islands as part of its con-tinental-based nation. The treaty took three years tonegotiate, and Kamehameha III died before it couldbe signed.

As Honolulu historian-community leaderRobert R. Midkiff pointed out in a Yale thesis in1942, however, the negotiations underscored Ameri-ca’s position as protector of Hawai‘i in the mid-19thCentury, a role of great benefit to the Island Kingdombut one that was subject to shifting political winds inWashington and elsewhere. America, he pointed out,could not be counted on forever as a protector of thesmall Kingdom or its people.

U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, in a

20


Kamehameha IIIlooked for

Annexation

Takeover a constant threat

dispatch to his commissioner in Hawai‘i, Luther Sev-erance, on July 14, 1851, noted:

“You inform us that many American cit-izens have gone to settle in the islands; if so,they have ceased to be American citizens.The government of the United States must, ofcourse, feel an interest in them not extendedto foreigners, but by the laws of nations theyhave no right to demand the protection of thisgovernment . . .”4

On December 9, 1868, President AndrewJohnson wrote to the U.S. Senate:

“It is known and felt by the HawaiianGovernment and people that their Govern-ment and institutions are feeble and precari-ous; that the United States, being so near aneighbor, would be unwilling to see theislands pass under foreign control. Theirprosperity is continually disturbed by expec-tations and alarms of unfriendly political pro-ceedings, as well from the United States asfrom other foreign powers. A reciprocitytreaty, while it could not help but materiallydiminish . . . revenues for the United States,would be a guarantee of the goodwill and for-bearance of all nations until the people of theislands shall of themselves, at no distant day,voluntarily apply for admission . . . .”5

On February 25, 1871, American Minister toHawai‘i Henry Pierce wrote to U.S. Secretary ofState Hamilton Fish:

“A majority of aborigines, Creoles andnaturalized foreigners of this country, as I amcredibly informed, are favorable, even anx-ious for the consummation of measurenamed (Ed.–Annexation).”6

21


U.S. expectedHawai‘i to wantadmission

Americans inHawai‘i lostcitizenship

The Kingdom at that point was declining rap-idly in economic and political power, largely due tothe catastrophic falloff in native population. From anestimated three hundred thousand or more NativeHawaiians in 1778, the native population had fallento fewer than fifty thousand in 1878 and about fortythousand by the time of the Revolution in 1893.

Development by foreign investors was hold-ing the economy together, but these business inter-ests were seriously threatened by autocratic andspendthrift actions of King Kala-kaua and, subse-quently, Queen Lili‘uokalani.

By the 1890s, leaders of the communityknew a weakened Hawai‘i was fair game for somecolonial power, and rather than see their investmentsand their lives fall under control of England, France,Germany or Japan—the four most likely candidatesother than the United States—they opted for a per-manent tie with America through Annexation.There were more Americans in Hawaiian businessand community leadership roles than any otherkinds of foreigners, and those who had come toHawai‘i from European countries saw America as acompromise they could live with. There were some,though, who wanted to continue the status quo, eachhoping his own mother country could be motivatedto acquire Hawai‘i.

Christian missions, too, were a way of life inthe 19th Century. Missionaries went out from Amer-ica in every direction, as they did from other coun-tries around the globe. These missionaries were abenign counterpart to colonialism in the develop-ment of lands abroad. The American missionariestoday are criticized for the rigid standards of theirCalvinist faith that inevitably led to the suppressionof certain aspects of native cultures they deemed

22


WeakenedHawai‘i prey

to takeover

Kingdom in decline

incompatible with their views of Christianity. Themissionaries were much admired in the UnitedStates at the time, however. For example, a pamphletin circulation in the 1870s refers to Asa Thurston,one of the pioneer missionaries to Hawai‘i, as a“Hero of Fitchburg,” his home town in Massachu-setts.

The story of how Yale-educated missionarieshappened to come to Hawai‘i at the urging of youngHenry Obookiah (as his name was spelled at Yale) iswell known and has been chronicled in numerousbooks, of which Grapes of Canaan by AlbertineLoomis is one of the most complete and accurate.Suffice it to say here that those missionaries respond-ed wholeheartedly to Obookiah’s plea to bring Chris-tianity to his people. They came to do good andindeed accomplished many things of lasting benefitto the Hawaiian people. The old canard that they“came to do good and did very well indeed” is a seri-ous distortion of their efforts. They worked underdifficult and demanding conditions and often suf-fered as much physically as they were uplifted spiri-tually.

When the missionaries arrived in Hawai‘i in1820 they found a population already suffering fromthe effects of forty years of visitors to paradise. Afterthe initial exposure to Western civilization in 1778the Hawaiian people had made the transition toWestern ways very quickly and without the extend-ed combative problems of first contact that oftenoccur between two distinctly different cultures.

Though capable of being fierce warriors,Hawaiians in 1778 basically were a hospitable peopleand they welcomed the foreigners from afar. Therewere a few problems. The continuing inter-islandwars that brought the Kingdom under the control of

23


Missionariesfound adverseeffects of West-ern contact

Henry Obookiah urged mission toHawai‘i

Missions wereway of life

Kamehameha I by 1810 caused Hawaiian chiefs toenlist as many as thirty foreigners as advisers of therival armies. In addition, several fatal outbreaks ofhostility with foreigners occurred in the first tenyears of Western contact—largely the fault of roughand ready seafaring men. Most of these early for-eigners were tough and thoughtless seamen, somewould say the scum of the earth—or the sea. Whenthey slaughtered Hawaiians over some transgression,other Hawaiians slaughtered the next visitors. But inthe long run, the viruses the visitors brought in thefirst forty years of contact—ranging from measles tosmallpox to venereal diseases—were the worst dan-ger. They decimated the population.7

The dwindling nation had other problems asit faced survival in a Western world. Hawaiians hadno written language and in fact had no religion whenthe missionaries arrived in April 1820. King Kame-hameha I had died shortly before the missionariesbegan their six-month trip to Hawai‘i, and his suc-cessor, Liholiho, under the direction of the dowagerQueen and later regent Ka‘ahumanu, had capitalizedon the dwindling importance of the idols and kapu(taboos) that had been worshiped or observed sinceprehistoric times and abolished them. The ancientreligion included the practices of infanticide andhuman sacrifice, with daily life guided by strictobservance of many restrictive taboos. In some cases,the strict taboos serendipitously served as protectiveordinances, particularly in the field of public health,but many were typical of a male-dominated societywhere warfare was common. Until Liholiho’s precip-itate action in 1819 of sitting down to eat with thewomen of his court, women were forbidden to eatwith men or to eat certain foods and had few of therights enjoyed by Western women even at that time

24


Kapu broken

Foreignersenlisted by

Hawaiian chiefs;diseases wereworst enemy

in history. The young missionary arrivals, coming at the

end of the first forty years of Western contact and theend of the ancient religion, were given a mission ofstunning scope, considering the limited tools theyhad. An extract from the instructions given them in1819 by the American Board of Commissioners forForeign Missions reads as follows:

“Your views are not to be limited to a low,narrow scale; but you are to open your heartswide and set your marks high. You are to aimat nothing short of covering these islandswith fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellingsand schools and churches, and of raising upthe whole people to an elevated state of Chris-tian civilization. You are to obtain an ade-quate knowledge of the language of the peo-ple; to make them acquainted with letters; togive them the Bible, with skill to read it; tointroduce and get into extended operationand influence among them, the arts and insti-tutions and usage of civilized life and society;and you are to abstain from all interferencewith local and political interests of the peopleand to inculcate the duties of justice, modera-tion, forbearance, truth and universal kind-ness. Do all in your power to make men ofevery class good, wise and happy.”8

They set about their task with incredibledrive and the energy of dedicated men and women intheir twenties. The pioneer missionaries had learnedrudiments of the language from Obookiah andbecame fairly fluent later in conversations with theHawaiian youths aboard the Brig Thaddeus on thesix-month voyage from Boston. Within weeks oftheir arrival they began teaching a written version.

25


The missionarymandate

Women had few rights

Liholiho, King Kamehameha II, reluctant at firsteven to allow them ashore, eventually allowed a one-year trial visitation. Well before the time was up,about two hundred of his people had become eagerstudents and by April 1824, all of his subjects wereordered to learn to read and write.

The natives were good students, and whenRichard H. Dana of Boston visited Hawai‘i in the late1850s he wrote a letter to the New York Tribune thatwas published on June 5, 1860, and which reads inpart:

“It is no small thing to say of the Mission-aries of the American Board, that in less thanforty years they have taught this whole peo-ple to read and to write, to cipher and to sew.They have given them an alphabet, grammar,and dictionary; preserved their language fromextinction; given it a literature, and translat-ed into it the Bible and works of devotion, sci-ence and entertainment. They have estab-lished schools, reared up native teachers, andso pressed their work that now the propor-tion of inhabitants who can read and write isgreater than in New England; . . . and themore elevated of them [are] taking part inconducting the affairs of the constitutionalmonarchy under which they live, holdingseats on the judicial bench and in the legisla-tive chambers, and filling posts in the localmagistracies.”

Some sovereignty activists find it politicallyexpedient to say that the missionaries “stole” orsought to kill the Hawaiian language and tried todestroy the culture of the Hawaiians. But far fromstealing or killing the language, the missionariessaved it! Without its conversion to a written form it

26


Hawaiians wereready students

Missionariesquickly learned

language

would have died as the population dwindled and theremaining natives dealt with new arrivals in the lan-guage of the foreigner or the patois of pidgin. Orallanguages of isolated Native American tribes, Eski-mos and distant African tribes have been lost undersimilar circumstances.

The missionaries were Calvinists, strictinterpreters of the Scriptures but also imbued withthe idea that Christianity required the doing of goodworks as well as accepting Christ. It is true that intheir belief, if you weren’t a Christian, you were aheathen. This seems a bit harsh today and has beenseized upon by critics as an excuse to paint thoseearly missionaries as cold and discriminatory. Themissionaries didn’t want their children associatingwith heathens, for example, and tried to keep themapart from young natives who they feared might cor-rupt them in the eyes of the Lord. They and theirchildren interacted openly, however, with Hawaiianswho became Christian converts.

This strictness was an integral part of themissionaries’ religion at the time and has no morerelevance to their character as human beings thanthe practice of infanticide and sacrifices by earlyHawaiians implies that Hawaiians were savages. TheAmerican missionaries to these Islands were goodpeople, respectful of the natives as free people, and aboon to Hawaiians and their culture. In 1898, forexample, a missionary descendant introduced, andthe Legislature of the Republic passed, a bill author-izing the government to acquire and preserve thesites of ancient heiau and pu‘uhonua (temples andplaces of refuge). The good attitude and respectafforded Hawaiians by the American missionariescontrast strikingly with the mistreatment of nativepeoples that occurred elsewhere in the Pacific—

27


Missionarydescendantworked to pre-serve heiau

Ban againstcontact withnon-Christians

MissionariespreservedHawaiian lan-guage

French Polynesia and New Zealand, for example.Perhaps the worst distortion, which appeared

in 1995 in various letters from sovereignty activistsprinted in The Honolulu Advertiser, is the attempt tolabel the missionaries as slave owners or sympathet-ic to the slave trade. Almost every missionary familycame from a New England home on the “under-ground railroad” that helped slaves flee from theSouth to safe havens in the North.

In fact, missionary descendants playedimportant roles in the Civil War on behalf of Unionforces. One, Punahou School graduate Samuel Chap-man Armstrong, became in his early twenties aUnion general of African-American forces andstayed on in the South after the war to found Vir-ginia’s Hampton Institute for black students. Heserved as its president until his death in 1893.9

The missionaries’ particular brand ofCalvinism and their belief in the Preamble of theAmerican Constitution saw worth in every humanbeing and the treatment of them as equals—oncethey became Christians. This is the most significantreason that Hawaiian Polynesians never suffered themistreatment imposed by missionary movements inother parts of the Pacific, which combined with colo-nial influences to classify native populations as sec-ond-class citizens. This problem still exists in parts ofPolynesia under French control and in New Zealandunder British influence. Hawaiians, while they bat-tled to the death in their own internal wars, neverfaced foreign troops sent out from a colonizing coun-try to wipe them out and seize their lands, as didtheir distant cousins, the Maori, in New Zealand, forexample. Native Hawaiians and all who call Hawai‘ihome are fortunate that American missionaries werethe first ones to get a foothold here.

28


No mistreatmentby missionaries

in Hawai‘i

Missionariesworked against

slavery

The American missionaries arrived in whatwere called “companies.” The companies includedmen of the cloth, but they also included printers,storekeepers, builders and teachers, who brought allof the skills considered necessary at the time to builda Western community. Support from the mainlandbegan to dwindle in 1845 and was almost gone by theearly 1850s. The American Board of Missions sev-ered its relationship in 1863 except for continuedfinancial support of the teaching of native pastorsand the maintenance of a few partial pensions. Theremaining American ministers either went on tomissions elsewhere or continued their work inHawai‘i with the support of local congregations. Thelay members of the mission companies entered theworld of commerce or continued their professions inHawai‘i or abroad.

The missionary concern for the welfare ofthe common people extended to concern for theirgovernance as well. Their pact with the church, how-ever, required them to resign as churchmen whenthey yielded to the pressure of the King to serve hispolitical cause. All told, four missionaries as well asfour descendants of missionaries served as coun-selors to Kamehameha II, III, IV and V, andLunalilo.10 Though influential, these eight obviouslydid not constitute a very large percentage of the onehundred one foreigners who took Cabinet postsbetween 1838 and 1893. The missionaries whoresigned from the mission to become Cabinet mem-bers were Dr. G.P. Judd, Richard Armstrong, (fatherof the Civil War general), William Richards and E.O.Hall. The four descendants were W.N. Armstrong (brother of the Civil War general), W.R. Castle andA.F. Judd, sons, and L.A. Thurston, a grandson.

While their missionary background no doubt

29


Background ofmission “com-panies”

Missionariesrespectful ofHawaiians

continued to live within them, those first four listedadvisers technically no longer were missionaries,nor, of course, were the four listed descendants.

Kamehameha II, in his early twenties whenthe missionaries arrived in 1820, died of the measlesin London in 1824. His orders, however, that every-one be educated in reading and writing meant that inaddition to the rest of his subjects, all of the youngermembers of the royal family went to school almostimmediately. In 1840 Kamehameha III directed for-mation of The Chiefs’ Children’s School, run by themissionary Amos Starr Cooke and his wife, Juliette,to give the young royals and children of the highestchiefs a more comprehensive education. Its enroll-ment of 15 students included every Hawaiian whowas to assume a leadership role in Island history forthe next fifty years, ranging from King KamehamehaIV to Queen Lili‘uokalani. Also among them wereHawai‘i’s two greatest Hawaiian benefactors,Princess Pauahi, whose legacy is the Bishop Estate,and the Englishman John Young’s granddaughter,Emma Rooke, who was to marry Kamehameha IVand with him found Queen’s Hospital as well as St.Andrew’s Priory School.

Other great benefactors attending the royalschool, who no doubt learned there of the joys of giv-ing and the responsibilities of wealth, includedLili‘uokalani, whose trust helps needy Hawaiianchildren, and King Lunalilo, whose trust runs ahome for aged Hawaiians.

Blaming “the missionaries” for the ills ofHawai‘i has been going on for one hundred seventy-seven years. First it was the whalers who resentedmissionary efforts to cut down on promiscuous sex-ual practices and party times in general. Whalers andlocal businessmen also resented the active mission-

30

Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the the Facts Matter?

Hawaiian benefactors

Chief’s Chil-dren’s School

ary role in temperance movements. Alcoholism wasa serious problem with Hawaiian royalty as well asmuch of the rest of the population, but sailors land-ing in these Islands after months at sea were in nomood to have their rowdy enjoyments curtailed.

The missionaries may not have been muchfun for those bent on wild parties, but there’s nodoubt that without their stern presence the conditionof Native Hawaiians would have sunk lower andmore quickly than it did. About two-thirds of thepopulation, or a net loss of nearly two hundred thou-sand people, had been wiped out in the forty yearsafter Western contact and before the missionariesarrived, and the population fell another eighty thou-sand or more in the seventy-three years from thenuntil the Revolution.11 Missionary doctors undoubt-edly were responsible in large measure for that slow-down in the death rate, but doctors of the 19th Cen-tury did not possess the skills that today help us todefeat more successfully the kinds of scourges thatravaged the Native Hawaiian population.

The kings and their chiefs used the counselof missionaries, missionary descendants and otherforeign members of the community in most of theirgovernment and economic undertakings. But themissionaries should not be branded as seekingpower. The fact they constituted only 4 percent ofthe foreigners filling Cabinet posts in the 19th Cen-tury shows it simply isn’t true. What this use of for-eign advice by the kings really demonstrates is thatHawaiians were a strong people, capable of gettingwhat they wanted, using the tools and methods ofWestern civilization where they were useful.

However, “the Mission Boys” became a termof derision in the 1870s and continued on throughthe period of the Revolution as if to imply that the

31


Missionarieshelped slowdecimation

Terrible losses inHawaiian popu-lation

Missionariesunfairly underattack

missionaries were behind the Revolution itself. An examination of the number of missionary

descendants involved in the Revolution and the sub-sequent Provisional Government shows that theassertion of “missionary plot” by sovereigntyactivists and others is greatly exaggerated.

The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in 1897, asRuss points out in The Hawaiian Revolution,reviewed the two thousand names then on the rollsof the Annexation Club and found that only thirty-four or about 1.5 percent were missionary descen-dants.

Nor did any of the planning for or executionof the Revolution involve their church or religiousassociations.

Mainland offices of the United Church ofChrist, the organizational descendant of supportersof the original churches of Hawai‘i, did a huge dis-service to the early missionaries when they formu-lated an apology in 1993 for the erroneous claim thatthe church played a role in the 1893 overthrow.Their effort still is a matter of controversy in manyHawai‘i congregations with members who knowtheir churches were not a party to carrying out theRevolution.

In 1996, the mainland churches went anoth-er step beyond their local members with the decisionto turn over millions of dollars from church endow-ments, as well as certain church lands, to variousHawaiian associations.

The church apology falls into the same cate-gory as the U.S. congressional apology of October 27,1993. Both appear to be unfortunate attempts tomake political hay. Both apologies were conceived inhaste and adopted without public input from citizensof Hawai‘i. No public hearings were held to consider

32


Church apologyinappropriate

AnnexationClub had few

missionarydescendants

33


Apologies conceived with-out public input

errors in the “whereas” clauses of the congressionalapology or to weigh long-range consequences ofeither apology, a subject dealt with separately in alater chapter.

If it weren’t missionary zeal that caused theRevolution in 1893, what did, beyond the inevitableevolution of colonialism? The next chapter examinescauses that led to the Revolution, and the subsequentchapter takes a look at intriguing evidence that theQueen herself was a major immediate cause.

Whatever the causes, Hawai‘i was eliminatedin 1893 from the shrinking list of monarchies andadded to the expanding list of democratic nations.

s we have seen, the pressure of colo-nialism from both Western and Eastern

nations coupled with the downwardtrend in its population was moving Hawai‘iinevitably on a path away from independence.

Kamehameha III, Hawai‘i’s longest-reigningking and arguably the monarch who best servedHawai‘i’s people, saw this coming. Early on, hesought to combine Hawai‘i’s future with America’sthrough Annexation or Statehood. He was the firstHawaiian king to proclaim a constitutional govern-ment for the Islands and perhaps most importantly,he authorized the Great Mahele to get land owner-ship from his sole control into the hands of the com-mon people. He was a master at using the advice andcounsel of his foreign advisers in ways that benefitedhis people, and the Great Mahele may be the bestexample of that. By distributing two-thirds of his for-mer lands to the government, the chiefs and the com-moners, as we will see in a later chapter, he revolu-tionized the way land was held in these Islands. TheMahele provided the base for economic growth andgovernance that prevails even today.

Seeds of RevolutionChapter Three

35

Kamehameha IIIsaw that inde-pendent futurewas unlikely

King revolution-ized way landwas held

AA

His successor, Kamehameha IV, in the mid-19th Century allied himself more with British influ-ences and veered away from moves to bring aboutAnnexation to the United States. Kamehameha Vmoved the constitutional government concept slight-ly backward toward a stronger Monarchy by promul-gating on his own initiative—illegally under terms ofthe Constitution he had sworn to uphold—a newConstitution. His action set a fateful example forQueen Lili‘uokalani forty years later. He got awaywith it; she didn’t.

Kamehameha V was the last of the Kame-hameha line to rule—he died without naming a suc-cessor, though members of the bloodline were aliveand would have been fitting leaders had they chosento accept the responsibility. With his passing, Hawai-ian government entered a new phase characterizedby elected monarchs who sought expanded powers.The new monarchs had fewer ties with the greatgenealogies of Hawaiian history and associated withforeign advisers of a far different sort from the mis-sionary advisers of early years.

The missionary teachings had laid thoughtsand ideas before the early Kamehameha kings thatled to expanded roles for the people. The constitu-tional Monarchy brought elected legislators whoshared the role of creating laws, formerly a provinceentirely of the king. Greater autonomy for chiefs andregional governors spread political power. The dis-persion of land ownership through the Great Mahele started building an economy based on stability andon caring for one’s own land. Early practice hadrequired a tenant to work one day in every week(Tuesday) for the king and one day (Friday) for hiskonohiki (landlord). This later was reduced to thirty-six days in the year for the king and an equal num-

36


New monarchsless tied to great

genealogies

Kamehameha IVmore alignedwith British

ber for the landlord, and at the Mahele, the require-ment was dropped completely.

Unfortunately, Native Hawaiian populationfigures continued to plunge. The common people,inexperienced in ownership of their own land andsuffering the destruction by disease of their families,abandoned agricultural development of their plots ofland and often sold them, falling prey in some casesto foreigners, more astute neighbors, chiefs and kono-hiki. William L. Lee, chief justice of the Kingdom in1848, had written countless letters to the missionar-ies over the limited period of time the Mahele wasavailable, seeking—and getting—their help in reach-ing Native Hawaiians who under terms of theMahele could claim their kuleana (the piece of land,usually small in area, that they had been working).Thousands of natives did so—about twenty-ninethousand acres worth all told—but the ideal of wide-spread land ownership did not succeed on the scaleLee had hoped.

His letters and replies from the missionariesgive eloquent testimony to the efforts he and the mis-sionaries both made to get land ownership into thehands of the people. A number of these letters aredetailed in Chapter Nine.

When the Kamehameha dynasty died outwith Kamehameha V, the Legislature began a newsystem of monarchical selection, an election by voteof the combined houses.

The first of the elected kings, Lunalilo, coulddo little in his fourteen months as ruler. The secondelected king, Kala-kaua, was plagued by unscrupulousadvisers who played to his ego and desires for power,pomp and ceremony—the seeds of destruction anddiscontent that were to lead to revolution. His elec-tion was hotly disputed, a large faction of Hawaiians

37

Seeds of Revolution

Kala-kauaplagued byunscrupulousadvisers

Lee worked dili-gently to getland for Hawai-ian commoners

preferring Queen Emma over the doubtful lineageand abilities of Kala-kaua. He and his appointed sis-ter-successor, Queen Lili‘uokalani, seemed motivatedmore by desires for individual power and privilegethan desires to improve the welfare of their people,though both did much to build pride and self-esteemfor the race among many Hawaiians. Both weremonarchical in appearance, musical and talented inmany ways. But neither provided the leadership thatwas required to keep Hawai‘i politically stable, eco-nomically strong and capable of existing as an inde-pendent nation.

Lorrin A. Thurston, instrumental in bringingdown the Monarchy in 1893, in his early yearsbelieved in the concept of an independent Hawaiianmonarchy and thus initially was a supporter of Kala--kaua. Thurston was a member of one of Kala-kaua’smany cabinets during the early part of his reign andacted as his prime minister before 1887 but turnedagainst him in later years.

In his Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution,Thurston is often snide and rancorous about KingKala-kaua. He describes a distinct decrease in thequality of leadership from the Kamehameha line ofmonarchies to those of Kala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani.

This is his summary of the King:“Kala-kaua displayed diverse qualities; a per-

sonal charm and a kingly demeanor; an unbalancedmentality and a total inability to grasp importantsubjects intelligently; a fundamental financial dis-honesty; personal extravagance, which merged intothe control of community finances to such an extentthat community financial collapse loomed; animmoral disposition, or it might be termed ‘unmoral;’a bent to indulge in political intrigue, a reckless dis-regard of political honor, which made impossible the

38


Quality of lead-ership declined

Power and priv-ilege seemed

paramount

continuance of honest government; personal cow-ardice.”

Queen Emma, who was Kala-kaua’s opponentin the legislative election of a monarch afterLunalilo’s death and whose lines of descent werecalled impeccable, saw Kala-kaua as an “arrogant pre-tender, using paid genealogists to give substance tohis flawed pedigree,” in the words of Gavan Daws inhis widely acclaimed history of Hawai‘i, Shoal ofTime.

Ralph S. Kuykendall, in his definitive, three-volume history of Hawai‘i, The Hawaiian Kingdom,reported that Emma had written to a cousin aboutKala-kaua’s good points: “With Taffy’s faults, wemust give him credit for a great ambition—he hasworked & exerted himself both lawfully & to be sureunlawfully . . . to obtain his desire but there is thefact he has exerted himself . . . to secure his covetedobject—the Throne.”

U.S. Minister Henry Pierce called Kala-kaua “ambitious, flighty & unstable. Very energetic; butlacks prudence and good sense.”12

Daws said Kala-kaua “continued to encouragehis official genealogists in their reconstruction offamily lines of the old ruling chiefs.”

Thurston in his Memoirs pointed to the 1886election as particularly noteworthy of Kala-kaua’simproper behavior. The King was determined to gethis slate of candidates elected to the Legislature andbought those votes with cheap “sandpaper gin”—vir-tually raw alcohol that felt as if it were taking the lin-ing off your throat.

William De Witt Alexander, early historianand a contemporary of Kala-kaua’s, told former U.S.Representative James H. Blount, sent by PresidentCleveland in 1893 to investigate the Revolution, that

39

Seeds of Revolution

Cheap ginflooded electiondistricts

Questionablepolitical tactics

Queen Emma disparaged Kala-kaua

“The election of 1886 was the most corrupt one everheld in this Kingdom.” He said the King suppliedcheap gin to flood the districts and “he paid for it byfranking other liquor through the customhouse freeof duty, . . . thereby defrauding the Government ofrevenue amounting to $4,749.35.”

More than $60,000 worth of liquor was sup-plied by Kala-kaua for this election, according toThurston’s Memoirs. This came to light, Thurstonsaid, when the books of the dealer were seized by theReformists after the 1887 Constitution was enacted.

Under the law at the time, no duty was leviedon goods imported for use by the King or the royalfamily, and Kala-kaua signed the necessary papers sothe gin was tax-free. According to historians of theperiod, Kala-kaua had used the same maneuver in the1884 election to get duty-free gin.

He had a list of royalist candidates prepared,along with a careful schedule showing the number ofcases of gin to be sent to each. This liquor was usedby the candidates to cajole voters for support.

While the tax break lightened the financialload, the King still needed a large sum of money topay for the gin itself. To cover that, Thurston said,Kala-kaua stamped “duty free” on additional amountsof gin for the liquor importer so that the importercould evade duty in an amount equal to the price ofKala-kaua’s election gin.

Besides supplying gin, Kala-kaua played a per-sonal role in the elections of 1886. Thurston reportsthe King sat himself in an armchair at the polls inKona and urged Native Hawaiians to vote againstG.W. Pilipo, whom he disliked, and then watched tosee for whom the voter cast his ballot. Thurstonpointed out that for the Native Hawaiian commoner,raised in traditional subservience to the monarch,

40

Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the the Facts Matter?

Shady liquorfranking

1886 election“most corrupt”

in history

this was intense pressure. Other historians such asAlexander and Kuykendall also report this poll-watching behavior of the King.

Sanford B. Dole, a Supreme Court justiceunder the Monarchy and later president of the Pro-visional Government, tended to be restrained aboutKala-kaua in his Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution.Nonetheless, he said of the King:

“He showed a tendency to gather subservientadvisers about him and to delve into politics inefforts to control the elections and legislation.”

Dole further said, “With the growing tenden-cy of the King to base his selection of cabinet mem-bers on their subservience, rather than on their abil-ity, much looseness crept into the administration ofpublic affairs. Funds were transferred from one leg-islative appropriation to another; roads, landings,and wharves were neglected; appropriations weremade for fantastic enterprises and for the personalaggrandizement of the royal family; little was done topromote the material prosperity of the kingdom . . .”

Hawai‘i was very prosperous at the beginningof Kala-kaua’s rule in 1874, and at first he helpedassure that prosperity with successful negotiation ofthe Reciprocity Act of 1876, which provided Hawai‘iwith duty-free trade arrangements, eventually inreturn for the use of Pearl Harbor. But Kala-kaua wasa spendthrift by nature and the tiny Kingdom was introuble. There are repeated reports in the literatureof allegations that Kala-kaua was willing to sellHawai‘i to the highest bidder among foreign nations.Indeed, in her diaries, his sister, Lili‘uokalani, report-ed that the King raised the notion to her: “SupposingI should sell the country, what then?” she claimedKala-kaua asked her.

Thurston in his Memoirs discussed the budg-

41

Seeds of Revolution

Prosperitydeclined underKala-kaua

Dole critical ofKala-kaua advis-ers

Royal poll-watching

ets for two years—1872, prior to Kala-kaua’s ascen-sion, and 1886, the year before the Reform Constitu-tion was forced on the extravagant monarch.13

In 1872, the cost for maintaining the King,the royal family and the military was $144,350. In1886, it had risen to more than three times thatamount, $462,436. Within that number, militarycosts had doubled, but support for the royals morethan tripled.

In addition, the budget included:• $40,000 for bands, flags and salutes.• $15,000 for celebrating the King’s birthday.• $22,867 for coronation costs.

The final tally for the two-week coronation,an event held nine years after Kala-kaua took thethrone, actually was closer to $50,000. In addition,during his world tour (for which $22,500 in travelexpenses was appropriated), he had bought twocrowns at $10,000 each for himself and his Queen.Apparently taken with the pomp of European courts,he copied some of that style for his coronation. Thecoronation pavilion, built for the occasion, stillstands on ‘Iolani Palace grounds, an intriguingmemento for Hawai‘i’s visitors.

Alexander told Blount during his interviewthat the event “was boycotted by Queen Emma,Princess Ruth, Pauahi Bishop and by a large part ofthe foreign community, as an expensive and uselesspageant.”

Charles R. Bishop, an American who mar-ried Princess Bernice Pauahi and became very closeto the royal family, earlier had lost confidence inKing Kala-kaua. Harold Winfield Kent, in his biogra-phy, Charles Reed Bishop, Man of Hawai‘i, relates thatBishop and his wife both wanted Kala-kaua to suc-

42


Costs skyrocket-ed under

Kala-kaua

Kala-kauaattracted by

pomp of Europe

ceed, as did most of the leadership in Honolulu, andfor the most part, kept criticism of the sovereignunder wraps. Bishop remained in close contact withKala-kaua, and was at his deathbed in California.

Nonetheless, Bishop was an astute man, anddespite his affection, he could see that Kala-kaua andlater Lili‘uokalani were not living up to promise.Kent points out that the Bishops felt so stronglyabout Kala-kaua’s “extravagances and reckless publicactions” that they did not attend his elaborate coro-nation, nor any of the festivities surrounding it.

While he supported the Monarchy, Bishopcould see its shortcomings. In June 1887, he wrote, “Ido not think it possible for the King to clear himselfof the damaging charges made against him so plainly.And that he is guilty of much more not exposed ormade public I have no doubt.”

After the 1887 public uprising against KingKala-kaua’s excesses, the new Reform Constitutioncurtailed the Monarchy. Bishop wrote, “Good menhere [in San Francisco] seem surprised when I tellthem that I prefer a monarchical government inHawai‘i with proper restraint upon the sovereign toa republic.”

In her book, Hawai‘i’s Story by Hawai‘i’sQueen, Lili‘uokalani defends her brother’s excess:

“It was necessary to confirm the new family. . . by a celebration of unusual impressive-ness. There was a serious purpose of nation-al importance; the first line of the ‘Kame-hamehas’ having become extinct. . . . It waswise and patriotic to spend money to awakenin the people a national pride.”

Prior to the Reform Constitution, Kala-kauahad a penchant for dismissing cabinets and appoint-

43

Seeds of Revolution

Lili‘uokalaniapplauded Kala-kaua coro-nation

The Bishopsfound Kala-kauaexcessive

ing new ones, sometimes in the middle of the night.He appointed thirty-seven ministers. According toDaws, that was “more than all the kings before himhad made among them.”

One such appointment was Celso CaesarMoreno, a recent arrival with questionable ethicsand a way of flattery that ingratiated him with theKing. Kala-kaua named him minister of foreignaffairs, but the diplomatic corps, representing thevarious nations with offices in Hawai‘i, refused todeal with him, Daws and others note, and he wasremoved in a matter of days.

Talk around Honolulu at the time was agitat-ed and ranged from “the abdication of the King, thecrowning of Queen Emma, annexation to the UnitedStates, [to] the lynching of Moreno . . . ,” reportedU.S. Minister General J.M. Comly to his home office.

Daws reports that the nation “had neverbeen so prosperous, yet the national debt kept grow-ing.” The Kingdom and Kala-kaua himself remainedin financial stress due to poor management by theKing and his premier, Walter Murray Gibson. Boththe King and Gibson were heavily in debt to Claus A.Spreckels, an American sugar baron who apparentlyviewed this as a means of wielding power in theIslands. People at the time said he held the Islandgovernment in his hands. What finally tipped thebalance away from Spreckels, probably, was that hewas openly being referred to as “King Claus” or “HisMajesty, King Spreckels,” and Kala-kaua did not likeit. Spreckels never lost his power completely, howev-er, and after the Revolution he tried to getLili‘uokalani restored to the throne.

A $2 million loan from the British was theKing’s idea of a means to get out from under Spreck-els’ control. The loan was an unrealistic idea: Kuyk-

44


Kingdom in debtto Spreckels

Kala-kauaappointed many

cabinets

endall reports the government was able to realizeonly $725,000 of the proposed $2 million. Dawsreports it appears the loan was for $1 million withover $250,000 going out in fees before the govern-ment netted its remainder. Lili‘uokalani’s diariesindicate Kala-kaua tried to get her to sign off oncrown lands as a means of providing collateral forthis loan.

Spreckels told Hawai‘i’s longtime minister tothe United States and Europe, H.A.P. Carter, that hewas sorry he’d gotten control of Kala-kaua and theLegislature. According to U.S. Secretary of StateThomas Bayard, Carter reported that Spreckels“found that when he sought to stay the current ofcorruption which he himself had set in motion, . . . itproved too strong for him.”

Charles C. Tansill, Ph.D. of Fordham Univer-sity, writing in 1940 on the life of Secretary Bayard,said that Kala-kaua had been elected partly throughthe efforts of Americans because they feared QueenEmma would align the Islands too closely withBritain. Tansill wrote, “It was difficult, however, forthe American Government to continue to look withfavor upon the Kala-kaua administration which wasshamelessly corrupt.” Led by Gibson, he said, theregime was filled with “vice and venality.”

Carter also reported, according to Bayard,that Kala-kaua “had the idea he would receive morepersonal consideration at the hands of the BritishGovernment than at the hands of the United States;that they would probably give him a title—make hima duke or something of that kind, and secure him abetter income, but he thought if the United Stateswould keep up his personal dignity and secure asgood treatment for him, that then he would be per-fectly willing to act in accordance with their wishes.”

45

Seeds of Revolution

Americansfavored Kala-kaua over Emma

Spreckels sorryabout backingKala-kaua

While Kala-kaua was willing to sell the King-dom as a way out of his troubles, he was working onother ideas as well. One was to collect all of the inde-pendent kingdoms of the Pacific under one umbrella,which he would hold. Another was for an Asiaticconfederation, of which Hawai‘i would be part, andtoward that end he sought to marry his niece,Princess Ka‘iulani, to the son of the Emperor ofJapan.

The event that appears to have been thestraw that led to forcing of the Reform Constitutionon his regime, however, involved the opium license.

Opium sales had been illegal for some time inthe Islands. In the early 1880s, Kala-kaua himself hadvetoed two bills that would have allowed sale of theaddictive narcotic. Then, for whatever reason, hesigned into law a new licensing. According to variousreports, a Chinese rice mill operator named Tong Keepaid Kala-kaua a total of $71,000 for the license. Thepayments were made to the King in three install-ments, according to Daws in Shoal of Time. Thesewere made at night, in gold, in a basket carried byTong and accompanied by a baked pig as a gift. ButTong, known as Aki, didn’t get the license. The Cab-inet had sold it to another man, Chun Lung, for$80,000.

Aki asked for his money back. The King saidit was all gone, and, said Thurston in his Memoirs,“Aki blurted out the whole story to the public, andlay down and died.” Aki’s estate finally was reim-bursed by the government. Kala-kaua, who admittedtaking the money from Aki, again according toDaws, couldn’t pay it back because he was a quartermillion dollars in debt.

This incident, exemplifying the corruptness

46


Twice-soldopium license

Kala-kaua want-ed Ka‘iulani tomarry Japanese

of the Kingdom under Kala-kaua, was followed by ahorrendous example of the impractical grandioseschemes he launched, which made his governmentan embarrassing laughingstock to local residents.

The incident that made him a laughingstockinvolved his sending first a delegation and then agunboat to Samoa in 1886 to form the beginnings ofhis Pacific empire. A former guano ship, the Kai-miloa, was to have been a man-of-war, the corner-stone of his royal navy. Mid-course, its purpose waschanged to a naval training vessel, although theHawaiian delegation in Samoa was expecting a fight-ing ship to back them up in their attempts to unifyPolynesia.

The whole affair would have been an amus-ing failure if it hadn’t been so costly. The Kaimiloavoyage reportedly was a besotted expedition, led by adrunken captain. The delegation already in Samoahad achieved a dubious reputation of drunkennessand crudeness. John E. Bush, the Native Hawaiianhead of the group, was the subject of an officialprotest from the Samoan government and the mis-sion was recalled.

When Kala-kaua died in 1891, his sister,Lili‘uokalani, succeeded him, and the community fora short time thought things were going to get better.

But Lili‘uokalani was not a good ruler. Shewas a caring, generous person to those around her,but as a monarch, she came up very short, as had herbrother before her.

Russ, in The Hawaiian Revolution, reportedthat Lili‘uokalani’s reputation had been purposefullytainted by John Stevens, the U.S. minister in Hon-olulu. Many of the rumors swirled about her privatelife. Yet rumors about personal conduct aside, there

47

Seeds of Revolution

Lili‘uokalaniwelcomed asnew Monarch

Kala-kaua’s mission toSamoa

The opiumlicense contro-versy

were grievous concerns among her subjects aboutLili‘uokalani and her ability to administer the coun-try.

Business leaders who had anticipated a bettergovernment from her than from her brother werequickly shaken in that belief. Hawai‘i’s governmentbonds were declining on the London market with theincreased instability of the government underLili‘uokalani, and according to some reports of theday, the nation was going bankrupt.

Reports show, too, those agitating against theMonarchy, or against this particular monarch, alsoincluded Native Hawaiian leaders both in the Legis-lature and within the community. Lack of confidencein her was growing, particularly because of her con-tinued support for Charles B. Wilson, who was serv-ing as marshal of the Kingdom.

At a meeting of Hui Ka-lai‘aina (a NativeHawaiian political club) in December 1891, Hawai-ian activist Robert W. Wilcox expressed communitydiscontent. Rumors were rife about a personal rela-tionship between Lili‘uokalani and Wilson. At thatDecember meeting of Hui Ka-lai‘aina, Wilcox saidWilson was “carrying on high jinks” while runningLili‘uokalani’s administration. Wilson was accusedof allowing opium rings to operate right under hisnose.

The government, Wilcox said, was rotten andloose from top to bottom and it was a disgrace toHawaiians to allow this to continue.

During the campaign of 1891, Wilcox said“We must all be loyal Hawaiians, and tell the Queenthat her present Government is an injustice and adisgrace to the nation. We must not flatter her.”

His Liberal Party did not carry the day in thatelection, but it continued to attack the Queen’s gov-

48


Hawaiian groupconcerned about

marshal ofKingdom

Hawai‘i report-edly going

bankrupt

ernment in 1892 and one of its most articulatespokesmen, John E. Bush, went so far as to predict itsdemise. Bush was the editor of Ka Leo o Ka La-hui, awidely read Hawaiian language newspaper. In athree-part series in February issues, Bush reviewedthe history of the Monarchy, pointed out it couldn’tlast forever, and, in the final article, said “no candidstudent of current Hawaiian history can fail to seethat the course of events has been, and now is run-ning steadily in one direction, and that toward dem-ocratic institutions.” In later articles, he predictedand applauded the idea of Annexation to the UnitedStates.

There was concern throughout the commu-nity that the party, largely Native Hawaiians butincluding Caucasians and part-Hawaiians, wouldoverthrow the Queen, establish a republic and seekAnnexation to the United States. The rumorsbecame so widespread that Marshal Wilson arrestedWilcox and seventeen others, charging them withtreason. The case was later dropped but it was appar-ent there was considerable dissension within theHawaiian community.

Marshal Wilson and the Queen’s continuedsupport of him were also key ingredients in the cli-mate that led to the 1893 Revolution. Hawaiian lead-ers in the Legislature as well as in the community atlarge had strong, negative feelings about Wilson, andthe Queen’s seemingly blind support of him shookmany Hawaiians’ faith in her.

A resolution was introduced in the 1892 Leg-islature that would have ousted Wilson. The pro-posed resolution, introduced by Rep. S.K. Pua, along-time supporter of the Queen, read in part “. . .and whereas the said Marshal [Wilson] is commonlyreported to exercise a pernicious, illegitimate and

49

Seeds of Revolution

Queen’s sup-port of Wilsonupset many

Hawaiian lan-guage papersaw democracycoming

Hawaiian oppo-sition to Queen

occult influence at the court of Her Majesty theQueen, which tends to bring Her Majesty’s govern-ment into contempt and disrespect . . .”

Pua’s reference to the Queen and the occult isnoteworthy. Some of the rumors about the Queenbefore and just after the overthrow involved heralleged reliance on kahuna, Hawaiian spiritualists. Inher diary she pointedly notes she refused the offer ofservices of a kahuna, but in that case her commentsindicate she apparently was suspicious of the reasonfor the offer and not necessarily against advice fromsuch a source. Kuykendall, however, in The Hawai-ian Kingdom, in notes transcribed by his colleagueCharles H. Hunter, says “. . . she refused the servicesof kahuna, even one who claimed the power to freeher from evil influence by prayer. The Bible, she said,was her only guide.”

Lili‘uokalani was strongly influenced also bya German teacher and fortuneteller, Miss Wolf, orFraulein, as the Queen refers to her in the diaries.

Lili‘uokalani recounts listening as Frauleinread the cards late one night after a ball at the palace.Fraulein told about a man who would come at a pre-cise hour with “a bundle of papers that would bringmoney from across the waters,” and indeed at theprecise hour, the man came. He came regardingestablishment of a lottery in Hawai‘i. This Queen, sodistrustful of many more-level heads, listened care-fully to the Fraulein, and never once in her diariesdoes she ask herself if perhaps there might be somehanky-panky behind the readings of the cards.

Her diaries show she was suspicious in manyinstances and cautious at other times about peoplesurrounding her. She made frequent loans of money,for example, to her close associate Sam Parker, inspite of privately questioning in her diary his moti-

50


Reading thecards predicted

lottery visitor

The Queen’sGerman

fortuneteller

vations. He was the flamboyant grandson of thefounder of today’s Parker Ranch on the Big Island, aCabinet minister and adviser to Kala-kaua, and laterminister of foreign affairs in Lili‘uokalani’s last Cab-inet. She also questioned the motives of Paul Neu-mann, her personal attorney, adviser and Cabinetminister, to whom she had given her power of attor-ney. Neumann later wrote the masterful letter of sur-render in 1893 in which she professed to be surren-dering to the United States instead of the Provision-al Government.

In so many ways, her diaries show her to bean astute and cautious politician. For the counsel ofthe Fraulein, however, she seemed totally gullible.

Lili‘uokalani supported the lottery billbecause she believed it would bring needed revenuesinto her government. But she also believed it wouldbring her personal money. She was informed by thisoccult figure that the lottery operators would provideher $10,000 to $15,000 a year in pocket money.

Lili‘uokalani, who wrote with distaste ofbribery allegedly taking place in the Legislature, whoheld a high moral stance against it, did not see this“pocket money” as a bribe. She did not questionFraulein’s motivations and believed the medium’ssources were otherworldly.

The Fraulein meddled in affairs of statebeyond the lottery, but probably related to it. MissWolf makes specific recommendations as to whomLili‘uokalani should appoint as Cabinet ministersand in her diary, Lili‘uokalani lists their initials. Thequeen wrote that the medium told her “they willmake a good Cabinet, but you are going to appointand the house will reject you, send down again andthey refuse, but I must be firm after that and every-thing will be all right. When C.S. gets here, he will

51

Seeds of Revolution

She saw cashcow in lottery

Queen ques-tioned motive ofkey supporters

Queen neverquestionedmotivation ofFraulein

spend $25,000 among the members.” C.S. is undoubtedly Claus Spreckels, the lead-

ing sugar baron in the Islands, who was away fromHawai‘i at the time. The entry indicates that C.S.would use the $25,000 to buy the support of legisla-tors, and subsequent events prove he did.

Another day, the Fraulein read her cards andtold the Queen that “Mr. S. Parker and Mr. Neumannknew about lottery papers and would be the meansof bringing the measure before the house.” Again,the medium predicts that the lottery man wouldcome at 10 a.m.” and tell me things important.” Mr.T.E.E. [Thomas Evans?] did arrive at 10 and told theQueen “of Sam [Parker] seeming favorable to the lot-tery” and that Peterson, later to be her attorney gen-eral and along with Parker a member of her finalCabinet, was also a “friend.” Peterson, in the Legis-lature at the time, was the only haole (foreigner, usu-ally meaning white) member to vote for the lottery,which passed by one vote. The Advertiser said at thetime “he forfeited his reputation in the eyes of allmen.”

Fraulein also told Lili‘uokalani that shewould remarry. “How can that be, and to whom?”the Queen asks in her diary. A later entry notes thata new dress arrived on the Mariposa and the Queenwonders if it will be her wedding dress.

Miss Wolf spun an elaborate story aboutLili‘uokalani’s deceased husband, John Dominis, andhis possible royal lineage. The Queen wrote tosources abroad, based on what the Fraulein told her,to try to get proof of these things.

On the one hand, here is a Queen, prey to themumbo-jumbo pronouncements of a card-readingmedium; on the other, Lili‘uokalani was a ruthlesspolitical tactician, not above bribery and deceit.

52


Peterson notrespected

More cardsdirected Queen

on lottery

A second mar-riage for Queen?

The longtime Advertiser columnist SamyAmalu (he insisted on using only one “m” in Samy),who often proclaimed his descent from Hawaiianroyalty, nevertheless said, as he did in a column thatran September 4, 1975: “How many living Hawai-ians of today would go back to yesterday—wouldexchange being an American citizen for being thesubject of a Hawaiian monarch? There may be some.But not I for sure.”

He also had scant praise for QueenLili‘uokalani:

“There were two barren women in the histo-ry of Hawai‘i who through their own personalities,their own innate natures, brought drastic changes totheir people. Each of them . . . wielded power in theirown right.

“The first of these was Queen Ka‘ahumanu,the widow of the great Kamehameha. The secondwas Queen Lili‘uokalani . . . . They were both arrogant.

“They were both haughty. They were bothimperious. They were both alike. The differencebetween them lay only in what they accomplishedfor their people.

“Ka‘ahumanu saved her people and gavethem a chance to survive in a new world.Lili‘uokalani lost her people and lost for them every-thing that they had—their throne, their crown, theirscepter, their orb, their kingdom, and their inde-pendence.

“And that is the basic difference between theblood of the Kamehamehas who founded the Hawai-ian Kingdom and the blood of the Kala-kauas who lostthat same kingdom . . .”

Charles R. Bishop, through his marriage toPrincess Bernice Pauahi, had become Lili‘uokalani’sadopted brother-in-law. He was dedicated to the

53

Seeds of Revolution

AmalucomparedLili‘uokalani toKa‘ahumanu

Samy Amalu onMonarchy

Hawaiian Monarchy, as indicated earlier in thischapter, but he, too, in the end, saw Annexation asthe best course.

Excerpts from his correspondence reportedin Charles Reed Bishop, Man of Hawai‘i, cast consid-erable light on the Queen.

Bishop, with his close relationship, knew theQueen well and discounted stories of her liaison withMarshal Wilson—“no known facts,” he said. Butwhile he apparently didn’t believe she was having anaffair with the marshal, he, too, found her to be aninadequate monarch, one who was “treacherous anddeceitful.”

Bishop had once been guardian toLili‘uokalani, who had been adopted by his wife’sparents. Lili‘uokalani thus was the ha-nai (adopted)younger sister of Bernice Pauahi, and after Bernice’smarriage, the future queen lived with the Bishops.After strongly supporting Lili‘uokalani, treating herwith affection and great deference, giving her wiseand kind counsel during her reign, he, too, came tothe conclusion change was needed.

“The frequent changes of Ministry and otherdisturbing acts and reports, with the impression thatthe business of the country is not prospering, haveinjured the credit of the Government abroad . . . ,” hewrote.

This was about a month before the Revolu-tion and overthrow. A month after the Revolution,he wrote, “. . . Much as I dread it, annexation to thiscountry (the United States) seems to be the wisestaction suggested so far for all concerned.”

Bishop saw Claus Spreckels as a principalopponent of Annexation and of the Provisional Gov-ernment. Bishop wrote that Spreckels “will, nodoubt, do all he can to defeat the efforts of the Provi-

54


Bishop concluded

change needed

Bishop con-cerned Queenwas deceitful

sional Government.” Bishop feared the ProvisionalGovernment was wobbly. If Annexation were notpossible, he favored Ka‘iulani as monarch, “not get-ting the ex-Queen back.”

Bishop, who had “a life-long hope of a sturdy,independent, Hawaiian nation,” had come sadly tothe conclusion: “It looks to me that the best interestsof natives and haoles will be promoted by annexa-tion . . .”

Bishop was bothered that the leaders of thenew Republic were making too much out ofLili‘uokalani’s private habits before the Revolution,with “too little made of the political acts of theQueen which led to the Revolution.”

“Had the Queen been a law-abiding and hon-est ruler—though her private character might nothave been pure—the case would have been a differ-ent matter,” he wrote.

The Queen was not above altering facts to fither story. There are many examples. After theunsuccessful counter-revolution in 1895, whenLili‘uokalani was under arrest, Paul Neumann, SamParker and Charles Wilson went to Judge A.S.Hartwell’s law office and asked him to draw upLili‘uokalani’s abdication paper, Hartwell reported ina letter to Thurston. Working in confidence withonly his clerk informed, Hartwell said he redraftedthe paper three separate times as her advisersbrought changes she wanted made. Then she signedher abdication declaration, he said, in his presencewith Neumann, Parker, W.G. Irwin, H.A. Widemannand Curtis Iaukea as additional witnesses, the lattertwo being additional Hawaiian advisers and support-ers.

Yet in her book, Hawai‘i’s Story by Hawai‘i’sQueen, she said she was deceived and that Hartwell

55

Seeds of Revolution

Queen’s discrepancies of fact

Bishop believedpublic, not private, actswere Queen’sdownfall

Bishop’sthoughts afterthe Revolution

was acting as attorney for the other side. Hartwellmade it clear he kept the confidence of the groupuntil the former monarch had signed the papers, andtherefore had never even discussed the subject withanyone in the Provisional Government. Hartwell,however, did not blame Lili‘uokalani. He said themisinformation was from Julius Palmer, who helpedher write the book.14

Another example of a discrepancy of factsconcerns James Dowsett. In a diary entry duringKala-kaua’s reign, Lili‘uokalani says that Dowsettcame to see her and “told me that they [the Wilcoxgroup plotting the overthrow of Kala-kaua in 1889]wanted me to be Queen.” She said she would, but“only if it became necessary for the King to abdicateif he was doing wrong.”

Later, in her book, Lili‘uokalani describesDowsett as “a mere boy eighteen years of age,” andmakes much of the rebels sending such a young fel-low, as if to belittle his report of the incident. Shesaid she told him that such a proposal was not to beconsidered. “My answer would be ‘No,’ and this wasfinal.”

Thurston, in his Memoirs, points outDowsett was no boy; a part-Hawaiian, he wasinvolved in politics of the day, and in fact was elect-ed to the Legislature the year after his meeting withLili‘uokalani. His birth records, according toThurston, show he was 30 years old the year heapproached Lili‘uokalani about taking the thronefrom her brother.

Thurston wrote that Lili‘uokalani “was in analmost continuous maelstrom of negotiation andscheming to bring about Kala-kaua’s abdication andher own elevation to the throne.” Thurston, who wasa member of Kala-kaua’s Cabinet for three years, said

56


Dowsett was no boy

Stories betweendiary and book

differ

her actions were well known to him, but that he lateralso checked various sources for corroboration.

In another section of her diary (January 16,1888) Lili‘uokalani recounts telling two of her sup-porters it was time to go to the King and propose hisabdication, if only for a year. Kala-kaua, according toLili‘uokalani, said he’d think about it.

Yet in her book, she claims she refused all dis-cussion of such matters, including with W.R. Castle,who she says approached her about it. Castle’s storyis quite different. He said he went to ask her if therumors that she thought Kala-kaua should abdicatewere true. “She gave me a positive statement that shethought her brother should abdicate, and that, if hedid, she would accept the position as sovereign.”

Thurston, while minister of the interior forKala-kaua, got a signed statement from Charles Wil-son that he, Wilson, and a group of others went tothe King and demanded he abdicate in favor of hissister, and that if he didn’t, they’d oust him by force.Kala-kaua refused to abdicate, but the argument wenton so long, according to Wilson, that the Wilson sup-porters outside got cold feet and disappeared, so theringleaders gave up and went home, too. This wasshortly before the well-documented 1889 Wilcoxinsurrection, designed to achieve the same end. Inci-dentally, that insurrection was the second time inKala-kaua’s regime that U.S. troops had been landedto preserve order, the first being the riot of 1874when Kala-kaua was elected by the Legislature overthe popular Queen Emma. The 1889 insurrectionwas put down in favor of Kala-kaua by the same menwho ousted Lili‘uokalani four years later. Each ofthose earlier times they were successful without theactive, physical help of U.S. troops, who merely stoodby, as they subsequently did in the 1893 Revolution.

57

Seeds of Revolution

U.S. troopslanded to helppreserve orderfor Kala-kaua

Wilson andothers demand-ed Kala-kauaabdication

Lili‘uokalanisupported abdi-cation of herbrother

Lili‘uokalani’s statements to Blount and herown diary are discrepant regarding the lottery bill,too. She clouded the truth to Blount, perhaps becauseshe sensed his sentiments would be against a lottery.She knew by the time of his arrival that, while hewas in the Islands to investigate the Revolution, hismain purpose was to consider her reinstatement asQueen, and she didn’t want to make a bad impres-sion. Her diary entries make clear her avid supportfor the lottery, but she told Blount that the lotteryand opium bills had been railroaded through theHouse by Representative William White, and thather new ministers “advised me to sign the opium andlottery bills . . . I had no option but to sign.” As Kuyk-endall points out, this is not true. Veto was the per-sonal prerogative of the monarch and was notdependent on advice from the ministry.

As we see from her diaries and other reportsof the time, she handpicked the members of her newCabinet because they would support the lottery bill.Some have maintained that she swapped her supportfor the lottery bill in exchange for legislators’ supportto oust the former Cabinet and to get native supportfor a new Constitution. From her diaries, one canconclude that while she may have used the lotterybill as political leverage, she also supported the bill onits own merits.

Whatever the argument, community percep-tion was that they were her bills. This added to theconcerns over her efforts to roll back the constitu-tional Monarchy that had served Hawai‘i well for 50years. She had become a liability so far as the busi-ness community and its friends were concerned.They were joined in their concerns by people fromall walks of life, including members of her own Leg-islature and, for a while, her own Cabinet. The seeds

58


Cabinet hand-picked for

lottery support

Discrepancy on lottery

had taken root: There was no holding back theinevitability of revolution.

59

Seeds of Revolution

ueen Lili‘uokalani was very nearlydeposed by her closest supportersthree days before the January 17,

1893, climax of the Revolution that overthrew theMonarchy.

Members of her Cabinet approached the com-munity for help in accomplishing this on Saturday,January 14, minutes after her abortive effort topromulgate a new Constitution. Sworn testimonybefore U.S. Senator John T. Morgan’s Committee onForeign Relations by several witnesses and the writ-ings of several other sources affirm the four Cabinetmembers agreed to oust her if she persisted in herrevolutionary attempt to circumvent Hawaiian lawand illegally change the 1887 Reform Constitution.Her agreement with them the next day to back offthe constitutional issue for the time being saved herfrom facing an immediate revolt within her ownranks.15

The four were Samuel Parker, minister offoreign affairs; John F. Colburn, minister of the inte-rior; W.H. Cornwell, minister of finance, and A.P.Peterson, attorney general, all Royalists. The 1887Constitution gave the Cabinet extraordinary powers,


Chapter Four

61

Hand-pickedCabinet balkedat proposedConstitution

Cabinet consid-ered oustingQueen

QQ

which they interpreted as empowering them, as aCabinet, to oust her. Their basis was that when sheproposed to change the Constitution unilaterally, shewas violating her oath “to maintain the Constitution. . . whole and inviolate . . . ,” thus vacating thethrone. But admittedly this was an interpretationand they wanted assurance of support from the com-munity at large in case the Queen fought back.Under the existing Constitution, the Cabinet was insome ways the most powerful element of govern-ment. The Queen was going to change that in hernew Constitution. At the moment, though, noactions of the Queen were valid without theirapproval, or in some cases, just the approval of one ofthem, and they shared the executive power with themonarch. By law, Cabinet members were appointedby the Monarch, but they could be removed only bythe Legislature. She was going to revoke the sharingof executive power and provide for removal of themembers “at the pleasure of the Queen.”

These were the Cabinet members she hadappointed on January 13, the day before the Legisla-ture ended. Colburn and Parker, both popularHawaiians, were appointed to satisfy the Hawaiiancommunity. Peterson and Cornwell were supposed tobe men the American community would approve of,but they were not perceived by that community asgood choices. The Queen had appointed them on thebasis they would approve the opium and lottery bills.They did that, and she thought they also wouldapprove the new Constitution. To her apparent sur-prise, on January 14 they advised her as a group thatthey would not support it. A lengthy and emotionalargument broke forth in the palace as the Queentried to get at least one of them to back her up, butthey refused despite threats she and two of her other

62


Cabinetappointed to

approve opium,lottery bills

Cabinet sharedexecutive power

supporters reportedly made. Testimony shows theCabinet members feared for their lives after makingthis break with their Queen. They kept the approachto the community that same day a secret from her;she did not find out until eleven months later thatthey had discussed what she viewed as a treasonousact with the Annexation group, and then onlybecause a report of their action appeared in a letterwritten by Thurston and published in Washington.

After learning belatedly of their action, shenotes in her diary for Monday, December 4, 1893(indicating that even though she no longer was a rul-ing Queen, she was still functioning in a queenlymanner: meeting, planning new cabinets, etc.):

“Told Mr. Richardson (Ed.—Native Hawai-ian John Richardson, her close adviser) he had bettertell Mr. Parker to resign when I told him to. He, asone of the Cabinet had committed a great crime oftreason—in fact they all had—turned against me andfollowed Mr. Thurston the Agitator’s instructionsand allowed themselves to be guided by him until theoverthrow of my throne . . . and it was Colburn whoasked Thurston that they must support the Cabinetagainst the Queen (what a confession) or they wouldresign. (Thurston’s letter published in Washingtonlast month and received here December 4th).”

In retrospect, it can be argued that the Cabi-net members were not performing a treasonous act.It was their job to hold the Queen in check and whenshe proposed to violate the Constitution, they had aduty to stop her. The same argument applies to theCommittee of Safety’s actions. Having found theQueen in revolution, their counter-revolution wasnot really a treasonous act. As subjects they werereacting against a treasonous act on the part of theirQueen.

63


Cabinet soughthelp from community

Queen calledbehavior trea-son

Lili‘uokalanilater found outabout Cabinetplan

Quoted materialin (parentheses)are words ofsource, not thisauthor unlesspreceded byEd.-

Testimony of the events of that January dayindicates the Cabinet members sought backing fromthe community. Some of the Queen’s diary remarksindicate perhaps the Cabinet sought to put the blameelsewhere once she learned of their contemplateddesertion.

Lengthy testimony on this subject was givenbefore the Morgan Committee by John A. McCand-less, a member of the Committee of Safety in the1893 Revolution and also a participant in the reformefforts of 1887 that reined in Kala-kaua.16 He had beena resident of Honolulu since 1881, in the business ofsinking artesian wells in the ‘Ewa plain.

He testified that on January 14 after theQueen had deferred her promulgation of the newConstitution and was arguing with her Cabinet mem-bers over their unwillingness to support it, a mes-senger from the Cabinet came to the office of W.O.Smith, soon to become an attorney member of theCommittee of Safety and later attorney general of theRepublic. McCandless said members of the commu-nity were gathered there to consider what to doabout the Queen’s plans for a new Constitution. Hesaid the Cabinet members wanted to know what sup-port they could get in the event they continued toresist the Queen.

McCandless said “someone took a piece ofoffice paper, brown paper such as lawyers use, thesize of a sheet of legal cap, and then wrote a headingin lead pencil stating that ‘We hereby agree to standby the ministers against the encroachments of theQueen’—something to that effect. It was only a lineor two, and the people as they came in signed that.”

He testified that about a hundred personssigned it and that he did not see any visitor to theoffice decline to sign it. He said signers included Paul

64


Cabinet askedfor citizen

support

McCandlesstestimony on

Cabinet actions

Neumann, the Queen’s personal attorney, and anumber of other people in opposing political parties.He said the petition remained on the desk at Smith’soffice all day Sunday and into Monday, continuing togather signatures before it disappeared. (L.A.Thurston, writing about the incident later in hisMemoirs, recollected it disappeared on Saturday andbelieved it was taken by Neumann.)

McCandless said that about 2 p.m. Saturday,two of the Cabinet members themselves came to theoffice. He identified them as John F. Colburn, theQueen’s minister of the interior, and A.P. Peterson,her attorney general. He said by then there wereabout 700 to 800 people in the vicinity.

He said Colburn was prevailed upon to“make a speech, tell us the story.”

In his testimony, McCandless said Colburnthen said “. . . he had information that morning thatthe Queen intended to promulgate the new constitu-tion. He said that he immediately carried the news toJudge Hartwell and Mr. Thurston. They (Ed.—theCabinet members versus Hartwell and Thurston)had been political enemies, of course, and they hadadvised the ministers to resist—that is, to refuse tocountersign the new Constitution, and to do all theycould with her to keep her from signing the newConstitution. After the legislature had been pro-rogued (Ed.—adjourned) they proceeded to thepalace, right across the street, and there she made thespeech (which of course is a matter of history) to theeffect that she proposed to give the people a newConstitution. She asked the ministers to countersignit, and they refused to do so. Mr. Colburn told thestory of her becoming very angry, and Mr. Petersonmade the remark that the Constitution was faulty insome respects, whereupon he said she replied: ‘You

65


Queen angrywith Cabinet

Proposed Con-stitution shookCabinet

McCandless testimony aboutCabinet

have had it in your possession for a month and youreturned it without any comment, and I took it thatit was all right.’

“He (Ed.—Colburn) stated that they hadescaped from there (Ed.—the palace, each going outa different direction) and thought that their liveswere in danger; that she had sent for them again, andthat at this time she had concluded not to promulgatethe new Constitution . . . for the time being.

“‘Now,’ said he (Ed.—Colburn), ‘gentlemen,we want to know what support we can get as againstthe Queen, because she is apt to do this at any time.’He said that the only reason she had desisted wasthat she was unable to get them to sign the constitu-tion. She got it into her head that it would not belegal unless countersigned by the cabinet, and if shecould get the cabinet to sign she felt that she had alegal constitution . . . she did not believe that it wouldbe valid without the signatures of the ministers.”

In retrospect, there’s a nice bit of irony here.On the one hand, the existing Constitution providedthat only the Legislature—and it took two sessions—could recommend changes in the document, whichthen would have to be approved by a two-thirds votein the second legislative session before the amend-ment became a part of the Constitution. On the otherhand, the Queen was proposing to bypass thatinvolved process and proceed on her own. Yet sheclung to the idea of her actions being invalid withoutthe signature or signatures of the strong Cabinetrequired by the existing Constitution. Her new Con-stitution, even though it contained the same lan-guage on this point, in effect would have removed therequirement for approval by the Cabinet by providingthat the Cabinet could be replaced at her pleasure.

McCandless testified that “immediately it

66


Strange logic on proposedConstitution

Colburn feltQueen would do

it again

was proposed that we must have a Committee ofSafety appointed,” and it was done. He said the Cab-inet ministers and Neumann were still there whenthe Committee was appointed. He said it was about4:30 or 5 p.m. at the time and the Committee met oninto the night.

In his Memoirs, Thurston writes of wakingColburn up at 6 a.m. the next morning, Sunday. Heand Colburn woke Peterson up shortly thereafter topursue the matter of citizen support requested theday before by the Cabinet. Thurston said he toldthem “the citizens were prepared to support the cab-inet against Lili‘uokalani, declaring her in revolutionagainst the government, the throne vacant, themonarchy abrogated, and favoring annexation to theUnited States. If the ministers would lead, the com-mittee would back them; otherwise the committeewould act alone.” He said they—the Cabinet mem-bers—weren’t ready to answer then, but would con-sider. Thurston reported this to the Committee at its10 a.m. Sunday meeting at the home of W.R. Castle.

President Cleveland’s investigator, Blount,also reports this meeting, but his handling of it in hisofficial report gives a different twist to the tale. Anaffidavit signed by all four Cabinet members appearsin the Blount Report confirming this meeting, but itis the only reference by Blount to the Cabinet’s dis-cussions with the Committee of Safety. Nothing inthe Blount Report acknowledges the Cabinet hadapproached Thurston and his group on their own theday before. Blount in his report to U.S. Secretary ofState Walter Q. Gresham therefore said the wholeeffort to get the Cabinet to revolt was Thurston’sidea. If Blount knew of the earlier meeting, he wasguilty of a grave distortion by failing to mention it. Ifhe didn’t know of it, his refusal to interview

67


Blount ignoredCabinet’s role

Citizens readyto back Cabinetefforts to stopQueen

Committee ofSafety appointed

Thurston and Dole or take statements from themand other of the Revolutionists is at fault.

McCandless in his testimony said the Com-mittee at that Sunday morning meeting decided tocall a mass meeting for 1:30 Monday afternoon, the16th.

On Monday morning about 9 o’clock, he said,he first saw the proclamation by the Queen callingher own mass meeting for the same time. It wasshown to members of the Committee of Safety by allfour of the Queen’s ministers.

McCandless testified the Committee metsoon after in Thurston’s office and reviewed a formalrequest from the Cabinet that had been received onSunday, seeking a conference with the Committee ofSafety.

“William Wilder, F.W. McChesney, andmyself [were] constituted a [sub]committee” for thatpurpose, McCandless said.

“We were instructed to go and hear whatthey had to say, and say nothing. We went up to theGovernment building (Ed.—the Ali‘io-lani building,today the state courthouse) and the foreign office.They were all there. We were ushered in, and theywere on the other side of the room. We were oppositeto them. Finally there was a pause—one of the min-isters said, ‘What is it, gentlemen?’ And we said ‘Wehave come up here to see you on account of theappointment you asked of Mr. Thurston.’”

He said they replied, “‘We have decided thatthere is nothing to say, just now; the Queen has justsigned a paper that she will not commit an act of thiskind again, and agreed to abide by the Constitution.’”

At this point in his testimony came thebombshell that surprisingly has been largely under-played or ignored by historians. It was not included

68


Cabinet changed mind

Mass meetingsset

in the report to President Cleveland by his specialinvestigator, Blount, where it might have given theadministration pause in its rush to reinstateLili‘uokalani. McCandless put it this way:

“. . . there was at that time, as we afterwardascertained—did not know it then—a proclamationdrawn up by the ministers, and it was even signed—I think drawn up and in their possession ready to beproclaimed at any time—declaring the Queendeposed and reorganizing the Government(Ed.—emphasis added). This letter from the cabinetto Thurston, asking for the conference, was in regardto the ministers taking charge of the Governmentand deposing the Queen entirely, and their enteringinto the movement with us, we supporting them.”

It is strange that this turn of events is notgiven more weight in accounts of the Revolution. Itwould appear to be key to determining its root caus-es and certainly a good indication of what theQueen’s supporters really felt about her as a ruler.Blount, then, and sovereignty advocates now, arefond of saying the Queen was beloved and supportedby all Native Hawaiians. This action by her closestsupporters shows there were Native Hawaiians whowere very concerned about her ability to govern—indeed, who even sought to depose her.

McCandless’ report is backed up by testimo-ny before the Morgan Committee from a number ofother members of the Committee of Safety, who alsowere not interviewed by Blount.

McCandless testified that the proclamationsought by the Cabinet was drawn up with theapproval of the Cabinet on Saturday afternoon byJudge Hartwell and Thurston, and probably W.O.Smith and Peterson, the Queen’s attorney general.McCandless testified the proclamation declared that

69


Proclamation tovacate throwndrawn up

McCandless tes-timony is telling

the Queen had violated the Constitution, declaredthe throne vacant, and that at the Monday morningmeeting with the Cabinet, “they showed us the orig-inal copy.”

In response to questions from the MorganCommittee, McCandless testified he believed the rea-son the proclamation was never issued was that theministers decided between Saturday and Mondaythat their safest course remained with the Queen. Hesaid existing political rivalries also were alwayshanging over the negotiations and “if there was anyway in which they could get out of it (the agreementwith the Committee of Safety) they would do it.” Hesaid the Queen’s signing of a declaration that shewould not proceed right away with the new Consti-tution apparently satisfied them.

McCandless went on to detail events thattook place in the period leading up to and during theactual Revolution the next day.

He read into the record the key resolutionadopted at the mass meeting on Monday, January 16.History has made light of the Queen’s violation ofthe Constitution as a basic cause of the Revolution,many analysts preferring the simplistic reasoningthat the Revolution was just an excuse for businessand sugar interests to gain control. This key resolu-tion makes clear that high in the minds of those facedwith the problems that day were reasons far removedfrom mere financial and personal gains. They want-ed freedom, continuation of the right to vote and astrong and stable government, all of which theybelieved would be lost to them under her proposednew Constitution. It would have given her the rightto appoint the nobles (the upper house members)instead of allowing for their election, and would havedisenfranchised the foreign community.

70


Desire for free-dom & stable

governmentprompted

Revolution

Political rivalries

McCandless read the mass-meeting resolu-tion from Two Weeks of Hawaiian History, publishedby The Hawaiian Gazette in Honolulu shortly afterJanuary 28, 1893:

“1. Whereas Her Majesty, Lili‘uokalani, act-ing in conjunction with certain other persons, hasillegally and unconstitutionally, and against theadvice and consent of the lawful executive officers ofthe Government, attempted to abrogate the existingconstitution and proclaim a new one in subversion ofthe rights of the people;

“2. And whereas such attempt has beenaccompanied by threats of violence and bloodshedand a display of armed force; and such attempt andacts and threats are revolutionary and treasonable incharacter;

“3. And whereas Her Majesty’s cabinet haveinformed her that such contemplated action wasunlawful, and would lead to bloodshed and riot, andhave implored and demanded of her to desist fromand renounce such proposed action;

“4. And whereas such advice has been invain, and Her Majesty has in a public speechannounced that she was desirous and ready to prom-ulgate such constitution, the same being now readyfor such purpose, and that the only reason why itwas not now promulgated was because she had metwith unexpected obstacles, and that a fitting oppor-tunity in the future must be awaited for the consum-mation of such object, which would be within a fewdays;

“5. And whereas at a public meeting of citi-zens, held in Honolulu on the 14th day of January,instant, a committee of thirteen, to be known as the‘Committee of Public Safety,’ was appointed to con-sider the situation, and to devise ways and means for

71


Queen ready topromulgate newConstitution

Resolution frommass meeting

the maintenance of the public peace and safety, andthe preservation of life and property;

“6. And whereas such committee has recom-mended the calling of this mass meeting of citizens toprotest against and condemn such action, and hasthis day presented a report to such meeting,denouncing the action of the Queen and her sup-porters as being unlawful, unwarranted, in deroga-tion of the rights of the people, endangering thepeace of the community, and tending to excite riot,and cause the loss of life and destruction of property;

“Now, therefore, we, the citizens of Honolu-lu, of all nationalities, and regardless of politicalparty affiliations, do hereby condemn and denouncethe action of the Queen and her supporters;

“And we do hereby ratify the appointmentand endorse the action taken and report made by thesaid Committee of Safety; and we do hereby furtherempower such Committee to further consider the sit-uation and further devise such ways and means asmay be necessary to secure the permanent mainte-nance of law and order, and the protection of life, lib-erty, and property in Hawai‘i.”

F.W. McChesney, another member of theCommittee of Safety and one of the three men whomet with the Queen’s Cabinet, did not appear in per-son at the Morgan hearings. He submitted a swornaffidavit, which includes these statements regardingthe efforts by her Cabinet to gain support of the Com-mittee of Safety and others:

“I signed a roll with other citizens in theoffice of W.O. Smith on the afternoon of Saturday,January 14, 1893, pledging myself as a special policeofficer in support of the cabinet against the proposedaggression of the Queen . . . . It was reported by Mr.Thurston [at a meeting the next day] that the

72


McChesney testimony

Queen’s actionsdenounced

Queen’s cabinet had gone back on us, so we decidedto proceed without them.”17

The third member of the Committee that vis-ited the Cabinet was William C. Wilder. He also sub-mitted a sworn affidavit, which included these com-ments:

“The conduct of the Queen became suchtoward the end of the [legislative] session as to leadme to believe that she was determined to regain thepowers taken away by the constitution of 1887;things went on from bad to worse until the 14th ofJanuary, 1893, when the Legislature was prorogued.When it was reported on that morning that theopium and lottery bills were signed and the Corn-well-Parker-Peterson cabinet came in, the tension ofpublic feeling became most intense; every one feltthat there was trouble in the air, but it was not onaccount of the ousting of the Wilcox reform Cabinet.If matters had ended there, there would have been nouprising.

“The reform members of the Legislature didnot attend the prorogation, more as a protest againstthe unlawful acts of the Queen than anything else.When, however, after the prorogation, the Queenattempted to abrogate the constitution and proclaima new one, which would have restored the ancientdespotic rights of the throne, and would have tram-pled under foot all further semblance of liberty inHawai‘i, the respectable, conservative, and propertyinterests of the country, without any prior meetingor plans, simply arose in protest and to defend theirrights. From what I saw, I would have no hesita-tion saying that the Queen’s act in attempting toabrogate the constitution and promulgate a newone brought about the revolution18 (Ed.—empha-sis added).”

73


Constitutionwould havetrampled liberty

Wilderdescribedbuildup of tension

Committee wentforward withoutCabinet

Regarding his subcommittee’s meeting Mon-day with the Cabinet, Wilder had this to say: “Somenegotiations had been going on between members ofthe Queen’s cabinet and Mr. Thurston, on behalf ofthe Committee of Safety, of which I knew nothingexcept the fact of such conference; but at that meet-ing [earlier Monday morning with the Committee ofSafety at Thurston’s office], I was appointed one of a[sub]committee to wait on the cabinet to receivetheir communication in answer to the matter dis-cussed by them with Thurston. We went to the gov-ernment building and met the cabinet; they statedthat they declined any further negotiations.”

The testimony of these three men some thir-ty years before Thurston wrote his Memoirs differsslightly in details with some of his recollections, butoverall is strikingly similar.

In his Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution,Thurston recalled he was in his office that Saturdaymorning, January 14, “sorting papers preparatory toresuming law work.” (For much of the previous yearThurston had been working on Annexation plans forthe secret Annexation Club, including a trip to Wash-ington to feel out the Harrison administration on thesubject, actions the Queen would have consideredtreasonous.)

He said Colburn came in looking much excit-ed and since the Queen had appointed him her min-ister of the interior only the day before, “I was sur-prised to see him. He immediately burst out: ‘Lorrin,we’ve been having a hell of a time up at the Palace,and I have come to tell you about it.’” Colburn said hehad come to get Thurston’s advice, while Petersonhad gone to the office of W.O. Smith to seek Smith’s.Colburn, of Hawaiian ancestry, and Thurston,though of opposite political persuasions, had grown

74


Colburn soughtThurston’s

advice

Cabinet declinedfurther negotia-

tion

up together in the Islands and were good friends. Colburn recounted the Queen’s angry efforts

to get the Cabinet members to approve the new Con-stitution and their refusal to do so. Thurston sug-gested they consult with Judge Hartwell, who in turnsuggested further review with Smith. “Our unitedadvice to Colburn was to stand pat in his refusal toapprove the Queen’s action, and we agreed to under-take to raise support for him among the men down-town,” Thurston wrote.

His Memoirs continue: “After lunch, Mr.Smith and I went to the office of Attorney-GeneralPeterson, in Ali‘io-lani Hale; there we met Colburn,Peterson, and Cornwell, several other men also beingpresent. Messrs. Peterson and Cornwell corroboratedthe statement made to us by Mr. Colburn. They allagreed that Lili‘uokalani was furiously insistent ontheir joining her in promulgating the new Constitu-tion . . . .

“Mr. Smith and I, as well as the other menpresent, advised the cabinet to counter upon theQueen, declare her in revolution against the govern-ment and the constitution, declare the throne vacantby reason of her treasonable attitude, and call uponthe people to sustain them.

“During the conversation, Samuel Parker,minister of foreign affairs and head of the cabinet,entered the room. He did not have much to say, buthe was practically of the same mind as the other min-isters . . . . [All four] were in a blue funk as to theircourse.

“I offered to draft for the cabinet a declara-tion along the lines that we had advised. They didnot agree to make the declaration, but assented to mysuggestion of drafting it; and I drafted it then andthere (Ed.—in Peterson’s office). At that stage, a

75


Cabinet in a“blue funk”

Queen “furious-ly insistent” onnew Constitu-tion

Colburn waspromised sup-port of commu-nity

messenger came from the Queen, demanding theimmediate return of the cabinet.”

Thurston said Colburn, Peterson and Corn-well stated they did not intend to go, but that Parkersaid: “‘I’m not afraid. I’ll go to the palace and seewhat the Queen wants us to do.’” He left the meeting.

Thurston’s Memoirs continue, covering oneof the most important points in the argument overUnited States participation in the Revolution andfurther confirming the Cabinet’s intention to deposetheir Queen: “I then suggested that the cabinet offi-cially request John L. Stevens, United States minis-ter, to land forces from the U.S.S. Boston in order toprevent violence on the part of Lili‘uokalani, whichPeterson and Colburn both said they feared. Threemembers of the cabinet having agreed to mydoing so (Ed.—emphasis added), I drafted, andPeterson had typewritten, a request to Mr. Stevens,that he cause men to be landed from the Boston topreserve the peace; and the request was signed bythe three ministers (Ed.—emphasis added) . . . .

“Taking the paper, I started down town withWilliam O. Smith. As we reached the door of theoffice, however, Peterson called me back and said: ‘Ithink you had better give me that request; I’ll deliverit to Minister Stevens myself.’ Though I urged him tolet me deliver it, he insisted that I surrender it tohim, and I reluctantly complied. I have never seen itsince, and Peterson did not deliver it to MinisterStevens.”

Later that day, after the events describedbelow, a special committee of the newly formed Com-mittee of Safety called on Minister Stevens for thefirst time. It was comprised of Thurston, W.C.Wilder, an American member of the Committee(Blount, as he did in identifying other members of

76


Peterson tookpaper, neverdelivered it

Cabinet mem-bers agreed to

ask Stevens forhelp

the Committee of Safety who were Hawaiian sub-jects, did not mention his American connection, list-ing him only as a “naturalized citizen of the Hawai-ian Islands, owing no allegiance to any other coun-try”) and H.F. Glade, German consul—who resignedfrom the Committee the next day in view of thepotential conflict with his diplomatic status. Theycalled on Stevens to inform him of the situation and“ask him if he was going to support the Queenagainst her cabinet and the citizens.” A letter fromThurston to U.S. Secretary of State John W. Fostershortly after the Revolution says:

“Mr. Stevens replied to us that on threeoccasions he had been applied to by those rep-resenting the Queen for support against thoseopposed to her, and that he had always givenher assurance of such support as lay withinhis power; but that in this case he consideredthe position taken by the Cabinet and peoplea just and legal one, and the attempt made bythe Queen a revolutionary one; and that ifasked by her for his support he would notgive it; and on the contrary he should recog-nize the cabinet as the supporters of law andas possessing the authority of Government solong as they were supported by anyrespectable number of responsible citizens,and if they called on him he would give themthe same assistance that had always beenafforded to the Hawaiian Government by theUnited States Representatives.”19

Stevens apparently was juggling three balls inthe air at once, with requests during that two-dayperiod for support of the Cabinet itself, support laterfrom the Cabinet for the Queen and support for theRevolutionists. Except for the Blount Report’s

77


Thurstonaccount to U.S.secretary ofstate

Stevensapproached byCommittee

adverse finding, other accounts of the period andStevens’ own testimony indicate he played all therequests right down the middle and said he wouldback none of them. He said he would protect Ameri-can lives and property.

Thurston’s account in his Memoirs of the Sat-urday events continues:

“Mr. Smith and I returned to his office,where several dozen men were excitedly discussingthe situation. We informed them of what was occur-ring at the Government Building. A declaration wasimmediately drafted to this effect: since Lili‘uokalanihad announced her intention of subverting the con-stitution and arbitrarily promulgating a new one, theundersigned declared her to be in attempted revolu-tion against the constitution and government andpledged their support to the cabinet in resisting her.Signatures were affixed, and messengers were sentout to bring in other men to sign . . .”

Thurston said the signing was under thedirect supervision of Paul Neumann, the Queen’sattorney, among others, and that in several hoursnearly a hundred leading members of the communi-ty had signed it. It later disappeared and “the gener-al belief of those present was that Neumann hadsequestered it . . . .”

Similar testimony and affidavits from Castleand others further confirm how close the Cabinetmembers came to deposing their own Queen. Princi-pals from both the Reform and Royalist partiesagreed that her attempts to promulgate a new Con-stitution were indeed revolutionary and did not havethe support of many of her own advisers. They there-fore called the successful Revolution of 1893 in actu-ality a “counter-revolution.”

Blount called the Revolution a “conspiracy”

78


Neumannsupervised

signing

Proclamationsigned, laterdisappeared

between Stevens and the Committee of Safety, apoint often made by sovereignty activists. A conspir-acy is defined by Webster as a “secret agreement todo an unlawful act.” The evidence demonstrates thebuildup of the Hawaiian Revolution was anythingbut secret. Thurston’s Memoirs, testimony before theMorgan Committee and statements from the Royal-ists make this clear. One point in particular, support-ed by all three of the above sources, occurred onMonday morning, January 16, as the Committeegathered in Thurston’s law offices upstairs over theold Bishop Bank, Ka‘ahumanu and Merchant streets,a half-block from the police station on Merchant atthe foot of Bethel.

Thurston describes it:“While the committee was in session, a

knock sounded at the door. Charles B. Wilson, mar-shal of the Kingdom and chief of police, was there; hepoked his head into the room and noted the personspresent. Withdrawing, he said to me: ‘Thurston, Iwould like to speak with you a minute.’ I accompa-nied him into the hall; he resumed: ‘I know what youfellows are up to, and I want you to quit and gohome.’”

Thurston said he told him it was too late; thedie was cast. Thurston later said that after the Revo-lution was over, he talked again with Wilson, whotold him, “‘When I came to your office that Mondaymorning, the cabinet were all over at the police sta-tion. I told them that the entire Committee of Safetywere in your office, and I asked their permission toswear out a warrant and arrest the whole lot of you,but the damned cowards would not give me permis-sion.’” We can assume today that in addition to anyconcerns the Cabinet members may have had aboutarresting many of the town’s leading citizens, they

79


Wilson wantedto arrest Com-mittee

Revolution planswere not secret

Revolution noconspiracy

must also have worried about their own involvementbeing discovered by the Queen.

Obviously the Queen, her Cabinet, the chiefof police and probably most of the other key govern-ment officials knew a revolution was brewing. It wasno secret maneuver and it didn’t occur in a singleday. It was openly planned and carried out over afour-day period. The Committee of Safety kept theQueen’s key people informed at all stages. And thosekey people made clear their own displeasure with thedirection their Queen was heading. There was noconspiracy about it. Her decision to seek a moreabsolute Monarchy through a new Constitution washer undoing.

One of her key Cabinet members told Blountthere were other reasons as well. He was Minister ofForeign Affairs Samuel Parker, by his own descrip-tion a seven-eighths Hawaiian. He said, “My honestopinion is this: I think it (the Revolution) neverwould have taken place if the Reform ministry hadnot been put out.” This was the four-member Cabi-net that the Queen replaced a few days before theRevolution with Parker and Colburn—two Hawai-ians—and Cornwell and Peterson, two Americans.Parker explained to Blount that had the former Cab-inet not been discharged at the Queen’s behest, therewould have been no opium bill, no lottery andassuredly no attempts at a new Constitution, actionsthat stirred the community to the point of revolution.But he told Blount in his opinion the Revolutionwould have occurred even if the Queen had not triedto promulgate a new Constitution:

“A majority of the capitalists of the town hadno confidence in our ministry. I think it would havecome about anyway,” he replied to a question fromBlount.

80


Parker saidministry change

was cause of Revolution

Royalists knewRevolution

brewing

Although loyal to the Queen until after thecounter-revolution in 1895 when he opted forAnnexation, Parker had strong words with her aboutthe propriety of her actions.

In recounting, for example, at Blount’srequest the “circumstances attending the conferencebetween the cabinet and the Queen [wherein the cab-inet refused to sign] the new constitution,” Parkersaid he and the Cabinet told the Queen:

“Your Majesty, we have not read the consti-tution, but before we read it, you must know it is arevolutionary act. It can not be done . . . . We adviseyou to give it up—not to think any more about it.”He said at this point “she got pretty well excited, andsome of my colleagues said: ‘If you insist upon it, wewill resign.’”

He later told Blount that while he believedthe majority of the people were for the Queen, he didnot think her reinstatement would survive as a gov-ernment without the protection of an outside power.

“There is a feeling that unless we are undersome country like the United States it would be thesame old revolutionary trouble coming up all thetime . . . . So that I say I do not think it will ever be astable government unless we are under a protec-torate. If we are under a protectorate I say let it be theUnited States . . . . I would not accept the same posi-tion I had before the revolution unless there was aprotectorate . . . . It is no use looking to England,Japan, France, or Germany. All our benefits arederived from the United States,” he told Blount.

Reading similar accounts of other interviewsin the Blount Report, one has to wonder why Blountapparently made no effort to get a balanced picture ofwhat was going on in Hawai‘i at the time. Dole saidit was because he did all his “fact-finding” from with-

81


Parker toldBlount protec-torate needed

Cabinet toldQueen her Con-stitution was actof revolt

Parker saw Rev-olution asinevitable

in his hotel room; that he did not go outside and seewhat the community felt like. Here were her ownministers pointing out the Queen’s faults and theirdisagreement with them and Blount did not followthose reports up with any substantive interviewswith members of the revolutionary group or otherleaders outside of the Royalist party. Flying in theface of contemporary accounts in his own report ofdissension and lack of confidence among her closestsupporters, he proceeded as if his mind were alreadymade up to recommend reinstatement of the Queen.

82


Blount didn’tfollow leads

little more than onehundred years ago afour-day, virtually

bloodless Revolution changed Hawai‘i forever. Gonewas the Monarchy that had controlled these Islandsfor eighty years of the 19th Century. The Kingdomhad dwindled from a self-sufficient nation in 1810 ofsome two hundred thousand Native Hawaiians and ahandful of immigrants to a struggling collection in1893 of forty thousand Hawaiians and about asmany immigrants.20 Most of the immigrants wereAsians brought in to provide the work force to main-tain an economy based on sugar. A few thousandwere Caucasians from America and Europe, manyfrom Portugal.

The Revolutionists wanted a stable govern-ment and Annexation to the United States, but theU.S. administration, to put it simply, didn’t wantAnnexation, at least not then.

(For the sake of simplicity, this book is callingthe 1893 action that led to formation of a provision-al government a “revolution.” There is good reason itcould well be called a “counter-revolution,” theQueen having committed a revolutionary act by

RevolutionChapter Five

83

Kingdom’s population decimated

Revolution reallya counter-revolt

AA

attempting to promulgate a new Constitution in vio-lation of the terms of the existing Constitution shehad sworn to uphold. This point is developed morefully in Chapter Four and will be developed againlater in this chapter—Ed.)

Today, some descendants of the forty thou-sand Hawaiians then residing in the Kingdom, most-ly from families mixed with the blood of immigrantsfrom many other nations, are attempting to undo theresults of the 1893 Revolution and re-establish someform of Hawaiian sovereignty. Their sovereigntymovement depends on portraying the Revolution asa conspiracy between a group of Caucasian Revolu-tionists and the United States. They claim that con-spiracy brought the Islands under control of theUnited States. Both aspects are important: First, theymust prove there was a conspiracy, which is not sup-ported by any factual evidence, and second, that theresult was U.S. control. Since President Clevelanddemonstrated that the U.S. control part wasn’t there,as did the Provisional Government of Hawai‘i, thelatter claim rests on thin ice, too.

This interpretation of conspiracy and seizureis key to potential claims against the U.S. govern-ment for reparations and title to Hawai‘i’s govern-ment lands. Central to these claims is the interpreta-tion of the role played by 162 U.S. marines and blue-jackets on January 17, 1893. And a part of interpret-ing that role objectively is understanding what U.S.foreign policy was at the time, and who had the re-sponsibility for determining it.

Those who are trying to rewrite history andthose who have become their unwitting assistants inthe process persist in calling what happened simplyan “overthrow.” For sure, Queen Lili‘uokalani wasoverthrown, but describing the event in that narrow

84


Revisionistsdraw inaccurate

pictures

Sovereigntymovement

depends onimplicating U.S.

a term ignores the far-reaching realities of what wastaking place at that time in Hawai‘i’s history andwhy these changes occurred.

The Revolution did not occur in a vacuum. Itdid not happen overnight, though once it was trig-gered it moved with incredible speed. It probably wasinevitable in the tide of America’s “manifest destiny”that was shaping things internationally. Its timingwas the result of years of questionable governmentalpractices on the part of late-19th-Century monarchsof Hawai‘i, some of which are detailed later in thischapter and in other chapters. These practices wouldbe unacceptable today to almost everyone living inthese Islands, and they were unacceptable then tomany of the subjects and residents of the Kingdom.The Monarchy wasn’t going to change by itself; as inany revolution, the people living under the Monar-chy were the only ones who could bring aboutchange.

Since no polls were taken in those days, noone can prove whether a majority of residents—Hawaiians, Caucasians and others, subjects or other-wise—favored the Revolution or not. Most com-ments by Royalist leaders of the day claim that atleast 80 percent of Native Hawaiians would haveopposed it in a secret ballot, and perhaps a quarter ofthe remainder of the population. But the record ofwhat transpired makes very clear that no majorityrose to undo that Revolution once it had succeededand that people of all nationalities supported its endresult, Annexation.

The Annexation Club, from which sprungthe Revolutionary troops, had started in early 1892as a closely held, small, secret group. By July 1893,however, its rolls included more than a thousandHawaiians, according to J.W. Jones, its secretary. At

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Revolution

Hawaiiansjoined Annexa-tion move

No majorityrose to undoRevolution

Governmentpractices notacceptable

Blount’s request, Jones submitted a report in July1893 certifying that of the 5,500 members on therolls at that time, 1,022, or 18 percent, were NativeHawaiians—11 percent of the native population as awhole. There were 1,218 persons he described asAmericans, constituting 22 percent of the club but90 percent of the Americans in residence. Therewere 251 Englishmen, “being 26 percent of those onthe islands and 4 percent of club rolls.” He said therewere 2,261 Portuguese, “being 73 percent of Por-tuguese on [these] islands and 41 percent of clubrolls.” Half the Norwegians in Hawai‘i, 69, repre-senting 1 percent of club rolls, were members. Threehundred fifty-one Germans, 53 percent of those inthe Islands, representing 6 percent of club rolls, weremembers, along with 328 persons “unclassified.”

The change the Revolutionists sought in gov-ernment has to be described as a revolt. It was under-taken by residents of the Island nation, seethingunder the conduct of affairs by their government.Those who led the revolt were changing a form ofgovernment by a method with long historical andlegal precedent. They were not just getting rid of oneleader to put in a replacement leader and continue anexisting pattern of government. They were throwingout a system they felt was not working for the resi-dents of Hawai‘i as a whole. The Revolutionistsknew this kind of movement from monarchy towarddemocracy had been used on many other occasions,in particular by the people of the United States in1776, when they threw off the yoke of King GeorgeIII, and by the French in 1789, when a populistuprising threw off that Monarchy.

The Revolutionists believed the people ofHawai‘i would support them, as popular opinion inAmerica and France had supported those earlier rev-

86


Revolution haslong history asway to change

governments

AnnexationClub membersfrom all races

olutions. Indeed, since no successful counter-revolu-tion occurred in Hawai‘i, it is not unreasonable todescribe the movement as having wide acceptance.

Why was there no mass uprising in Hawai‘iagainst the Revolution? In part, because in the opin-ions of Native and Caucasian leaders expressed in1898, the Revolution of 1893 and the subsequentAnnexation of Hawai‘i by the United States were thebest things that could have happened to the people ofthese Islands at that point in history. This viewpointwas held by those in leadership positions, butwhether it was held by a majority of the general pop-ulace or not will never be known because no voteswere taken. The absence of a successful counter-rev-olution appears to confirm it was, but the Revolu-tionists admittedly did not want to take the chance ofan open vote on the matter.

Colonialism, as we saw in Chapter One, wasrampant in the 19th Century, and the HawaiianMonarchy was but one of five Pacific-area kingdomsstill extant. Colonial powers were casting covetouseyes at Hawai‘i’s strategic position. By mid-century,the French and the British each had seized control ofthe Islands and the Russians had tried to get afoothold on Kaua‘i. Each had backed off under pres-sure. German and Japanese interests also could havemoved into the game.

Pressures were building enormously in the1890s and there is good cause to believe Hawai‘icould not have remained independent beyond 1900.Japanese efforts were particularly strong because ofthe population dominance that had come about withthe influx of Japanese laborers arriving to work onthe sugar plantations. Their government wasdemanding voting rights for the immigrants. Thesemen had not yet become subjects of Hawai‘i or

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Revolution

Hawai‘i couldnot haveremained inde-pendent

Annexation best thing for all people

No uprisingagainst Revolu-tionists

American citizens and still were closely tied to theirnative country. Giving them the right to vote couldimmediately, in effect, have put control of the Legis-lature in Japanese hands.

That Hawai‘i remained independent as longas it did is astonishing. The innate ability of Hawai-ian kings and the use they made of their haole advis-ers to play external powers against one another hadkept foreign governments at bay. If the domestic gov-ernment had found a way to be representative of allits subjects and residents and become stable enoughto develop the confidence of investors, thus provid-ing the economic growth needed to keep the King-dom strong, the Revolution might never haveoccurred. But this still would have left Hawai‘i opento the colonial pressures of other powers.

Kamehameha III in the late 1830s had wiselyseen the benefits of replacing his absolute Monarchywith a constitutional Monarchy, which he did in1840. The move served his people well, though fromtime to time his successor monarchs made changes insuch things as voting rights that today we would con-sider steps backward. In 1864, for example, Kame-hameha V abrogated the Constitution of 1852 andreplaced it with a new Constitution that returnedcertain powers to the Monarchy and introduced aproperty ownership requirement for voting.21

By the late 1880s, King Kala-kaua, withextravagant notions of his own and Hawai‘i’s staturein the world, was leading the Kingdom to bankrupt-cy. Community leaders of all nationalities feltrestraints had to be put in the Constitution to reinhim in.22

A Reform Constitution was adopted in 1887.Opponents called it the “Bayonet Constitution”because it was forced on the King. But the forcing

88


Kala-kaua ledKingdom toward

bankruptcy

Foreign govern-ments had been

kept at bay

The Bishops

The Bishop Home in downtown Honolulu, at what is now the corner of King and Bishop Street.

Charles Reed Bishop arrived by accidentin Hawai‘i. Important businessman andphilanthropist who married PrincessPauahi, he created the Bishop Museumand predecessor of First Hawaiian Bank.

Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a directdescendant of Kamehameha I, refusedthe throne. Probably Hawai‘i’s ultimatebenefactress.

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W.T

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The Thurstons

Their son, Asa G. Thurston, above, fatherof Lorrin A. Thurston, died when the boywas one. His widow, Sarah AndrewsThurston, right, taught school to supporttheir three children.

Asa and Lucy Thurston, photographedin Honolulu in the 1860s. They arrivedin Hawai‘i in1820 among the firstmissionaries, and are the great-great-grandparents of the author.

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Lorrin A. Thurston, lawyer, firebrand patriot, Revolutionist, public servant, journalist,adventurer, pictured shortly before Revolution.

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The Royals

Kamehameha I, mostpowerful chief in Hawaiianhistory, united Hawai‘iafter bloody warsthroughout the Islands.

Kamehameha II, brave kingwho challenged superstitionby breaking kapu and eatingwith women.

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Kamehameha III, longest-term Hawaiian ruler,promulgated first writtenlaws, moved nation towardconstitutional form ofgovernment. Ordered theGreat Mahele.

Kamehameha IV, grandson ofKing Kamehameha I, favoredBritain over the U.S., foundedQueen’s Hospital, brought inEpiscopal Church. P

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The Royals (continued)

Kamehameha V, pushednew Constitution throughLegislature, died withoutnaming successor,prompting first popularelection of Hawaiian king.

Lunalilo, first popularlyelected king, createdLunalilo Trust with moreland than the Bishop Estate,but it was sold in the 19thcentury to build LunaliloHome for aged Hawaiians.

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Queen Emma Rooke, popular choice for Monarch, lost to Kalakaua in 1874 election by

Legislature; widow of Kamehameha IV, founded Queen’s Hospital and St. Andrew’s Priory.

Queen Emma

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David Kalakaua, merrie monarch, who ruined Hawai‘i economy, leading to a ReformConstitution; bloody but unsuccessful overthrow attempt of 1889 put down by same menwho later led Revolution against his sister, Lili‘uokalani.

King David Kala-kaua

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was done by a coalition of people of all races meetingin the largest public gathering up to that time inHawaiian history. Speakers attacked the King onmany counts of abusing his powers and favoringunsavory friends, and the crowd adopted a resolutiondemanding reform. Many thought his most unsavoryfriend and adviser was Walter Murray Gibson, whohad been given lands and other special favors by theKing. At that moment, Gibson was prime minister,minister of foreign affairs and president of the Boardof Health. He was ordered out of the Kingdom andleft on the next ship.

Kala-kaua was succeeded after his death inJanuary 1891 by his named successor, his sister,Lili‘uokalani, and it soon became clear that her inter-est lay in returning the government to the powerful,self-centered Monarchy it had been earlier in the19th Century. She was not interested in broadeningparticipation in government by her subjects andother local residents.

Early in 1892, with the Annexation Club al-ready talking privately about a move to replace herand seek Annexation to the United States, one of itsorganizers and more outspoken members, Lorrin A.Thurston, had gone to Washington to check out thepossibilities. Annexation had been advocated by along series of U.S. presidents, secretaries of state andministers to Hawai‘i.

He found the Harrison administration sym-pathetic to the idea, providing it came as a requestfrom the Hawaiian government. He returned to Hon-olulu more than ever convinced that the best futurefor his homeland lay in Annexation to the UnitedStates. As it turned out, the U.S. interest in possibleAnnexation would be temporary; the Clevelandadministration a few months later reverted to an ear-

89

Revolution

Thurston foundHarrison opento Annexationidea

Lili‘uokalanididn’t supportrepresentativegovernment

Kala-kaua excessbrought newConstitution

lier non-expansionist policy for the United States.Annexation would give Hawai‘i needed pro-

tection from conquest by other foreign powers and amuch stronger position in the world sugar market.At that time sugar was the kingpin in Hawai‘i’seconomy. Sugar interests, however, were not behindthe Revolution or Annexation. Most sugar growers,particularly English and German owners, were con-cerned that an alliance with America would adverse-ly affect their abilities to bring in foreign laborers.Ironically, once Annexation occurred, the benefits tothe sugar industry became evident. By 1906, TheAdvertiser, in an anniversary edition on July 2, calledAnnexation “the greatest single factor in the devel-opment of the sugar business . . . since the reciproci-ty treaty.”

Before Annexation, however, Claus Spreck-els, richest and biggest of the sugar barons, was astaunch supporter of the Monarchy, which he wasable with considerable success to manipulate. Afterthe Revolution, the Queen wrote in her diaries forMay 1893 that one of her advisers, Sam Parker, toldher Spreckels “would be the means of putting meback on the throne.”

Paul Isenberg, a German national who hadmade major investments in Hawaiian sugar but livedmainly in his homeland, and a number of Britishsugar men, such as Theo H. Davies and W.H.Rickard, also were opposed to both the Revolutionand Annexation. Davies, whose successor firm stilloperates in Hawai‘i though no longer in sugar,strongly supported the Monarchy, but after the Rev-olution agreed Lili‘uokalani should not be reinstatedas queen. An ardent foe of Annexation to the UnitedStates, he journeyed to Washington from Londonwith the 17-year-old Princess Ka‘iulani, the Queen’s

90


Sugar baronsopposed

Annexation too

Sugar interestsnot behind Revolution

niece and designated successor, and jumped into the1893 Annexation struggle. He suggested Ka‘iulani,who was studying in London at the time, be substi-tuted for Lili‘uokalani in a regency governmentunder Dole for three years, after which, he suggest-ed, she should be made queen. The suggestion wentnowhere.

As mentioned earlier, the U.S. administra-tion had told Thurston it could not act on Annexa-tion without a request from the government ofHawai‘i. While predecessor monarchs had favoredAnnexation from time to time, Queen Lili‘uokalaniwas not so inclined. There didn’t seem to be muchhope in 1892 for a Hawaiian government thatfavored Annexation.

The Annexation group continued informallyin its planning on how to proceed toward its goal.The feeling of most of the men who made up theloosely formed club was that the Queen probablyshould be removed eventually from office, but with astable Cabinet—the Jones-Wilcox group—in powerand the Queen quiescent, there seemed to be noimmediate urgency. U.S. Minister Stevens and theU.S.S. Boston left for a ten-day trip to Hilo on January4, 1893, convinced all was well.

The Queen’s quiescence did not last long,however, and in a little over a week, her opponentswere talking revolution, convinced she could not beallowed to continue.

The final straw for Lili‘uokalani’s opponentscame on January 14, 1893. Ignoring the counsel andadvice of Cabinet ministers she personally hadselected, she served notice of plans to promulgate anew Constitution. It would have done away with thesafeguards and balance of power between themonarch and the Legislature that had guided the

91

Revolution

New Constitu-tion plan wasstraw thatbrought revolt

Kingdomappeared stablewith Jones-Wilcox Cabinet

Davies proposedKa‘iulani asmonarch

Kingdom for six years. Her proposal was a clear vio-lation of constitutional provisions for amending theexisting document.

The 1864 Constitution had been promulgat-ed by similarly illegal means, but Kamehameha V gotaway with it. The 1887 Constitution also was donein a manner contrary to constitutional procedure,but it was done with the backing of a mass meetingof his subjects—all voters. Kala-kaua had no choicebut to adopt it and swear to uphold it. In the mindsof many legislators, businessmen, homeowners andprofessional people and even her own hand-pickedCabinet members, Lili‘uokalani’s proposal to do itagain in 1893 was not acceptable. They considered itan illegal, revolutionary move.

Feelings ran high that something had to bedone before she could act. The town was boiling withrumors.

The buildup toward Revolution had begunten days earlier when she tried unsuccessfullythrough her supporters in the Legislature to replaceher widely approved Jones-Wilcox Cabinet with newmembers more likely to go along with her plans,including her proposals for opium licenses, a lotteryand the new Constitution. She couldn’t even get allthe Hawaiians in the Legislature on her side. She lostthe first effort to remove her highly regarded Cabinetby a vote of 22 to 19, and in view of claims today thatHawaiians universally were behind her, it is worthnoting that the 22 nays included 11 Hawaiians andpart-Hawaiians and 11 haoles while the 19 ayesincluded 15 Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians and 4haoles.23

In the next few hectic days, the Queen’s sup-porters rammed through the opium and lottery bills,and she twisted enough arms (there were open

92


Politicking toremove Cabinet

Queen’s planconsidered illegal act

reports of bribery) to dump the respected Cabinet,which had opposed those bills, by a vote of 25 to 16on January 12. Five Hawaiians still voted against hereffort. Her good friend, brother-in-law and adviser,Archibald S. Cleghorn, whom she had appointed gov-ernor of O‘ahu, also opposed her on this point. Mar-ried to her sister, Miriam Likelike, Cleghorn was thefather of Ka‘iulani, the young princess whom theQueen considered her successor. He wrote his daugh-ter, who was in school in London: “The Legislaturepassed the wretched Lottery Bill yesterday—and Iam afraid your Aunt has taken bad advice, still shemay not sign it. I told her months ago not to haveanything to do with it.”

The next day, however, with her new Cabinetin place, the Queen signed both bills and her actionwas announced by the Cabinet the following morn-ing, Saturday, January 14, at the Legislature’s finalsession. Hours later, when she was finalizing plansfor announcing her new Constitution, a hitch devel-oped: Her new Cabinet decided it could not approveit. The four Cabinet members held a flurry of meet-ings and conferences with various community lead-ers and ministers of all of the foreign governmentsrepresented in the Islands, and found them allopposed to the Queen’s proposal.

24

That Constitution, among other things,would have enabled the Queen to appoint or removeher Cabinet without approval of the Legislature. Itwould have given her the power to appoint the upperhouse of Nobles instead of their continuing to beelected. She proposed barring anyone but native-born or naturalized subjects—only males, as was stillthe case in the United States—from voting, disen-franchising about one-quarter of the electorate,including most of the business community.25 Since

93

Revolution

Queen soughtto expand herpowers

Cabinet balkedat new Consti-tution

Opium & lotterybills rammedthrough

this group paid most of the taxes, they were less thanenchanted. Her new Constitution would have givenher more power than Kala-kaua had before theReform Constitution reined him in.

When her Cabinet strongly opposed her, shedid not promulgate the new Constitution that Satur-day morning. She told the crowd she had invited toassemble that she would do so within a few days. Herintentions also were set forth in the Hawaiian lan-guage newspapers of the day, making a strong pointthat the delay was temporary.

As word of her proposed action spread,alarmed leaders of the community also gathered thatSaturday morning. Business came to a halt. Honolu-lu merchant John Emmeluth, exemplifying the prob-lems faced by Honolulu businessmen, complainedthat Lili‘uokalani’s actions were paralyzing business,that he had to shut his doors three times and let hismen off work in order to attend meetings dealingwith the problems she was creating.26

What started that morning as a gathering ofconcerned residents quickly became a mass publicmeeting. After a number of fiery speeches, membersof the gathering, many of them also members of theAnnexation Club, appointed a committee of thirteento figure out how to deal with the Queen. The Com-mittee called itself the Committee of Safety, and itsassignment was to formulate plans for immediateaction.27 We’ll learn more about its members in thenext chapter. They included three—Castle, Smithand Thurston—born in Hawai‘i of American parentsand, because of their birth, subjects of the Kingdom;four American citizens born on the mainland but atthe time residents of Hawai‘i; two additional Ameri-can citizens who had become naturalized subjects ofHawai‘i, and four Europeans, two of whom also were

94


Committee ofSafety formed

Queen indicateddelay was temporary

naturalized subjects of Hawai‘i. In summary, theCommittee was comprised of seven subjects ofHawai‘i, four citizens of America and two Euro-peans. All were residents of Hawai‘i. Three also weremissionary descendants and a fourth, Henry Water-house, had married a missionary descendant.

Blount, in his report, characterized only sixas subjects of Hawai‘i. The difference comes becausehe referred to McCandless as a U.S. citizen who hadnot been naturalized. McCandless, however, told theMorgan Committee a few months later that he was a“citizen of both countries” and voted in Hawai‘i.

As a curious aside, Blount referred to thethree who were born in Hawai‘i of American parentsas “a Hawaiian of foreign parentage” in the case ofCastle; “a native of foreign origin” in the case ofSmith; and “a native-born subject of the HawaiianIslands, of foreign origin,” in the case of Thurston.He made no mention of their American ties. Onewonders why, and how this was interpreted by theadministration in Washington, which for the mostpart had never heard of these individuals nor theirancestry.

No crystal-clear, universally accepted, com-plete record of the Revolution that followed exists,though the chronology of actual events is well docu-mented. Interpreting what is known is difficult,clouded as it is with political intrigue. The followingaccount may be as accurate as it is possible to get:

After hearing an impassioned plea that Sat-urday from members of the Queen’s Cabinet for sup-port if they were to move against her—see ChapterFour—the Committee of Safety met into the nightand decided no other course remained but to deposethe Queen and install a provisional government.They would back the Cabinet if it chose to move, or

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Revolution

How Revolutionevolved

Blount ignoredAmerican ties ofkey members

Hawaiian sub-jects weremajority onCommittee

go it alone if it didn’t. They favored early Annexa-tion to the United States, which was opposed by theQueen and her legislative supporters. It was a clear-cut choice: stay with the Queen and endure her pro-posed return to a more absolute Monarchy, or breakwith the crown and head for an unknown destinythat could lead to Annexation.

The United States had been the unofficialprotector of Hawai‘i since the 1840s and it was clear-ly the foreign nation most likely to become involvedat this point in case of a breakdown of governmentpower in the Kingdom. Both sides called more thanseveral times on U.S. Minister John L. Stevens toseek his support. He was absent from Honolulu fromJanuary 4 until noon on January 14, having gone toHilo on the cruiser Boston, which later was to landU.S. troops to keep the peace. A subcommittee of theCommittee of Safety called on him that Saturdaynight to inform him of the Committee’s formationand its agreement to back the Queen’s Cabinet mem-bers. They wanted to get his support, or at least tofind out his position, both as to their moves and thepossible Cabinet moves. The post-Revolution BlountReport, relied on by President Cleveland in his polit-ical, one-sided denunciation of the overthrow, quot-ed W.O. Smith, secretary of the Committee of Safety,on the results of that meeting. Smith reported thatMinister Stevens would only say to the Revolution-ists that “U.S. troops on board the Boston would beready to land [at] any moment to prevent the destruc-tion of American life and property...[and that] if anew government were established, and was actuallyin possession of the Government Building, the exec-utive departments and archives, and in possession ofthe city . . . ,” it would have to be recognized by hisministry.

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Stevens wouldnot back revolt

U.S. was unofficialprotector

97

Lorrin A. Thurston put it this way in hisMemoirs:

“. . . William O. Smith and I called on theAmerican minister, Mr. Stevens, andinformed him of the facts. He assured us thathe would protect American lives and proper-ty, but emphasized that he could not recog-nize any revolutionary government until itwas actually established, and repeated thatthe United States forces, if landed, wouldnot take sides with either party (Ed.—emphasis added), but would protect Ameri-cans.”

On Saturday afternoon, members of theQueen’s Cabinet, in the midst of seeking supportfrom the community to depose the Queen them-selves, were present when the Committee of Safetywas formed to carry out the Revolution. There cer-tainly was no secret conspiracy going on between theU.S. minister and the Revolutionists. Everyone waskeeping everyone else, friend or foe, fully informed—the antithesis of conspiracy. As noted, MinisterStevens had left for Hilo on January 4, firmly believ-ing that the Queen would remain quiescent and theJones-Wilcox Cabinet would continue in controluntil the 1894 legislative session. His absence makesclear that he could not have been conspiring with theRevolutionists as their decision to move ahead wasmade.

On Sunday morning, January 15, theQueen’s four Cabinet members were told by theCommittee of Safety it intended to move against theQueen whether the Cabinet was with it or not.28 TheCabinet, meanwhile, believed it had gotten a promisefrom the Queen to abandon her thoughts of a newConstitution. It therefore declined to proceed further

Revolution

Sunday, Janu-ary 15

Committee ofSafety was nosecret

Thurston &Smith called onStevens

with the Committee of Safety. But its membersimmediately informed the Queen of the impendingtakeover. She took no action against the small groupof thirteen. Since their proposal was clearly treason-ous from her point of view and she had an army ofseveral hundred armed men, her failure to actremains one of the mysteries surrounding the Revo-lution. It could lead to the conclusion that the Queenand her advisers had mixed feelings about what to doas well as what would be the reaction of her othersupporters if she chose to act against an uprising.Memories of the similarly widely representativemass meeting that had forced the Reform Constitu-tion on Kala-kaua less than six years earlier may havebeen on her mind. The threat was coming largelyfrom the same men, who as community volunteers,had put the Reform Constitution into effect in 1887,and later had put down the bloody 1889 revolt by aHawaiian group under the auspices of Lili‘uokalaniagainst her brother, Kala-kaua. That attempted couphad been planned in a house owned by Lili‘uokalani,but while she admittedly was in favor of his ouster,she denied any part in the attempted move againsthim.

Most important, it is vital to bear in mindthat this discussion between the Queen and her keypeople was taking place well before any U.S. troopshad been brought ashore or been asked to comeashore, so there were none around to be construed asa deterrent to her taking action. Do not overlook alsothat her own Cabinet members, only hours earlier,had been contemplating removing her themselves.They may have been hesitant to recommend actionon her part in fear of their own action being exposed.As discussed in the preceding chapter, the Cabinethad a duty to the Kingdom under its Constitution

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Cabinet kneweven more

than Queen

Queen was toldof revolt, but did

not act

No U.S. troopson shore yet

and if they believed, as they indicated to the commu-nity, that she was breaking the law under Hawai‘i’sconstitutional Monarchy, it was not a treasonous acton their part to try to depose her. But the Cabinetknew she would view the matter otherwise and nodoubt thought it best to keep it secret. She did notfind out about their plan to remove her until nearlyeleven months later, and then labeled it treasonous.

Members of the Queen’s Cabinet met withMinister Stevens later that Sunday to find out whathis position would be in the event of a community-wide insurrection against the Queen and were toldhe would not take sides with the Queen or anyoneelse.29 Earlier, Saturday night, he had been visited bya delegation from the Committee of Safety seekinghis view on a revolt led by the Cabinet members. Heknew the powerful position held by the Cabinetunder the Hawaiian Constitution and told the Com-mittee of Safety he would view the Cabinet as thegovernment if it deposed the Queen—recognize it assuch and back it up if it so requested. The Commit-tee of Safety and a large number of members of thecommunity already had indicated their support ofsuch a move by the Cabinet, so there would havebeen no disagreement between those forces had thiscourse been followed. In that case, it would havebeen the Cabinet and U.S. troops maintaining peaceand order with the support of the community. TheQueen might or might not have received the supportof the government troops and police force.

Stevens maintained throughout subsequentinvestigations by Washington that he was concernedonly with protecting American lives and interests incase of a pitched battle between the Monarchy and arevolutionary group. He testified he had made it clearto each side that he would directly back neither

99

Revolution

Stevens main-tained he want-ed to protectAmericans

Stevens wouldback Cabinet ifit dumpedQueen

Cabinet unset-tled on what todo

side.30 But since he was an avowed supporter of theidea of annexing Hawai‘i to the United States, hispersonal sympathies undoubtedly lay with the Revo-lutionists and were known to them and to theMonarchy. Queen Lili‘uokalani assumed he wouldhave supported the Revolutionists had a battle bro-ken out. The Committee of Safety was not unhappywith this assumption on her part, but its memberstestified later in the hearings before Senator Mor-gan’s Committee on Foreign Relations that it was nottheir fault she made the assumption nor their role totell her she was wrong.

Captain G.C. Wiltse, commanding officer ofthe Boston, had included this language in his three-paragraph order to the troops, setting forth their mis-sion as he landed them on January 16:

“. . . for the purpose of protecting our lega-tion, consulate, and the lives and property of Ameri-can citizens, and to assist in preserving publicorder (Ed.—emphasis added).”

He had gone beyond what Stevens asked for,which was simply that Wiltse land troops:

“. . . for the protection of the United Stateslegation and the United States consulate, and tosecure the safety of American life and property.”

The extra language could have come from thepersonal warning that U.S. Consul General H.W.Severance sent to Captain Wiltse, independent ofStevens and two hours earlier, saying “the troopsmight be needed to preserve order and protect Amer-ican property.” Severance was worried about whatmight happen at the two mass meetings that hadbeen called for that day. Kuykendall’s colleague, Pro-fessor Charles H. Hunter, who took over the manu-script of Volume III of The Hawaiian Kingdom at thiscritical juncture, notes that Severance sent his mes-

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Wiltse’s order

Assumptions arenot always facts

Steven’s request

sage about 1 p.m., an hour and a half before theangry mass meetings were to start. Severance toldWiltse that if other means of communication werecut, he would lower his flag to half staff to indicatehelp was needed. The consulate was on MerchantStreet, clearly visible from the harbor, while Stevens’office, the legation, was at Nu‘uanu and Schoolstreets.

In retrospect, and weighing the testimony ofStevens and the ship’s officers, the U.S. forces in allprobability would not have taken action against theQueen’s forces if she had moved against the Commit-tee of Safety on Sunday or Monday. This would havebeen before the Revolutionists had taken the govern-ment building and been recognized by Stevens as incontrol of the city. The officers of the Boston wereexperienced naval commanders, well-schooled inNavy regulations, international law and past prac-tices in disputes in foreign countries where therewere American interests. They would not havejumped into action against an entrenched and recog-nized government in favor of rebels who had not yetmade their move. This international policy was wellknown to the Queen’s Cabinet as well.

Lieutenant Commander W.T. Swinburne,executive officer of the Boston and the senior officeron shore, had made that clear to the revolutionaryforces on the morning of January 17, when they wereon their way to seize the government. He testifiedbefore the Morgan Committee that he told them, “Ifthe Queen calls upon me to preserve order, I amgoing to do it.”31

It is reasonable to assume the Revolution suc-ceeded simply because the Queen did not seize themoment nor heed the advice of her military leaders,who wanted to move against the impending Revolu-

101

Revolution

Swinburnestood ready forQueen’s call

U.S. officerswould not haveacted againstrecognized gov-ernment

tion while it was still in its formative stages, Sundayand Monday. At that point, the only Revolutionistsplanning action were the members of the Committeeof Safety, thirteen in all. The Queen’s military com-mander, Marshal Wilson, knew he could arrest themeasily. He advocated doing so, but the Queen and herCabinet said no.

No matter how one interprets the actions ofMinister Stevens, it must be conceded he had noquick way of getting counsel or advice from his supe-riors in Washington and had to act on his own in anysituation offering a threat to American lives andsecurity. He had done so, as had his predecessors, ona number of occasions. Cable communication fromHawai‘i to the United States did not become opera-tive until 1903. The fastest way to communicatebetween Honolulu and Washington in the 1890s wasto send a message by ship to San Francisco and directthat it be sent by telegram from there to Washington.This took eight to ten days, depending in part onwhether a proposed telegram was able to catch a shipfrom Honolulu right away. Because the ultimate linkwas a telegram, the message had to be short andsomewhat sparse, with details often missing. Theanswer would come by telegram to San Franciscoand then by the first available ship to Honolulu, so itwas a sixteen- to twenty-day process all told to senda message and get a reply.

At the time, the United States was not active-ly interested in expansion. Statements by PresidentCleveland and Secretary of State Gresham, the twopeople in the next administration involved in settingforeign policy, make it clear they were not likely tocommit the United States to a policy of acquiringHawai‘i. The preceding Harrison administration hadtold Thurston it would act on a proposal for Annex-

102


U.S. not expansionist

No quick way toget advice from

Washington

ation only if requested to do so by the government ofHawai‘i, clearly indicating the United States at thattime, too, had no policy calling for unilateral acquisi-tion of the Island Kingdom. Characterizing theactions of Minister Stevens, therefore, as a determi-nation of U.S. policy is a stretch. He had no authori-ty to determine policy. The most that can be said, andPresident Cleveland said it, is that Stevens actedwithout specific authority when he moved U.S.troops ashore—although testimony at the Morganhearings revealed that it was Captain Wiltse whoordered the troops ashore, not Stevens. But evenhere, similar action had been taken by his U.S. pred-ecessors in earlier outbreaks in Hawai‘i, such as theriots surrounding Kala-kaua’s election in 1874 andthe abortive effort to unseat Kala-kaua in 1889.

Details of those two earlier landings showthat preparations for this kind of action did notalways await a formal request from the Island gov-ernment, as was later claimed by Blount to be arequirement that Stevens had failed to observe. In1874, for example, U.S. Minister Pierce became con-cerned about potential rioting as the Legislatureassembled to carry out the contentious election ofKala-kaua over Queen Emma. He alerted the troops inthe harbor and set up a shore-to-ship signal, “think-ing it to be a prudent measure to be prepared againstany violation of the public peace.” When Lunalilo’sminister of foreign affairs, Charles Reed Bishop,King-elect Kala-kaua and Governor John O. Dominisbecame alarmed and asked Pierce to help, the troopswere ashore in minutes. In 1889 U.S. Minister G.W.Merrill brought a squad of marines ashore on hisown to guard the American legation, then receivedpermission of the government to bring a larger forcein as the fighting escalated, which was done.

103

Revolution

Troops aidedKing-elect Kala-kaua in1874

Troops hadlanded before

U.S. wasn’tactively seekingHawai‘i

It obviously was well within their generalauthority for U.S. ministers and military command-ers abroad to take actions on their own to protectAmerican lives and property and maintain order.

The Revolutionists met several times on Sun-day and Monday, putting together the documenta-tion they would need to establish a provisional gov-ernment. They drafted Sanford B. Dole, a respectedassociate justice of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, to bepresident after L.A. Thurston declined on the basishe considered himself too controversial a figure tobring about a community-wide feeling of peace andorder.

On Monday, the Committee decided it wasnot far enough along with its planning to bring aboutthe Revolution.

Says Thurston in his Memoirs:“Our plans were inchoate—we had no

plan of action to meet the Queen’s govern-ment, should it move first; we lacked particu-lars of the military at our command; at themoment (on Monday), we lacked organizedtroops. We did not know just what the gov-ernment intended, or what Minister Stevenshad in mind, whether he proposed to landarmed forces from the Boston, or what the[Hawaiian] government would do if menwere brought ashore, though we feared thatthe government might resist. Time forthought and planning was overwhelminglyessential.

“Therefore, the committee decided, thefirst thing to do, before being compelled toact, was to gain time. The critical state ofaffairs might induce Mr. Stevens to landforces to protect American lives and proper-ty; a landing might precipitate action by the

104


Committee’splans not solid;

delay sought

Dole chosen aspresident

Queen’s government, before the committeehad evolved a plan. W.O. Smith and I were ap-pointed to wait upon Minister Stevensimmediately and urge him to delay the land-ing of American troops, if he had it in view.We went to the residence of the minister,near the corner of School and Nu‘uanuStreets, and were informed by his daughterthat he had left a short time before to goaboard the Boston, which was lying in theharbor. He returned within a few minutes,and we told him of our mission.

“Mr. Stevens’ reply was: ‘I do not knowwhat your plans are, gentlemen, and I cannotafford to take chances to find out what theplans of the government may be. The condi-tions are so serious, and the possibilities oftrouble so great, that it is my duty to protectthe lives and property of American citizenswith every available means within my power;and I am going to land American troopsimmediately for that purpose. I have alreadygiven orders to that effect, and it will not belong before the troops are ashore. That’s all Ihave to say.’ Such was the first informationgiven to the committee, or to Mr. Smith or meindividually, that troops were to be landed.There was no suggestion by Mr. Stevens as towhat he intended to do with the troops, orwhat the committee should do. The membersof the Queen’s cabinet stated afterward thatthey called on Mr. Stevens that evening to askhis support for the Queen’s governmentagainst the revolutionists, and that his replywas evasive and ambiguous. His reply tothem was no more evasive and ambiguousthan his reply to Mr. Smith and me a fewhours earlier. The Committee of Safety had

105

Revolution

Stevens did nottell them hisplan for thetroops

Stevens restatedhis duty to pro-tect Americans

Thurston &Smith urgedStevens to wait

exactly the same information from Mr.Stevens that the cabinet had—no more, noless.”

Thurston continues on the subject to say thatlater that day, “I met Mr. W.H. Rickard, then themanager of Honokaa Plantation, who had been amember of the Legislature, and was a supporter ofthe Queen. He shook his fist in my face andexclaimed: ‘Damn you, Thurston, you did this!’ ‘Didwhat?’ I wished to know. ‘Had these troops landed,’replied he. ‘You credit me with considerable influ-ence, to be able to direct the United States troops,’ Ianswered. ‘I had no more to do with their comingashore than you did, and I have no more idea of whatthey are going to do than you have.’ I mention theincident simply to indicate the exaggerated idea ofthe royalists as to our control over the Americanforces. That misapprehension undoubtedly hadmuch to do with their subsequent supine submissionto the Committee of Safety.” (Ed.—Rickard wasanother powerful sugar figure opposed to the Revo-lution and Annexation.)

Thurston concludes: “That is the correctstory of the landing of the American troops from thecruiser Boston . . . . Nothing else was ever done; therewas no other understanding or agreement betweenthe Committee of Safety, or any member, and theUnited States Minister Stevens, or with the officersof the Boston . . .”

Other reports, including that of LucienYoung, an officer aboard the Boston, indicate thatwhen Stevens went aboard on Monday to talk aboutlanding troops, Captain Wiltse told him the decisionhad already been made. Wiltse and Young apparent-ly made the actual decision, not Stevens. Testimony

106


No understand-ing with Stevens

Royalists hadexaggerated

notion

at the Morgan hearings by Lieutenant Charles Laird said Stevens did not return to the Boston from thetime he got back to Honolulu at noon Saturday untilMonday afternoon, leaving Captain Wiltse and hisofficers to consider and prepare to act on rumors theship’s officers picked up in town.32 Stevens obviouslywas not plotting strategy with his military forces.

The next day, Tuesday, January l7, theRevolutionists occupied the government building,installed Dole in office and proclaimed the new gov-ernment. It had been a quick and bloodless coup. Ini-tially just Dole, Henry Cooper and most of the rest ofthe Committee of Safety were on the scene at theKing Street door of the government building (nowour courthouse) when the proclamation of a newgovernment was read. (Several key members of theCommittee, including Thurston and Castle, were inbed with the flu.) The word went out quickly intothe community, and volunteer riflemen, as they hadon previous occasions, grabbed their arms and hur-ried to the scene. The volunteers were largely mem-bers of the Annexation Club, either at the moment orshortly after the Revolution, and probably did notinclude Native Hawaiians, who did not join the clubuntil after the Queen was removed. The Revolution-ists seized the other buildings Stevens had said theywould need to control before he would extend recog-nition to their new government. They received thatrecognition about 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., but they had notyet gained control of the police force or the army bar-racks, where most of the Queen’s troops were locat-ed, buildings that had not been mentioned byStevens. Obviously, however, surrender of thoseforces was necessary to preserve the peace. This wasachieved about 7 p.m. after the Queen surrenderedand directed her armed forces to give up. Within the

107

Revolution

Revolutioniststake control

Ship’s officers,not Stevensappear to havelanded troops

hour, the Revolutionists took over the city policedepartment and the army. The following morningthey took over the palace.

Critics later made much of Stevens’ “precipi-tate” action in recognizing the new government anhour or so before it had taken over the police and thearmy. He had recognized it sometime between 4:30and 5:30 p.m. from his sickbed. He apparently wasafflicted by the same virus that felled a number of theRevolutionists and government workers.

Historian Russ, for one, concludes that whilethere is no direct evidence, Stevens was precipitate inrecognizing the government before the Queen’stroops had surrendered. Stevens, however, had notacted without sending an emissary to Dole’s office todetermine whether the Revolutionists actually heldthe seat of government, which they did. (Blount inhis report belittled the importance of this building,Ali‘io-lani Hale, claiming it was not a building pre-pared for defense against attackers. It was, however,the seat of government, housing the Cabinet, theattorney general, the minister of foreign affairs, theDepartment of Land and other departments exceptfor the Queen’s army and the city police.)

In Stevens’ defense, too, he knew the men hewas dealing with. The Revolutionists were mostlythe same men with the same leadership who hadprevailed in the outbreaks of 1887 and 1889 withoutthe aid of U.S. troops, who in both cases, as in the1893 Revolution, had been landed to protect Ameri-can lives and property. In neither of the earlier out-breaks had these men depended on surrender of theroyal forces to achieve their objective. It was notunreasonable for Stevens to assume a similar abilityto dominate existed in 1893.

There’s no doubt the presence of U.S. troops,

108


Stevens knewRevolutionists’

ability

Revolutionistshad seat of government

Did Stevens acttoo soon?

however, helped lead the Queen’s advisers to urgesurrender on her part. But it wasn’t just the troopsand the recognition by Stevens that led to that deci-sion. Her principal adviser, her longtime legal coun-sel Paul Neumann, saw a parallel with the return ofHawai‘i by the British government after the Islandshad been seized in 1843 by an overzealous Britishtask force. Neumann also had been present—somesay he supervised it—when a petition of support wasbeing signed on January 14 by townspeople on behalfof the Cabinet’s proposal to oust the Queen on theirown, and he remained for the mass meeting after-ward when the Committee of Safety was formed. Heknew, therefore, that the Revolution was a wide-spread local, community reaction. But he reasoned atthe time of surrender on January 17 that if the Unit-ed States were seen as responsible for the currenttakeover, Washington might be persuaded to takeaction similar to that taken by the British. He agreedwith other of the Queen’s advisers present at a meet-ing to consider her surrender that alternatively anattempt to resist the Revolution could have led to adoubtful and probably bloody outcome.

E.C. Macfarlane, one of the Queen’s closestadvisers, is the principal source for naming who wasthere when the surrender was accomplished. He toldBlount that S.M. Damon, whom the Queen respect-ed, was there from the Provisional Government “toinform Her Majesty that she had been deposed, herministers dismissed, and likewise the marshal, Mr.Wilson.” He said that when he, Macfarlane, arrivedhe found the four Cabinet ministers; Judge H.A.Widemann, the Queen’s confidant; J.O. Carter,another close adviser of the Queen; Neumann, and“the two princes” (probably Ku-hio- Kalaniana‘ole andDavid Kawananakoa).

109

Revolution

Macfarlane’saccount of surrender

Neumann’s role

Neumann is believed to have been the princi-pal author of the document in which the Queen sur-rendered “to the superior power of the UnitedStates” and claimed to be leaving the possibility ofher reinstatement up to the United States. A masterstroke in content and timing, that document hasbeen a major cause of confusion over the Queen’ssurrender and the U.S. role, if any, in it, and hasgiven opponents of the Revolution a basis for arguingthat the United States had played an active role in it.

A consideration of the Revolutionists’ view-point, however, leads to a different interpretation.Damon had been sent by Dole to meet with theQueen and seek her surrender. Damon, along witheveryone else involved in the meeting with theQueen on the 17th, sought a bloodless resolution.When her surrender was delivered to Dole at the endof that tumultuous day, he was careful only toacknowledge its receipt, not even addressing thequestion of agreement with its wording. In no way,Dole said later, did her letter constitute a negotiatedagreement nor was Damon authorized in the firstplace to negotiate for the Provisional Government.He likened delivery of the Queen’s protest to thearrival of a letter in the mails, with the messengerwanting a signature as evidence of delivery.

Dole makes no comment in his Memoirsabout its wording, nor does it receive any commentfrom Thurston in his. But in his December 23, 1893,letter to U.S. Minister Willis, some of which is pro-duced below, Dole develops a clear case against therebeing any agreement to submit the Revolution toarbitration by the United States. His defense, howev-er, was too late to stop the political fallout—boththen and now—of Blount’s unilateral investigationand Cleveland’s summary denouncement of the Rev-

110


No agreementabout U.S. arbitration

Neumannbelieved to beauthor of sur-render protest

olution. Both were announced in Washington with-out the prior knowledge of the Provisional Govern-ment. In fact, both announcements took placemonths before the Provisional Government wasinformed of what Blount was doing or what the pres-ident had concluded. Had Blount been willing tointerview Dole or other leaders of the Revolution, oreven more important, had he, perhaps more properly,chosen to consider their reasons for revolt in order todevelop a balanced report, the results would havebeen much different.

The ambiguous wording of the Queen’sprotest in the surrender document probably was crit-ical to getting the Queen to agree to give up withouta fight. Neither side wanted a battle, and a quick andbloodless surrender of the Queen’s armed forces waswhat Damon was after. Semantic niceties no doubttook a backseat to getting the job done. The Revolu-tionists probably weren’t bothered at the time by thelanguage because they hadn’t been asked to agreewith it as a condition of her surrender, and theyanticipated the United States would quickly acceptAnnexation. The question then would have becomemoot. They knew that the Monarchy was surrender-ing to them and not to the United States, and theyknew her protest didn’t make them a party to arequest that the United States arbitrate the action.Gresham and Cleveland, however, seized on the doc-ument as an excuse for the United States to enter thesituation in the role of arbitrator rather than med-dler, ignoring the facts that the United States underPresident Harrison had recognized the new Provi-sional Government, that the Provisional Govern-ment was obviously running the Island nation, andno agreement existed that its role was subject to arbi-tration by the United States. Nor did the United

111

Revolution

Revolutionistsknew she sur-rendered tothem

Blount’s unilateral investigation

States let the Provisional Government know it wascontemplating an attempt to arbitrate the Revolutionuntil U.S. Minister Willis made his demand uponDole at 1:30 p.m. on December 19, 1893.

As Dole later pointed out in his extraordi-nary letter on December 23 to Minister Willis, ifsuch an agreement existed between the ProvisionalGovernment and the Queen, the Queen had not men-tioned it to President Harrison. She had written hima letter dated January 18, 1893, which accompaniedthe Provisional Government’s envoys on their mis-sion to Washington two days after the Revolution.

Dole states in the letter to Willis: “If any understanding had existed at that

time [of her surrender] between her and theGovernment to submit the question of herrestoration to the United States, some refer-ence to such an understanding would natu-rally have appeared in this letter (Ed.—theJanuary 18 letter written to President Harri-son), as every reason would have existed forcalling the attention of the President to thatfact, especially as she then knew that herattorney would be seriously delayed in reach-ing Washington.

“But there is not a word from which suchan understanding can be predicated. The[Provisional] Government sent its commis-sioners to Washington for the sole object ofprocuring the confirmation of the recognitionby Minister Stevens of the new Governmentand to enter into negotiations for politicalunion with the United States.

“The protest of the ex-Queen, made onJanuary 17, is equally with the [January 18]letter devoid of evidence of any mutualunderstanding for a submission to the United

112


Team went toWashington for

recognition,Annexation

Queen made nomention of

arbitration toHarrison

States of her claim to the throne. [It] wasreceived exactly as it would have beenreceived if it had come through the mail. Theendorsement of its receipt upon the paperwas made at the request of the individualwho brought it as evidence of its safe delivery.As to the ex-Queen’s notice of her appeal tothe United States, it was a matter of indiffer-ence to us. Such an appeal could not havebeen prevented, as the mail service was inoperation as usual. That such a notice, andour receipt of it without comment, should bemade a foundation of a claim that we hadsubmitted our right to exist as a governmentto the United States had never occurred to usuntil suggested by your Government (Ed.—by Willis on December 19 when he presentedthe U.S. demand that the Provisional Govern-ment return the Queen to her throne).

“If [it is] your contention that PresidentCleveland believes that this Government andthe ex-Queen have submitted their respectiveclaims to the sovereignty of this country tothe adjudication of the United States . . . ,then, may I ask, when and where has thePresident held his court of arbitration?

“This Government has had no notice ofthe sitting of such a tribunal and no opportu-nity of presenting evidence of its claims. IfMr. Blount’s investigation were a part of theproceedings of such a court, this Governmentdid not know it and was never informed of it;indeed, as I have [told you earlier] we neverknew until the publication of Secretary Gre-sham’s letter to President Cleveland a fewweeks ago, that the American Executive hada policy of interference under contemplation.Even if we had known that Mr. Blount was

113

Revolution

Queen’s state-ment receivedwithout com-ment

Dole takes issuewith U.S. sig-nificance inRevolution

authoritatively acting as a commissioner totake evidence upon the question of restora-tion of the ex-Queen, the methods adopted byhim in making his investigations were, I sub-mit, unsuitable to such an examination orany examination upon which human inter-ests were to be adjudicated.”

At this point, Dole, as a longtime associatejustice of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, proceeded topick holes in Blount’s procedures, his secret exami-nations of witnesses, his leading questions, and thelack of opportunities for cross-examination andexplanations.

“It is hardly necessary for me to suggestthat under such a mode of examination somewitnesses would be almost helpless in thehands of an astute lawyer, and might bedrawn into saying things which would beonly half-truths, and standing alone would bemisleading or even false in effect . . . . Surelythe destinies of a friendly Government,admitting by way of argument that the rightof arbitration exists, may not be disposed ofupon an ex parte and secret investigationmade without the knowledge of such Govern-ment or an opportunity by it to be heard oreven to know who the witnesses were.

“In view, therefore, of all the facts inrelation to the question of the President’sauthority to interfere . . . I am able to assureyour excellency that by no action of this Gov-ernment, on the 17th day of January last, orsince that time, has the authority devolvedupon the President of the United States tointerfere in the internal affairs of this coun-try through any conscious act or expressionof this Government with such an intention.”

114


Dole outlinedflaws in Blount

Report

Blount methodsunsuitable to

fair review

Dole then suggested the matter was a prob-lem for the United States and the Queen. He wrote:

“You state in your communication,‘After a patient examination of Mr. Blount’sReports the President is satisfied that themovement against the Queen if not instigatedwas encouraged and supported by the repre-sentative of this Government [Stevens] atHonolulu; that he promised in advance to aidher enemies in an effort to overthrow theHawaiian Government and set up by force anew government in its place; that he kept hispromise by causing a detachment of troops tobe landed from the Boston on the 16th of Jan-uary 1893, and by recognizing the Provision-al Government the next day when it was toofeeble to defend itself and the ConstitutionalGovernment was able to successfully main-tain its authority against any threateningforce other than that of the United Statesalready landed.’

“Without entering into a discussion ofthe facts I beg to state in reply that I amunable to judge of the correctness of Mr.Blount’s Report from which the President’sconclusions were drawn, as I have had noopportunity of examining such report. (Ed.—Neither Blount nor Gresham made a copyavailable to the Provisional Government untillong after Cleveland’s decision to send Willisout to reinstate the Queen!) But I desire tospecifically and emphatically deny the cor-rectness of each and every one of the allega-tions contained in the above-quoted state-ment; yet, as the President has arrived at apositive opinion in his own mind in the mat-ter, I will refer to it from his standpoint.

“My position, briefly, is this: If the

115

Revolution

Dole can’tjudge Blount’sReport withoutseeing it

Dole said Cleve-land had noright to interfere

American forces illegally assisted the revolu-tionists inthe establishment of the Provision-al Government, that Provisional Governmentis not responsible for their wrong-doing. Itwas purely a private matter for disciplinebetween the United States Government andits own officers. There is, I submit, no prece-dent in international law for the theory thatsuch action of the American troops has con-ferred upon the United States authority overthe internal affairs of this Government.

Should it be true, as you have suggested,that the American Government made itselfresponsible to the Queen, who, it is allegedlost her throne through such action, that isnot a matter for me to discuss, except to sub-mit that if such be the case, it is a matter forthe American Government and her to settlebetween them. This Government, a recog-nized sovereign power, equal in authoritywith the United States Government andenjoying diplomatic relations with it, can notbe destroyed by it for the sake of dischargingits obligations to the ex-Queen.

“Upon these grounds, Mr. Minister, inbehalf of my Government I respectfullyprotest against the usurpation of its authorityas suggested by the language of your commu-nication.”

Dole then reviewed events of the previoustwo decades leading up to the Queen’s attempt topromulgate a new Constitution, saying at one point:

“For long years a large and influentialpart of this community, including many for-eigners and Native Hawaiians, have observedwith deep regret the retrogressive tendenciesof the Hawaiian Monarchy, and have honor-

116


ProvisionalGovernment

protested U.S.actions

Dispute isbetween U.S.

Government andits officers

ably striven against them, and have soughtthrough legislative work, the newspapers,and by personal appeal and individual influ-ence to support and emphasize the represen-tative features of the Monarchy and to createa public sentiment favorable thereto, andthereby to avert the catastrophe that seemedinevitable if such tendencies were notrestrained.

“These efforts have been met by the lasttwo sovereigns in a spirit of aggressive hostil-ity . . .”

Reviewing the major problems of the reign ofKala-kaua and its financial instability, Dole moved onto the reign of Queen Lili‘uokalani:

“The ex-Queen’s rule was even morereckless and retrogressive than her brother’s.. . . She, to all appearance, unhesitatingly tookthe oath of office to govern according to theconstitution, and evidently regarding it mere-ly as a formal ceremony began, according toher own testimony to Mr. Blount, to lay herplans to destroy the constitution and replaceit with one of her own creation. With a likedisregard of its sanctions, she made the mostdetermined efforts to control all of theappointments to office, both executive andjudicial. The session of the legislature of 1892was the longest . . . in our history, and wascharacterized by a most obstinate struggle forpersonal control of the Government and thelegislature on the part of the Queen. . . .

“Although the situation at the close ofthe session [January 14] was deeply discour-aging to the community, it was accepted with-out any intention of meeting it by other thanlegal means.

117

Revolution

Lili‘uokalanimore recklessthan brother

Dole describedretrogression of Monarchy

“[But] the attempted coup d’état of theQueen followed, and her ministers, threat-ened with violence, fled to the citizens forassistance and protection; then it was that theuprising against the Queen took place, andgathering force from day to day, resulted inthe proclamation of the Provisional Govern-ment and the abrogation of the Monarchy onthe third day thereafter (January 17).

“No man can correctly say that theQueen owed her downfall to the interferenceof American forces. The revolution was car-ried through by the representatives, nowreinforced, of the same public sentimentwhich forced the Monarchy to its knees in1887 [putting into place the Reform Consti-tution], which suppressed the insurrection of1889 [when Lili‘uokalani tried to oust herbrother], and which for twenty years hasbeen battling for representative governmentin this country. If the American forces hadbeen absent the revolution would have takenplace, for the sufficient causes for it had noth-ing to do with their presence.”

Dole then ended his lengthy letter by reject-ing the blunt request by Willis that the Queen bereinstated:

“I, therefore, in all friendship of the Gov-ernment of the United States, which you rep-resent, and desiring to cherish the good willof the American people, submit the answer ofmy Government to your proposition, and askthat you will transmit the same to the Presi-dent of the United States for his considera-tion.

“Though the Provisional Government isfar from being ‘a great power’ and could not

118


Public sentimentbattled for

representativegovernment

Ministers fledfor help from

community

long resist the forces of the United States in ahostile attack, we deem our position to beimpregnable under all legal precedents, underthe principles of diplomatic intercourse, andin the forum of conscience. We have doneyour Government no wrong; no charge ofdiscourtesy is or can be brought against us.Our only issue with your people has beenthat, because we revered its institutions ofcivil liberty, we have desired to have themextended to our own distracted country, andbecause we honor its flag and deeming thatits beneficent and authoritative presencewould be for the best interests of all of ourpeople, we have stood ready to add our coun-try, a new star, to its glory, and to consum-mate a union which we believed would be asmuch for the benefit of your country as ours.If this is an offense, we plead guilty to it.

“I am instructed to inform you, Mr. Min-ister, that the Provisional Government of theHawaiian Islands respectfully and unhesitat-ingly declines to entertain the proposition ofthe President of the United States that itshould surrender its authority to the ex-Queen.”

The letter was delivered on the evening ofDecember 23. Willis, admittedly stunned, forwardedthe letter at 4 o’clock the next morning by a waitingU.S. Revenue Cutter, the Corwin, to Secretary Gre-sham. He was so concerned that word not leak out ofthe Provisional Government’s firm position in defi-ance of the president that he ordered the Corwin notto enter San Francisco Bay until after dark, and notto allow anyone ashore for several days so that hisenvoy would be able to forward it secretly by courierto Washington, where it arrived on January 9. There

119

Revolution

“We have doneyour Govern-ment no wrong”

Dole refused toreinstate ex-Queen

Willis stunnedby Dole letter

was no further action from the administration toreinstate the Queen. On January 12, 1894, Greshaminstructed Willis that “you will until further noticeconsider that your special instructions have beenfully complied with.”

There followed additional long and interest-ing correspondence between Willis and Dole as thetwo governments tried to put their various spins onthe exchange. Willis in particular asked for a long listof specifics as a result of Dole’s December 23 letter.Dole complied with excruciating detail. As PresidentCleveland later said, it was a “most extraordinarycorrespondence.”

The president’s subsequent behavior—orperhaps more to the point, his lack of furtheraction—can well be interpreted as a change of mindon his part. The emotional charges against the Revo-lutionists embodied in his message to Congress afterthe Queen turned down his demand for amnestywere not the kind of thing one would expect to be apresident’s final words on the matter. Yet he hadnothing more to say publicly about the HawaiianRevolution for the rest of his term. He had given thatmessage to Congress before he read the “extraordi-nary correspondence” between Dole and Willis. Inother words, he gave the message before hearing theProvisional Government side of the story, dependingonly on Blount’s one-sided report for his informa-tion. The cool logic of Dole’s presentation of the casemay well have persuaded him that he was fighting alosing battle, that the Revolution was warranted afterall. In the light of his and Gresham’s earlier empha-sis on the moral principles involved in the Hawai‘imatter, the lack of any follow-up is striking in itsabsence.

Meanwhile, to return to the narrative of the

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Clevelandapparently

changed hismind

“Most extraordinary

correspondence”

Revolution, later in the evening of the Queen’s sur-render, the Revolutionists began notifying the otherseventeen foreign legations of their formation of aProvisional Government and received recognitionfrom all within 48 hours. Interestingly, they werehelped at this point by Prince David Kawananakoa,who, along with all other members of the Queen’sgovernment except the Queen herself, her Cabinetand her marshal, was asked by the Provisional Gov-ernment to remain on duty to serve the new govern-ment and keep things going.33 Kawananakoa, apotential successor to the crown if the Monarchy hadcontinued, soon left the government, however, andmaintained an opposing, Royalist, position through-out the following five years.

Incidentally, one of the first administrativeactions of the new government was repeal of the odi-ous opium and lottery bills.

Both sides, meanwhile, rushed emissaries toWashington, the one to present a case for Annexa-tion, the other to make a case for return of theIslands to the Queen. The Revolutionists got therefirst—they had quickly made arrangements to char-ter a ship owned by Committee member William C.Wilder. They left on January 19 and arrived in Wash-ington on February 3, more than a month before theHarrison administration was due to leave office.They succeeded in getting a proposed treaty ofAnnexation negotiated and introduced by the sym-pathetic Harrison, but President Cleveland tookoffice before the Senate could act on it.

Cleveland withdrew the proposed treaty and,as mentioned earlier, sent James H. Blount, the for-mer chairman of the U.S. House Committee on For-eign Relations, to Hawai‘i, under secret instructionsto study the Revolution and its causes. Subsequent

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Revolution

Opium & lottery lawsrepealed

Legations recog-nized Provision-al Government

events can lead to the conclusion that Blount camepredisposed to restoration of the Queen. His volumi-nous report does not delve into the causes of the Rev-olution, focusing mostly on the role Stevens—andhence by Blount’s erroneous extension, the UnitedStates—had played in it.

The U.S. troops had been carefully kept outof sight during the actual time the Revolutionistswere occupying the government building and doingtheir other acts of conquest, in an effort to makeclear they and the United States were not parties tothe Revolution. They had dipped their colors to theQueen as they passed the palace to demonstrate theirneutral and respectful position. Lieutenant Laird tes-tified before the Morgan Committee that reading ofthe proclamation took place out of sight of the U.S.troops. Nor, he testified in language directly opposedto Blount’s assertion, were his troops in positionbetween the Queen’s forces and the Provisional Gov-ernment forces. The specific U.S. position, inciden-tally, was selected by the military force and not byStevens after several other possible sites had fallenthrough. But these cautions on Stevens’ part did notprevent the situation from becoming interpreted oth-erwise. In his investigation on behalf of PresidentCleveland, Blount blamed the whole affair onStevens. He charged that the United States thus wasillegally involved, in violation of international lawthat holds that a diplomat, recognized by a foreigngovernment, should not get involved in an effort tooverthrow that government.

Stevens, watching a cause that he stronglybelieved in unfold before his eyes, admittedly waswalking a fine line between his duties as a diplomatand his personal notions as to what was best for hiscountry. The same problem, but in the opposite

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U.S. troops keptout of sight

Blount predisposed torestoration of

Queen

sense, was to face his successor, Albert S. Willis.President Cleveland sent Willis out to Hawai‘i asU.S. minister to the Provisional Government, afriendly government that the United States had rec-ognized. But he carried secret orders to do all hecould to subvert it, to force that government toreturn the Monarchy to the Queen. His orders,which of course he did not reveal to the governmentin Hawai‘i, were a clear violation of internationallaw, coming from the seat of the offending govern-ment itself and not merely from the actions of anagent in the field.

Blount had conducted his study in secret,with no sworn statements and no public hearings.He did not interview key members of the Committeeof Safety, though he did talk with two members on alimited basis and accepted a written statement fromanother. He also did not interview officers involvedin the landing of U.S. troops, nor leaders of the newgovernment. Altogether he interviewed or took state-ments from sixty Royalists, including everyone whocould be considered a leader of that party, and onlytwenty Annexationists, none of whom was a key fig-ure in that movement or the Revolution.

A few months later, an investigation by thenine-member Senate Committee on Foreign Rela-tions reached an opposite conclusion to Blount’s,exonerating Stevens on a five-to-four basis. The com-mittee heard out under oath anyone who wanted totestify at public hearings in Washington. The hearingwas conducted by its chairman, John T. Morgan, anAnnexation-minded Democratic senator from Alaba-ma. The committee had announced its hearing inHonolulu newspapers and accepted sworn state-ments from those who could not make the trip toWashington. The committee report is clear in its

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Revolution

Blount didn’tinterview keypeople

Willis, outward-ly friendly, cameto subvert Government

conclusions and in general was approved in itsentirety by all of its nine members.

The four Democrat members, however, dis-agreed with their Democrat chairman and that partof his committee report that dealt with Stevens’ role.They agreed instead with the Blount finding thatStevens had erred and should be censured. But allnine members did agree, contrary to Blount’s charge,that the U.S. troops conducted themselves properlyand had not become involved in the Revolution.34

The four Republican senators disagreed withthe committee report’s exoneration of Blount andPresident Cleveland. They felt that Blount’s appoint-ment and mission were unconstitutional, havingfailed to get Senate approval, and that the presidenthad far exceeded his powers in attempting to inter-fere with a government, the Provisional Govern-ment, that had been recognized as sovereign by theUnited States and every other country with interestsin the Pacific. The 809-page report contains a wealthof fascinating historical material in its sworn testi-mony and exhibits.

It is in these arguments about Stevens’actions that today’s sovereignty supporters commitwhat many feel is a serious distortion. Their claimsare based only on the secretly conducted BlountReport and Cleveland’s subsequent vitriolic, one-sided 1893 political statement to Congress on theHawaiian affair. They ignore the Morgan Report andits voluminous sworn testimony and the ample avail-able statements of the Revolutionists themselves.Their one-dimensional approach to a complex prob-lem unnecessarily fosters questions and dispute.They do not appear to recognize that Hawai‘i wascaught in a political confrontation that, as might beexpected, had two sides. The case for U.S. involve-

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Today’s revi-sionists ignoreMorgan Report

Morgan Reportexonerated U.S.

troops

ment clearly can be argued either way, and both sidesin Washington began to realize that nothing could bedone externally to change the situation, whoever wasto blame.

Thurston put it this way in his Memoirsregarding one of the key points of the investigations:

“It has been argued, on behalf of the roy-alists and the Gresham-Cleveland adminis-tration, that the revolutionists depended onthe American troops, and not on their ownstrength, to carry the revolution into effect;the royalists cite the request of the Committeeof Safety to the American minister to lendassistance. The reply is that Minister Stevensinformed the committee, although he wassympathetic with their cause, that he wouldnot assist them against the Monarchy, and hegave specific assurance that troops would belanded for the exclusive purpose of protectingAmerican lives and property. The revolution-ists undoubtedly knew that the royaliststhought that American troops would be usedto support the revolution, but it was not theduty of the revolutionists to inform the royal-ists that their impression was erroneous.Seemingly the royalists held the theory that itwas the duty of the revolutionists to begin abloody fight; if they did not do so, they werenot entitled to take advantage of the situationand the misconceptions of the royalists.”

The Revolutionists were under no suchrestriction. They seized the opportunity and took fulladvantage of whatever confusion and lack of deter-mination may have existed in the Queen’s camp.

One point is agreed on today by both sides: Itwas not official U.S. policy to seek control of

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Revolution

Stevens sympa-thetic, but didnot assist Revolutionists

Morgan Reportshouldn’t beignored

Hawai‘i. President Cleveland had made this veryclear by withdrawing the Annexation treaty that hadbeen before Congress when he took office. In his sub-sequent denunciation of the Revolution he wenteven further. He said he regretted any part the Unit-ed States may have played in it, and demanded thatthe Provisional Government return the throne toLili‘uokalani. As we have seen, he replaced Stevenswith a new minister to Hawai‘i to bring this about,but the Provisional Government absolutely refusedto yield.

The Queen made one futile try at a counter-revolution, knowing that in view of Cleveland’s out-spoken remarks, the United States would not sup-port the Provisional Government or its successorgovernment, the Republic, this time, whatever itsaction had been in 1893. In fact, the U.S. govern-ment, in what the Republic later charged was a vio-lation of international neutrality law, allowed armsto be shipped from California in late 1894 to theQueen’s forces for use in the January 1895 counter-revolution.35

The Hawaiian segment of the populationnumbered nearly forty thousand in 1893, and seventhousand of these, her office claimed, had signed apetition a few months earlier asking the Queen topromulgate a new Constitution. The 1895 counter-revolution should easily have overwhelmed the fewhundred troops of the Republic, if she had popularsupport and the backing of the seven thousandwhom she claimed had signed the petition. It has tobe assumed she did not have popular support, as thecounter-revolution collapsed in its first skirmish.One member of the Republic forces was killed,Thurston’s law partner and close friend, Charles L.Carter. Two members of the Royalist forces were

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U.S. allowedarms shipment

to counter-revolutionists

U.S. policy not expansionist

at time

killed and several hundred were captured, tried andsentenced to terms ranging from banishment fromthe Kingdom to death. All sentences were later com-muted—in striking contrast to the Queen’s insis-tence to Minister Willis on death for the Committeeof Safety if she were reinstated.

Today some would try to make heroes ofthose who led the effort to re-establish the throne.The Queen herself, who was tried by the Republicfor misprision—the knowledge of treason—andfound guilty, is portrayed as a martyr. She was sen-tenced to be confined to a room in the palace for fiveyears but was released after about eight months. Inthe history of revolutions against the rule of mon-archs, the monarch usually has fared far worse.Efforts by King George III to re-establish his monar-chical control over America or the French royalists tore-establish the monarchy in Paris would have beendealt with more seriously.

After the Hawaiian counter-revolution, therewas a great hue and cry about severely punishing theseveral hundred persons who were captured in thebrief battle and found guilty of treason. All of thecourt sentences were commuted but Royalists withinthe government were summarily discharged. And asRuss notes in The Hawaiian Republic, “There isrecord of at least one instance where this policy ofgetting rid of Royalists carried over into the businessworld. Others probably occurred.”

He noted that J.O. Carter, who had advisedLili‘uokalani during several of her interviews withWillis and had gotten her finally to back off herthreat to have the Revolutionists executed, sufferedthe economic ax as soon as his role became known.He was the much-respected president and managerof C. Brewer and Co., brother of H.A.P. Carter, for-

127

Revolution

Royalists ingovernmentdischarged

Republic’s qual-ity of mercycontrasted withQueen’s

eign minister of the Monarchy under Kala-kaua, andan uncle of Charles L. Carter. His stockholders, Russnotes, who were for the most part Annexationists,“thought his continued connection with the concerngave to it an evil reputation in annexationist circles.The stockholders removed him, put P.C. Jones in hisplace, and passed annexation resolutions.”

The Hawaiian government earlier, on July 4,1894, had become a Republic. The Republic was ahard-nosed form of government, giving up aspects ofcivil liberties and the universal voting rights its peo-ple would secure later under Annexation, to assureits control until an administration sympathetic toAnnexation took over the U.S. presidency. WhenRepublican McKinley replaced Democrat Clevelandin 1897 that opportunity appeared, and the Republic,still under the presidency of Sanford Dole and by thistime an independent nation with a four-year history“untainted” by sub rosa ties with the United States,offered again to accept Annexation.

Caspar Whitney, in his 1899 book, HawaiianAmerica, notes: “At the first election called by theRepublic for Senators and Representatives, about5,000 voters qualified, and all the members of bothhouses were elected on a platform favoring annexa-tion.” Other reports give a lesser number of votersbut agree on the description of a “platform favoringannexation.” That goal of Annexation was a part ofthe Republic’s Constitution.

Figures in footnotes of Russ’ The HawaiianRepublic give an interesting picture of the change inthe electorate in the first election of the Republiccompared with the last one of the Monarchy. In bothcases, Americans were in a minority position butexerted power out of proportion to their numbers. In

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Republic offeredto accept

Annexation

Royalist Carterlost job

1892, there were 10,493 votes cast, including by 637Americans, 505 Englishmen, 382 Germans, 2,091Portuguese and 6,878 Native Hawaiians. Americansconstituted 6 percent of the electorate. In the firstelection of the Republic, there were only 1,917 regis-tered voters, of whom 466 were Americans, 274 Eng-lishmen, 175 Germans, 362 Portuguese, 509 NativeHawaiians and 131 others. Americans constituted 24percent of the electorate, though Native Hawaiiansstill were the largest single bloc.

The Republic Senate, made up of a majorityof Caucasians but including a number of NativeHawaiians, unanimously voted its approval of anAnnexation treaty in 1897.36 As detailed in ChapterOne, the House, with a majority of Native Hawai-ians, did not have to vote on the matter. HouseSpeaker John L. Kaulukou, however, who had been aleading native figure under both Kala-kaua andLili‘uokalani, strongly favored Annexation and thevote undoubtedly would have been unanimous in itsfavor.

Several of the Republic’s senators had beensupporters of the Monarchy. Senator John Kauhane,vice president of the Senate and a member of itsCommittee on Foreign Relations, was a full-bloodedHawaiian who had supported the Monarchy butplayed no role in the Revolution. Senator CecilBrown, married to a Hawaiian, had lived all his lifein the Islands. He had favored monarchical govern-ment until 1892, when he began to perceive its weak-nesses. Not a rabid Annexationist in 1893, he hadwished to give the Queen another chance, and hadlater withdrawn from the Revolutionary movement.But he voted for the treaty. Also Senator H.L. Hol-stein, a part-Hawaiian member from the Big Island,commented in 1940 in a letter to Russ: “. . . as a Sen-

129

Revolution

Republic Senateunanimous forAnnexation

Voter statisticsshow Americansin minority butpowerful

ator from the Island of Hawai‘i on Sept. 9, 1897, Ivoted for the Treaty of Annexation, with the ambi-tion and hope and belief that some day Hawai‘iwould become a State of the Union . . .”

As historian Russ put it in his 1959 book,The Hawaiian Republic, there could be no convictionin questions about whether or not the Republic hadthe right to seek Annexation:

“In 1898 no one could say that the Unit-ed States was receiving stolen goods, for bythat time the new Government had secured agood title.”

This time the United States agreed, andHawai‘i became a Territory of the United States,with full citizenship and voting rights for Hawai‘iresidents beyond what either the Queen or theRepublic had allowed. More than two-thirds of thevoters after Annexation were Native Hawaiians, andin the first Legislature, in 1901, the Native Hawaiianlegislative majority was 73 percent. The recordsshow many non-Hawaiians voted to elect Hawaiianmembers.37

While no plebiscite was taken then, theplebiscite taken 60 years later when Statehood wasachieved showed more than 90 percent of Hawai‘ivoters, Native Hawaiians and otherwise, in favor ofthe relationship with America.

While no polls were taken before or afterAnnexation, it is interesting to note that the territo-rial Legislature, with a majority of more than 70 per-cent Native Hawaiian members, voted unanimouslyin 1903 to seek Statehood, less than three years afterHawai‘i became a Territory.38 It is a fair assumptionthat they must have liked Annexation, too, althoughthe number who favored Annexation because they

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Full votingrights put

Hawaiians ontop

Republic hadright to seekAnnexation

disliked the Republic is another unknown that mayhave been a factor.

Thus one of the benefits to Hawaiians imme-diately apparent after Annexation was voting powerthey had never had under the Monarchy, nor for thatmatter, under the Provisional Government or Repub-lic. All of them became U.S. citizens on AnnexationDay, and the male members of the Hawaiian popula-tion, like all other male citizens of America, gainedthe right to vote. The new Territory’s first delegate toCongress, elected by the people of Hawai‘i, wasRobert Wilcox, the Hawaiian activist who had ledthe Queen’s final abortive effort in 1895 to undo theRevolution. (There are those who argue it wasn’t“the Queen’s effort” because she was never convict-ed of being its ringleader. However, her own diariesshow she was forming committees, had her Cabinetlist made out and had signed fifteen royal commis-sions to take effect after the counter-revolution.There is little doubt that she was well aware of whatwas taking place on her behalf and approved of it.)

The Republican Party drafted Prince JonahKu-hio- Kalaniana‘ole to run against him in the nextelection in 1902, and Wilcox was defeated. Again,however, it was the Hawaiian vote that carried theday. It was not until Prince Ku-hio-’s death in 1922that the power of that Republican Hawaiian votingbloc dwindled. Up to that time Native Hawaiians,representing the majority of voters, controlled theLegislature. They continued until 1938 to be thelargest bloc of voters. Further, a greater percentageturned out to vote than was the case with any otherracial group: In 1930, among Native Hawaiians, nineout of ten registered voters actually voted.39

For more than two decades, the practicaleffect of the Revolution was to put control of the gov-

131

Revolution

Annexationbrought votingpower toHawai‘i natives

Hawaiian-dominated Leg-islature votedfor Statehood

ernment in the hands of its Native Hawaiian resi-dents. As late as 1927, Hawaiians held 46 percent ofappointed executive positions in the territorial gov-ernment and 55 percent of clerical and other govern-ment jobs. More than half of the judgeships and elec-tive offices were filled by people of Hawaiian ances-try. They dominated law enforcement offices. In1935, with fifteen percent of the population, theHawaiians held one-third of public service jobs.40

With estimates of the part-Hawaiian populationtoday reaching twenty percent, or two hundred fortythousand persons, a tantalizing control potentialexists.

Another emotional distortion by sovereigntyactivists is the claim that leaders of the Revolutionwere motivated by personal greed or personal plansfor power. A succeeding chapter discusses these menas individuals, and suffice it to say now that the Rev-olution was clearly not a grab for personal gain. Nomember of the Committee of Safety acquired anyland or property as a result of its actions and onlytwo members of the Committee accepted what mightbe called leadership roles in the new government,either in the Provisional Government that lasted for14 months, or the successor Republic of Hawai‘i.They were W.O. Smith, who agreed to serve as Dole’sattorney general and stayed in that office untilAnnexation, and Henry Cooper, who filled in brieflyin several key positions when Dole asked him tohelp.

Nine other members of the Committee ofSafety along with five at-large members of theAnnexation Club were appointed as an advisorycouncil by President Dole, and he drew on several ofthem, including L.A. Thurston, as envoys to Wash-ington in connection with the Annexation negotia-

132


Revolutionistsnot motivated

by greed

Hawaiians dominated

government

tions. Several others from time to time accepted tem-porary roles in the Cabinet. But the Revolution wasnot a device for personal gain or power. It truly wasa spontaneous effort backed by the people as a wholeto correct what had become to them an intolerablesituation in their homeland.

133

Revolution

Revolution notfor personalgain

he thirteen men who mastermindedHawai‘i’s 1893 Revolution were a cross-section of Honolulu’s leading Caucasian

residents. As we learned in the previous chapter, they

had been appointed on January 14, 1893, at a massmeeting of residents alarmed about the actions ofQueen Lili‘uokalani.41 The thirteen were carryingout community pressure to put a more stable govern-ment in charge of the Island nation. Once in place,they planned to ensure that stability through Annex-ation to Hawai‘i’s long-time protector, the UnitedStates.

The Queen’s sudden announcement on Janu-ary 14, 1893, of her plans for a new Constitution hadcaught the community by surprise and caused graveconcerns, but in retrospect triggered an opportunityfor change to something more stable.

Details of the final planning for the Revolu-tion that would bring about that change wereassigned to the Committee of Safety. All of its thir-teen members were residents and taxpayers ofHawai‘i. Most also were subjects of the Island King-dom, active in the community as businessmen, attor-neys and politicians.

The Men Out FrontChapter Six

135

Pressure forstable govern-ment

Committee ofSafety membersall residents

TT

It wasn’t the first time the community hadresponded to a crisis in this manner. In 1853, a Com-mittee of Thirteen had been formed at another pub-lic meeting to deal with an attempt to remove twomembers of Kamehameha III’s Cabinet, former mis-sionaries Dr. G.P. Judd and Richard Armstrong, overcharges they were responsible for that year’s devas-tating smallpox epidemic. The issue was confused byAnnexation issues. The committee, and the Ameri-can community in general, favored Annexation andsome believed Dr. Judd, long-time adviser to theKing, did not. Judd’s statements to American offi-cials indicated he favored Annexation, but opposedviolence to achieve it.42 Efforts to bring about Annex-ation then did not get very far, but it was a subjectalways on the minds of those living and working inthe Islands. Virtually every U.S. minister to Hawai‘iin the fifty years prior to the Revolution had urgedhis superiors in Washington to pursue Annexationbefore some other country moved in.

In 1851, the Kingdom itself, through KingKamehameha III, actively sought Annexation to theUnited States, and over a three-year period a treatywas negotiated to accomplish it. The King, however,died in 1854 before it could be signed, and Kame-hameha IV, who favored ties with Britain, droppedthe matter.43

Forty years later, this new Committee ofThirteen—the Committee of Safety—emerged andits goal again was Annexation.

Its members were supported not only openlyby most of the foreign community but more thanlikely silently by those Hawaiians less than enchant-ed by the political tactics and policies of QueenLili‘uokalani. Some of those Hawaiians had support-ed Queen Emma to become monarch at the time of


136

Annexationinterest

not new

Many Hawaiians

disenchantedwith Queen

Kala-kaua’s 1874 election. Others had resentedLili‘uokalani’s efforts in 1889 to force out her broth-er, Kala-kaua. It would have been difficult for anyHawaiian to be a recognized participant in the over-throw of a native monarch, but none did much tohelp her retain the throne in 1893. And again, twoyears later, when she tried unsuccessfully to mount acounter-revolution, most were silent.

The Committee formed on January 14, 1893,was a combination of subjects of the Queen and menof other national allegiances, but all were residents ofHawai‘i with a keen interest in its future as well astheir own. All felt that putting their personal futuresat risk was preferable to doing nothing. They andtheir peers agreed that the status quo ultimatelywould lead to Hawai‘i’s downfall and loss of inde-pendence, most likely to some colonial power. Thenative peoples, as had happened elsewhere in thePacific, would not be accepted as equals by the colo-nizing power. With Annexation, however, NativeHawaiians would become citizens of the UnitedStates, with equal rights to every benefit of citizen-ship in a free nation, including the unlimited right tovote.

Let’s look at the men who were appointed toplan the Revolution. We’ll review what is knowntoday about their backgrounds and aspirations, aswell as those of other leaders of the community whowere willing to be openly identified as the men outfront in this fight against the Monarchy. These menwere just those few willing to put their own person-al futures publicly on the line. They knew their view-point was widely supported among their friends, andonce the movement began, they could count on help.But their actions at this point would be interpreted

The Men Out Front

137

Annexationwould meanequal rights

Committeekeenly interestedin nation’sfuture

Revolutionistswilling to putlives on line

as treasonous by the Monarchy. Their lives would bein danger.

Lorrin A. ThurstonThurston, of American descent but a Hawai-

ian-born subject of the Kingdom, had been thefounder of the Annexation Club in 1892 and was atthe core of the new Committee of Safety.

At the risk of seeming to favor Thurston,grandfather of this writer, considerable detail followson his early life and activities. Since “fact-finder”Blount and his boss, U.S. Secretary of State Gresham,labeled Thurston the leader of the Revolution andmaligned both his character and motives, it seemsonly fair to detail his family background and con-cerns for the people of Hawai‘i and let readers judgefor themselves.

Thurston, 35 at the time of the Revolution,had a three-generation background in his nativeland, Hawai‘i. He was the grandson of four mis-sionaries to these Islands. His parents, missionarydescendants, were not themselves missionaries.Thurston had been married in 1886 to another mis-sionary descendant, Clara Shipman. She had diedeighteen months before the Revolution in childbirthwith their second child.

Lorrin’s father, Asa Goodale Thurston, diedat 32 in 1859, sixteen months after Lorrin was born.At the time, Asa was the skipper of an inter-islandschooner after a stint as a Kona coffee farmer. Likehis missionary father Asa, who gave his sermons inHawaiian, and his son Lorrin, who worked as aninterpreter in the courts before completing highschool, he was fluent in Hawaiian.

Asa G. was educated at home in Konabecause there was not yet a school in the Islands that


138

Thurstons werefluent in

Hawaiian

Thurston’s tiesto Hawai‘i

deep-rooted

missionary children could attend. He was sent to theEast Coast for further schooling in 1841 when hewas 14, coincidentally the year that a schooldesigned for missionary children, Punahou, wasfounded by the missionaries in Honolulu. He stayedeast for ten years. He attended prep school for sever-al years, then entered Yale in 1845 with a cousinfrom Marlborough, Massachusetts, but graduatedfrom Williams College in 1849, its first-ever graduatefrom Hawai‘i. On the way home he yielded to GoldRush fever and stopped off for an unsuccessful effortto find gold in California before coming home.

Four years after his return he was elected tothe Legislature and a year later, in 1854, becamespeaker of the House of Representatives during thelast year of the reign of Kamehameha III.

Asa G. had married Sarah Andrews, daugh-ter of Lorrin Andrews and Mary Wilson Andrews, inOctober 1853, and when he died on December 17,1859, he left a widow and two small sons and noestate. Lorrin’s sister, Helen, was born after theirfather’s death.

Lorrin’s only inheritance was a Bible, whichhis father inscribed and signed just before his death.

At his death Asa G. was serving as the found-ing president of the Hawaiian Mission Children’sSociety, an organization of missionary descendantsformed to send further missions to islands in theSouth Pacific.

His death left young Lorrin to be raised by hismother, the daughter of pioneer missionaries toMaui. Her father, Lorrin Andrews, had written thefirst Hawaiian dictionary and was the founding prin-cipal of Lahainaluna Seminary on Maui, where heintroduced the art of copper plate engraving in 1834.He taught engraving to countless Hawaiians who

The Men Out Front

139

Maternalgrandfatherwrote first dictionary

Lorrin’s onlyinheritance wasBible

Lorrin’s fatherserved asspeaker of theHouse

used these skills to record historical views, preparetextbooks and create works of art that today helpgive a clearer picture of historic Hawai‘i. In lateryears he served as an associate justice of the Hawai-ian Supreme Court.

Lorrin’s paternal grandfather, Asa Thurston,was winding down a lifetime career as a pioneer mis-sionary to Hawai‘i when Lorrin was born. Lorrinwas 10 when his grandfather died in 1868, but heknew the story of what had led that grandfather tothe church and Hawai‘i: His grandfather’s olderbrother had been training for the ministry until adevastating typhoid epidemic in New England in1817 killed him, his sisters and his mother. Hisbrother’s last words to Asa were a plea that he carryon the pledge of mission service, the last thing Asahad in mind. But he left his trade as a scythe makerand life as a party boy—he reportedly had a beautifultenor singing voice and, in 1816 as a Yale senior, hisstrength had won him the respected title of ClassBully. Reportedly, he could jump in and out of ahogshead drum without touching the sides. Back tocollege he went, to the divinity school associatedwith Yale. Driven by the inspiration of Hawaiianscholar Henry Obookiah, he wound up in Hawai‘i in1820 where his son, Asa G., was born in 1827.

Lorrin’s mother, Sarah Andrews Thurston, a“single mom” in today’s parlance, became a teacherfor nine years in the Royal School in Nu‘uanu Valleyto support her young family after her husband’sdeath. In 1868 she was offered the job of matron of anew industrial school for boys in Makawao, Maui,known as the Haleakala School, nine miles from thesummit of that mountain. Her brother, RobertAndrews, had been appointed principal, and Sarahmoved her family—Lorrin, his older brother, Robert,


140

Lorrin raised bywidowed mother

Paternal grandfather

became missionary

and sister, Helen—to Maui. Lorrin got his earlyschooling and his first job there. The job paid 25cents a day, during vacations, at the I.D. Hall ranch.He had to provide his own horse to carry water toworkmen on a fence-building job.

His schoolmates included many boys wholater were to have considerable influence on his life.Among them were Robert W. Wilcox, the NativeHawaiian “chronic revolutionist,” to use Thurston’swords. Thurston said he called him that “because itseemed to make little difference to him which side hetook, so long as he was heading a fight.” Theyremained friends throughout the stormy years of theKala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani regimes, when they usu-ally, though not always, were on opposite sides polit-ically, and during the three years Wilcox served asHawai‘i’s first delegate to Congress.

Lorrin left the Haleakala School in 1872 toattend a private school in Wailuku. This was a con-siderable distance from Makawao, and the young stu-dent lived during the week with the Rev. and Mrs.William P. Alexander, returning on his horse toMakawao for the weekends.

The following year he was sent back to O‘ahuas a boarder at Punahou School and held jobs to earnhis way, such as the 50 cents a week he received forcaring for the president’s horse. Part of the work pro-gram he was required to perform as a scholarshipstudent was to drive a wagon along Beretania Street,picking up younger students and delivering them toschool. This was to lead the following year to hisexpulsion from Punahou at the age of l5, “incorrigi-ble” in the strict views of the faculty.

His older brother, Robert, 19 and in charge ofthe carpenter shop at Punahou, died earlier thatsame year of blood poisoning from a coral cut

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Coral cut fatalto older brother

Scholarshipwork wasdriving wagon-bus

Early educationon Maui, friendof RobertWilcox

incurred in the waters off Wai‘anae, another of aseries of tragedies for young Thurston.

Three offenses led to the Punahou letter ofdismissal received by Lorrin’s mother on Maui. Theoffenses are laughable today, but there probably was-n’t much laughter in the Thurston home the day theletter arrived. In sorrowful tones, the letter fromPrincipal Amasa Pratt set forth what caused schoolauthorities to say he must leave Punahou. In earliermonths Lorrin had “taken liberties” in quoting scrip-tural verse reflecting on women as teachers. Themajor current offense, though, was racing the wagonup Punahou Street in competition with the “Dilling-ham boys,” who lived on the corner of Beretania andPunahou where Central Union Church now stands.The little girls on his wagon screamed and yelled interror, the letter notes.

But the clincher, performed the day the letterwas written, was an affront to his English teacher.That worthy lady chastised young Lorrin for anessay wherein he had used the ampersand, “&,” inplace of the word “and.” He was ordered to rewritethe essay. He did so, but in every case where “and”appeared, the young rebel wrote it as large as thespace between the ruled lines while writing the restof the composition in very small characters. Thiscould not be tolerated, and Lorrin was out of Puna-hou—until in an ironic reversal he was invited backtwo decades later in 1896 as a trustee, a responsibili-ty he fulfilled for the following 34 years.

While he was at Punahou, he seized everyopportunity to leave the campus and be a part ofwhat was going on downtown. He was a participantin the near-unanimous election of Lunalilo over DavidKala-kaua in 1873, helping to distribute ballots, andwas a witness to the “barracks mutiny” the following


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Watched historyin the making

Punahouexpelled Lorrin

year. He left school another day to watch the tumul-tuous 1874 election of Kala-kaua over Queen Emmain the old courthouse where Amfac Towers nowstand, and the riot that followed. It had to be quelledby U.S. troops, the first of four occasions in Lorrin’searly life when troops were landed to protect Ameri-can lives and property. This desire to be where theaction was stayed with him.

Lorrin never did graduate from high school.Instead he went to work as an office boy in the Hon-olulu law office of Alfred S. Hartwell, utilizing hisfluency in Hawaiian to serve also as an interpreter,and welcoming the chance to study law. He was paid$4 a week but got a dollar increase when he also tookon duties as janitor. He earned additional money atthe Fort Street church—$5 a month for pumping theorgan for rehearsals on Fridays and at two serviceson Sundays.

By his third year, Thurston had priced him-self out of Hartwell’s market by earning $1,000 forthe year. He had picked up enough knowledge of law,however, to receive his own license at age 19. He setup office in Wailuku and augmented the income ofhis early practice years with a job as supervisor andbookkeeper at Wailuku Sugar Company. After 18months he had brought his total savings to $1,800.

He used this to enroll at Columbia Universi-ty law school in New York, and two years later, in1881, returned to Honolulu at age 23, a full-fledgedattorney and again an assistant to Hartwell. He soonbecame a partner in a new law partnership withW.O. Smith and W.A. Kinney, both of whom werealso to play leading roles in the 1893 Revolutionsome ten years later.

Before long Thurston ran for public office athis partners’ behest and was elected to the Legisla-

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Elected to Legislature atage 28

Earned money for ColumbiaUniversity

Worked asinterpreter, janitor

ture in 1886 at the age of 28. His love of argumentand concern for the ethics of government led to somefascinating exchanges on the floor, recorded in thelegislative records of the day, regarding the practicesand habits of some of his fellow legislators, includingin one notorious case the excessive use by one ofthem of alcohol.

In 1886 he successfully introduced a bill toreverse what he saw as a grave injustice in earlyHawaiian law that gave all of a woman’s property toher husband on marriage. His bill enabled women toretain their property and also to carry out independ-ent careers as businesswomen.

That same year he married Clara Shipman, amissionary daughter from Hilo, whom he hadknown at Punahou. Their first son, Robert ShipmanThurston, was born on February 1, 1888, but on May5, 1891, Clara died in childbirth with their secondchild, who also died. Lorrin remarried in 1894, toHarriet Potter of Saint Joseph, Michigan, whom hehad met at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 wherehe was promoting Annexation for the new Provi-sional Government of Hawai‘i. It was a marriage thatlasted until his death in Honolulu in 1931. They hadtwo children: Margaret Carter, born in 1895 in Wash-ington as he was lobbying for Annexation, mother ofthis writer, and Lorrin Potter, born in 1900.

Thurston’s political career was in full swingin the period from 1884 until the Revolution. Beforehe was elected to the Legislature in 1886, he hadserved as editor of the Honolulu Bulletin for fourmonths during the legislative session, espousingpoints favorable to his party, which in the practice ofthe times had leased the editorial page for that pur-pose. He served in the House of Representatives as alegislator from Molokai and La-na‘i, and later in the


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Served as editorof Bulletin

Married ClaraShipman, amissionary

daughter

upper house, the House of Nobles, having been elect-ed on Maui. He was appointed minister of the interi-or in the Kala-kaua Cabinet that followed institutionof the Reform Constitution. He was a Hawaiian sub-ject but the lone American in a Cabinet whose othermembers all were of British origin. He became theKing’s key supporter in spite of the fact he largelywrote the Reform Constitution that was put intoeffect in 1887 over the objections of Kala-kaua, whowas forced to sign it. He served the King honorablyand faithfully and came to be viewed as his primeminister, but by the early 1890s became disenchant-ed with Kala-kaua and they parted ways.

In 1888 Thurston was the King’s commis-sioner of immigration and made the successfulapproach to the government of Portugal that broughtin the first Portuguese immigrants. Many settled onthe lower slopes of Punchbowl, and perhaps by wayof tribute, Thurston Avenue in that area bears hisname. As commissioner, he once took to task theinspector-in-chief of Japanese immigration, orderinghim to stop the practice of charging Japanese men$40 extra to bring in a woman when the Board ofImmigration already was paying the $30 fare forwives.

During the years of the Provisional Govern-ment and the Republic, he sought no public office,serving only as a government envoy to Washington.He spent most of those five years lobbying forAnnexation across the country, and when Congressapproved it in 1898, spent much of the next twoyears successfully helping negotiate terms of the con-gressional action that led to Annexation and territo-rial status. He was particularly proud of the termscovering transfer of the public lands of Hawai‘i,which provided for an approach never agreed to

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Thurston proudof public landtransfer

Brought in thePortuguese

Served as Kala--kaua’s primeminister

before by the United States: They were to be held bythe United States in the form of a sort of public trust,with the income or proceeds of any sales to be usedonly for the inhabitants of Hawai‘i.

After Annexation, he returned to Honoluluand at the behest of the Castle family, then owners ofThe Advertiser, bought the newspaper for a reported$5,000. He remained its publisher until his death in1931, enjoying tremendous respect for his editorialefforts but enjoying only moderate success on thebusiness side. He maintained a constant, if notalways profitable, interest in helping to found newbusinesses, however. He was a modest investor andlegal adviser to such enterprises as O‘ahu Railroadand Land Company, Hawai‘i Consolidated Railroadon the Big Island, Honolulu Rapid Transit Companyand a number of sugar plantations.

Current efforts to paint Lorrin A. Thurstonas one with no love for Hawai‘i or the Hawaiians,their culture and their welfare are revisionism at itsworst. He kept up his fluency in the Hawaiian lan-guage and his love of things Hawaiian throughout hislife, continuing to publish a Hawaiian edition of TheAdvertiser until the mid-1920s. As publisher of thepaper, he fought unceasingly for the preservation ofkey portions of the Islands as parks, the protection ofvistas, support of the Bishop Museum and theHawaiian Homes Commission Act, and in support ofthe pasteurization of milk and the banning of bill-boards.

He is credited with the road around KokoHead and for the setting aside of Haleakala- and Ki

--

lauea as federal preserves that later became nationalparks. He fostered the Kilauea Observatory andwould rush to the volcano every time it erupted.

He also had a keen sense of history and he


146

Protection ofspecial places

PurchasedAdvertiser from

Castle family

had his own notions of justice. For example, whenthe ceremonies were being planned for AnnexationDay, he noted that the event was to be held in frontof ‘Iolani Palace, the same place where Blount hadperemptorily ordered the American Flag hauleddown five years earlier upon his arrival in Honoluluto conduct the political investigation for PresidentCleveland, who had hoped to use that “investigation”to return Hawai‘i to the Monarchy.

Thurston thought it would be fitting that thesame flag now be raised to signify the permanentrelationship with America that Blount had sought toblock. That flag had been sold at auction after Blounthauled it down, along with other relics of Monarchydays. It had been bought by Lieutenant LucienYoung, the second in command aboard the ship thathad landed the troops in 1893, and Young had givenit to Thurston.

Ceremonies of this nature normally called fora new flag. It would take permission of the U.S. pres-ident to substitute an old one. Undeterred, Thurstongot that permission, as the San Francisco Chroniclereported on July 28, 1898, in its extensive coverageof the event. Thurston no doubt was quite pleasedwith the touch of irony as the old flag rose back intothe breeze.

Less is known now of the other members ofthe Committee of Safety, but some general statisticsdemonstrate it was a group with wide and variedexperience. Nine had American ties—four by birthin Hawai‘i to American parents and hence automat-ic subjects of Hawai‘i, four born on the mainland butat the time residents of Hawai‘i, and a ninth who hadbeen born on the mainland but had become a natu-ralized subject of Hawai‘i. Two of the four non-Americans also were naturalized subjects of Hawai‘i.

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The members ofthe Committeeof Safety

Thurston gotpresident’s OKto use old flag

Raised flagBlount hadtaken down

In total, seven were subjects of the Kingdom, but allthirteen were residents. They had discussed thepossibilities of Annexation and survival of theHawaiian economy in detail over many years, as hadthe community at large.

Among the approximately 3,000 men whocomprised the haole community, most of those withAmerican ties favored Annexation to the UnitedStates, but many other foreign residents, particularlythe British community, did not. It had been acknowl-edged since 1843 that America was not going toallow any other nation to take over Hawai‘i. Manyresidents with origins from other nations, however,didn’t want to see that protection go so far as Annex-ation to America.

Much has been made of the missionary influ-ence in Hawai‘i, and sovereignty advocates todayoften erroneously charge it was this influence alongwith the pressure of sugar interests that brought onthe Revolution. But only three of the thirteen Com-mittee members were missionary descendants. Afourth was married to the daughter of a missionary.At least five were lawyers and three had served in theLegislature of the Kingdom. None worked for firmsheaded by missionary descendants or worked direct-ly for sugar interests, though seven owned minorityamounts of stock in various sugar companies.

In alphabetical order, here’s what we know ofthem:

Crister BolteA native of Germany, Bolte had come to

Hawai‘i in 1878 as a merchant and had become a nat-uralized subject of the Kingdom. He was 41 at thetime of the Revolution and was vice president of thefirm of M.S. Grinbaum and Co. He was one of the


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Crister Boltewas wealthy

member ofCommittee

Only threeCommittee

members hadmission ties

wealthier members of the Committee of Safety. Arespected member of the community, it was he theother members sent to talk Dole into agreeing tobecome president of the proposed new government.

He was one of two members of the Commit-tee, neither an American, to be interviewed byBlount and was critical of Blount’s interview processand constant hammering on irrelevant matters,which he told the Morgan Committee later he hadobjected to several times. He described Blount’s ques-tions as leading witnesses toward conclusions Blounthad already made. He said he resented Blount’s fail-ure to include his objections in the final report.

Andrew BrownBrown was one of the Committee’s four non-

American members. He had come to Hawai‘i fromhis native Scotland in the latter part of the 19th Cen-tury and was a coppersmith with Honolulu IronWorks in 1893. The Iron Works was an English-owned company that made and repaired equipmentfor sugar plantations.

William R. CastleCastle, a son of Samuel N. and Mary Castle,

missionaries who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1837, wasone of the three missionary descendants—withThurston and W.O. Smith—on the Committee. Dueto his birth from American parents in Honolulu in1849, he had ties with America but was a Hawaiiansubject. After graduating from Punahou in 1868 heattended Oberlin College in Ohio before graduatingfrom Harvard and Columbia Law School, remainingon the mainland the entire period.

He was practicing law in New York whenKala-kaua asked him to return to Hawai‘i and become

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Castle’s fatheroriginal partnerof Castle &Cooke

Bolte criticizedinterview byBlount

his attorney general in 1876. Castle then spent therest of his life in his native land. For nearly nineyears he was a staunch supporter of Kala-kaua andthe Monarchy, but by the time of the Reform Consti-tution in 1887 he saw the need for change if thenation were to survive.

He was one of the five lawyers on the Com-mittee and perhaps its wealthiest member.

His father, S.N. Castle, was one of Honolulu’smost prominent businessmen. He had come toHawai‘i as a member of the eighth missionary com-pany in 1837 as assistant superintendent of secularaffairs, but with fellow eighth-company memberAmos Starr Cooke, he left the mission when it beganclosing down in 1851. The two founded the firm ofCastle & Cooke, whose successor companies exist tothis day. Their first office was in the depository, awarehouse-like building at the rear of the groundsnow occupied by the Mission Houses Museum, andthey were employed by the mission as its agents untilthe final close-down in 1863.

William Castle was very active in Hawaiianpolitics. When Kala-kaua appointed him attorney gen-eral in 1876, the second year of his term as King, itwas the start of Castle’s long career in governmentservice. Two years later Castle was elected as a mem-ber of the House of Representatives, serving again in1886, ’87 and ’88 as a member of the House ofNobles. He was president of the Legislature in thelatter two years. (The House of Nobles and theHouse of Representatives—along with members ofthe Cabinet until the Reform Constitution of 1887—met together under terms of the constitutions of theKingdom, and a noble was elected president, as inthis case.) He played an active role in bringing aboutthe Reform Constitution that Kala-kaua signed in


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Active in ReformConstitution

of 1887

Castle: Historyof service

1887. Altogether, he served four terms in the Legis-lature, as had his father.

Ralph S. Kuykendall reports in his three-vol-ume history of Hawai‘i that Castle in 1878 spoke infavor of an agricultural system that would be com-prised of small farmers, “each of whom will own hiscrops and possess sufficient property to make him aconservative supporter of stable government.” Castlewas concerned that a few wealthy concerns wouldcrowd out small planters “and our populations willconsist of a small landed aristocracy and a restless,discontented population of ignorant and idle work-ers.” He thought the great plantations of the day—those of Claus Spreckels and H.P. Baldwin, for exam-ple—should be divided into ten-, twenty- and thirty-acre parcels.

Following the 1893 Revolution, Castle servedas minister to Washington for six months in Dole’s1895 Cabinet. He replaced Thurston, who wasrecalled in February by demand of U.S. Secretary ofState Gresham as a result of their continuing argu-ment over the United States’ strained relationshipwith the Provisional and Republic Governments,including allowing arms shipments to Hawai‘i (seeChapter One) that led to the 1895 counter-revolu-tion. Gresham accused Thurston of leaking informa-tion from diplomatic communications to the press,which Thurston denied in a lengthy letter publishedin the Chicago Times-Herald.

Castle served as president of the Board ofEducation in 1896 and as a member of the Annexa-tion Commission in 1898. Interestingly, like manyothers, he had been a staunch opponent of Annexa-tion until circumstances surrounding Hawai‘i’s lasttwo monarchs forced a change in opinion.

His mother and father established one of

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Castle FamilyTrust set pattern for community

Castle’s roleafter the Revolution

Castle wanted tosee a small farmag system

Hawai‘i’s first family charitable foundations, theS.N. and Mary Castle Family Trust. It set a patternthat has seen significant portions of Hawai‘i profitsplowed back into the community, demonstrating theconcern of those early families for the welfare of thepeople of the Islands.

In the business world, Castle was involved inthe start of Oahu Railroad and was a principal finan-cial backer of Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Co.(electric street cars). He established the HonoluluGas Co. and was a founder of Pa-lama Settlement.

Henry CooperCooper, an Indiana attorney, came to Hawai‘i

in 1890 for a few months as a visitor interested in thepossibilities of coffee growing. He returned soon tobecome a resident, founded the Hawaiian Abstractand Title Company, and quickly became a leadingmember of the community. He was one of the fourU.S. citizens on the Committee who, although resi-dents of Honolulu, had not yet become subjects ofthe Hawaiian Monarchy.

On a motion by L.A. Thurston at the masspublic meeting that gathered spontaneously in down-town Honolulu after the Queen’s efforts to promul-gate a new Constitution on January 14, 1893, Coop-er was appointed chairman of the Committee of Safe-ty formed at that meeting and was directed toappoint its twelve other members. He did so on thespot, naming members of the Annexation Club.

After the Revolution he served as a circuitcourt judge for three years before becoming, in 1895,minister of foreign affairs for the Republic. He heldthat post until 1899 when President Dole asked himto serve as attorney general during the critical periodof negotiating the terms of Annexation.


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Chaired Committee

of Safety

Cooper arespected

newcomer

Lili‘uokalani, Hawai‘i’s last Monarch, was an accomplished woman but her leadership,following that of her brother, Kalakaua, brought the Monarchy to an end.

Queen L ili‘uokalani

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Princess Ka‘iulani, pictured here as a schoolgirl in London in the early 1890s, would havebeen Lili‘uokalani’s successor. Her parents,right, were Archibald Cleghorn and PrincessLikelike, sister of Lili‘uokalani.

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William Little Lee, who arrived by the same accidental landing that brought Charles ReedBishop to Hawai‘i, became Chief Justice, worked tirelessly to get land ownership into thehands of Native Hawaiian commoners.

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Some of the Revolutionists

Sanford B. Dole

W.O. Smith

Charles Lunt Carter

Henry Waterhouse

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Samuel M. Damon

Peter Cushman Jones

John Emmeluth

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Claus Spreckels, the originalsugar baron, lent great sumsof money to the Monarchyand exerted great influence.Lili‘uokalani believed he’drestore her to the throne.

J.E. Bush, a Hawaiian leader,a strong supporter of theMonarchy although opposedto Lili‘uokolani, turned pro-Annexation.

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The Annexation Committee

Annexation commissioners pose in Washington in 1893; left to right, J. Marsden, L.A.Thurston, J. Mott-Smith (Hawai‘i minister to Washington), W.R. Castle and C.L. Carter,standing. The fifth commissioner, W.C. Wilder, is not pictured.

Kalakaua spent $20,000 on two crowns while in Europe, part of extravagant spending oncoronation.

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The Provisional Government

The Provisional Government executive council, 1893-94. Left to right, J.A. King, S.B. Dole,W.O. Smith, P.C. Jones.

The Provisional Government pulled in volunteers for the Citizens’ Guard, ranging fromboys to bearded patriarchs.

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He was held in high regard by Dole and oth-ers and served as acting president of the Republic forseveral months in 1898 while Dole was in Washing-ton helping to achieve Annexation. Cooper becamethe first secretary of the Territory of Hawai‘i in June1900, the title for the number-two post until theStatehood Constitution labeled it lieutenant gover-nor. He served also as president of the Board ofHealth. During his service with Dole, aside from hisprincipal role as minister of foreign affairs, he servedfour terms as minister of the interior and three asminister of finance.

He was one of the five lawyers on the Com-mittee of Safety. Having arrived in Honolulu lessthan three years earlier, he clearly had no tie withmissionary families or long-term sugar interests. Heheld no shares in any business enterprises at the timeof the Revolution.

As secretary of Hawai‘i, he telegraphed onJanuary 2, 1903, the first cable message fromHawai‘i, to L.A. Thurston’s Columbia Law Schoolclassmate, President Theodore Roosevelt. “We allbelieve that the removal of the disadvantage of isola-tion will prove a strong factor in the up-building of apatriotic and progressive American Commonwealthin these islands,” he wrote.

John EmmeluthEmmeluth was born in Cincinnati and mar-

ried a resident of the Islands. He came to Hawai‘i in1878 as a tinsmith and plumber and was the ownerof two stores in the 1890s. A contemporary reportsaid they offered, among other things, “the newporcelain water closets . . . under such transparenttrade names [as] ‘Sanitas,’ ‘Deluge’ and ‘Washout’,aimed at making sloppers and outhouses obsolete.”

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John Emmeluth,a pioneer incanningpineapples

Hawai‘i’s firstcable message

First secretaryof Territory

He was a pioneer in canning pineapples,which he produced both in Honolulu and Kona from1889 to 1892, preceding James Dole’s profitabledevelopment of the industry in Wahiawa in 1900.Emmeluth was a partner with Thurston and CaptainJohn Kidwell in setting up, in 1892, the HawaiianFruit and Packing Co. in Pearl City.

Emmeluth was an American citizen, a resi-dent of Hawai‘i but not a subject of the Kingdom.

He was one of the “extreme annexationists”and was involved in creation of the Hawaiian Star inMarch 1893, two months after the Revolution, toprovide a stronger voice for his favorite goal. TheStar merged about 1912 with the Evening Bulletin tobring about today’s Star-Bulletin, which in lateryears took up the fight for Statehood.

Emmeluth sent a statement to Blountthrough S.M. Damon and expected that Blountwould call him for an interview, “but never heardanything from him,” nor did the statement get pub-lished. Emmeluth was part of a long list of witnessessuggested to Blount by the Committee of Safety butignored. All were eyewitnesses of or participants inthe Revolution.

Theodore F. LansingAnother of the American members of the

Committee, Lansing also was among the four whohad not become subjects of the Kingdom. As an asso-ciate of M. Phillip & Co., he organized the PioneerBuilding and Loan Company in 1890. He left Phillipin 1898 and formed Gear, Lansing & Co., developersof residential lands. The firm’s first project was onten acres in Makiki that the partners acquired fromDavid Kawananakoa and Ku-hio- Kalaniana‘ole. Theirnext project was a 260-acre Kaimuki subdivision

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Lansing not subject of Kingdom

Emmeluthextreme

annexationist

John A. McCandlessMcCandless was largely responsible for the

development of the ‘Ewa plains through his discov-ery of the artesian basin that underlies that part ofO‘ahu. Born in Pennsylvania, he had come to Hon-olulu in 1881 and with his brother, Lincoln, soonbecame an important factor in the community. Hewas an active participant in getting Kala-kaua toaccept the Reform Constitution in 1887.

He served in the Senate of the ProvisionalGovernment and the Republic for four years and wasthe first superintendent of public works under theterritorial government after Annexation. At the timeof the Revolution he held no sugar shares, althoughhe was an officer of both O‘ahu and Pioneer MillCos. and later served as a director of Waialua Planta-tion.

After the turn of the century he became pres-ident of Home Insurance, a director of Bank ofHawaii and president of McCandless Bldg. Co.

F.W. McChesneyMcChesney was another of the Americans on

the Committee who also was not a subject of theKingdom. He had come to the Islands in 1885 fromhis native Iowa with other members of his family toform a wholesale grocery and feed firm.

He told the Morgan Committee that successof the Revolution did not depend on U.S. support. Hesaid he never thought U.S. troops “would fight ourbattle.” He maintained that the number of men theQueen could have fielded was roughly similar to thenumber of armed Revolutionists. He said this refutedclaims by Blount that the Revolution could not havesucceeded without help from U.S. troops.

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McChesneydidn’t needU.S. “to fightour battle”

Discovery of‘Ewa artesianbasin

William O. SmithSmith, 45 at the time of the Revolution, was

one of the three missionary-descendant membersborn in the Islands and of course was a Hawaiiansubject with American ties. He was one of nine chil-dren of James William Smith, a doctor who camewith his wife to Kaua‘i in 1842 as members of the10th company of missionaries. His wife, Melicent,established the Ko-loa Girls’ School on Kaua‘i in 1861.Dr. Smith left the mission when it closed in 1851 butpracticed medicine on Kaua‘i until his death in 1887.

A law partner and Honolulu neighbor ofThurston, W.O. Smith also read law with Judge A.S.Hartwell, who had given Thurston his start. Smithmarried Mary Abbey Hobron and spent much of hisearly career in politics and government service, start-ing as sheriff of Kaua‘i in 1870. Two years later hebecame sheriff of Maui, serving until 1874. He spenttwenty years intermittently in the Legislature of var-ious Hawai‘i governments, from 1878 until 1912,and served for seven years as deputy attorney gener-al under the Monarchy.

He was the only member of the Committee ofSafety who took an immediate leadership role in thenew government and probably was the most activepublic servant in Dole’s Cabinet. He served as attor-ney general from 1893 until 1899 and was presidentof the Board of Health during the same period.

He was highly thought of by the royal family,and at her request, handled the disposition ofLili‘uokalani’s estate as one of her trustees. He alsowas one of the original Bishop Estate trustees,appointed by Pauahi herself.

“One of the most gratifying experiences ofmy life was that after the trying period which led upto the overthrow of the Monarchy and the with-


156

Long-time government

servant

Smith of missionary

descent

drawal of Queen Liliuokalani, the Queen sent for meto prepare a will and deed of trust of her propertyand appointed me one of her trustees, together withHon. C.P. Iaukea and Hon. A.S. Cleghorn,” he wrotelong after the Revolution.

Smith continued in the same letter: “During the reign of King Kalakaua and

later of Queen Lili‘uokalani there was a grad-ual and increasing conflict between occu-pants of the throne and the judgment ofresponsible elements of the community. Lead-ing citizens, both men and women, endeav-ored to exercise a restraining influence, butthere seemed to be determination on the partof the rulers toward more centralized powerinvested in the reigning sovereign. The ses-sion of the ‘92 legislature, of which I was amember, continued in session from March toDecember with an intermission of only threeweeks. During this session three cabinetswere removed by acts of legislature. BothKing Kalakaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani hadmany estimable qualities and it was with afeeling of deep regret that the community wasfinally confronted with the issue whichresulted in the termination of the monarchy.”

In later years he returned to his law practiceand the business world, serving as president of Bish-op Trust. He died in 1929.

Ed. SuhrSuhr replaced H.F. Glade, one of the original

thirteen appointees, who had resigned shortly afterhis appointment. Glade was a senior officer at Hack-feld, a German-owned sugar factor and predecessorcompany of today’s Amfac. He also was the German

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157

Smith outlinedproblems withlast monarchs

Smith wasfriend of Queen

An originaltrustee of Bishop Estate

consul and resigned from the Committee because hedecided it was not appropriate for someone in hisposition to be involved in planning a revolutionagainst the government he was dealing with as adiplomat.

Suhr also was a German national working atHackfeld and held German citizenship at the time ofthe Revolution.

Henry WaterhouseWaterhouse was born in Tasmania of English

descent and was a naturalized subject of Hawai‘i. Hecame to the Kingdom in 1851 when he was six yearsold. He helped press for the Reform Constitution in1887.

While not a missionary descendant, Water-house married Julia Hawkins Dimond, one of theseven children of Henry and Ann Maria AnnerDimond, who had arrived in Hawai‘i in 1835 asmembers of a missionary company. His sister mar-ried one of the Dimond sons.

Henry Dimond was a bookbinder by tradeand turned out hundreds of thousands of publica-tions in the Hawaiian language. He left the missionin 1850 when his services were no longer needed,and was in the mercantile business in Honolulu untilhis death in 1895.

Waterhouse was one of the two Committeemembers to be interviewed by Blount—neither hadAmerican ties—and a review of that testimony todayshows that Blount had a narrow focus in his inter-view. He wanted certain things confirmed—andinterpreted what he heard as confirming themwhether the testimony was clear on the point or not.For example, he interviewed Waterhouse on May 2,1893, and clearly wanted Waterhouse to say that


158

Waterhouseinterviewed

by Blount

Suhr replacedGerman consulon Committee

Stevens had been premature in his recognition of thenew government, that he had recognized it before ithad taken control of the police station or the bar-racks. Waterhouse himself was not positive on thepoint. In his capacity with the Committee, he mayhave been unaware of all of the facts. One mightexpect that as a seasoned investigator with a list inhand of others more closely associated with leader-ship of the Revolution, Blount would have called foradditional witnesses to more clearly resolve thepoint. He didn’t, however. Here’s a sample of thesparring with Waterhouse, from Blount’s Report:

“Q. You were then in possession of the Gov-ernment building [at the time theQueen’s surrender was received]?

“A. We were.“Q. Any other buildings at the time?“A. Only the Government building at that

time.“Q. How long after that before you got Mr.

Stevens’ letter of recognition?“A. It was shortly after the station house was

given over.“Q. Are you not mistaken about that? “A. No; I believe I am not. I do not think I

am.“Q. What about the barracks; had they been

given up?“A. They had.“Q. Who were at the barracks?“A. Nowlein.(Ed.—Samuel Nowlein com-

manded the Queen’s army of 272 men.)“Q. Where was Wilson?“A. He was at the station house.“Q. And he gave that up before you had

notice of the recognition?

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159

Blount askedWaterhouseleading ques-tions

“A. According to my best knowledge andbelief.”

In spite of this confusing testimony, whichconflicted with reports he had received from his Roy-alist witnesses, Blount did not interview other Com-mittee of Safety members to clear up the matter. Hemerely interpreted Waterhouse’s testimony asuntrue. On May 6, 1893, after the Waterhouse inter-view, Blount wrote to Secretary of State Greshamthat neither Waterhouse nor Bolte was telling thetruth about Stevens’ recognition time but that he,Blount, had confirmed that Stevens had recognizedthe Provisional Government about two hours beforeit had secured the police station and the barracks,where the Queen’s troops were located. Blount addedthat he was ready to come home.

William C. WilderWilder was a naturalized subject of Hawai‘i,

one of the four mainland Americans who was aHawaiian subject. He owned the ship that Dole’sgovernment chartered to make its trip toward Wash-ington on January 19, two days after the Revolution.He was one of the wealthiest members of the Com-mittee.

He was editor of the Pacific CommercialAdvertiser for a short period in the 1890s and servedas president of the Republic’s Senate in 1897.

Charles Montague CookeProminent among other residents of the com-

munity who played leadership roles in thechangeover was C. Montague Cooke. Though not amember of the Committee of Safety, he and thosewhose names follow are among the 25 men general-ly conceded to have been in the forefront of the Rev-


160

William Wilderwas editor,

legislator

Blount failed tointerview keyRevolutionists

olution. Cooke was the son of missionaries AmosStarr and Juliette M. Cooke. He was born in 1849 atthe Chiefs’ Children’s School, which his parents ranat the request of King Kamehameha III for the edu-cation of children of the royal families. When themission closed in 1851 his father joined fellow-released-missionary S.N. Castle to form Castle &Cooke. Young Cooke attended Punahou and AmherstAgricultural College before returning to Honolulu tojoin Lewers & Dickson, a lumber importer that even-tually became Lewers and Cooke. After the Revolu-tion, he was one of the founders of Bank of Hawaii.He was appointed by Bernice Pauahi Bishop as atrustee of the Bishop Estate, appointed by herself. Hemarried Anna Rice in 1874 and died in 1909.

Samuel Mills DamonDamon, also not a member of the Committee

but active in dealing with problems of the day, was apioneer banker. He served as administrator offinances for both the Kingdom and the ProvisionalGovernment. He was 48 at the time of the Revolutionand typifies business leaders of Hawai‘i who wereimmensely sympathetic to the Monarchy but wholost faith in it during the reigns of Kala-kaua andLili‘uokalani.

He was an adviser to Lili‘uokalani and con-sidered himself a close friend. It was Damon whowent to her on the final day of the Revolution andadvised her to yield. In 1887 he had served as financeminister for Kala-kaua and served again from 1889-90for the Queen. From 1893 to 1900, he served theRepublic as finance minister. He was a member ofthe Privy Council of the Kingdom from 1884 to 1889.Damon also was an original trustee of BernicePauahi Bishop’s foundation and of the Kamehameha

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161

Damon waspioneer banker,adviser toQueen

Cooke was bornat Chiefs’ Chil-dren’s School

Helped foundBank of Hawaiiand later servedas its president

Schools. He created Moanalua Gardens on landbequeathed him by Pauahi, and after his death in1924, his will dedicated it for public use. Because ofhis close association with the former Queen, he rep-resented her at Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee inLondon in 1912—she had attended the 50-yearjubilee in 1887 with Queen Kapi‘olani.

The night before the overthrow, Damon wentto the Queen and told her he had to leave her politi-cal party. He told her that while he’d always sup-ported her, her recent actions were not acceptable.Russ reports in his two-volume history of the 1890sthat Lili‘uokalani urged Damon to take a position inthe new government because even though it repre-sented a political viewpoint in opposition to her, hemight be able to help her by being involved—a friendin court, so to speak.

Captain James Anderson KingKing was another business leader who played

a public role in the Revolution and the new govern-ment but did not serve as a member of the Commit-tee of Safety. He was appointed one of the four mem-bers of the Executive Council of the Provisional Gov-ernment and served as its minister of the interior aswell as the Republic’s. He was a pioneer of inter-island shipping, along with Wilder. His wife, Char-lotte, was one-quarter Hawaiian, a descendant of oneof the O‘ahu chiefs who was killed by KamehamehaI when he conquered that island. The O‘ahu chief,from Ka-ne‘ohe, had a daughter, Mahi, whom Kame-hameha in the traditions of the time “gave” to anAmerican named Oliver Holmes, whom he favored.Holmes had arrived in Hawai‘i in 1793 from Ply-mouth, Massachusetts, but fought with the losingO‘ahu forces against Kamehameha. He switched alle-


162

James Kingimportant

business leader

Damon toldQueen she lost

his support

giance after the battle, which Kamehameha approvedof by giving him the Ka-ne‘ohe chief’s daughter. Theson of James and Charlotte, Samuel Wilder King, waselected Hawai‘i’s delegate to Congress in 1934 andwas appointed governor of Hawai‘i by PresidentEisenhower in 1953; he served until 1957. A grand-son, Samuel P. King Sr., is a highly regarded, retiredfederal judge in Honolulu.

Peter Cushman JonesJones, a community leader with ties to the

Monarchy, broke off that relationship in dismay in1893. He was so concerned about the future of hiscommunity that he switched allegiance and commit-ted himself to the Revolution, even though he feltthat switching in the face of his earlier service as theQueen’s finance minister would put him in great per-sonal danger. Asked by Charles Carter and CristerBolte to take the post of minister of finance in thenew Provisional Government, he agreed to do so ifDole would become its president, but not withoutreiterating his concerns for their safety.

He told his wife of his concern: “It is morethan probable that the Queen’s party will not submitwithout fighting, and the chances are that I will getshot.”

He reported her reply: “If you do get shot Ican give you up, for I feel it to be your duty to takepart in this move. The country needs you at this timeand if you lose your life it will be in the discharge ofyour duty.”44

He was born in Boston and arrived in Hon-olulu in 1857 at the age of 20 with sixteen cents inhis pockets. In 1871 he was a partner in C. Brewerand became its president in 1883. He was anextremely religious man. He built Pa-lama Chapel, out

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163

Wife told himthe countryneeded him

Jones concernedabout future ofcommunity,overcame fear

King was pio-neer in inter-island shipping

of which grew Pa-lama Settlement. He was treasurerand a trustee of Punahou for many years.

In his later years as president of C. Brewer, heserved at the same time as founding president of theBank of Hawaii. He and his son also founded TheHawaiian Safe Deposit and Investment Company,predecessor company of Hawaiian Trust Co. andtoday’s Pacific Century Trust. He was a deacon ofCentral Union Church.

When the mass meeting of 1887 was held tobring about the Reform Constitution that reined inKala-kaua, P.C. Jones was the chairman.

In 1892 he was appointed minister of financeby Lili‘uokalani. His appointment by the Queen as amember of her Cabinet in 1892 along with threeother members of the community was hailed by peo-ple from all parties as a sound move by the Monar-chy. The so-called Jones-Wilcox Cabinet was highlyrespected and restored needed confidence in mem-bers of the community who had serious doubts aboutLili‘uokalani’s government.

But when this Cabinet refused to push for thelottery and opium bills and cautioned against herplans to promulgate a new Constitution, she oustedand replaced all four on January 12, 1893, two daysbefore the Revolution began.

Jones was 56 at the time of the Revolutionand lived until 1922.

James Francis MorganMorgan was another Honolulu community

leader who had become disillusioned with the Queenand played a role in the Revolution. He was born inNew York City in 1862 and came to Hawai‘i at theage of three. He started working at 12 at an auction


164

Part of respectedCabinet

Jones a stronglyreligious

businessman

house, E.P. Adams Auction Co., and eventuallybecame the sole owner. After the Revolution, heserved as a member of Dole’s Advisory Council. Hewas in real estate and was an organizer of the Hon-olulu Stock and Bond Exchange, serving as its presi-dent. A grandson, James F. Morgan, Jr., manager ofseveral sugar plantations for Alexander & Baldwin,served nine years as chairman of The ContemporaryMuseum, guiding it to its Makiki Heights location in1988.

Edward Davies TennyEdward Davies Tenney came to Honolulu in

1877 at age 18. He started in sugar at Hilo, came toO‘ahu and by 1880 was a junior clerk at Castle &Cooke. Eventually he became president and generalmanager of the firm. In 1917 he was president ofMatson Navigation while still president of C&C.Dole appointed him to the Provisional GovernmentAdvisory Council following the Revolution. Tenneymarried Rose Williams Makee in 1889.

Alexander Young Young came to Hawai‘i in 1865 and set up a

foundry and machine shop in Hilo. He moved toHonolulu, bought an interest in Honolulu IronWorks and invested in sugar. He was also an interiorminister after the Revolution.

Young was born in Scotland, married RuthPearce in England and went to America in 1860before heading for Hilo. He was a mechanical engi-neer and a member of the Monarchy’s House ofNobles from 1887 to 1892. Dole appointed him amember of the Advisory Council of the ProvisionalGovernment in 1893.

In 1900, he built the Alexander Young Hotel

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165

AlexanderYoung served in House ofNobles

Tenney was alsoon AdvisoryCouncil

Morgan was onDole’s AdvisoryCouncil

in downtown Honolulu. In 1905 he acquired theMoana and later the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which atthat time was adjacent to ‘Iolani Palace. He died in1910.

These were the kinds of men who oustedQueen Lili‘uokalani to achieve a stable governmentfor their Island nation. They certainly weren’t radi-cal interlopers out for personal gain. The next chap-ter, a vignette, gives a picture of their mindsets asthey attained their first objective, a bloodless Revolu-tion. With the Revolution behind them, the minds ofthese former Annexation Club members turned totheir long-range goal, Annexation itself. In ChapterEight, we will review the fifty-year road to that objec-tive. Before that, in Chapter Seven, we take a look atthe two investigations that attempted to set therecord straight on what happened in 1893. Theyweren’t able to do so, at least to everyone’s satisfac-tion.


166

Ultimate goal:Annexation

Young builthotel downtown

tories are told and pictures are drawnfor us by critics of the Revolution por-traying a bunch of bad guys plottingwith malice aforethought to viciously,spitefully overthrow the Queen andseize control of the government. Evil

motives are suggested. It is as unpleasant a picture asit is inaccurate. It is a play on emotions, and it stirsunjustified reactions in its viewers.

If you read the proceedings of the Provision-al Government, beginning minutes after the procla-mation was read announcing the revolutionarytakeover of Hawai‘i’s government, you can draw dif-ferent pictures.

Imagine this group of men, for they were allmen, all white men, we cannot change that. Butbeing men and white, in their time and place, doesnot mean that they were bad men. They were menconcerned with the moral, ethical and economicfuture of the Islands that were their home.

What they did was no lark. Each must havebeen fearful in his heart. We read in the MorganReport that P.C. Jones thought the Queen and hersupporters would fight, “and chances are that I willget shot.” His wife believed that change in the gov-

The Old Order ChangesVignette

167

No malice orspite drove Revolutionists

Jones thoughthe might beshot

SS

ernment was necessary. “If you lose your life it willbe in the discharge of your duty,” she said.

The proclamation was read on the front stepsof the government building about 2 p.m. Tuesday infull view of the palace across King Street, and it musthave been a tense and frightening moment. Word hadgone out through the community that everyoneshould come out to back this audacious move, but theexpected supporters arrived late and in dribbles. San-ford Dole, in his Memoirs, recalled only a single vol-unteer was there when he and the others arrived totake over the building and read the proclamation. Ithad been drafted that morning by Thurston from hissickbed up in Nu‘uanu, where he lay felled, appar-ently by the same flu-like virus that hit Castle and anumber of other members of the takeover team, aswell as Stevens and various government workers.

Did the paper Henry Cooper read from trem-ble in his hands? The Revolutionists had heard thatthe Queen and her Cabinet planned to stop them byforce. Did they look this way and that, waiting to bebeset upon by men with guns? As it turned out, theQueen’s Cabinet did not follow through on its plan tocounter the takeover.

Charles Carter, however, was worried. Hewent across the street to where the commander ofthe American troops stood (the troops were out ofsight, behind a building, with their arms stacked)and asked for a guard. The commander replied, “Iremain passive.” This same commander, W.T. Swin-burne, had told Carter the day before that if theQueen “calls upon me to preserve order, I am goingto do it.” Two years later, in the Queen’s unsuccess-ful attempt at a counter-revolution, Carter was to diein the gunfire at Diamond Head.

Samuel M. Damon reported the American


168

Carter asked forhelp from troop

commander

Thurston draft-ed proclamation

from sickbed

troops were leaning against a picket fence, their armsstacked, not even at ready. This shook him. “I couldnot imagine why we were there without being sup-ported by American troops . . . . We were not sup-ported in any way.”

Following the proclamation, the men of thenew executive and advisory councils gathered in thegovernment building. They didn’t throw a party ortoast each other on their good luck to have made itthus far without incident. There would be no jocularmood. There was no gleeful rubbing of palms. Onemight imagine them, a sheen of sweat on their brows,dressed in suits appropriate for the occasion butunfit for the climate. Nervous. They might havelooked one to the other almost in surprise. Yet themen got down to business, the business of govern-ment.

Their first acts were out of concern for pub-lic safety. Protecting the people of the Islands fellsolely on them now. They had a moral obligation toprevent blood from running in the streets. Theycalled for all supporters in the community to bringarms and ammunition to the government building“as soon as possible in order that efficient and com-plete protection of the life and property, and the pub-lic peace, may immediately and efficiently be put intooperation.”

They didn’t want to use guns, but they knewthey needed to be prepared. At any moment, a mobcould burst through the doors with guns and clubs. Ithad happened down the street some years earlierwhen Queen Emma’s supporters erupted at the oldcourthouse against the election of Kala-kaua. To pre-vent trouble from brewing in an unstable moment,these men of the new Provisional Governmentdeclared martial law and suspended liquor sales.


169

A mob couldburst in anytime

First concernwas for publicsafety

Revolutionistsgot down tobusiness of governing

It was still early afternoon. They sent wordto the four members of the Queen’s most recent Cab-inet to come to the government building for a talk.Two, Parker and Cornwell, did so. These two saidthey didn’t intend to offer any resistance but neitherwould they give up without conferring with theother ex-Cabinet members.

As gentlemen would, the Provisional Gov-ernment officers allowed the men to return to thestation house and even agreed to send Crister Bolte,a member of the Committee of Safety, and Damon, arespected longtime adviser to the Queen, with them.Both sides wanted to avoid bloodshed.

Now the two other ex-Cabinet members saidthey didn’t wish to offer resistance either, but didn’twant to surrender without “some understandingwith the ex-Queen,” the proceedings report.

Perhaps while the Cabinet ministers wereover at the palace, one of the Revolutionists mighthave attempted a joke, maybe about Thurston—sickin bed at home. They might have joshed about howThurston got them into this, now where was hewhen they needed him. Or maybe there was no pausefor even mild humor.

The former Cabinet members and a fewother of her advisers met with their Queen and sheagreed to surrender under protest. She ordered hermen to give up the station house without resistance.Without negotiation on the matter, because onlyDamon from the new Provisional Government waspresent while she met with her Cabinet, and as Dolepointed out later, he had not been sent to negotiate,the Queen was allowed to file a letter stating she wassurrendering to the superior forces of the UnitedStates. The phrasing did not correctly characterizethe situation, but what did it matter—the Queen


170

Queen said shewas surrender-

ing to U.S.

No resistancefrom Cabinet

Sent for formerCabinet

could write anyone or say anything she wanted to,and they had successfully avoided bloodshed. But herletter would rise to haunt them later.

Meanwhile the new government was liningup the support or acceptance of foreign delegations,including the United States. Of course, these menhoped their Provisional Government would be short-lived and their service as its leaders would be brief.They believed Hawai‘i’s best interest would comewith U.S. territorial protection, Annexation. Thatwould not come for a number of years. That evening,they continued to meet and decided to charter theship Claudine to send a delegation to Washington,D.C., offering that Hawai‘i be annexed as a U.S. ter-ritory.

The leadership of the Provisional Govern-ment met again, first thing the next morning. Onemight imagine that a heavy weight rested on them.Yesterday, despite its tension, had been marked bythe euphoria that comes with success. But today,there was a nation to run, agitated and worried peo-ple to calm. They borrowed $1,000 from Bishop andCo. because George E. Smithies, who possessed thekey and the combination to the government safe, wasalso sick abed, and they needed some money until hecould get up. In those days, in order to forestall moresevere illnesses, people took to their beds when flu-like symptoms struck.

The British minister requested that his dis-patches be sent to the United States on the Claudine.The Queen requested her letters be carried by thesame ship. Both were opposed to Annexation. Imag-ine the discussion. Might the Advisory Council mem-bers all have been in favor, or might one or two havesaid no, why should we carry the Queen’s protest?But the motion was carried, and her request as well


171

They agreed tocarry Queen’sletters of protestto Washington

Revolutionistsborrowed$1,000 to rungovernment

Delegation sentto Washington

as the British request was granted. These men whoare being recast as monsters then voted to allow theex-Queen to draw her usual amount from the treas-ury at the end of the month.

But then Damon came and said the Queenwanted permission to send a delegation of her ownaboard the Claudine to Washington to protest to theU.S. government. One might imagine an outburstfrom the Council members. This was going too far.“It was moved and carried that this should not beallowed,” reads the report.

The Council disbanded the Queen’s guards,but provided them with salaries to the end of themonth. They sent an envoy to Lili‘uokalani to askher if she desired a guard, and if she did, they’d des-ignate sixteen Hawaiians to serve her.

What about the people of Kalaupapa? The“lepers” they were called then; the name Hansen’sdisease was not yet in use. The Council sent the pres-ident of the Board of Health to Molokai to explainthe political changes to the people of Kalaupapa.

It had been another full day of governmentbusiness. There were no serious problems in the city,although rumors swirled every which way. Thingswere settling down quickly. The next day, only twodays after the Revolution, the Council found it safeenough to reopen the saloons for a large part of theday.

And so the proceedings of the new govern-ment go on. They are not vindictive. In every cir-cumstance, they appear to take the higher road.

A report came in that Lili‘uokalani’s closestsupporters had decided resistance was useless; thatthey would attempt a plebiscite among Hawaiians inan effort to get annexed to Great Britain. Rumor hadit that the former Queen believed she would be able


172

Royalists agreedresistance was

useless

Concern overKalaupapa

Would not takeQueen’s

delegation

to get a larger income from Great Britain. The new government watched the newspa-

pers for inaccuracies or potential trouble. The editorof the Royalist Bulletin was called before the Council.A story had run in that paper that said the Provi-sional Government would allow the Queen’s repre-sentatives to travel on the Claudine. The editorpromised a retraction.

Ka Leo o Ka La-hui, one of the Hawaiian lan-guage newspapers, printed an account alleging that aresolution had been introduced by the new govern-ment that would require all Hawaiians to be removedfrom government employment. The newspaper sug-gested this was the treatment Hawaiians mightexpect from the haole. The Printing Committee wasdirected to interview J.E. Bush, the Native Hawaiianeditor, and “inform him of the falsity of his report.”The committee did so, reminding him of the procla-mation that had been read and posted, and whichclearly stated that only the Queen, her Cabinet andMarshal Wilson had been asked to resign and that allother government workers had been asked to “con-tinue their functions.” A retraction was demanded.Instead, Bush wrote further that it was only Dole’svote that had blocked the anti-Hawaiian resolution.Again, Bush was questioned. This time he said thefailure to correct the misinformation had been acci-dental and promised to correct it in the next issue.

And so it went. The Council dealt, day in andday out, with juggling the business of running thegovernmental affairs of the Islands and keeping acareful watch that no problem would erupt intobloody dispute in the streets. These men believedtheir job was temporary; they believed their envoysto Washington would send them word of Annexationto that country. They would do the best they could to


173

Believed Annex-ation wouldcome soon

Media corrections

keep Hawai‘i at peace and move forward untilAnnexation happened, and then return to their busi-nesses or professions. None of them wanted a per-manent government job.

It would be a long wait, but they didn’t knowthat yet.


174

mericans were captivated by the Revo-lution in Hawai‘i as both sides sentemissaries to Washington to seekadministration backing. Popular opin-ion seemed to favor the Revolutionists

but there were plenty of voices raised on behalf of theRoyalists and it made good copy for months in news-papers across the country.

Washington officials conducted two investi-gations of the Revolution, both by Democrats. For-mer Congressman James H. Blount of Georgia wasdispatched to Hawai‘i in secret in March 1893 byPresident Cleveland to make an investigation on theground. The other was ordered by a Senate resolu-tion in January 1894 and was conducted by the U.S.Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired bySen. John T. Morgan of Alabama.

The Blount Report in the spring of 1893 wasbased on secret interviews, unsworn statements andBlount’s acknowledged arbitrary selection of wit-nesses. His report charged that U.S. Minister JohnStevens and U.S. naval forces had conspired with theRevolutionists in violation of international law,enabling success of the Revolution. That charge,though not supported by any subsequent hearing,

The InvestigatorsChapter Seven

175

Two U.S. investigations

Blount’s Reportarbitrary, secret

AAA

was the basis for Cleveland’s efforts in November1893 to restore the Monarchy through his new min-ister to Hawai‘i, A.S. Willis.45 Cleveland also madesimilar charges against Stevens in September 1893on recommendations by Blount, though the reportitself was not released until several months after thepresident made his charges and did not reach theProvisional Government until December. The Provi-sional Government was given no time to comment orreact before Cleveland made public his charges, adiplomatic breach that was highly criticized by thenew Hawaiian government as well as critics of theCleveland administration.

The other investigation, the Morgan Report,was launched in early 1894 after the Blount Reportbecame public. All of the Morgan Committee evi-dence was based on sworn statements and its hear-ings were open to anyone who wished to testify. Itexonerated Stevens and the U.S. troops by a vote offive to four among the Senate committee membersand held out the hope of Annexation.

Both investigations were conducted by politi-cians experienced in foreign relations and in con-ducting hearings. Blount had been chairman of theCommittee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. House.Morgan was the current chairman of the SenateCommittee on Foreign Relations. Testimony in theMorgan hearings hinted that many believed Blountwas sent by Cleveland with a predetermined agenda,which Blount denied. He testified before the MorganCommittee that he had been sent only to gather factsand had no contact with the Queen except for twoformal meetings, one when he arrived and one whenhe left, each only several minutes in length. There isno doubt, however, that he made recommendationsregarding restoration of the Monarchy and censuring


176

Two reports,oppositefindings

Dole had nochance to

comment onBlount Report

Stevens. And in spite of only the two meetings, hissentiments were carried to the Queen and her reac-tion was sought by him through others. As an expe-rienced Washingtonian, he must have known thatwhen he talked to her close associates, Cabinet mem-bers and friends, reports would be going back to her,and he used these channels. She details many ofthese messages in her diaries. In the period from hisarrival on March 29 to October 16, 1893, Lili‘uo-kalani makes a dozen or more references to assur-ances coming to her from close advisers who had metwith Blount that “he will take care of everything.”As early as April 10, three days after Paul Neumann,her attorney and emissary to Washington, hadreturned to Honolulu, she writes about “good news”he brought, that he spoke personally with Clevelandand “was promised justice. [Neumann] wants toimpress on me two things, [that I stress my] love ofmy people, and [my concern for] their future wel-fare—that their rights be restored and be maintained.Heard that in two weeks everything will be settled,then he (Ed.—Blount) is going to enjoy a good time.Fraulein (Ed.—her personal psychic about whommore is related in Chapter Three) says between the21st and 25th I will be restored to the throne.”

On May 28, she reports hearing from MaryCarter, wife of her long-time, closest supporter, J.O.Carter, “that Mr. Spreckels said plainly there is noth-ing for him to do now but to help restore me to thethrone, that it would be well for me to appoint a newCabinet, proclaim a new Constitution, proclaim mar-tial law, etc. Mr. Spreckels will call on me tomorrowmorning.”

The May 29 entry must have left the Queenin a very good mood. “Mr. [Sam] Parker (Ed.—herex-minister of foreign affairs) came and [had] break-

The Investigators

177

Spreckelsexpected to helpreturn her tothrone

Fortunetellerpredicted returnto throne

Ex-Queen’sdiaries sayBlount will help

fast with me, informed me that Mr. Spreckels wouldbe the means of putting me back on the throne(Ed.—through various moves that she outlines). Mr.Claus Spreckels called at quarter to 12 noon and toldme all that Mr. Parker had stated and proposes tohave Mr. Antone Rosa as Attorney General when Igo back . . . he said he will stay until everything is set-tled. Says that when he draws money from them theywill fall to pieces (Ed.—the Monarchy governmenthad incurred a huge debt to Spreckels that was com-ing due, but Dole and his advisers managed to raisethe money privately and paid him off, thus thwartingthis maneuver.) They will not require guns—heand Blount will do everything (Ed.—emphasisadded). They must suffer those missionaries foroverthrowing my government, and their propertymust pay for all.”

Spreckels obviously was reflecting more thana casual conversation with Blount when he discussedwhether guns would be needed or not. And theQueen, with her reference to the missionaries, wasreflecting the erroneous political propensity forblaming everything on the missionaries. We knowthere were no missionaries involved in the over-throw—just three descendants of missionaries onthe Committee of Safety and an additional handful ofdescendants among the hundreds of volunteers.

Further evidence of an open and informedrelationship between Blount and the Queen’s sup-porters is confirmed in diary entries for May 12 and22 dealing with a petition opposing Annexation,which was made a part of the Blount Report.

On May 12, the Queen notes that “Mr.Blount asked Mr. Parker what we were doing amongthe people. He knew there was a memorial [petition]being got ready but why are they so long about it. He


178

Spreckelsadvised

ex-QueenBlount would

restore her

was aware of the untruthfulness of the statements ofthe other side.”

On May 22, she notes that “Mr. Parkerbrought news that Mr. Claus Spreckels was taking amemorial around amongst the principal firms intown to take their signatures expressing their opin-ion against annexation . . .”

Blount himself had told her, she notes onApril 24, that “he had no authority to act in any-thing.” In the same entry, however, she notes he toldher he had withdrawn the troops and raised theHawaiian Flag, and she adds cryptically, “but what-ever we did for ourselves he had nothing to do with.”

In between her comments about encourage-ment from Blount, she makes many references tosigning commissions, discussing Cabinet appoint-ments, making other preparations for becomingQueen again “after the restoration.” She knew whereBlount was headed.

On August 5, after Blount’s second official—and farewell—meeting with her, she notes that “Hewished I would select such men as J.O.C. (Ed.—J.O.Carter) and E.C. Macfarlane to help me in the admin-istration of the government.

“When I told him that the P.G.s (Ed.—Provi-sional Government people) had threatened to takemy life, should news be received of my restoration,what ought I to do? He said is not Admiral J.S. Sker-rett here, and also the British and other commission-ers.”

James H. Wodehouse, British commissionerand consul general to Hawai‘i and a vocal opponentof U.S. Minister John Stevens and Annexation to theUnited States, was a frequent visitor to the Queenand a frequent social contact with Blount during hisstay. He is mentioned many times in the diaries with

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British agentwas emissarybetween ex-Queen &Blount

Blount recom-mended minis-ters toLili‘uokalani

Blount encour-aged ex-Queen

comments on the restoration theme and her person-al safety. She writes on June 5, after recording detailsof a visit from Wodehouse, “[He] said he and Blountwould act together.” The context seems to be interms of protecting her.

Her entry for September 20 appears to con-firm this. She writes about the concern of various ofher friends for her safety, then adds, “I have suchconfidence [in] what Mr. Blount said when he wentaway that I have no fears.”

On another subject, on August 15, the Queenwas visited by Archibald S. Cleghorn, father ofPrincess Ka‘iulani, a close family friend and brother-in-law whom she had appointed governor of O‘ahu.She writes: “[He] asked why I did not make arrange-ments for E.C. Macfarlane to go to the United Statesas such had been the instructions from Mr. Blount. Itold him I was not aware that Mr. Blount had said so.We then made arrangements for his trip.” Macfar-lane arrived in Washington on September 10 and metsecretly with Blount and Secretary of State Gresham.Blount actually came to Macfarlane’s hotel andwarned him not to tell anyone about it.

The reason for Macfarlane’s secret mission toWashington becomes clear in the Queen’s diaryentry for October 10, Macfarlane having justreturned. (At this date in Washington, Gresham hadcompleted his study of the Blount Report and hadprivately told several people that the Queen must berestored to her throne, but Blount’s recommenda-tions were not made public until over a month later,November 16. The Provisional Government did notget a copy until late in December). Macfarlane obvi-ously had a very good relationship with Gresham.The Queen writes:

“Mr. E.C. Macfarlane called to pay his


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Macfarlanemakes secret

mission toWashington

Lili‘uokalani gotmessages from

Blount

respects. He reached Washington 10th Sept.Mr. Blount called on him and spent twohours—was told not to let any one know thathe had seen him except J.O. Carter. Askedhow everything was in Hawai‘i—was toldeverything was in peace & quiet. He was gladto hear it, he was much afraid disturbancewould arise, but it was wonderful whatpower the Queen had over her people, and itwas the best thing for us. It has been the mainchance of our success. He (Ed.—Blount) saidwithin five or six weeks from now Mr. Willis& Mr. Mills will be [in Hawai‘i] and Mr.Willis will have his instructions. They willfirst call on you and Mr. [J.O.] Carter.”

This was well before the Willis missionbecame public. Ellis Mills, about to be appointed newU.S consul general in Hawai‘i, took the notes forBlount’s interviews as well as Willis’ crucial laterinterviews with the Queen.

The diary entry continues: “He (Ed.—Blount) must not be seen or known to have called onMr. M (Ed.—Macfarlane). That next day he (Ed.—Macfarlane) should call on Mr. Gresham and saynothing about him (Ed.—Blount). He (Ed.—Blount)would advise him not to stay long in Washington, forhimself he would immediately leave as his steps werebeing dogged, and he must go back to Georgia. Hewas annoyed the P.G.s should mention his wife’sname.” (Blount, who did not interview Dole but whomet formally with him to present his credentials—which said nothing about his mission—also had sev-eral arguments with Dole while he was in Honolulu,most of them over minor or technical matters. Onewas a serious disagreement involving freedom of thepress and the powers of the Provisional Government

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Blount keptmission secret

Blount didn’tinterview Dole

Macfarlanerelayed messages

versus those of the U.S. representative, Blount. Inthat case, the Provisional Government had chargedCharles Nordhoff, a reporter with the New York Her-ald, with libel for publishing a totally erroneousstory claiming several members of the ProvisionalGovernment Advisory Council had signed the lotterypetition during the last legislative session. The gov-ernment wished to banish him. Passage of the lotterybill had been one of the reasons for the Revolutionand the Provisional Government had repealed it asone of its first actions. Nordhoff, who was a staunchsupporter of the Royalists, was trying to paint the“P.G.s” as hypocrites. Blount, who had spent manyhours with Nordhoff during his investigation, inter-vened and Dole backed off.)46

The Queen’s diary entry for October 10 con-tinues: “Macfarlane met Secretary Gresham. Wasimmediately ushered into his presence while all theothers had to wait. From one to five their interviewlasted. Mr. M. was allowed to say all he had to saywithout interruption. Found Mr. Gresham a man ofgreat shrewdness and broad mind & great intelli-gence. He found that Mr. Gresham seemed to havegreat interest in our cause, asked about the Queen &her capability, again about taking an election,whether there would be equal voting. (Ed.—Gre-sham apparently was wondering about a popularelection for a new monarch.) Mac said no, it wouldsimply end in the Queen & no other, and why noother: because we would have no other . . . Mac metMr. Mills & dined with him.”

These events suggest pretty clearly thatBlount, if he ever had been a neutral “fact finder,”had become deeply committed to the effort to rein-state the Queen—she knew a lot more about U.S.strategies than did the Provisional Government.


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Greshamshrewdness

Erroneous storyin N.Y. Herald

The Queen’s diary entries disclose little forthe critical period of November 16 to December 23when Willis was engaged in his secret meetings withher, trying to bring about the restoration of herthrone. He had first to get her to agree to complywith Cleveland’s demand for amnesty for the Revo-lutionists, which she turned down flatly on Novem-ber 16. According to Willis and Mills, who was tak-ing notes behind a screen, she said she would havethe Revolutionists beheaded. With no cable to dis-cuss this enormous problem with Gresham, Williswas not able to get back to her until December 16. Bythen he had new instructions that Cleveland wouldwithdraw his support if she did not agree toamnesty.47 J.O. Carter was present at the December16 meeting, and again she refused to bend. OnDecember 18, however, she met again with Willisand Carter and had changed her mind completely.Now she was offering amnesty. But it was too late.Cleveland had already turned the matter over to Con-gress. Willis, however, did not yet know of this andon December 20 he met with leaders of the Provi-sional Government and presented Cleveland’sextraordinary demand that they restore the Monar-chy. An entire plan, new Cabinet, new Constitution,the signing of eleven commissions for new ministers,etc., had been worked out by the Queen and heradvisers, although Willis did not agree with all of thenames she had submitted as new Cabinet membersand officers. It never became a problem because onDecember 23 the Provisional Government said no tothe entire matter in the “extraordinary correspon-dence” detailed in Chapter Five.

For several months the Provisional Govern-ment wrangled with the United States over thebreaches of diplomatic protocol involved in Willis

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183

ProvisionalGovernment didnot yield

Clevelandturned matterover to Con-gress

Lili‘uokalanisaid she’dbehead Revolu-tion leaders

Queen hadplans ready forrestoration

clandestinely operating within the boundaries of arecognized foreign country, plotting the downfall ofits government. Meanwhile, the Queen for severalmonths in her diaries continued to write of herdeveloping plans for Cabinet members, meetingswith Wodehouse, the British consul, etc., but herbrief association with Blount, Willis, Gresham andCleveland was over.

Going back to the Blount Report as a researchsource about the Revolution, it’s obvious he cared lit-tle about events that had led to its happening. Kuyk-endall described his report as a “lawyer’s brief, mak-ing the best possible case for the queen and againstStevens.” The historian said the Morgan Report“presented an equally effective case for the Provi-sional Government and Stevens, and against theQueen.”

Blount’s interviews with the only two Com-mittee of Safety members he chose to include, nei-ther an American, show his questions were directedtoward determining when Stevens had recognizedthe new government, not what had caused the com-munity to revolt. Blount steered clear from formallyinterviewing anyone who might be construed as aU.S. citizen, but nevertheless he managed to blamethe United States for the Revolution’s success.

His report, too, was put together in a less-than-neutral manner, quite aside from his one-sidedselection of witnesses. He stated, based on inter-views only with the Queen’s Cabinet members, thatthey had been approached by L.A. Thurston to gettheir help, rather than the other way around. TheProvisional Government did not get a copy of thereport until December, after which Thurston wrote aletter explaining that the Cabinet had approachedhim, giving the Queen her first knowledge of her


184

Blount’s Reportwrong on Cabi-

net’s actions

Blount’s Reportdescribed as

lawyer’s brief

Cabinet’s treasonous idea. It is a measure of her con-fidence in the parties that she wrote in her diary thatday that Colburn and the Cabinet were the treason-ous men—she did not question Thurston’s account.

Blount also referred to American members ofthe Committee of Safety as persons of “foreign ori-gin,” and in the case of the Hawaiian-born memberssuch as Castle, Smith and Thurston, “Hawaiians offoreign origin.” Here he was gathering facts for hisAmerican president and he fails to inform him thatmost of these key figures were of American origin,the children of U.S. citizens, or U.S. citizens them-selves.

One of the most influential, concerned andknowledgeable members of the community about thebackground that led to revolt was P.C. Jones, whohad been finance minister in the Cabinet ousted onJanuary 12 by the Queen.

Jones went to see Blount when Blountarrived in Honolulu and told him that as he was inti-mately acquainted with the government during thelast two months of the Monarchy, “I may be able togive some information in regard to our affairs, and Ishall be pleased to give my statement if you desire it.”Blount told Jones he’d be pleased to have an inter-view with him, and would let him know when hewould be ready to do it. In fact, Jones had a statementdrawn up and sworn to, but Blount never contactedhim, “though [I am] informed and believe that otherpersons suggested to Mr. Blount that he secure thestatement.”

Jones’ statement ended up being submitted tothe U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, theMorgan Committee. Unlike many of the statementsaccepted by Blount, and his interviews, every state-ment accepted by the Morgan Committee was sworn

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185

Jones statementsubmitted toMorgan group

Blount didn’tinterview keyCabinet ministers

Blount gavepresidentskewed information

to and every witness testified in public and underoath.

Jones wanted it clear that the roots of theRevolution were not shallow, but dated back to thebeginning of Kala-kaua’s reign. Extracts from his tes-timony follow:

“No King ever had better prospects for apeaceful and successful reign than did Kala-kaua, andif he had made a proper use of his right and powershe might have made his reign a prosperous one.

“He seemed to be wholly corrupt, and hisinfluence was one which had its effect on the mass ofthe native people. Not satisfied with [his ability toappoint] (Ed.—before the Reform Constitution) theHouse of Nobles, he interfered in the election of rep-resentatives by using liquor which was taken fromthe custom-house duty free and promising officesunder his patronage.

“He dismissed more than one cabinet fornothing, and in some instances sent messages totheir houses in the middle of the night asking fortheir resignations, while others whom he assuredhad his implicit confidence he discharged a fewhours after.

“Kala-kaua surrounded himself with men ofbad character and gave himself up to habits unbe-coming a King. He was always in debt and resortedto measures for raising money that were wholly dis-honorable for any man, much more a King.

“The Legislature of 1890 paid up his debtsand issued bonds to the amount of $95,000 to meethis obligations, pledging the income of the Crownlands at the rate of $20,000 a year to meet thesebonds, but when his sister came to the throne sheimmediately repudiated the pledge given by herbrother, and now this debt has to be born by the


186

Kala-kauaalways in debt

King was corrupt

State, only $5,000 being received on this account.“When he died the country had much hope

for the better state of things from his sisterLili‘uokalani [but] she evidently had not profited bythe Revolution of 1887 and thought herself to be suf-ficiently strong to get back the power taken from herbrother . . . . She was more cunning, more deter-mined, and no coward as he had been.”

Jones felt the time for him to break with theQueen had come. In his affidavit, he told the MorganCommittee: “I was fully convinced that if ever it wasnecessary to take a decided stand for representativeand responsible government it was at this time.While the Queen had professed to take back all shehad said and done about a new constitution I felt itwas only to gain time to make better preparations tocarry out her designs and . . . I felt it was my duty . .. to do what I could to assist in putting down a formof government that was oppressive and corrupt . . . .”

Jones detailed in his affidavit the bribery andother tactics of the Queen and her cohorts in bring-ing about passage of the lottery and opium bills,removing the Jones-Wilcox Cabinet from office andappointing a new group of four to replace them. Thenew Cabinet members, all opposed politically to theJones-Wilcox Cabinet, were expected to support theQueen in her efforts to gain new powers. They didback her in her successful efforts to pass the lotteryand opium bills, but after much thinking and discus-sion, they decided to oppose her attempt to promul-gate a new Constitution. Inasmuch as they repre-sented various elements of the Hawaiian communityopposed to the Annexation Club membership, it isclear she did not have the full support of her ownpeople in her quest for new powers for the Monar-chy.

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187

Queen didn’thave full support

Jones detailedbribery

Jones saw needfor responsiblegovernment

Blount apparently failed to get this insight.There is no doubt that he made his recommendationsand assessments about the character and intentionsof leaders of the Revolution without talking withthem or listening to their testimony. Committeemembers’ relationships and conversations withStevens would seem to be critical to making a findingof conspiracy, as he charged. His failure to interviewkey individuals is a fairly obvious indication he hadalready decided that Stevens and the Republicanadministration of President Harrison were to bearthe blame. At the very least, he failed to secure infor-mation and evidence that normally would be thebasis for such a finding.

A generally favorable essay on Blount con-tained in a carefully researched 1988 work, The NewSouth Faces the World, by the noted southern histori-an Tennant S. McWilliams, indicates Blountapproached his task with a bias built-in by hisupbringing and political background.

McWilliams, professor and chairman of thehistory department at the University of Alabama,had this to say about Blount and his mission to inves-tigate America’s role in the Hawaiian Revolution:

“One of the first scholars to examine Blount’smission, Julius W. Pratt, suggested that the specialcommissioner—a former Georgia congressman andformer Confederate—acted in a most peculiar way.Instead of reflecting the ‘southern’ racial and eco-nomic support for expansionism characteristic of theloud-talking Senator Morgan, Blount recommendedthat the president condemn Americans involved inthe Hawaiian Revolution and reinstate QueenLili‘uokalani as the rightful royal authority over theIslands. An assessment of the Georgian’s developingcareer, however, and a close analysis of his Hawaiian


188

Blount: con-demnation of

Revolution

Blount failed to get key

information

investigation suggests that Blount and many othersoutherners could hardly have thought any different-ly.” They were simply opposed to expansionism andintervention by the U.S. government in any fashion.

McWilliams agrees it was Blount’s knownsentiment against Annexation—and the support ofthree of his southern friends in Cleveland’s Cabinetwho were similarly disposed—that was perhaps themost important factor in his selection for the mis-sion. He did not disappoint, though as McWilliamsinsightfully points out, his report apparently wenttoo far even for Cleveland.

Writes McWilliams: “Blount’s document did not find overwhelm-

ing applause in Washington, D.C., nor in many otherplaces in America. For the ‘paramount’ special com-missioner had done more than nail a conspiracy onthe Republican foreign policy of 1893. He had docu-mented the case against any American administra-tion . . . ever annexing Hawai‘i. This was not neces-sarily what Cleveland had had in mind.”

When credibility of the Morgan Report isweighed, its supporters are influenced favorably bythe more than 800 pages packed with testimony andinformation from more than 50 witnesses: Hawaiianhistorians, leaders of the Revolution and leaders ofthe military forces landed by the United States, mostof whom testified in line with the findings of thecommittee. Supporters feel the sworn testimony ofthat many persons before a committee composed ofinterrogators from both sides of the question shouldbe given more weight than the findings of a singleindividual with a known bias.

The Morgan Report has been criticizedbecause the chairman asked leading questions attimes, as the record shows, and the report did not

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189

Credibility ofMorgan Reportenhanced by800 pages ofinformation

Blount went toofar, even forCleveland

receive the unanimous agreement of all nine com-mittee members. In testimony at the Morgan hear-ings, Blount, too, was accused of asking leading ques-tions. But because Blount’s questioning was done insecret, no one knows the extent of such questioningpractices. We know from other testimony that he didnot seek the opinions of those in favor of Annexa-tion, or with American connections, or involved inthe leadership of the Revolution. We do not know forsure what testimony he received but did not includein his report nor even what questions he asked.There is no explanation either as to why he excludedwitnesses whose commitments to Annexation werewell known or who had firsthand knowledge of deci-sions made by the Revolutionists or causes for theRevolution itself.

He interviewed one former member of therevolutionary military force, Fred W. Wundenberg,who told Blount that without the support of U.S.troops the Revolution would not have been success-ful. Blount accepted this as fact without interviewinganyone on the other side. Wundenberg, a part-Hawaiian, resigned from the revolutionary force afew days after the Queen’s surrender and when histestimony to Blount became known in December, hewas branded a liar and a traitor.48 The Star labeledhim a “perjured and lottery-besmirched” Royalistspy. He was fired from his position as clerk of theSupreme Court after a public outcry. The Star said hehad withdrawn from the revolutionary movementbecause he was disgruntled at not being appointedmarshal. Blount treated him as though he had beenin the high command of the revolutionary force andmade no mention of his having been a turncoat.

The Blount Report had one signature, hisown. The Morgan Report was the signed opinion of


190

Wundenbergcalled perjurer

Valuable wit-nesses excluded

nine senators, with two minority reports split alongparty lines and covering disagreements on only a fewpoints, detailed later in this book.

Witness after witness at the Morgan hearingtestified about faults in the Blount Report. Either hehad failed to talk with them or he disregarded factsthey had presented to him. In the case of CristerBolte, a German citizen and one of the two membersof the Committee of Safety whom Blount did talk to,Blount’s questions were challenged as leading orunfair. As Bolte stated, “. . . during this interview, onseveral occasions, [I] objected to the methodemployed by said Blount, and remonstrated with himthat he did not put his questions fairly. . . . SaidBlount asked his questions in a very leading form,and . . . on several occasions when [I] attempted tomore fully express his meaning, said Blount wouldchange the subject and proceed to other matters.”49

Strangely, as noted above, Blount did notinterview any of the leaders of the Committee ofSafety although all offered to meet with him. Asmentioned earlier, he labeled its three missionary-connected members, Thurston, Smith and Castle,“Hawaiians of foreign origin” without mentioningthe American citizenship of their parents. He madehis charges that they and the other Committee mem-bers had conspired with Stevens without input fromany of them, although all were readily available tohim. In an affidavit filed with the Morgan Commit-tee, the entire Committee of Safety, under oath, stat-ed:

“That we are the persons appointed as acitizens’ committee of safety, at Honolulu, inJanuary last.

“That neither prior to nor after ourappointment as such committee, did we or

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191

Sworn state-ment deniedcomplicity ofStevens

Blount ignoredleaders of Revo-lution

Criticism ofBlount Report

either of us, individually or collectively, haveany agreement or understanding, directly orindirectly, with the U.S. minister, Mr.Stevens, or Captain Wiltse, that they or eitherof them would assist in the overthrow of theMonarchy or the establishment of the Provi-sional Government.

“That at no time, either before or aftersuch appointment, did Mr. Stevens ever rec-ommend or urge us, or either of us, todethrone the Queen or establish a Provision-al Government.

“That at no time, either before or aftersuch appointment, did Mr. Stevens or Cap-tain Wiltse promise us, or either of us, thatthe United States troops would be used toassist in the overthrow of the Queen or theestablishment of the Provisional Govern-ment, and such troops, in fact, were not soused.

“That the forces that rallied to the sup-port of the Provisional Government wereample to overthrow the monarchy and estab-lish the Provisional Government, and suchaction would have been taken by the Com-mittee regardless of the presence or absenceof the American troops.

“That the reason of the confidence ofthe committee in its ability to accomplishits object was that the same men whowere supporting the movement had car-ried through a peaceful revolution in1887 and suppressed an armed uprisingin 1889. The armed supporters of themovement were not a disorganized body,as has been represented, but were com-posed largely of the volunteer white mili-tia which was in existence and formed


192

Supporters ofmovementorganized

Troops not usedin overthrow

the effective strength in the conflicts of1887 and 1889 (Ed.-emphasis added), andwhich, although disbanded by the RoyalistGovernment in 1890, had retained its organi-zation, and turned out under the command ofits old officers, constituting a well drilled, dis-ciplined, and officered military force of menof high character and morale, with perfectconfidence in themselves, and holding in con-tempt the courage and ability of those whomthey have twice before overawed and defeat-ed.”

In a separate statement filed with the MorganCommittee, L.A. Thurston, at the time Hawaiianminister to the United States, replied to what hecalled “personal attacks [by Blount in publishedextracts from his report] upon me and those associ-ated with me in the Provisional Government,impugning our veracity, good faith, and courage, andcharging us with fraud and duplicity. I deem it prop-er, therefore, to make a personal reply to suchcharges, confining myself to statements of fact . . .

“First, before stating such facts, I desireto call attention to Mr. Blount’s method ofconstructing his report. Although he, in sev-eral places, states that I was the leader of therevolutionary movement, he has never askedme a question concerning the same, nor givenme opportunity to make any statement,although I have at all times been ready andwilling to do so. The same is true of a largenumber of other men who took a leading partin the movement of January last.

“In the second place, his evidence con-sists exclusively of prepared affidavits or ofanswers to leading questions put by himself,at private interviews, no one else being pres-

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193

Blount offeredno cross-exam-ination

Thurston tookissue withBlount

“Revolutionistsmen of highcharacter andmorale”

ent but the stenographer. In no instance hasthere been any cross-examination of witness-es or opportunity given to contradict orexplain evidence given or present other evi-dence.”

Blount also came in for some harsh wordsfrom Sanford B. Dole, president of the Hawaiian gov-ernment at the time. Dole formulated a stingingindictment of American diplomacy in his January 11,1894, letter to Blount’s successor, Minister Willis,who had been sent under secret orders to Hawai‘i todemand its government turn the nation back to theMonarchy. In the letter, he had these comments tomake about Blount:

“Upon the arrival of Mr. Blount in thecountry he did not communicate or in anymanner intimate to the Hawaiian Govern-ment that his investigations were to be direct-ed toward the right of existence of the Gov-ernment to whom he was accredited. All ofhis investigations and examinations were pri-vate, and such persons only were examined ashe chose to call.

“An examination of his report since pub-lished, shows that there are statements byapproximately sixty Royalists and twentysupporters of the Provisional Government.

“That he obtained no statement from thefour members of the Cabinet voted out beforethe revolutionary attempt of the Queen,although he has obtained exhaustive state-ments from their Royal successors.

“That he has examined only two of thethirteen members of the Committee of Safety,one of the original four members of the Exec-utive Council of the Provisional Government,three of the original fourteen members of the


194

Dole had harshwords for

Blount

Advisory Council, two of the eight speakerswho addressed the mass meeting called by theCommittee of Safety on the day prior to theestablishment of the Provisional Govern-ment, and but one of the eight field and staffofficers and none of the eleven line officers incommand of the forces of the ProvisionalGovernment, and none of the five commis-sioners sent to Washington, although all ofsuch men . . . were eye witnesses and activeparticipants in the overthrow . . . and all [are]men of character and standing in the commu-nity, while a number of those examined onthe royalist side are irresponsible characters.

“Although Mr. Blount’s Report is officialin character, vitally affects this Government,is distinctly hostile to it in tone and conclu-sions, no request to this Government forexplanation of the charges therein made wasreceived, nor opportunity to reply thereto, ornotice of its contents given prior to its publi-cation.”

The Hawaiian government read extracts ofthe report in American papers, dated November 20,1893, but did not receive a copy of the report untilDecember 22, “only after several applications there-for to the State Department,” Dole wrote.

Thurston’s statement to Morgan continued:“A brief examination of the published

portions of the [Blount] report shows numer-ous incorrect statements. I shall endeavor forthe present, however, to answer the moresalient points only. “First, Mr. Blount chargesthat the American troops were landed undera prearranged agreement with the committeeof safety that they should so land and assist inthe overthrow of the Queen. In reply I hereby

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195

Thurston dis-puted points ofBlount Report

ProvisionalGovernment notasked to comment

Blount ignoredeyewitnesses

state that at no time did Mr. Stevens or Cap-tain Wiltse assure me or the committee ofsafety, or any subcommittee thereof, that theUnited States troops would assist in over-throwing the Queen or establishing the Provi-sional Government; and as a matter of fact,they did not so assist.”

Thurston went on to say there were witness-es “in overwhelming number” who could testify insupport of that statement, “but Mr. Blount has ren-dered it unnecessary to do so.” Thurston cites thetestimony of Wundenburg and Damon in the BlountReport as proving his point. Neither gave testimonydirectly stating that Stevens had said he would sup-port the Revolutionists. Their testimony inferredthat Stevens’ avowed support of Annexation couldlead to an assumption he would have been support-ive of the Revolutionists had fighting broken out.

“Second,” Thurston continued, “Mr. Blountcharges that the Queen had ample military force withwhich to have met the committee, and but for thesupport of the United States representatives andtroops the establishment of the Provisional Govern-ment would have been impossible.”

Thurston said the U.S. troops were not essen-tial and did not assist in the overthrow. “The resultof the movement would have been eventually thesame if there had not been a marine within a thou-sand miles of Honolulu.” (Incidentally, the term“marine” has been used loosely by all sides inaccounts of the Revolution. In fact, the marine mem-bers of the U.S. force were divided equally betweenthe American legation and the American consulate,nowhere near the palace grounds. Bluejackets werethe troops positioned near the palace, albeit across


196

U.S. troops notessential

No witnessessaid Stevens

would supportRevolutionists

the street and out of sight.)Thurston cited this evidence the U.S. troops

were not necessary:“1. The troops did not land till Monday

night, the 16th of January, after the revolu-tion had been in full progress since the after-noon of Saturday, the 14th, during whichtime the committee of safety was openlyorganizing for the avowed purpose of over-throwing the Queen.” (Ed.—Stevens andCaptain Wiltse and the ship Boston were inHilo for the previous ten days, returning toHonolulu at noon on the 14th with obviouslyno up-to-the-minute knowledge of develop-ments until they reached Honolulu Harbor,there being no inter-island phones.)

“2. There was absolutely no attempt atconcealment from the Government of theobjects and intentions of the committee.

“3. The Queen, her cabinet, and theirsupporters were utterly demoralized, suspi-cious of one another, and devoid of leader-ship.”

As evidence that there was no concealmentfrom the government of the intentions of the Com-mittee, Thurston stated:

“On the afternoon of Saturday, the 14th,in reply to the request of the Queen’s cabinetfor advice as to what they had better do, theQueen then still insisting upon the proclama-tion of the constitution and supporting it byforce, I advised them to declare the Queen inrevolution and the throne vacant, and at theirrequest and at the expressed approval of twoof them and the tacit assent of the other two,then and there drew up a form of proclama-tion to that effect.

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197

Queen’s minis-ters well awareof revolt plans

No attempt atconcealment byCommittee

Revolution infull progressbefore Stevensgot back

“At half past 4 in the afternoon of Satur-day, the 14th, at a meeting of about 200 citi-zens at the office of W.O. Smith, the Queenwas denounced in the strongest terms, armedresistance and a counter-revolution wereopenly advocated, and the Queen’s ministerof the interior, John Colburn, addressed themeeting, asking [citizens’] armed supportagainst the Queen. The Queen’s attorneygeneral, Mr. Peterson, and her personal attor-ney, Paul Neumann, were both present takingpart in the meeting. The committee of safetywas publicly then and there named and pro-ceeded forthwith to organize.

“At 6 o’clock on Sunday morning, the15th, I told Mr. Peterson and Mr. Colburn,two members of the Queen’s cabinet, that thecommittee intended to depose the Queen andestablish a provisional government; that ifthey would take charge of the movement, welland good, otherwise the committee intendedto take action on its own account. They askedfor twenty-four hours in which to considerthe matter. I declined to wait, stating to themthat the committee intended to proceed forth-with.

“The committee met openly that morn-ing at 10 o’clock, with the full knowledge ofthe Government of the place of its meeting. Itremained in session during the greater part ofthe day, while several [of the Queen’s] policekept watch of the building from the street.

“On Monday morning at 9 o’clock thecommittee, without attempt at concealment,met in my office, within 200 feet of the policestation, Marshal Wilson’s headquarters,where the entire police force was stationed.While the meeting was in progress Wilson


198

Committee metopenly, Queen’spolice watched

Queen’s menrequested 24 hours

came to the office and asked to speak to meprivately, and we went into an adjoiningroom.”

Thurston stated Wilson wanted the Revolu-tion stopped and said he could control the Queen.Thurston told him it was too late, and they weregoing to “settle it now, once and for all.”

“Wilson left the office. He has since stat-ed that he immediately reported to the cabi-net and advised arresting the committee, butthe cabinet was afraid and refused to allow it.

“At 2 o’clock on the afternoon of Mon-day, the 16th, a mass meeting of 3,000unarmed men was held within a block of thepalace. The meeting was addressed by a num-ber of speakers, all denouncing the Queen.The meeting, with tremendous cheering andenthusiasm, unanimously adopted resolu-tions declaring the Queen to be in revolution,and authorizing the committee to proceed todo whatever was necessary . . . . While thismeeting was in progress, another was beingheld by the Royalists in the streets, within ablock of the armory, which adopted resolu-tions in support of the Queen.

“Never in the history of Hawai‘i hasthere been such a tense condition of mind ora more imminent expectation of bloodshedand conflict . . . . Mr. Blount’s statement thatthe community was at peace and quiet isgrossly inaccurate. It was at this juncture, twohours after the adjournment of the abovemeetings, that Captain Wiltse and Mr.Stevens, acting upon their own responsibilityand discretion, and irrespective of the requestor actions of the Committee, landed thetroops, which were distributed in three parts

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199

Community not at peace

Mass meetingdeclared Queento be in revolt

Wilson tried tostop revolt

of the city, instead of being massed at onepoint, as stated by Mr. Blount.”

Thurston’s statement goes on to detail effortsof the Queen’s Cabinet to gain support from the com-munity to overthrow the Queen themselves, the sign-ing of a petition of support of their proposal by morethan 80 persons at the meeting in Smith’s office, anddetails of the previous two revolutions, in 1887 and1889.

A sworn statement by William R. Castle, anattorney, former legislator and a member of the Com-mittee of Safety, pins down to Monday morning theCommittee’s first request to Minister Stevens for thelanding of troops. He said it was not thought of untilthat morning’s meeting of the committee when dis-cussions began about possible rioting, fires andthreats to American lives and property.

50

“The request was therefore made to Min-ister Stevens for exactly that kind of protec-tion. It was put in writing, signed by theentire Committee of Safety, and taken to Min-ister Stevens by Mr. Thurston and myselfafter the mass meeting . . . . The troops land-ed about 5 o’clock . . . . Monday night was oneof suspense and terror throughout the entirecommunity. A riotous uprising of the mobelement was feared at any moment; no confi-dence was felt in the ability or disposition ofthe Queen’s Government to cope with thesame.

“It is my belief, which I think is sharedby nearly every one, that the mere presence ofUnited States troops exercised a restraininginfluence . . .

“At this point I desire to state that if therehad been any plan or conspiracy by which theUnited States troops were to land and assist


200

Riot was feared

Troops dis-cussed as safety

measure

the Revolutionists in overturning the Gov-ernment, I should most certainly have knownit. There was no such plan, and I utterly repu-diate the attempt to impugn the character andactions of both Minister Stevens and CaptainWiltse, and state here that it seemed to me atthe time, and I believe now, that they wouldhave been perfectly justified in giving aquicker and more open support to the Provi-sional Government than was finally accorded. . . and that they still would have been with-in the requirements of international lawupon that subject.”

One can sense the frustration in the state-ments of these three leaders of the Revolution, learn-ing belatedly of Blount’s misstatements, knowingthat Cleveland had depended on the Blount Reportfor his own message to Congress and charges againstthe Revolutionists. They believed it was uncon-scionable for Blount not to give a balanced report,particularly on the following key points:

1. He relied totally on Admiral Skerrett forthe damaging and erroneous viewpoint that thetroops were placed at Arion Hall so as to block theQueen’s possible retaliation, thus implying deliberateUnited States intentions to defeat her. Skerrett wasnot even there. Lieutenant Young and Captain Wiltsewere, and Blount did not seek their statements,which would have been a complete refutation of theSkerrett opinion. Admiral Skerrett, in his May 23,1893, letter that Blount included with his report, toldBlount that the troops in that Arion Hall locationwere “distantly removed from the business portionof the town, and generally far away from the UnitedStates legation and consulate-general, as well asbeing distant from the houses and residences of Unit-

The Investigators

201

Skerrett noteven there

Leaders foundBlount uncon-scionable

Castle defendedStevens

ed States citizens.” The admiral was mistaken: theycould hardly have been closer to downtown—a scanttwo to three blocks away. There were sixteenmarines at the legation and also the consulate. Resi-dential Honolulu surrounded all three locations asshown on a map in the Morgan Report.

2. Blount, too, said all of the troops weremassed in one spot, which he said was ill-conceivedand by implication, sinister. Actually, as mentionedearlier, sixteen marines were at the U.S. Consulate,another sixteen at the American legation, and thebalance of one hundred thirty troops, no marines, atArion Hall, out of sight of the palace.

3. Blount’s source for his statement that theRevolution would not have succeeded without theU.S. troops was Fred Wundenberg, but he did notmention in his report that Wundenberg was a turn-coat who had resigned from the revolutionary grouptwo days after the event. Nor did he get any state-ments to the contrary, though the entire Committeeof Safety was available and would have testified oth-erwise.

4. He did not mention that the U.S. troops atArion Hall had stacked their arms, stating insteadthat they were armed and ready to face the Queen’stroops.

5. He referred to the Revolution and the Pro-visional Government as operations by “missionarydescendants” without stating that only three of thethirteen members of the Committee fit that descrip-tion and only two of the leaders of the government,Dole and Smith.

6. In perhaps the worst exaggeration of all,Blount included fifteen affidavits from the Queen’sCabinet, her officers, her attorney and other advisersattesting to their version of peaceful conditions in


202

Only three ofthirteen mem-

bers missionarydescendants

Troops out ofsight of palace

the city on January 16, 17 and 18, the placement oftroops, the timing of Stevens’ recognition, etc., butnone from the other side. If there had been nothingbut peace and quiet, as Blount stated, in Honolulu onthose days, Captain Wiltse would not have dis-patched one hundred sixty-two officers and men toprotect American lives and property.

And then there is the later argument that if itwas bad for Stevens to land troops and sympathizewith the Revolution—an act of war, said Cleveland,although there was no documentation regardingeither of these allegations—what was one to make ofthe documented U.S. effort to secretly subvert theProvisional Government, which the United Stateshad recognized? The Committee of Safety had beencompletely open, fully advising the Queen throughher Cabinet of its intentions. Blount, Gresham,Willis and Cleveland tried in secrecy to overturn aforeign government, deliberately lying to Dole in theprocess. Cleveland’s message to Congress wascloaked in noble sentiments; the subversion was notmentioned until the Morgan hearings.

Chairman Morgan and the other four Democ-rats, as well as the four Republicans, all agreed onone key point: They disagreed completely withBlount’s “finding” that U.S. troops were part of aconspiracy to overthrow the Queen. The committeeunanimously exonerated the officers of the forceslanded by the United States. All members supportedthe finding regarding those officers, enunciated bythe chairman: “There was no irregularity or want ofauthority to place the troops on shore.” The reportadded: “In this view of the facts, there is no necessi-ty for inquiring whether Minister Stevens or CaptainWiltse [commander of the troops] in arranging forthe landing of the troops, had any purpose either to

The Investigators

203

Morgan Reportexonerated U.S. officers

Cleveland et alsecretly tried tooverturn government

aid the popular movement against the Queen thatwas then taking a definite and decisive shape, or topromote the Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands tothe United States.

“But justice to these gentlemen requires thatwe should say that the troops from the Boston werenot sent into Honolulu for any other purpose thanthat set forth fully and fairly in the following orderfrom Captain Wiltse to the officer in command of thedetachment:

“‘...You will take command of the battalionand land in Honolulu for the purpose of protectingour legation, consulate, and the lives and property ofAmerican citizens, and to assist in preserving publicorder...’”

Blount, as indicated earlier, without listeningto testimony from the officers involved and basedmainly on the comments of another officer not pres-ent at the time, decided that the troops had taken upa position that was not in keeping with the aboveorder; in other words, he felt they had taken a posi-tion near the palace that was not just for the preser-vation of peace and order. Blount’s Report, silent ontroops in other locations, indicates he may not haverealized they had taken three positions that werecentral to American interests.

The Republicans agreed with the chairmanthat Stevens was not to be blamed. They went evenfurther. They felt Blount, Willis and Cleveland hadall acted without authority and unwisely.

Their minority report stated:“The question of the rightfulness of the

revolution, of the lawfulness of the means bywhich the deposition and abdication of theQueen were effected, and the right of theProvisional Government to exist and to con-


204

Republicansblamed Blount,

not Stevens

Blount decidedwithout officers’

testimony

tinue to exist was conclusively settled, as thereport so forcibly states, against the Queenand in favor of the Provisional Government,by the act of the administration of PresidentHarrison recognizing such Provisional Gov-ernment, by the negotiation by that adminis-tration with such Provisional Government ofa treaty of annexation to the United States; byaccrediting diplomatic representation by suchadministration and by the present adminis-tration to such Provisional Government;therefore, it incontrovertibly follows that thePresident of the United States had no author-ity to attempt to reopen such determinedquestions, and to endeavor by any meanswhatever to overthrow the Provisional Gov-ernment or to restore the monarchy which ithad displaced.”

The four Republicans also signed theirapproval of the rest of the committee report.

The Democrats felt that Stevens had gonebeyond his authority and that “his conduct as thepublic representative of this Government was direct-ly conducive to bringing about the condition ofaffairs which resulted in the overthrow of the Queen,the organization of the Provisional Government, thelanding of the United States troops, and the attempt-ed scheme of annexation . . . and [he is] deserving ofpublic censure.”

Two of the Democrats added that they werein favor of Annexation. All signed their approval ofthe rest of the committee report.

Contrary to criticism by some who belittlethe Morgan Report, the findings of the majority ofthe full report were approved by all nine committeemembers, with a five-to-four finding that the UnitedStates did not play the key role in the overthrow. The

The Investigators

205

Democrats feltStevensdeserved censure

U.S. Presidenthad no authori-ty to overthrowRevolutionists

Blount Report was signed only by its one-man com-mittee-investigator, Blount himself.

Blount’s final statement in his July 31, 1893,letter to Gresham accompanying his report is reveal-ing of his attitude—and not a great compliment tohis prescience:

“The condition of parties in the islands is oneof quiescence . . . . The present Governmentcan only rest on the use of military force, pos-sessed of most of the arms in the islands, witha small white population to draw from tostrengthen it. Ultimately it will fall withoutfail. It may preserve its existence for a year ortwo, but not longer.”

An unbiased consideration of the two reportscannot help but reach the conclusion that at the veryleast, each of the two viewpoints of this matter hassome validity. At the very least also, the question ofU.S. involvement in 1893 is a gray area in the histo-ry of Hawai‘i, though this writer feels the evidenceagainst any conspiracy outweighs the evidence thatthere was one. Subsequent events make clear that bythe time of Annexation, there were no gray areasabout U.S. involvement in Hawai‘i’s affairs.

Despite Blount’s assessment of its strength,the Hawaiian government still stood on its own in1898, with five years as an independent Republic onits record. Its citizens included any and every Hawai-ian who swore allegiance to it. That included manyNative Hawaiians, as we will see in the next chapter,which details the long road to Annexation.


206

Hawaiian government

stood on its own

Blount forecastfell shortof mark

he fifty-year-long road to Annexationbegan formally for Hawai‘i in 1851when Kamehameha III, responding

to concerns of foreign intervention, executed anddelivered to the American minister a provisional ces-sion of Hawai‘i to the United States. At the time, theUnited States was a democratic power with no colo-nial aspirations, barely seventy-five years old.

It was the first of many moves by the smallIsland Kingdom to seek the power of America as pro-tection against the challenges of colonial empires. Inevery case but one, the record shows that NativeHawaiians through their Hawaiian leaders wantedAnnexation to the United States, including the finaleffort by the Republic of Hawai‘i that succeeded in1898. The one case where we cannot be sure therewas Native Hawaiian support for the associationwith America was the unsuccessful effort in 1893 bythe Provisional Government to gain Annexation inthe months following the Revolution. While it mightor might not have been approved in a plebiscite or alegislative vote, it was never tested and remains anunknown.

Three months after the King’s offer of ces-sion early in 1851, on June 21 of that same year a

The Road to AnnexationChapter Eight

207

King offeredcession to U.S.

Native Hawai-ians backedAnnexation

TT

joint resolution by the two houses of the HawaiianLegislature—one appointed, one elected—author-ized the King to place the Kingdom under the pro-tection of a foreign state, and negotiations began forAnnexation to the United States.

By February 1854 things were so far alongthat the U.S. consul in Honolulu, Benjamin FranklinAngell, was able to write an attorney friend, John H.Jones, Jr., in Moscow, New York:

“In my judgment these Pacific Islands will bemade a Territory of the United States in less than ayear; a treaty of cession is now in progress of negoti-ation and I am hurrying it forward with all mypower.”

The first formal treaty to annex Hawai‘i tothe United States was completed by the King andU.S. Minister to Honolulu David L. Gregg later thatyear, under the instructions of U.S. Secretary of StateWilliam L. Marcy. A final draft was agreed upon, butthe King died before it could be signed, and his suc-cessor, Kamehameha IV, withdrew the agreement.

Nineteen years later, in a February 17, 1873,dispatch to U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, theresident U.S. minister in Honolulu, Henry A. Pierce,analyzed thinking of that period:

“Annexation of these islands to the Unit-ed States and a reciprocity treaty between thetwo countries are the two important topics ofconversation and discussion among Govern-ment officials and foreign residents.

“A large majority of the latter favor thefirst-named project, while the former advo-cate reciprocity. All are convinced, however,that some measure should be taken by theHawaiian Government to effectually stay thedecline in prosperity of the country, evi-


208

Formal treatyfor Annexation

completed byKing and U.S.

minister

denced in decreasing exports, revenues, pop-ulation, whale fishery, and an increasing pub-lic debt.”

In a statement in a sense twenty years aheadof its time, Pierce commented further:

“Annexation of the islands to the UnitedStates will never, in my opinion, be adoptedor presented as a Government measure [bythe Monarchy] however much the people as awhole may desire it. The glitter of the crown,love of power, and emoluments of office havetoo many attractions . . . . Should the greaterinterests of the country, however, demandthat annexation shall be attempted, theplanters, merchants and foreigners generallywill induce the people to overthrow the Gov-ernment, establish a Republic, and then askthe United States for admittance into itsUnion.”

The Reciprocity Treaty followed two yearslater, in 1875. While it did not provide for Annexa-tion, the seven-year treaty did provide an exclusivelink between the United States and Hawai‘i. Inreturn for duty-free trade agreements, the Kingdompledged to make no similar deals with any othercountry nor to allow any other foreign governmentto lease, own or develop any ports or portions of theIslands. When the many-times-extended treaty wasto expire in 1887, the “Pearl River Clause” wasadded by Hawai‘i to secure further extensions. Inthat clause, King Kala-kaua granted exclusive rights tothe United States for the use and development ofPearl Harbor, tying the two countries together evenmore tightly.

In 1884, the community seemed to be more

209

ReciprocityTreaty gaveU.S. link

Earlier U.S.minister foresawRevolution


in favor of a strong, independent Kingdom thanAnnexation, as summarized in an editorial in theBulletin by its then-editor, Lorrin A. Thurston. In aneditorial on August 27, 1884, Thurston wrote:

“For many years there have been a fewresidents here who have desired the annexa-tion of these Islands to the United States . . . .some believing that under that great Govern-ment the permanent interests of the islandswould be best secured; others that moremoney could thus be made . . . . But themajority of intelligent foreigners, and espe-cially those born here of foreign parents, havecontended for the independence of the Gov-ernment. They have believed it to be far morefor the interests of the native race that theyshould maintain an independent Govern-ment and a distinctive national existence . . .. It is well known that the United States Gov-ernment does not desire the annexation ofthese Islands; the accession of foreign territo-ry is contrary to its policy; but it is certainthat Government will not permit its interestshere to be sacrificed, nor permit any otherforeign Government to control here. Whenthese Islands cease to be self-governing theUnited States Government will take posses-sion.”

Interestingly, Kuykendall notes that theNative Hawaiians, with a few exceptions, wereknown to have been strongly opposed to Annexa-tion. But he points out that Lili‘uokalani’s attorney,Paul Neumann, during a visit to San Francisco inNovember 1889, was quoted in the San FranciscoExaminer as saying, “A great many natives wantannexation to the United States, and it is only their


210

Queen’s attor-ney said manynatives desired

Annexation

In ’84 Thurstonfavored King-

dom overAnnexation

innate loyalty to the King that represses the feeling.”Events and statements after the Revolution

in 1893 show continued wide-ranging feelings with-in the Island community supporting abolition of theMonarchy and a move toward unity with the UnitedStates. Native Hawaiians and Caucasians were listedon both sides of the issue. The side supporting theQueen and the other side supporting the movetoward Annexation each had Hawaiian and Cau-casian supporters. Creation of a constitutional formof government in the mid-19th Century had softenedthe absolute power of the monarch and given Hawai-ians the ability to express their personal beliefs asindividuals. They expressed this variety of individualviews as members of the Legislature or through oneor another of the political parties and newspapersthat existed in the Hawaiian community. Not allNative Hawaiians were found to be supporters of anyparticular monarch or even the concept of monarchyitself. Moreover, as the century was drawing to aclose, not all were opposed to Annexation.51 As indi-cated earlier, whenever a proposal for Annexation orties with the United States came before the Hawai‘iLegislature, it was approved wholeheartedly, includ-ing in 1897, with no dissension from Native Hawai-ian members.

By the 1890s, the Queen’s party was certain-ly the largest and the strongest of the Hawaiian polit-ical groups, and according to reports of the time, shekept a very firm grip on her followers. After the Rev-olution, she and her closest supporters were accusedby members of the Liberal Party, which maintained arunning criticism of her during the early 1890s, ofkeeping a “powerful system of terrorism” over herformer subjects, threatening them with speedy pun-ishment if they were disloyal to her cause of rein-

211

Queen report-edly had firmgrip on her fol-lowers

ConstititionalMonarchyallowed subjectsto express opposition


statement. Her inner circle of supporters, as might beexpected, deplored loss of the Monarchy and opposedAnnexation as a concept, though many, including theex-Queen, found some good in being connected tothe United States once it happened.

Lili‘uokalani, for example, said in her diaryon Sunday, September 2, 1900 (in the context ofcommenting on her overthrow, explaining why shehad consented to being serenaded by the “old RoyalHawaiian Band, now the Government-led band”, onthe occasion of her 62nd birthday):

“Tho’ for a moment [the overthrow] cost mea pang of pain for my people it was onlymomentary, for the present has a hope for thefuture of my people.”

A long-time political supporter and militarycommander of Kala-kaua’s, V.V. Ashford, whose fam-ily opposed the Revolution and played an active rolein the unsuccessful counter-revolution, was anotherwho withdrew his support of the Monarchy. Ashfordwas a complicated political figure, one of the fewRoyalists who was for Annexation, as he said, “bothfrom a Hawaiian and American standpoint” and inthe days “when [being for] annexation meant trea-son.”52 He was quoted in newspapers of the day assaying that the situation regarding the royalty hadbecome so bad by the time of Lili‘uokalani’s assump-tion of the throne in 1891 that she didn’t get the tra-ditional welcome from Hawaiians as she made herinitial tour about the Islands. Her retainers, he said,couldn’t get enough supplies of food from the Hawai-ian people and “had to get it from the whites.”

Ashford was one of the founders of the HuiHawai‘i Aloha‘a-ina (Hawaiian Patriotic League)formed in March 1892 by him and several hundred


212

Military com-mander with-

drew support forMonarchy

Queen sawsome good inU.S. relation-

ship

disgruntled Native Hawaiians to overthrow theQueen and seek Annexation to the United States at atime when Dole and others were against it. When herecounted to Blount his view of Hawaiian politicsand the perceived shift away from a belief in theMonarchy, he had this to say:

“Of the most stable class of natives, thefollowing sentiment, related to me by onewho, under Kalakaua, had held in succes-sion all the most distinguished positions inpublic and political life, is a sample of thethen prevailing thought:

“‘I have been trained from childhood tolove and obey my alii; no one would moregladly give his very life for them. But the daysof the alii are past; they are no more; theirsuccessors are unworthy of the name; myaloha for them has withered. I weep forHawaii. The Kingdom must come to an end;and who can say what will be best for ourcountry—annexation or a republic.’”

Ashford was a Canadian who had become avoluble Hawaiian subject. He wrapped up his state-ment to Blount with the ringing statement: “. . .monarchy is now dead, and Hawai‘i knocks foradmission to America’s door. Give us not an oli-garchy. Give us democratic government. Give us agovernment of the people, for the people, and by thepeople.”

There were many Native Hawaiians at thetime of the Revolution who supported the movetoward more democratic government, including J.E.Bush, editor of the Hawaiian language newspaper,Ka Leo o Ka La-hui.

Historian William De Witt Alexander, a mis-sionary son testifying under oath before the Morgan

213

“Give us demo-cratic govern-ment”

“Kingdom mustcome to an end”

Ashford saw ashift in Hawai-ians’ view ofMonarchy


Committee in 1894, spoke to the great dissatisfactionamong Native Hawaiians, first with Kala-kaua andthen Lili‘uokalani:

“The most intelligent natives, those of thebest character, independence of character, were onthe side of the Provisional Government. I think two-thirds of the native preachers and those members ofthe legislature who had independence enough to voteagainst the lottery bill, and many of those of whom Iconsider the best natives, are on that side. It requireda good deal of moral courage on their part, becausethey were called names, traitors, by their fellow-countrymen, and were threatened in case the Queencame back that it would go hard with them . . . thatelement of the natives has been ignored by somewriters on the subject.”

Indeed, that element continues to be ignoredby most writers on the subject more than 100 yearslater. Also pretty much ignored today are Hawaiianswho do not support sovereignty but keep quietbecause it is politically incorrect for them to speakout against it.

It would be easy to dismiss Alexander’s com-ments, reading them 100 years later, because heappears to take a superior tone toward the “natives.”But Alexander and other like-minded people of theday took a morally superior view also of the “lowerclass of whites” who came to Hawai‘i and lived a“debauched life” of sex, drinking and gambling. Heand his friends among the missionary element meas-ured people by religious, moral and ethical standards,not along racial lines. Once a person became a Chris-tian, he was accepted as a friend and associateregardless of race.

The Monarchy was in trouble with manythoughtful members of the community when King


214

Politically incor-rect opinions

kept quiet

Hawaiians dis-satisfied with

Kala-kaua andLili‘uokalani

Kala-kaua began the abuses of power that led to impo-sition of the Reform Constitution in 1887. It was amove that would take the Hawaiian Monarchy alongthe path of British royalty, ironically much admiredby Kala-kaua as well as later members of the Kame-hameha dynasty. Over time, British monarchs havebeen divested of all but ceremonial duties, with noreal ruling powers remaining. There are parallelsworldwide. Monarchies that survived into the 20thCentury were pretty much guided by constitutionalmandates and hobbled by laws that forced them to bemore democratic.

It is interesting that while the ways andlifestyles of British monarchs were much admired byKala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani as well as the last twomembers of the Kamehameha dynasty, the Hawaiianmonarchs could not accept the kinds of restrictionson their power that British monarchs had learned toaccept as necessary for survival of their way of life.

If Kala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani had been will-ing to live within such restrictions for the commongood, many residents of Hawai‘i would have pre-ferred, as did men like Charles Reed Bishop, to main-tain the Monarchy.53

Hawai‘i differed from other 19th-Centurycountries mostly because the conflict betweenMonarchy and democracy here involved mixtures ofraces. Caucasians, in the eyes of international poli-tics of the time, were much less willing to believe inthe divine right of kings if they weren’t already sub-jects of a benign monarchy, such as Britain. Themajority of Hawai‘i’s Caucasians, Americans, werenot enamored of the idea of monarchical rule. Japan-ese immigrants, who in the late 19th Century proba-bly were more accepting of the dictatorial powers of

215

Rejection ofdivine right

Monarchy need-ed to acceptchange

Constitutionalmonarchies cansurvive


a strong monarchy, were viewed as threatening by allof the foreign national groups in the Islands, as wellas by the Native Hawaiians.

Kala-kaua’s capricious acts and the resultantdisruptions to business and government caused con-cern among people of all races. His reputation forimmorality, the rumors of orgies, the dealings withmen like Spreckels and Gibson that called forbailouts from the Legislature angered more than justhis political opponents.

While the 1852 and 1864 Constitutionsauthorized the ruling monarch to appoint and firehis Cabinets at will, there had been a nice workingbalance between the King and his Cabinet, whichunder both of those Constitutions was required toapprove of actions of the King. Kala-kaua, with hisstrong ego and desire to dominate, broke this pattern.He would change Cabinets on whim, sometimes inthe middle of the night. Both the Reform Constitu-tion and a ruling from the Hawai‘i Supreme Courtfinally brought this practice to a halt by requiring leg-islative approval of a Cabinet’s dismissal. Interesting-ly, he had sought the ruling from a Supreme Court hehimself had appointed.

Within the Native Hawaiian political com-munity, there were leaders who early on thought hissuccessor, Lili‘uokalani, was heading in the wrongdirection with her efforts to expand the powers ofthe Monarchy and oppose Annexation.

One of the most outspoken was J.L. Kaulu-kou, who was speaker of the House of Representa-tives for the Republic at the time of Annexation butwho once had been a strong Royalist in favor withboth Kala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani. He is credited withgiving her the description “‘onipa‘a”—“steadfast”—which she adopted as her personal motto and which


216

King changedCabinets on

whims

Residents con-cerned by King’s

behavior

The Investigation

President Cleveland’s special commissioner, James Blount, right, poses with his wife andsecretary, Ellis Mills, who later replaced John Stevens as U.S. minister to Hawai‘i.

Ali‘io-lani Hale, the government building where Revolutionists read proclamation deposingLili‘uokalani.

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The Cabinet of the Republic

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Left to right, S.M. Damon; J.A. King; S.B. Dole;H.E. Cooper; B.L. Marx, secretary; W.O. Smith.

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Photo: © The Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society

The Palace

‘Iolani Palace as it appeared in 1893, viewed from atop Ali‘io-lani Hale, the governmentbuilding, 200 yards away, across King Street.

U.S. troops marched along King Street, dipped their colors to the Queen at the palace,stopped briefly at Mrs. Hopper’s house, right, to see if a campsite had been located.

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The Annexation

Dole transfers Hawai‘i to the United States on August 12, 1898.

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These forty men wrote the Constitution of the Republic in 1894, setting Annexation as a goal.

The Constitutional Convention, 1894

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Photo: © The Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society

Prince Ku-hio- Kalaniana‘ole,wearing his campaign hatin this photo, served theTerritory of Hawai‘i in theU.S. Congress. He and allother Native Hawaiiansgained the right to vote asthe American Flag rose onAnnexation Day, picturedbelow, and dominated thegovernment until WWII.

From Territory to Statehood

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is widely used today by sovereignty activists. Kaulu-kou, in his then-capacity as marshal of the Kingdom,presented the motto idea to her “on behalf of thewhole nation” at her 48th birthday party in 1886.

“I regard Annexation,” he told the San Fran-cisco Chronicle in an interview published July 28,1898, “as the best thing that could happen forHawai‘i, both for the native and foreign population.I have advocated it ever since it became an issue inpractical politics and I rejoice heartily that it hascome. For years I have looked upon it as being, if notinevitable, at least as the only way in which the bestinterests of Hawai‘i could be protected andadvanced.”

At the time, Kaulukou was a twenty-year vet-eran of Hawaiian public life. He represented a dis-trict in Windward O‘ahu that was heavily dominatedby Native Hawaiian voters and in which he had ear-lier served as a district judge, appointed by Kala-kauain 1877. He served until 1884, one of many appoint-ments he was to receive from the King. He was firstelected to the House from the district in 1880 andagain in 1882.

In 1884 he was appointed sheriff of theIsland of Hawai‘i, and while in that office wasappointed tax assessor for the district of Hilo. In1886 he was elected to the House from Hilo andwhile in the House was appointed postmaster gener-al by the King. A few months later the King appoint-ed him marshal of the Kingdom and for a brief peri-od later, attorney general.

While serving as marshal it fell to him to pro-claim the 1887 Reform Constitution, which by cus-tom required the marshal to ride through the streets.Stories of the day report he rode a “superb whitehorse” as he promulgated the new order.

217

Veteran ofpublic life

Kaulukou sawU.S. tie bestfor Islands


Kaulukou resigned as marshal in 1888 to pur-sue the practice of law on O‘ahu. In 1890 and againin 1892, he ran for the House from his originalKo‘olau Poko district and was defeated both times.

He told the Chronicle he first began to swingtoward Annexation after the 1890 defeat and hisfeelings intensified during the next campaign.

“The Queen and some of her partisanswere then striving for an entirely new Con-stitution. . . . The platform upon which Iwent before the people was that an attempt toreplace the then Constitution with an entire-ly new instrument was, in the condition ofaffairs that existed at that time, dangerousboth to the Queen and to the Native Hawai-ians.

“I urged that the better way was to securethe changes that seemed desirable by amend-ment (Ed.—as provided in the Constitutionitself). I told the people that the country wasin no mood to submit to the Queen’s notionsof unlimited power, and that if the effort toentirely overthrow the constitution andreplace it with a new one were persisted in,there would be an end of monarchy.

“I said that the interests of the nativesand of the foreign residents were identical;that both wanted a stable, efficient and well-administered government, and that the wayto this lay through representative govern-ment, and not through unlimited monarchy.

“I said that what the Hawaiians neededwas better schools, better public improve-ments and more of them, an equitable assess-ment of taxes and an honest administrationof the revenues for public purposes, and notmore power in the monarchy and more . . .display and ostentation in the [royal] court.”


218

Queen’s notionsof unlimited

power wouldend Monarchy

Kaulukou leanedtoward Annexa-tion after 1890

defeat

Kaulukou, representative of other Hawaiianswho agreed with his views, did not take part in theoverthrow but did support the Provisional Govern-ment when it was established.

“With the establishment of the Provi-sional Government and [subsequently] theRepublic, I advised my people to take the oathof allegiance, to take part in public affairs andto join with the haole, among whom weremany of their best friends and very many oftheir best advisers, in securing good govern-ment and that advance in material and intel-lectual prosperity which our race pride madeus believe was within our power . . .”

He noted in the Chronicle article that the“achievements of some of our people have demon-strated that it is so.”

In Annexation, he believed he saw “. . . sta-bility of government and [a] constant source of influ-ence and association in governmental, social andeducational affairs which would enable the Hawai-ian people to develop and advance to the plane of thehighest civilization.”

He was a strong proponent of education andforesaw

“. . . a university in these Islands givingthe broadest culture anywhere attainable. Iexpect to see the intellectual, the social andthe material life broadened and quickenedthrough our political union with the UnitedStates and the consequent blending of inter-est and thought. We have now become a partof a great people [and] the influence[s] ofthought and progress will reach us moredirectly now than they did before.

“I am not insensible to that feeling of

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Annexation tobring stablegovernment

Kaulukou urgedfriends to takeoath of alle-giance


attachment to the land of one’s birth and thepride in one’s race which is touched, andwhich brings a sentiment of sadness whenthat land ceases to be a nation among thenations, her flag blotted from the firmamentof national ensigns, and the race name ceasesto be synonymous with nationality.

“I, too, am an Hawaiian. These islandsbear in their bosom the bones of my ancestorsto the remotest generation. I am proud of myrace. I am proud of my nationality. But inannexation I see a larger place for my race,and the stream of national life merging in astill larger national life will flow in deeperand wider channels . . .

“I shall, as I have done in the past, urgemy people to take part in public affairs, to cul-tivate both individual and civic virtues, to beAmericans in that enjoyment and exercise ofliberty which is the birthright of an Ameri-can, as it is the greatest guarantee of raceprogress and national perpetuity.”

It is interesting to note that with the acquisi-tion of full voting rights under their new U.S. citi-zenship, Hawaiians kept control of the governmentby dominating the Legislature for more than a gener-ation after Annexation.

Chronicle writers also recorded viewpointsfrom two who deplored the loss of sovereignty. Thetwo were Princess Ka‘iulani and Prince DavidKawananakoa, both relatives of Kala-kaua andLili‘uokalani and named by Lili‘uokalani as next inorder for succession to the throne had the Monarchycontinued.

Ka‘iulani, who died not long after at the ageof 24, was portrayed as particularly distressed at the


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Hawaiians keptcontrol of

governmentafter Annexation

Race not syn-onymous with

nationality

Sadness overloss of

sovereignty

“loss of her country.” She was said to be contemplat-ing a move to England, where she had spent fouryears while in college and whose association shefavored over the association with the United States.

“. . . Lili‘uokalani and I are the last of ourrace,” she said.

“When the news of Annexation came itwas bitterer than death to me. In us the loveof race is very strong—stronger than any-thing else. It was bad enough to lose thethrone, but infinitely worse to have the flaggo down . . .

“I was sorry, of course, that trouble cameto my aunt, but I realized that she had beenobstinate and ill advised. It is so bitterly hardfor a woman. If there had been a single manamong all her advisers to stand by her in herhour of need and to have arrested that Com-mittee of Safety, all this would never havehappened . . .

“I would have liked to be Queen. Had themonarchy ever been restored it would havebeen my aunt or me, of course, and whilethere was an independent government inHawai‘i there was always hope, but noweverything is ended . . .”

On the night of the Revolution, Prince DavidKawananakoa had assisted the new government withthe paperwork involved in gaining recognition fromthe other foreign missions in Honolulu. At the timeof Annexation, however, he told the Chronicle he felthe would “take no part in public affairs. I shall holdmyself a private citizen, seeking to do my duty in mysocial and business relations, and advising no one asto their political duties.”

A great grandson, Quentin Kawananakoa, is

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Kawananakoawithdrew frompublic affairs

Ka‘iulani sawaunt ill-advised,obstinent


back in Island politics, in 1997 a Republican memberof the state House of Representatives and candidatefor the U.S. House. He continues to favor some kindof sovereignty for Hawaiians and no doubt will playa significant role in defining the form it might take.

In the background of all discussions ofAnnexation in the 19th Century was the high proba-bility that other foreign powers would make a grabfor Hawai‘i.

Even as Minister Stevens was bringing U.S.troops ashore at the time of the Revolution, he wasvoicing concern over possible strategic moves byJapan and Britain and urging his Washington superi-ors to place Hawai‘i under the formal protection ofthe United States. When the Provisional Govern-ment was established he immediately expressed con-cerns for its vulnerability to British forces. A Britishwarship was reportedly due to arrive “and the Eng-lish Minister here, thus aided, might try to pressunduly the Provisional Government,” he noted.

“With the Islands under our protection, wethink the English Minister will not attempt to insistthat his government has the right to interfere . . . ,”he added.

William M. Morgan analyzed Stevens’actions in detail in his 1980 Ph.D. dissertation atClaremont Graduate School. He believes this concernover British interference quite likely reflectedStevens’ primary motive in his relationship withHawai‘i. “If Stevens had intended to use bogus fearsof foreign intervention as an excuse for Americanoccupation,” Morgan notes, “he could have estab-lished the protectorate immediately after the Revolu-tion.

“Not until the possibility of foreign interven-tion seemed to increase in the latter part of January,


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Foreign inter-vention possible

U.S. ministerconcerned by

strategic movesby other

countries

however, did Stevens put Hawai‘i under Americanprotection . . .

“To prevent meddling by Japan or Britain,Stevens needed additional naval forces. Currentlyonly the cruiser Boston was in port. Stevens thusasked for ‘the most powerful American ship avail-able’ to bolster the protectorate. Hawai‘i must be pro-tected, he believed, or it would fall [into wronghands],” Morgan writes.

“The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe,”Stevens told Secretary of State John W. Foster in aFeb. 1, 1893, dispatch, “and this is the golden hourfor the United States to pluck it.” He argued thateither Japan or Britain would be delighted to acquirethe Islands if it could be done without antagonizingthe United States.

An editorial in the Honolulu Daily Bulletinon March 21, 1893, put it succinctly: “So long . . . asthe United States maintains any claim to ascendancyin these islands, it is safe to assume that there will beno interference from any other quarter. If that claimshould be withdrawn, it is exceedingly doubtfulwhether Japan would withhold her hand any longerfrom the ‘Hawaiian Pear.’”

Morgan notes further in his thesis that “Onbalance, given Hawai‘i’s value to American securityand the strong possibility that withdrawal of theannexation treaty [by Cleveland] had been mistakenfor abandonment of the islands, the United Stateswas understandably fearful of British or Japaneseintervention.”

Blount’s precipitate action in removingStevens and his failure or unwillingness to appoint asuccessor before his departure in late July 1893 wor-ried the Provisional Government. Listening to theconcerns of its leaders, Blount realized the need for a

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Blount warnedJapanese

If U.S. backedoff, Japan wouldmove in

Stevens fearedother nationswould pluck the“Hawaiian pear”


final precaution against Japanese intrigue. At Dole’srequest, Morgan states, Blount, in the form of a letterto Dole, issued a stern warning to Japan not toattempt anything rash.

The pressure by local and national officials inJapan for Japanese suffrage in Hawai‘i was verymuch before the Provisional Government at thattime. A few months later, Japanese petitioners for-mally protested to their Imperial Government theirinability to vote. Morgan notes they decried the factthat Americans—“the most influential element”—“have control of nearly the whole of the Islands. . . .We are far from satisfied with this state of affairs.”

The petitioners hoped the Imperial Govern-ment could provide redress, for “we should be domi-nant as we are the most important element in theseIslands.”

Morgan notes that from this petition andother Japanese activities, the white oligarchyinferred that the Japanese intended to obtainthrough the ballot box the political dominance thatthe whites currently enjoyed. Moreover, the petitionoffered an opportunity for the Japanese governmentto involve itself further in Hawaiian politics and itimmediately seized on that opportunity.

In December 1893, the Japanese warshipNaniwa returned to Honolulu Harbor, and in March1894 Japan formally requested that the Constitutionbeing prepared by the Republic of Hawai‘i grantJapanese nationals the same voting rights given toother foreign nationals, particularly Americans.Because Japanese subjects outnumbered Americancitizens of the Republic more than ten to one, allow-ing both groups to vote foretold Japanese control ofthe Legislature at a time before Japanese residents ofHawai‘i had become American citizens, Morgan


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Japan requestedvoting rights

Japanese feltthey should be

dominant

points out. This concerned the Provisional Govern-ment, which had come about because its Revolution-ist founders were looking toward closer ties with theUnited States, not some other foreign power.

Certainly the Republic also realized thatJapanese voting rights probably would precludeAnnexation to the United States.

Congress, meanwhile, also was expressingconcern about foreign intervention. Resolutionswere introduced giving warning to the world againstoutside interference in Hawai‘i.

The Cleveland administration no longercould ignore the situation, and in early 1894 it sentAdmiral John Grimes Walker to Honolulu as com-mander of American naval forces in the Pacific.Walker, like most military officers of the day, hadspoken strongly in favor of Annexation on earlieroccasions. His assignment to Hawai‘i clearly indicat-ed a realization within the Cleveland administration,though it never came out for Annexation itself, thatHawai‘i could not be allowed to fall into foreignhands. Blount’s departure, the withdrawal of war-ships, the removal of the U.S. Flag and surroundingevents had given the world almost an oppositeimpression.

Further, the administration had removed itscommanding military officer in Hawai‘i, AdmiralSkerrett, in October 1893 for alleged Annexationsympathies. This background made the appointmentof Admiral Walker even more striking.

The admiral moved quickly to bolster U.S.forces in Hawai‘i. He had written in an earlier reportof his concern over the small size of the Americanpresence: “We are equaled in strength by the Englishand surpassed by the Japanese . . . . We ought to havethe controlling force here—stronger than that of any

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Walkerappointmentbolstered U.S.strength

Cleveland madeit look like U.S.had no interest

Congresswarned othernations to keephands offHawai‘i


other foreign power and equal to any two of themcombined.”54

Japanese pressures reached their peak aboutthat time with efforts by the Imperial Government togain suffrage for the nearly 20,000 Japanese males inHawai‘i, but at least two events quickly broughtabout a reversal. Dole’s government stood firm inrefusing suffrage and made it clear that its refusal togive Japanese nationals voting rights was permanentby adopting a new Constitution for the Republic thatrestricted voting rights to Hawaiian-born or -natural-ized citizens. Since only the United States and a fewother largely Caucasian nations had naturalizationtreaties with the new Republic, the Japanese wereblocked. There was no block, however, to their abili-ty to negotiate for a naturalization treaty, a diplo-matic point that could be interpreted under interna-tional law as not singling them out for discrimina-tion.

The principal reason for Japanese withdraw-al, however, was Japan’s war with China that beganin 1894. Japanese warships were withdrawn to theirhome ports, and nothing was heard further on Japan-ese government protests over the new Constitution.

The Cleveland administration felt it was safeto back off the Hawaiian issue again and withdrewboth Admiral Walker and American warships, rely-ing on the Japanese withdrawal and an agreement bythe British to replace their minister to Hawai‘i withone less sympathetic to the Royalist cause. In addi-tion, the new Republic was being recognized by everycountry that did business with Hawai‘i and appearedstable and in control, particularly after it put downthe counter-revolution sanctioned by Lili‘uokalani in1895.

For the remainder of the Cleveland adminis-


226

U.S. backed offHawaiian issuewhen Japan left

Japan’s warwith China

ended pressure

tration, it was Congress that continued to expressconcern over Hawai‘i’s strategic importance to theUnited States. In a memorable eight-week debate onforeign policy in 1895 in the wake of the Sino-Japan-ese War, it became clear that all it would take to bringabout Annexation even under a Democratic admin-istration was one more outbreak in the Pacific. Japanhad demonstrated its sea power during the war withChina, and Congress felt the United States could notafford to let down its defenses.

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. during the debatewarned that Japan endangered American control ofHawai‘i.

“Remember that they [the Japanese] are anew people,” he said. (Ed.—Setting aside that theircivilization predated America’s by centuries, theycertainly were in 1895 a new force in internationalaffairs.) “They have just whipped somebody,” hecontinued, “and they are in a state of mind wherethey think they can whip anybody,” he said.

“It is a very dangerous state of mind for anypeople to be in, dangerous for themselves and forothers.

“The surest way to prevent such a war andavoid such a danger at Hawai‘i or upon our PacificCoast is to have a fleet” strong enough to deterattack, he said. He warned that the Japanese must becarefully watched, for they are “our nearest neighboron the Pacific,” with Hawai‘i halfway between.55

The congressional debates went on forweeks, almost every speaker calling for substantialincreases in the U.S. Navy presence to meet pres-sures from both Japan and Great Britain, all of whichhelped the cause of Annexation.

The Republic, meanwhile, was waging a pub-lic relations war to bring about a mood in the United

227

Republic wagedpublic relationswar for U.S.ties

Strong U.S. fleetneeded to deterattack

Henry CabotLodge Sr.warned aboutJapan


States that would lead to that Annexation. In a per-sonal letter from Washington dated November 19,1893, to President Dole, Lorrin A. Thurston, thenProvisional Government minister to Washington, setforth the course for the revolutionary group in itsquest for Annexation.

Secretary of State Gresham had just madepublic his report denouncing the Provisional Gov-ernment, demanding it return the Kingdom to theQueen and announcing that another Cleveland spe-cial emissary, Albert S. Willis, was already in Hon-olulu to bring this about. Nothing was known inadvance by the new Hawaiian government or itsWashington representative, Thurston, about this orhow it was to happen, and the men in Hawai‘iwouldn’t find out for another ten days or so. Willis’orders were secret and not revealed by Gresham. ButThurston did know the Cleveland position did not sitwell with the country at large.

“The outburst of denunciation of the pro-posed policy by the press of the country, regardless ofparty, has . . . been something wonderful. With theexception of one here and there, the papers, secularand religious, condemn it in the severest terms,” hewrote after word of the Gresham position wasreleased.

He noted he had mailed the accounts of histwo interviews with Gresham, during which itbecame clear that the administration was against theProvisional Government and opposed to Annexa-tion. In a move denounced later by Senate Republi-cans as an abuse of international law, the Clevelandadministration demanded that the Provisional Gov-ernment, which the United States earlier had recog-nized as the government of the Islands, return QueenLili‘uokalani to the throne. Thurston also sent a 580-


228

Administrationclearly against

Annexation

Greshamdenounced Provisional

Government

word telegram covering the same points to Dole viaSan Francisco, where it would catch a steamer.

He wrote “The N.Y. Sun sounded the keynote on the day after Gresham’s report was pub-lished, with an editorial entitled, ‘The Policy ofInfamy’, and has kept it up ever since, with three orfour editorials every day, and on two days during theweek, devoting the entire editorial page, with theexception of a few squibs, to a discussion of the sub-ject in its various phases.”

Thurston went on to note similar supportfrom the Outlook, an influential publication of theday, and The Washington Star. He wrote, “The Star,usually a neutral noncommittal paper, has out-rivaled Dana [editor of the N.Y. Sun] in the use ofevery condemnatory adjective and phrase at his com-mand—Mr. Noyes, the editor, was at Honolulu thissummer and knows his ground.

“The feeling throughout the country wasintense, and, as one of the newspaper correspondentsput it, ‘the whole country is holding its breath await-ing the arrival of the Australia [to find out whatWillis was doing in Hawai‘i].’” The Australia wasknown to be the first ship to leave Hawai‘i afterWillis’ arrival and it was expected to be carrying dis-patches reporting his meetings with Dole.

After explaining why he didn’t think itwould be fruitful for him to make a formal reply atthis point to Gresham, because, among other things,the administration obviously wanted to deal directlywith Dole, Thurston added,

“We must not lose sight of the fact thateven though we may not hope to secureannexation through this Administration, westill must try in every possible way to keep ontheir good side, so long as such position is not

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Whole countryawaits news ofWillis action

Thurstonreported news-papers condemnGresham plan


a surrender of essential principles. “I do not therefore consider it sound to

engage in any more controversial correspon-dence with them than is absolutely required.I am rewriting my letter, toning down theEnglish in its more vigorous positions, andhave about made up my mind to first submitthe draft of it to Gresham before formallypresenting it, if I present it at all.

“In my last interview with him, his man-ner was more than usually agreeable, and heseveral times reiterated his personal friendlyfeelings. Although things look rather blue sofar as getting anything from this Administra-tion is concerned, I do not give up hope thatall will come out right. It is darkest beforedawn.

“Arbitrary monarchy never seemed sofirmly seated in power as on the 13th of Jan-uary last, and yet it was standing on the vergeof its self-dug grave. So I believe that the arbi-trary harsh course proposed by the Greshamreport has raised us up a host of friends whodid not before exist, and by stimulating inter-est in our affairs has given us a vantageground which we could have reached in noother way. I believe that it will be a strong fac-tor in favor of the ultimate success of theannexation movement.”

This 12-page letter of November 19 was writ-ten over a period of days, and meanwhile the Aus-tralia had reached San Francisco with reports thatWillis’ initial meetings with Dole had been friendlyenough.

Thurston’s letter continues:“It was an intense relief to us, and to the

whole country, to learn upon the arrival of


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Harsh Greshamreport made

friends forHawai‘i

Must not giveup hope onAnnexation

the Australia, that Willis had taken no radicalsteps. Of course there is still the uncertaintyas to what he may yet do; but after his pres-entation and personal expressions of regardto you, it will be a difficult thing for him,after the lapse of so many days, to change andadopt a policy of open hostility, with theacknowledgment that he has under cover offair word and smiles been concealing a bludg-eon in his clothes with which to batter yourbrains out when the occasion seemed oppor-tune.

“It fills me with wrath when I think whata fever of excitement you are going to beplunged into upon the arrival of the now out-ward bound steamer [with the Greshamreport], even if Willis has not previouslyexploded his bomb.

“But I am pinning my faith upon mytrust in the courage and steadfastness of youwho know what we have come through andwhat odds we have already overcome andwhat we would have to go through again ifmonarchy were restored. You may be assuredthat the American public are overwhelminglyon our side—There are numerous proffers togo down and help you fight if necessary.

“I hope to God that under no circum-stances have you consented to give up yourorganization, and that if you have been forcedout that you will by force go back again assoon as possible. It is an unpleasant alterna-tive, but we might as well have it out now asto let the boil fester along, keeping the wholebody politic in a fever.

“The Royalists will not be satisfied untilthey are once more thoroughly beaten. Evenif Willis takes no radical action, it seems to

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Was Willisconcealing abludgeon?

Thurston urgesDole to hang on

“American pub-lic overwhelm-ingly on ourside . . .”


me altogether probable that Mr. Gresham’sletter will so stir up and encourage the Royal-ists that it is altogether probable they maytake some overt action which will warrantyour . . . proclaim[ing] martial law . . .”

Thurston went on to say that if this hap-pened, he favored arresting and deporting the Queenand her most prominent supporters.

“Until you get rid of them they will provea constant menace to the public peace . . .there will sooner or later be an outbreakwhich will result in the loss . . . of lives . . . .

“I believe the time has fully arrived forchange to a permanent form of governmenton the lines previously indicated. Keep thecontrol for as long a time as it is reasonablyprobable that it will be required. I favor notless than 5 years for a readjustment and set-tling down period, before elections take place.I would not rush the formation of the newgovernment. Take time to carefully considerand reconsider the different provisions of theconstitution.

“There is much in a name—call it ‘TheRepublic of Hawai‘i’. It will not be a full expo-nent of the republican principle but that isthe central thought around which it is gath-ered and into which it will develop in time.”

The outbreak by the Royalists did come,though not until 1895. Also, Willis did “drop hisbomb,” demanding the return of the Kingdom, butthe long delay in his making the demand, because ofthe Queen’s adamant stand against amnesty, enabledThurston to arrive back in Hawai‘i as the demandwas made. Over a period of several days Thurston,


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“There is muchin a name–call it The

Republic . . .”

Queen and sup-porters seen as

menace to public peace

Dole and the Cabinet put together a clear and firmposition in the form of a letter. In this remarkable let-ter from the Provisional Government to the UnitedStates, President Dole denounced the demand andannounced the new government would stand fastand fight the United States, if necessary. The newRepublic of Hawai‘i was formed and it did keep atight grip on things in Hawai‘i for the next four orfive years, subverting a few democratic principles tomaintain control until Annexation. Thurston didsend his letter to Gresham and it so riled the secre-tary of state that he demanded of Dole that Thurstonbe withdrawn from continued service as ministerfrom Hawai‘i.

His official status removed, Thurston spentmost of the five years between the Revolution anduntil Annexation on the mainland, speaking, visitingnewspaper editors, writing articles for the cause. His84-page pamphlet on the subject, A Handbook on theAnnexation of Hawai‘i, is a masterpiece in its sum-mary of the background of Annexation, and waswidely circulated.

This was Hawai‘i’s fourth formal effort toannex itself to the United States, the pamphlet notes.It makes much of the strategic values for Annexa-tion, the differences between the vast Pacific and theAtlantic, approximately half its width:

“One of the first principles in naval war-fare is that an operating fleet must have abase of supply and repair (Ed.—this being inthe days of coal-operated ships).

“Without the possession of Hawai‘i, all ofthe principal countries possessing interest inthe Pacific, are so far away that the distance ispractically prohibitory of hostile operationsagainst the Pacific Coast. For instance, the

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Naval supplyand repair instrategic loca-tion

Five years spenton Annexationcampaign

Thurston forcedto withdraw


nearest English station is forty-six hundredmiles distant from San Francisco. The near-est French station is thirty-six hundred milesdistant. The nearest Spanish station is forty-seven hundred miles distant. Russia is forty-seven hundred miles away; Japan forty-fivehundred miles, and China fifty-five hundredmiles.”

Hawai‘i, of course, is about twenty-five hun-dred miles off the Pacific Coast, and in the hands ofany of the other countries would provide a jumping-off place against the United States. Less than fiftyyears later, the Pearl Harbor attack gave evidence ofHawai‘i’s strategic value.

Commenting on the decline in Native Hawai-ian population, the pamphlet states: “It is no longer aquestion of whether Hawai‘i shall be controlled bythe Native Hawaiian, or by some foreign people; butthe question is, ‘What foreign people shall controlHawai‘i.’”

Great emphasis also was put on the tradebenefits to the United States. For example, Hawai‘iimported more West Coast wine than any other sin-gle country in the world; was its third biggest pur-chaser of salmon—more than all the countries of theworld combined, leaving out England, Australia andNew Zealand; the third largest consumer of WestCoast barley, and so on. The pamphlet listed some200 items of import in detail—in 1896, 132 car-riages, 362 bicycles and 1,560 saddles, for example—all in exchange for providing a free market forHawaiian sugar, rice and bananas.

The pamphlet points out that all of this“astonishing” commercial activity derived from apopulation of only 109,000 people, with a foreigntrade per capita of $208, “a record almost unparal-


234

Pamphletdetailed Hawai‘i

imports

Pearl Harborattack evidenced

Hawai‘i’sstrategic value

leled in the history of the world.” Tantalizingly, itadds that Hawai‘i could easily support a populationof a million, which would “place its commerce in thefront rank of American export trade.”

The pamphlet also discusses “twenty objec-tions to Annexation with replies thereto.” Manywere questions of unconstitutionality, all of whichthe pamphlet declares not true.

It discusses at some length the possible objec-tion on a racial basis. After explaining the many sim-ilarities between United States and Hawaiian laws,customs, infrastructure and lifestyles, the pamphletstates:

“The people of Hawaii as a whole, areenergetic and industrious. They are annuallyproducing and exporting more per capitathan any other nation in the world . . . . Nopeople who are leading the world in the percapita export of manufactured products canbe truthfully characterized as lazy, worthlessor unreliable. As a matter of fact, there are nopoor-houses, paupers, beggars or tramps inHawaii.”

The pamphlet then deals directly with argu-ments regarding the habits and lifestyles of eachracial background present in the Islands.

About Native Hawaiians, it has this to say:“Only 33,000 in number, [they] are a

conservative, peaceful and generous people.They have had during the last twenty years,to struggle against the retrogressive tenden-cies of the reigning family; but in spite ofthat, a very large proportion of them havestood out against such tendencies, and aresupporters of the Republic and Annexation.The majority of the present House of Repre-

235

Hawaiians havestruggledagainst retrogression

Islanders calledenergetic people


sentatives, the first under the Republic, con-sists of pure-blood Native Hawaiians, and theSpeaker of the House is a Native Hawaiian.

“There is not, and never has been anycolor line in Hawai‘i as against Native Hawai-ians, and they participate fully on an equalitywith the white people in affairs political,social, religious and charitable. The two racesfreely intermarry . . .”

The argument that no popular vote wastaken or was contemplated regarding Annexationand that this is “un-American” is dealt with atlength.

After noting that “this is the argument mostresorted to by the ex-Queen Lili‘uokalani and hersupporters” and that “their objection is not basedupon opposition to the American Republic, but uponopposition to any Republic,” the pamphlet adds:“They are selfishly seeking the restoration of theMonarchy for their own benefit, and as long asHawai‘i remains independent, they hope for someinternal discord or foreign complication which willrestore them to power.

“The reply to [this] objection is that noHawaiian voters have been disfranchised, and that itis not un-American to annex territory without a voteof the inhabitants.” The vote of the legislatures of thevarious territories annexed earlier was sufficient, aswas the case in Hawai‘i.

The seven annexations of the previous onehundred years are described in detail: Louisiana,Florida, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaskaand Texas. Thurston notes that in none of thesecases was a popular vote taken on the question ofannexation. “All that was done or lawfully required


236

Restoration ofMonarchy

would be forpersonal gain

There has neverbeen color line

against Hawaiians

to be done, was the agreement of the two [elected]Governments, and the act was completed withoutreference to either the people of the United States orof the territory proposed to be annexed,” the pam-phlet states.

“There is, therefore, no precedent, in any ofthe annexations of the past, for taking a popular voteupon the subject. Why, then, is it un-American toannex Hawai‘i without a popular vote?” the pam-phlet asks.

The Constitution of the Republic containedan article directing its president, “by and with theconsent of the Senate, to negotiate and conclude atreaty of annexation with the United States.” Thepamphlet argues this means that in a very real sense“there has been a practical vote in Hawai‘i upon thesubject of annexation, for every person who is now avoter in Hawai‘i has taken the oath to the Constitu-tion of Hawai‘i, thereby ratifying and approving ofannexation to the United States.” The Hawai‘i Sen-ate, with a number of Native Hawaiian members,voted unanimously for Annexation. Propertyrequirements for election to the Senate were thesame as those in the 1887 Constitution for election tothe House of Nobles, which made it a fairly exclusiveclub.

In summary, the pamphlet says:“1. Neither the Constitution nor laws of

the United States nor of Hawai‘i require apopular vote.

“2. During fifty years, there have beenfour annexation treaties negotiated byHawai‘i with the United States, viz.: in 1851,1854, 1893 and 1897, in which neither underthe Monarchy, Provisional Government, northe Republic, has any provision been made

237

Four annexa-tion treatiesnegotiated byHawai‘i

Many Hawai-ians approved ofAnnexation

Popular vote notrequired forAnnexation


for a popular vote, either in the United Statesor Hawai‘i. (Ed.—Of course, the 1893 and1897 attempts were made under auspices ofthe Revolutionists, who did not want to takea chance with a popular vote on the matter.)

“3. Six annexations of inhabited territoryby the United States during the past 100years, have been made without a popular votebeing taken. (Ed.–The seventh, Texas, alsodid not enter with a popular vote, but itselected legislature, as did Hawai‘i’s, approvedannexation.)

“4. The Constitution of the UnitedStates, in general terms, and that of Hawai‘ispecifically (Ed.—that of the Republic),authorizes the respective Presidents and Sen-ates to conclude a treaty of annexation. If thetheoretical philanthropists of America whoare lifting up their voices against annexationthrough sympathy for the native Hawaiiancould descend out of the clouds long enoughto ascertain the facts, they would learn thatevery native minister of the gospel; most ofthe better educated natives; almost withoutexception, all of the white ministers of thegospel; the representatives of the AmericanBoard of Foreign Missions; the HawaiianBoard of Missions; the practical educators;those who have for years contributed theirtime, their money and their lives to theHawaiian people; who feel that their welfareis a sacred trust—all of these are working,hoping and praying for Annexation as theone last hope of the native Hawaiian.”

The public relations war went on, and final-ly, the event the Republic had been waiting foroccurred: a new administration was elected to Wash-ington in 1898. President Cleveland was out and


238

“Annexation . . .one last hope of

the NativeHawaiian”

Six annexationsmade withoutpopular vote

President McKinley was in, bringing with him anadministration that favored Annexation. Neverthe-less, Annexation was not a shoo-in. McKinley’s firstefforts to bring it about failed as congressional debateswirled around arguments that years later weresounded over and over again in the sixty-year fightfor Statehood: Hawai‘i’s offshore geographical posi-tion and its polyglot population. In the midst of this,the Spanish-American War broke out and the battle-ship Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor. With Amer-ican troops being sent across the Pacific in goodlynumbers, Hawai‘i’s strategic position took top billingin the debate over Annexation.

Still, the administration did not have thevotes to put a treaty through the Senate that custom-arily would have been the vehicle to bring aboutAnnexation. Congressional strategists passed insteadon July 7, 1898, a joint resolution directing Annexa-tion. A similar process had been used to bring Texasinto the United States, but in spite of the historicalprecedent there are sovereignty activists today whoinsist Hawai‘i’s Annexation was an illegal action. Ithas yet to be challenged in any court of law and it isdoubtful it ever will be. The vast majority ofHawai‘i’s residents obviously are happy with the endresult.

All that remained was negotiation of theOrganic Act, the enabling legislation that finallypassed on April 30, 1900. It made Annexation offi-cial and created the Territory of Hawai‘i. Negotiatorsfor the Republic did a masterful job with the Organ-ic Act, and in an unprecedented action, Congressaccepted Hawai‘i without taking its governmentlands into the federal land bank.


239

Our Annexationwas legal,happy action

Anti-Annexationarguments same as anti-Statehood

he United States stole our lands.”“The haole stole our lands.”

“The missionaries stole our lands.”It’s the mantra today for many Native Hawai-

ians.Maybe sovereignty should be spelled l-a-n-d.

It’s certainly the key element in nearly all forms ofthe sovereignty movement.

What’s the basis for these constant claims oftheft? What makes a sovereignty activist thinkNative Hawaiians are entitled to state lands?

It’s hard to believe, but many sovereigntyadvocates want to take public lands from the stategovernment and give them to the 4 percent ofHawai‘i’s residents who have more than a 50 percentmeasure of Hawaiian blood. They want to go beyondtheir mandated one-fifth share of income from theselands and acquire actual title. Some say these landsshould go to all calling themselves Native Hawaiians,about 20 percent of Hawai‘i residents. Other activistseven say private lands should eventually be takenover by the Hawaiian minority.

Their claim is based on what they maintain isthe “inherent right of Native Hawaiians” to the landsof these Islands, at least the public lands. They con-

Land is the KeyChapter Nine

241

“The haole stoleour lands”

Some advocatessay public landsshould go to 4percent ofHawai‘i’s resi-dents

““TT

tend, erroneously, that Native Hawaiians owned thepublic lands before the 1893 Revolution, that thelands were taken from them at the time—“stolen”—and the Hawaiian people were not compensated. Aswe’ll see in this chapter, the native people never didown them. They were government lands at the time,and have been since the Great Mahele in 1848. Allthe Revolution did was transfer control of those pub-lic lands to a successor government. The beneficiar-ies, all of the residents of Hawai‘i, remained the sameafter Annexation and continue to be the same underStatehood.

For the Native Hawaiian claims for transferor compensation to become successful, history wouldhave to show that the lands were formerly owned byNative Hawaiians and their descendants. Theactivists are at work distorting and rewriting historyto make this seem true. The revisionism has alreadygained acceptance in some circles not familiar withthe real history of Hawai‘i or its lands.

For example, “whereas clauses” in the con-gressional apology resolution of 1993 state that gov-ernment lands were ceded to the United States at thetime of Annexation “without the consent of or com-pensation to the Native Hawaiian people.”

They add that Hawaiians “never directlyrelinquished their claims to . . . their national lands.”

Both of these statements are misleading—and erroneous—in their implications. Unfortunately,no public hearing was held by Congress to examinethe truths of the whereas clauses. In a resolutionsuch clauses don’t become law anyway, but todayactivist writers would have us believe they do havethe force of law, and since Congress adopted the res-olution, the same writers state Congress has thusdecreed or agreed that the lands were once owned by


242

Misleadingstatements cloud

the issue

Revolutiontransferred

control, notbenefits of land

Native Hawaiians. The fact is, Native Hawaiian peo-ple as individuals never owned those government orso-called ceded lands, nor until recently expressedany claims to them. Along with the rest of us, NativeHawaiians continue to get government benefits thatare financed by revenues received from ceded lands.Recent legislative acts have given them a larger shareof state income than is received by any other racialgroup. On what basis should they now expect to getownership of the lands in addition?

Since the ceded lands weren’t stolen, there issomething inherently unfair in the concept of takingaway land now owned by the government and beingused for the benefit of all of the residents of theseIslands—and giving it to a minority of those resi-dents. The process would undermine the land andeconomic policies of today’s Hawai‘i.

This effort by a few to get compensated forsomething neither they nor their ancestors everowned needs to be put into perspective. And perhapsmore importantly, any expectation by those beinggiven these false promises needs to be laid to restbefore unfulfilled expectations lead to problems andpotential violence.

By way of background, this chapter will pres-ent a brief history of land in old Hawai‘i, how it washeld, how it was worked, and how it was affected bycontact with the Western world. An understandingof this background will help make clear that today’sgovernment lands belong to all in Hawai‘i, and notjust to those with some measure of Hawaiian blood.

The ancient Hawaiians arrived in theseIslands from Polynesia in prehistoric times. In keep-ing with the prevailing attitude toward land in thosedays, they did not consider ownership of the Islandsin the sense we do today. A feudal system prevailed.

243

Underminingland and eco-nomic policies

Ceded landswere neverowned by individuals

Land Is The Key

Land was something for everyone to use. Of course,someone had to exercise control, and at any one time,that someone was whoever had become the mostpowerful member of the community. As a chief or aking, he told the rest what to do and when to do itand governed as though he owned the land itself.Sovereignists argue that in effect he was holding it intrust for his people. That argument wouldn’t havecarried much weight with Kamehameha I or any ofthe earlier chiefs who took control by conquest. Theonly time they would agree that “title” changedhands was when a more powerful chief came along.

Archeological studies indicate there werepeople here at least on some of the Islands before thepeople we now call Hawaiians arrived. The differ-ences between stone implements found on Kaua‘iand those found elsewhere in the Island chain, forexample, suggest artisans from different backgroundsand experiences and therefore probably from differ-ent points of origin.

Recent archeological thought is that for hun-dreds of years there was two-way travel betweenHawai‘i and several of the more southern sourceareas, such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Severalcolonies could have been established on what arenow the Hawaiian Islands and their founders couldhave traveled back and forth, staying within theirown land areas both in Hawai‘i and south at theirstarting point. The Marquesans, whom some arche-ologists in the 1960s and 1970s thought may havebeen the first visitors, for example, could have main-tained a base in Hawai‘i for centuries that wouldhave been visited only by other Marquesans. The res-idents of such an established base in Hawai‘i wouldnot yet think of themselves as Hawaiians.

Later, the thinking goes, the two-way travel


244

Differingcolonies could

have beenestablished in

Islands

Titles changedhands through

conquests bychiefs

slowed down and the warriors from one colony inHawai‘i moved to conquer another Hawai‘i colony.The end result would have been the designation ofthe combined colonies as Hawaiians rather thanoccupants of a Tahitian or Marquesan outpost.56

Legends tell us also of the presence of “littlepeople,” the menehune, even before the first Hawai-ians, Tahitians or Marquesans. Marvelousstonework in ancient fishpond walls is attributed inlegends to the workmanship of these unknowncraftsmen. They may have been descendants ofJapanese fishermen who drifted here the way Japan-ese net floats do now, and remained stranded onthese Islands, though the volume of menehune workseems to negate that possibility. More than likelythey were early, successful colonizers from a differ-ent source to the south.

Whoever they were, they worked the landwhile they were here and left signs of their skill andculture. They were wiped out by whoever came next.Whether those first inhabitants were strangers of adifferent race or Marquesans who in turn werewiped out by the first arriving warlords to becomeHawaiians, or whether they were just the first ele-ments of the Hawaiian migration, wiped out by laterarrivals, we do not know for sure.

The early Western visitors noted a differencebetween the leaders, the ali‘i, and the common peo-ple, the maka‘a-inana. A Russian explorer, Otto vonKotzebue, noted during his voyages of 1823 to 1826that this difference in appearance and bearing inHawai‘i was very similar to what he had noted inTahiti. There are those who believe this indicates thefinal winners in the battle for control of the coloniesin Hawai‘i were ali‘i from Tahiti.

57

What is clear from Hawaiian legends and oral

245

Westernersnoticed differ-ence betweenali‘i and com-moners

Menehuneprobably earlycolonizers

Two-way travelslows, warfarebegins for land

Land Is The Key

history is that the prevailing chiefs of each islandcontrolled the land of their valley or their island andthought of themselves as owning it, even though theydid not own it in the Western sense. They got it byconquest in the frequent tribal warfare and “owned”it until it was taken from them by someone morepowerful.

Common usage of the word “owned” showsup throughout the literature. One instance, over thesignature of Lili‘uokalani in the Washington, D.C.,American-Examiner, in 1898 is particularly interest-ing in view of current activist claims that the earlymonarchs didn’t really “own” the lands but simplyheld them in trust for everyone else.

The Queen wrote, in the context of dis-cussing Hawaiian land practices, “Let me turn back,then, to Kamehameha III, who made the Great Divi-sion [the Great Mahele]. He was an enlightenedmonarch. As Lord of All, he ruled absolute, owningin his own right every acre of the Islands. It wasa typical feudal system, not unlike that whichexisted in Europe during the Middle Ages . . .(Ed.—emphasis added).”

Among other things, this writing byLili‘uokalani demonstrates her sophisticated grasp ofWestern culture. She may have lacked certain skillsas a ruler, but she was well educated, possessinghighly developed talents and demonstrated skill inmusic. Those who would argue that she was a naivenative who was taken advantage of by the haole areclearly wrong.

When Captain Cook arrived in 1778 and thewritten history of Hawai‘i began, the feudal practiceLili‘uokalani discussed was in place and a score ofchiefs were in control of the lands of their privatefiefdoms. They allowed the common people to work


246

Lili‘uokalanihad sophisticat-

ed grasp ofWestern culture

The word“owned” misused

the lands under a system of tribute, the kind of thingpracticed over the centuries in nearly every part ofthe world. Unlike some European feudal systems,however, the early Hawaiian commoners were nottied to the land.

The chief collected as taxes a share of what-ever was produced on the land he controlled—agri-cultural crops, pigs, dogs, fish, anything that livedthere or that individual enterprise could grow orraise. In return for these taxes, the chief organizeddefense of the area from neighboring tribes, dealtwith the gods and dispensed justice. He also calledhis farmers into battle as warriors whenever hewanted to, and at other times forced them to performteam labor such as building new fishpond walls ortemples of worship and sacrifice.

Over time, a few farsighted chiefs gave theirpeople considerable latitude and encouraged them tostay within the areas the chief controlled. Obviouslya contented work force could produce more of thenecessities of life and had the time and the skills todevelop ways of living and using the lands that madesense for the future as well as the present. Under theancient Hawaiian system, though, the commonersseldom were treated this generously.

By modern standards, most Native Hawaiiancommon people were treated poorly by their chiefs.In fact, by the standards of the missionaries and theirchildren, the treatment was often deplorable.

William De Witt Alexander was born in theIslands in 1833, the oldest child of missionariesWilliam and Mary Ann Alexander, who had arrivedthe year before. In his sworn testimony before theMorgan Committee in Washington in 1894, he wasrecognized as a historian and told the committee:

“When I was a child, natives were abject

247

Commoners notwell treated byearly chiefs

A few chiefsgave peoplemore freedom

Common peopleworked landsunder system of tribute

Land Is The Key

slaves to their chiefs. They had no rights thatthe chiefs were bound to respect. They weretenants at will. They could be turned off theirland at the word of a chief. Sometimes thewhole of the inhabitants of a valley could beevicted at the change of the landlord—at theorder of a higher chief. The country was fullof natives who were dispossessed, lookingaround for a place, another home. They werevery poor . . .

“. . . They were subject to forced labor bytheir chiefs. Previously to [my childhood] thesandalwood was exhausted. While the san-dalwood lasted they suffered a great deal ofoppression; they had to spend months in themountains cutting sandalwood for theirchiefs. [They had to carry it from the moun-tains] on their backs in [very heavy] bundles.It was a mine of wealth for the chiefs . . . .”

The ahupua‘a approach to use, division andcontrol of the land developed in ancient times fromthe feudal experiences. An ahupua‘a considers theland as a whole entity and any one ahupua‘a usuallyincludes land stretching from the ocean to the moun-tain top. Those living in the ahupua‘a had access tothe sea for fish, to fertile portions of the lowlands forgrowing (and later, grazing) and to the mountains forwater and big timber for canoes. Rarely did those liv-ing in the ahupua‘a of one chief or konohiki (landlordor sub-chief) have anything to do with a neighboringahupua‘a under control of another chief. In the daysbefore Kamehameha’s reign commenced—for themost part in 1795 although he didn’t control Kaua‘iuntil 1810—none were free to wander to a strangechief’s lands. It is doubtful that ordinary natives everhad a right to wander until, perhaps, the Great


248

Ahupua‘a partof feudal land

system

Natives wereslaves to chiefs

Mahele in 1848, which revolutionized the system ofland titles. The constant warfare mentality that hadprevailed before Kamehameha I, however, tapered offunder his overall rule and an individual was nolonger subject to instant death for trespassing on thelands of some other chief. Meanwhile, the ahupua‘aform of division made a lot of sense in describingland on an island, and when Western practices tookover description and organization, the ahupua‘astructure became a formalized part of the lexicon.

A few farseeing chiefs in times of stabilitycould see the interdependence that was necessary toensure a future and orderly life for all of their people.Thus they enforced respect for the land and its uses,putting into effect bans on fishing, for example,when overuse threatened to deplete the supply.

There were problems, of course. One con-stant concern for an idyllic lifestyle was the threat ofinvasion from other Hawaiians, be it from one valleyto the next or from one island to another.

Warfare was normal in ancient Hawai‘i andit meant families were constantly undergoingchange. When the chief wanted to invade neighbor-ing lands, he drafted warriors from among the farm-ers, and the savagery of their battles meant many didnot return. When a neighboring chief defeated yourchief, you were subject to new rules and could betaken, for example, to a new area to accomplishsomething the victor wanted done, such as building anew heiau or fishpond wall or water supply system.

The system was undergoing change whenCaptain Cook arrived. A new and powerful Hawai-ian leader was emerging. The man who wouldbecome Kamehameha I envisioned himself as rulerof all the Islands. After Cook brought that first con-tact with the West, Kamehameha saw the advantages

249

Warfare normalfor Hawaiians

Some chiefs sawinterdependencewas necessary

Ordinarynatives notgiven freedom towander on own

Land Is The Key

of Western methods and sought the help and adviceof foreigners like John Young, who had left his shipat Kawaihae Harbor on the Big Island in 1790 to takeup residence on land instead of sea. With his help,Kamehameha put together an armed force thatincluded ships, guns and European tactics. He beganconquering and killing off other chiefs on his ownisland, Hawai‘i, in 1782; by 1795 he had conqueredin bloody warfare all of the Islands except Kaua‘i.

By 1810, that island’s chief surrendered andthe Kingdom of Hawai‘i was formed for the first timein recorded history. The lands of the entire Kingdomthus became controlled by one king. Of necessity heexercised control through appointed governors ofeach island and chiefs under them.

The common people continued to work thefields, take care of the livestock and catch the fish, allunder the eyes of these sub-chiefs and with the pay-ment of tribute. They were happiest when their land-lord left them alone.

This feudal system did not give the peoplefreedom but it did provide the possibility of stabilityand a means of self-sufficiency. The Hawaiian King-dom under Kamehameha I had the ingredients forsurvival as an independent nation because the threatof civil war was much diminished under his centraland inspired rule. Farming and commerce, withoutthe threat of constant warfare, might have continueduninterrupted and contributed to a buildup of theeconomy by a population that was held together bycommon aims. But four things prevented this fromhappening.

One was the decimation of the populationfrom Western diseases that caused the number ofNative Hawaiians to drop drastically from the threeto four hundred thousand estimated to be here when


250

Feudal systemdid not give

freedom

System chang-ing as Cook

arrived

Captain Cook arrived in 1778, to about one hundredthirty thousand when the missionaries arrived in1820. They took a census shortly after their arrival,which produced that first factual record of theextraordinary net loss in population numbers.

Incidentally, estimates of the pre-Western-contact population range up to eight hundred thou-sand and even higher, though three hundred thou-sand to four hundred thousand are more widelyaccepted numbers. It is astonishing enough to thinkof a population plunging from four hundred thou-sand to one hundred thirty thousand in forty years,much less twice as big a drop.58

While better medical practices under the mis-sionaries slowed the process, population numberscontinued to decline in the years that followed. Thenet loss of two hundred thousand to three hundredthousand in those first forty years meant a yearlypopulation net loss of five thousand to seven thou-sand five hundred, a catastrophic annual decrease ofabout 1.5 percent. The drop of another ninety thou-sand in the next seventy years leading up to the Rev-olution calculates to an annual net loss of a little overtwelve hundred, or less than 1 percent annually afterthe missionaries’ arrival. Only a little over fortythousand were still alive in 1893 and Native Hawai-ians already were less than a majority in their ownhomeland. Their number dropped to thirty-threethousand by Annexation, and some observers wereforecasting their disappearance.59

The second factor that had a devastatingeffect on farming and food production was the massmovement of the remaining natives away from theirfarms and fishing preserves to towns building uparound harbors where westerners could land andengage in trade and other Western practices.

251

Missionariesslowed decimation

Hawaiians sawastonishingpopulation drop

Mass movementdevastatedfarming andfood production

Land Is The Key

The third factor that brought change to theKingdom was the result of the new pressure onKamehameha I, both in his lifestyle and his life itself.In order to strengthen his grip on the Kingdom, heneeded Western weapons and ships, which requiredmoney. The conservation practices of old had to giveway to immediate demands for barter and money.Kamehameha’s desire for sandalwood, a prized itemof barter, led to his ordering intensive harvestingpractices that continued after his death into the mid-dle 1820s to the extent sandalwood, a tree that cantake a hundred years to mature, barely survivestoday. This and his acceptance of cattle from theBritish explorer Vancouver in 1793 wiped out forestlands, birds, and flora and fauna on a major scale.

The King died in 1819 and a new era beganwith the fourth factor that profoundly affected theHawaiian lifestyle. Hawaiians had noticed that west-erners had violated various of the many ancient kapu(taboos) without suffering the drastic consequencesforecast over the centuries by the ka-huna, the priestswhose fear-based control rivaled that of chiefs.Kamehameha had named his favorite wife, thestrong-willed Ka‘ahumanu, as regent to support his22-year-old son, Liholiho, known as Kamehameha II.Based on her skepticism of the ancient taboos andher advice, Kamehameha II took on the well-entrenched ka-huna. In a giant step toward theinevitable Westernization of Hawai‘i, the young Kingbanished the old pagan religion and taboos that hadguided the native people. This led to one last majorbattle, in Kona in January 1820, where the new rulewas threatened by Kekuaokalani, a cousin of Liholi-ho’s and a chief who wanted to go back to the oldways and taboos. The uprising was defeated, bothKekuaokalani and his wife dying in the battle, and


252

Conservationpractice not

the best

Young Kingchallenges the

kapu system

the taboos were gone forever.60 The religious void leftHawaiians with no controlling force in their lives.

The American missionaries arrived in thenext couple of months, astonished to find the taboosand pagan practices they had feared were alreadygone. They took it as God’s miracle. Liholiho, afterconsiderable debate, allowed the missionaries to landand start the spread of Christianity. Within monthshe recognized the value of their teachings and direct-ed that all of his people learn to read and write.

Liholiho died a scant five years into his reignduring a trip to London to visit King George IV. In asidelight of early Hawaiian history, Kamehameha I,intrigued with the strength of Western powers, hadmade a casual deal with the British Admiral Vancou-ver to cede his nation to Britain.61 It is likely Liholi-ho was visiting England to see what life would belike as a British subject. With Liholiho’s death, thecession was never pursued.

Liholiho was succeeded by his brother, whotook over as Kamehameha III. In his long and pro-ductive rule, Kamehameha III adopted more andmore of the Western ways he could see were neces-sary for the survival of his people in a different worldthan that of his forefathers.

Kamehameha III exhorted the dwindlingnumber of his subjects to work harder and moreeffectively on the small farms they were letting goidle, hoping this would bring economic strength tohis nation, but the forces of change adversely affect-ing the Hawaiian people were too powerful. TheKingdom needed to look to other means of commercewith the Western world.

This required the introduction of conditionsthat would encourage investment in Hawai‘i. In1840 Kamehameha III promulgated the first written

253

Liholiho visit to England ledto his death

Kamehameha IIIencouragedinvestment inHawai‘i

Breaking ofkapu systemwas huge step

Land Is The Key

laws of Hawai‘i, designed to bring order and stabilityto living and doing business. The Constitution andthe constitutional Monarchy he proclaimed broughtenormous and beneficial changes even as the dwin-dling native population threatened its existence.

Arguments broke out over use and owner-ship of land, and his foreign advisers, mostly Englishat the time, urged the King to embrace Western landsystems. He and his key supporters were motivatedby a belief that widespread ownership of land byindividual Hawaiians would strengthen their agri-cultural efforts, which they and the King thoughtwere critical to their long-term welfare. His advisersalso strongly believed economic development andhence prosperity for the Kingdom would not occurunless investors could be assured of the opportunityto own the land they were developing, and the Kingand his chiefs accepted this.

In 1848, Kamehameha III took the actionthat was to change Hawai‘i perhaps more than anyother single event: the Great Mahele, or division oflands, gave his people for the first time a chance toown land in their own names.

The man who more than any other worked topush toward widespread land ownership by NativeHawaiians was a young Harvard graduate who cameto Hawai‘i by accident. The accident changed thecourse of Hawaiian history, and its ramificationsdemonstrate the ability of Native Hawaiians to siftout the good in Western advice and capitalize on it.

The man was William L. Lee. He and anoth-er New Englander named Charles Reed Bishop, nei-ther of them missionaries, had set sail from Newber-ryport, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1846, on theBrig Henry, bound for a new life in Oregon. Theship’s captain chose the long tack from New England


254

Advisers urgedland use andownership by

individuals

William L. Leepushed fornative landownership

to the Azores and downwind around the Horn. Itturned out to be a fearsome voyage—“The old brigbounded and pitched like a wounded bison, and sick-er than death, we were cooped up in our narrowberths without the least hope of escape. For thirteendays we were knocking about in the wildest confu-sion without making a single knot on our course.The raging waves swept our deck continually . . .”

Young Lee, in a letter home dated April 16,1846, handed off to a passing ship, continued, “Oursufferings were intolerable, and everyone except theCaptain & crew vowed a sacred vow that if they everplanted feet on ‘terra firma’ again, there they wouldremain.”62

In his next letter, bearing a Honolulu date-line, January 20, 1847, we learn that fate stepped in.The Brig Henry had suffered severe damages duringthe voyage and when it finally reached Honolulu, itsonly stop en route to Oregon, its passengers weremuch relieved. Lee got off and was offered a judge-ship by the Kingdom. True to their pledge, Lee andBishop settled down.

Bishop met and married a Hawaiian princessnamed Pauahi, a great-granddaughter of Kamehame-ha I. Bishop was extraordinarily generous, one of thegreat community leaders of these Islands. He andPauahi were the leading philanthropists of 19th-Cen-tury Hawai‘i. No doubt his own views as well as thetraining Pauahi received from the missionary teach-ers of the Chiefs’ Children’s School influenced her tocreate the Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate.She endowed it with about 11 percent of Hawai‘i’sland and directed that most of the income from herestate be used for the education of Island children.Contrary to widespread belief today, she did not spec-ify in her will that the income devoted to the Kame-

255

Accident led to landfall in Honolulu

Harrowing pas-sage for Lee &Bishop

Land Is The Key

hameha Schools be used only for the education ofchildren with Hawaiian blood. The will reads:

“. . . to erect and maintain in the Hawai-ian Islands two schools, each for boardingand day scholars, one for boys and one forgirls, to be known as, and called, the Kame-hameha Schools.”

Note there is no mention of race, thoughKamehameha has always limited acceptance to chil-dren with some measure of Hawaiian blood. Theconfusion may have arisen because later in her willshe also directs her trustees “to devote a portion ofeach year’s income to the support and education oforphans and others in indigent circumstances” and,in this section only, adds, “giving the preference toHawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood . . .” Thefact that she makes a distinction in this later sectionemphasizes her clear intent earlier to provide schoolsfor all children, regardless of race.

There is an interesting contrast betweenwhat happened to her estate and its vast lands andwhat happened to an estate of about the same landsize left by King Lunalilo. He, Queen Emma andQueen Lili‘uokalani also were influenced by theirmissionary training to set up large charitable trusts.

Emma’s established the Queen’s Hospital.The hospital thrives in 1998 and lands of the estate,including 18.5 acres in Waiki-ki- , are beginning to bedeveloped significantly. The Queen Emma Founda-tion and its 12,618 acres will be a growing influencein the Islands.

The Lili‘uokalani Trust helps needy Hawai-ian children, and its six thousand three hundredacres, some in Waiki-ki- and some in north Kona, aregrowing in value.


256

KamehamehaSchools notspecified for

children withHawaiian blood

Bernice PauahiBishop’s will

was act of generosity

The Lunalilo Estate is a sad example. TheKing set aside some four hundred thousand acres, aholding larger than that of the Bishop Estate, toestablish facilities to benefit aging members of hisrace. His trustees, anxious to fill the need of themoment, sold off the lands, built a home for agedHawaiians and invested the remaining proceeds inconservative investments such as Santa Fe railroadbonds. Today just one Lunalilo Home exists andincome of the trust barely meets its needs.

The trustees of the Bishop Estate were direct-ed to avoid the sale of lands—to lease it instead—unless they deemed a sale absolutely necessary forthe operation of the schools. Assets of the trust todayhave been valued as high as $10 billion. In recentyears the argument that there is an overriding socie-tal benefit in the fee simple ownership of individualhomesites has brought a change in estate policy overthe objections of its trustees. The U.S. SupremeCourt has approved a fee conversion process with notax implications to the estate. It has resulted in thesale of thousands of homesites in fee simple.

In spite of these greatly different results inusage of the royal lands and the mixed results of themove to make landowners out of individual natives,the King’s Great Mahele in 1848 has to be viewed asan act of great generosity. He kept less than a third ofthe lands for himself, about one million acres calledthe “King’s lands” (later the “crown lands”). Heturned another third, 1.5 million acres, over to thegovernment. He specified that this land be used forthe benefit of all of the residents of the Islands. Afinal third, another 1.5 million acres, was set aside tobe given to his chiefs and the common people, whocould get their share by applying for title to landsthey and their families had worked over the years.63

257

Bishop Estateavoided landsales

Lunalilo Estatea sad exampleof land policy

Land Is The Key

King’s GreatMahele

Letters to mis-sionaries helpedpromote native

land title

The reformation of the land system began onDecember 10, 1845, about three years before theMahele itself, with the passage of an act establishingthe Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles. Itsfive commissioners were appointed by KamehamehaIII to act on all land title claims by private individu-als and it was this review process that Lee was urg-ing Hawaiians to pursue. The Mahele itself, the divi-sion between the chiefs, konohiki and the King,began in January 1848 and solved the problem ofdetermining the undivided interests of those parties,about 240 in number. Defining those interests wasbeyond the purview of the Land Commission, mean-ing it could not proceed to award title of kuleana tothe kanaka maoli or the sale of fee ownership to for-eigners until the Mahele was completed in March1848. The Mahele gave the chiefs and konohiki claimsto specific land areas that were quitclaimed to themby the King at the time. Those claims had to be pre-sented to the Land Commission before the chiefs andkonohiki could get actual title.

Lee, by that time chief justice of the Monar-chy’s Supreme Court, undertook an all-out campaignon the King’s behalf to get Hawaiian commoners toapply to the Land Commission for fee title to thelands they had been working. He wrote many lettersto the missionaries heading the sixteen mission sta-tions spread throughout the Islands to get them tohelp members of their congregations file claimsunder the new opportunity. The missionaries helpedput together thousands of claims from individualNative Hawaiians who otherwise probably wouldnot have filed, much less successfully.

In a typical letter dated January 12, 1848, tothe Rev. C.B. Andrews on Molokai, Lee wrote:

“My dear sir,


258

Provisions ofthe land division

“Many thanks to you for your letter inanswer to mine . . . and the bundle of landclaims accompanying it. I trust you haveimbibed the true spirit in reference to thepresent landed system of Hawai‘i, and feel asI do, that these mixed and uncertain rights ofChiefs, Konohiki (Ed.—landlords) and Ten-ants are a curse to the land and the people.

“It weighs upon the poor mass of thenatives like a mountain of lead crushing themto the very earth, nay, into the very earth.The common Kanaka, not knowing what, orhow much to call his own has no incentive toraise anything beyond the immediate wantsof himself and family. Oppressed by theKonohiki, the great mass toil on, as I learn,from year to year with a bare living.

“Our great object is to put an end to thissystem by separating and defining the rightsof the tenants, and giving them what theyhave, absolutely, if it be no more than a patchof 10 feet square.

“The idea of common Kanakas sendingin their claims is not so popular with thechiefs as it should be, for they say, as I aminformed, that the Konohiki can send in theirclaims and the tenants still hold their landsthe same as ever . . .

“Before the people of Hawai‘i can pros-per and thrive I am firmly convinced that thisfeudal system of landed tenants must come toan end. Perchance the people are not pre-pared for so great a change, and will remain along time insensible to its blessings, but I saylet us at least offer them every advantage,though they spurn the gift.”

In a similar letter to the Rev. R.A. Walsh ofKo-loa, Kaua‘i, Lee wrote, “In my humble opinion no

259

Oppression bynative landlords

Land Is The Key

Lee felt feudalsystem workedagainst commoners

Natives neededright to the soil

greater evil exists at the present day . . . than the illdefined and uncertain rights of the people to the landthey till, and the fruits they produce. My heart, and Itrust yours also, is enlisted in a reform of this evil,and though the work may be heavy and slow, let usnot weary in well doing.”

He added that “Should the tenants neglect tosend in their claims, they will not lose their rights iftheir Konohiki present claims, for no title will begranted to the Konohiki without a clause reservingthe rights of tenants. But to preserve the rights of thetenants in their lands is not all we seek—we seek . . .to give them such form and shape that they mayalways know what they possess.”

In addition, Lee wrote letters in Hawaiian toinfluential associates in each district, asking themalso to help process claims.

In other letters he mentions he is seeking toget an extension of the time for filing claims andurges the various missionaries to press forward: “Ihope and trust you will not slacken in your goodlabors.”

In a January 14, 1848, letter to the Rev. E.W.Clark in Wailuku, Maui, after thanking him for thereceipt of a bundle of claims, Lee notes: “Claims arenow coming in at the rate of from one to two hun-dred each day, and [I am] hoping that you will spareno exertion to have all in your district sent in.”

On January 19, 1848, he wrote the Rev. I.S.Green in Makawao, Maui:

“I am happy to hear of your anxiety tohave the people become possessed of lands infee simple. In my humble opinion, this nationcan never prosper until they have an absoluteand independent right in the soil they culti-vate . . . it is to my mind as clear as a sun-beam, that unless Hawaiian Agriculture be


260

“. . . Spare noexertion . . .”

fostered and promoted by the liberal distribu-tion of lands among the people, and in otherways, this nation must gradually sink intooblivion. There must grow up a middle class,who shall be farmers, tillers of the soil, orthere is no salvation for this nation. . . .

“We now have upwards of four thousandclaims pending before the Land Commission,and hoping that you will continue your goodlabors and send us many more.”

This was approaching half of the families atthat time, but all was not rosy, particularly on the BigIsland, as he notes in a January 20 letter to the Rev.Asa Thurston in Kailua, Kona:

“I feel greatly obliged to you, my dear Sir,for the information your letter contains, andthe trouble you have been to in getting thenatives of your district to send in their landclaims. I am sorry to say, however, thatnotwithstanding Hawai‘i is the largest Island. . . yet it is the least in the number of itsclaims. We have received 300 claims per dayfor sometime past, but very few of them arefrom Hawai‘i.”

The Kona district of the Big Island had spe-cial problems: fewer farm lands, a larger drop in pop-ulation caused by the royal court’s move from Kailuato Honolulu, and greater distances between settle-ments. Entire shoreline villages were abandoned.Apparently Thurston, grandfather of the Revolution-ist, urged Lee to get an extension of time because Leenotes it is possible and will have his immediate atten-tion. Ultimately, extensions were granted that keptthe Land Commission in action until 1855, ten yearsafter it had started its work.

261

Lee saw needfor a middleclass

Land Is The Key

Big Islandclaims wereslow

Getting title to the lands into the hands of thepeople was a great idea, but it didn’t work entirelythe way the King and his advisers had planned, notonly because many awards were subsequently soldbut because not all kuleana were actually awarded.Today, before such an undertaking, an educationalprogram would precede the distribution to help pre-vent many of the failures that occurred. At the time,the common people were not sophisticated in theways of Western land ownership. The devastatingsicknesses that wiped out their will to work contin-ued to wipe out entire families. Their lands often hadbeen simply abandoned and there were no familymembers left to file a claim.

Hawaiian activists belittle the effort, arguingthat only a low percentage of the maka‘ainana actu-ally received title to the lands they had been workingand received pitifully small amounts of land in theprocess. In actuality, the percentages were surpris-ingly high and the amounts of land were significantto the individual applicants, in most cases constitut-ing all of the lands they had been working.

One of the most critical has been Lilikala-

Kame‘eleihiwa, a Hawaiian scholar and active sover-eignty spokesperson at the University of Hawai‘i,who tends to see something sinister in almost every-thing the haole helped do. In 1992 she produced amonumental work entitled Native Land and ForeignDesires. On Page 295 she begins an analysis designedto demonstrate how badly the maka‘ainana fared inthe Mahele. Using her own figures, one can demon-strate that instead of suffering, they fared well.

She says that in 1848 there were about88,000 Hawaiians but only 14,195 applications werefiled for kuleana awards and only 8,421 were actual-ly awarded a total of 28,658 acres. She estimates


262

Activists misin-terpret Mahele

results

Commonersreceived signifi-

cant land

Mahele didn’twork perfectly

there were 29,220 males over 18, and uses these fig-ures to show that only 29 percent of eligible malesreceived awards, that less than 1 percent of the totalacreage was awarded and that the average award wasonly three acres, belittling all of the numbers to makeit look as though the Mahele was a rip-off.

Actually, as she acknowledges on Page 296,there is another way to look at these numbers.Arguably, each kuleana was being worked by a fami-ly, not independently by a series of males over 18.Using her figure of 10 or 11 for the size of the extend-ed family living on each kuleana, the 88,000 peoplebreak down into eight or nine thousand families.Using a family size of six or eight instead of her tenor eleven raises the number of families workingkuleana to about the same as the number of claimsfiled, stripping out multiple claims and claims bykonohiki or foreigners. It thus is likely that nearlythree-quarters of Native Hawaiian families in 1848received their kuleana in fee simple as a result of theMahele. So far as area goes, three acres is about allone could expect a family to be farming withoutmodern equipment. And one should not overlookthat the kuleana lands generally were the best farmlands in the Islands.

But perhaps the biggest reason why morekuleana lands aren’t in the hands of the maka‘ainanatoday is simply that the new owners of these landsfrequently sold them rather than endure the rigors offarming. Once your ancestor has sold the familyland, your lack of land is no longer the fault of theGreat Mahele. It is something your own ancestor didand you must live with it.

A thoughtful study made recently is the 1995book, Surveying the Mahele, by Gary L. Fitzpatrickand Riley M. Moffat. The authors note that in addi-

263

Commonerssold off theirnew lands

It’s possiblethree-quartersof Hawaiianfamilies receivedlands

Land Is The Key

tion to the Mahele as a means of getting land into thehands of the common people, the kingdom stoodready to sell government lands to any Native Hawai-ian who did not have a kuleana to claim. They noteadvertisements and editorials in the governmentnewspaper, The Polynesian, promoting this programand that the volume Index of all Grants and PatentsLand Sales lists the individual grantee, the locationand the acreage for all such transactions. “Clearly,”they note, “the overwhelming majority of the per-sonal names appearing on this list are Hawaiian,”though they note many of the larger sales went topeople without Hawaiian names.

“When the quantity of government land sold[at less than $1 per acre] to maka‘ainana is included,the impact of the Mahele may take on a different lightthan if looked at solely in terms of kuleana awards.A total of nearly 400,000 acres in grant sales wererecorded between 1846 and 1860 but no analysis ofthe amount that went to Hawaiians is available.”

The authors conclude that further studymust be made of these early sales to find out who thebuyers were—maka‘a-inana, ali‘i or konohiki—andwhere and what kinds of land were purchased beforea definitive conclusion can be reached about the fair-ness of the Mahele to the Hawaiian people.

While the move to spread ownership wasonly partly successful in its effort to make individuallandowners out of most Hawaiians, the gift of one-third of the lands to the government clearly benefit-ed all of Hawai‘i’s residents. The government landswere to be “managed, leased, or sold, in accordancewith the will of [the] Nobles and Representatives, forthe benefit of the Hawaiian Government, and to pro-mote the dignity of the Hawaiian Crown.”64 Incomefrom leases and sales of this third of the nation was


264

“King’s lands”not owned by

individuals

Mahele overallimpact better

than expected

the principal source of monies for the Kingdom andeven today provides significant funds for the govern-ment, and hence Hawai‘i’s people.

The lands retained as the King’s lands alsoprovided income for the royal office of the Monarchyitself, though members of the royal family viewedthem as privately held. Kamehameha IV’s widow,Queen Emma, took to court the question of privateownership of the King’s lands, which she wanted asher dower right. In 1864 the Kingdom’s SupremeCourt denied her claim, maintaining they were landsowned by the King as sovereign and not as an indi-vidual.

The Legislature in 1865 passed an act renam-ing them the “crown lands” and preventing furthersale or disposition of them by any ruling monarch.

After Annexation, Queen Lili‘uokalani triedto claim private ownership of the crown lands, butthe territorial Supreme Court denied her claim, andin a subsequent appeal to the U.S. Court of Claims in1910, she lost again. Until current claims by vari-ous sovereignty activists, no one else has triedin the courts to claim these lands are anythingbut government lands.

They continued to be government lands afterthe Revolution, though control passed to the Provi-sional Government. Later that control became theresponsibility of the Republic, but at all times theincome went to the government for the benefit of thepeople.

Various lands in both the crown and govern-ment segments had been sold off over the years bythe King and the Legislatures of the Monarchy andthe Republic so that by the time of Annexation about1.75 million of the original 2.5 million acresremained.65 That 1.75 million-acre combination of

265

The ceded landstotalled 1.75million acres

Land Is The Key

Two Queenssought title tocrown lands

crown and government lands became known as the“ceded lands” as a result of their cession by theRepublic to the United States at Annexation in 1898.

The 1898 Joint Resolution of Annexation ledto passage of the Organic Act in 1900 and territorialstatus for the Islands, but the day the resolution wasadopted, August 12, 1898, is marked as AnnexationDay. Formal transfer of sovereignty and transfer oftitle to the ceded lands took place on that date.

The joint resolution made clear that theseceded lands and any lands subsequently acquired byexchange were to be held in a trust to benefit theinhabitants of Hawai‘i. It spelled out that the incomeand proceeds from any sale of these lands were to beused in Hawai‘i for the benefit of its residents, andonly for “educational and other public purposes.”

Clearly there was no theft from the people ofHawai‘i and thus no reason for them to expect com-pensation from the United States. The lands werestill government lands after the Revolution in 1893,still under the administrative control of the Hawai-ian government and the beneficiaries were still thepeople of Hawai‘i.

During the subsequent fifty-nine years untilStatehood, a few more changes occurred. About fourhundred thousand acres were removed from the trustby acts of Congress for military posts, national parksand other federal purposes. Hawai‘i’s people obvi-ously continue to share in the benefits that accompa-ny those uses.

When Statehood occurred in 1959, title tothe remaining lands was transferred to the new statewith special provisions for their use, a processunique to Hawai‘i in American history. Again, theyremained government lands and do so to this day.

The Admission Act spelled out that the lands


266

Hawai‘i landtransfer unique

in Americanhistory

Some land wasset aside for

federal use thatHawai‘i still

enjoys

transferred and the income from them could be usedin only five ways:

“(1) a public trust for the support of the pub-lic schools and other public educational insti-tutions, “(2) for the betterment of the conditions ofNative Hawaiians, as defined in the Hawai-ian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amend-ed (Ed.—50 percent blood quantum), “(3) for the development of farm and homeownership on as widespread a basis as possi-ble,“(4) for the making of public improvements,and “(5) for the provision of lands for public use.”

Native Hawaiians had not been identified asspecific beneficiaries of the ceded lands in the Organ-ic Act at the time of Annexation—they shared in thetotal income, as did all other residents. The Admis-sion Act’s language that designated one of the fiveuses for ceded land revenues as support for NativeHawaiians with more than 50 percent blood levelsoon led to pressure for further legislation makingcertain public revenues available for the use ofNative Hawaiians of lesser blood quantum.

The 1978 Constitutional Convention underthe drive of soon-to-be Governor John Waihee spentconsiderable time developing amendments designedto improve the financial lot of Native Hawaiians ofwhatever quantum. Later, the Legislature providedthat one-fifth of state revenues from ceded landswould go to a newly created Office of HawaiianAffairs for the benefit of Native Hawaiians, but onlythose of 50 percent or greater blood quantum. TheLegislature was following the blood level in the

267

Office of HawaiianAffairs

Land Is The Key

Hawaiians notidentified asspecific benefici-aries in OrganicAct

Hawaiian Homes description that had been used inthe Admission Act. OHA provides a wide range ofbenefits for Native Hawaiians, who under OHAterms are defined as “any descendants of the aborig-inal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands whichexercised sovereignty and subsisted in the HawaiianIslands in 1778, and which peoples thereafter havecontinued to reside in Hawai‘i.” Because of the fed-eral limitation on the use of ceded land revenues toNative Hawaiians with 50 percent or more nativeblood, the use of OHA’s overall revenues requirescomplicated bookkeeping, which was under study atthe state level in 1997.

Other amendments included one creating a“Native Hawaiian Rehabilitation Fund,” which gets30 percent of state receipts from lands previously cul-tivated as sugar cane lands and from water licenses.Those receipts, before Statehood, had been designat-ed for loans to lessees of available lands.

In 1997, discriminatory provisions based onrace were being questioned. Aside from their effecton the state’s financial condition, these provisionswere being challenged as unconstitutional because oftheir racial discrimination.

An impressive analysis of the implications ofpresent practices termed discriminatory and whatwill be required of Native Hawaiians to qualify asbeneficiaries of government largesse was publishedin December 1996 in the Yale Law Journal. Thewriter, Stuart Minor Benjamin, holds scant hope forcurrent benefit programs to hold up if challenged.And the road to qualification is difficult and strewnwith obstacles to Native Hawaiians who would seekto be classified as Native Americans and thus possi-bly receive the federal benefits now awarded NativeAmerican tribes.


268

Classification as Native American

difficult

Ceded land revenues

restricted tothose with 50percent native

blood

Attorney John W. Goemans, local representa-tive in 1997 of the Campaign for a Color-Blind Amer-ica, which is working toward the elimination ofracial discrimination in America, summarized Ben-jamin’s positions:

“l. Recent Supreme Court cases (i.e., Croson,Adarand) establish that all government pro-grams containing racial or ethnic classifica-tions are presumptively invalid and must besubject to ‘strict scrutiny’ (i.e., must meet acompelling governmental interest by meansthat are narrowly tailored to meet that inter-est).“2. That test requires a showing of (a) pastdiscrimination and (b) the lingering presenteffects thereof which require remediation.“3. The strict scrutiny test must be applied toall governmental acts which grant prefer-ences to groups by race or ethnicity. Congressmay grant preferences if a particular grouphas a “special relationship” with Con-gress...[under the Congressional] power toregulate commerce with the Indian tribes andonly to federally recognized Indian tribes.“4. The states have [limited] power to legis-late such special relations [and then] only asderived from a Congressional Act . . . “5. Neither native Hawaiians generally orany group thereof have such a special rela-tionship as a federally recognized Indiantribe. Thus all Federal or State legislationgranting preferences to persons designatedracially Hawaiian is subject to strict scrutinyand, without a showing of (a) past invidiousracial discrimination (i.e., pervasive, system-atic, and obstinate discriminatory conduct)and (b) the lingering present effects thereof,is unconstitutional.

Land Is The Key

269

Hawaiians donot have specialfederal relation-ship

Strict scrutiny ofgovernment actsgranting racialor ethnicpreferences

“6. There is not now nor has there ever beenany reasonable argument that native Hawai-ians as a race have been so discriminatedagainst. (In fact, during the first thirty yearsof the Territory of Hawai‘i, native Hawaiiansconstituted the single largest voting bloc,effectively controlled the territorial Legisla-ture, and elected Hawaiians successively asHawai‘i’s first two delegates to Congress.)Consequently, legislation establishing theHawaiian Homes Commission, the Office ofHawaiian Affairs [or any other legislation]providing privileges and rights based on racewill ultimately be struck down as unconstitu-tional.”

Other attorneys, referring to the Kaho‘olawelegislation amended by U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka toprovide preferences for Native Hawaiians, argue thatits language also is not enforceable.

It will take years for these matters to bestraightened out in Hawai‘i and U.S. courts, andobviously patience is called for in this delicate area.

The path for Hawaiians to gain status com-parable to Native American tribes is described indetail by Benjamin. It would require many difficultmaneuvers. Suffice it to say here, given the relation-ships between the various Hawaiian groups, theprocess looks very difficult indeed. Once NativeHawaiians become aware of the not necessarily ben-eficial limitations on Native American tribes includ-ed in current legislation, there may be even less inter-est in pursuing this course.


270

Years beforelegal matters

sorted

Hawaiians notvictims of

discrimination

n October 27, 1993, the U.S. Sen-ate passed a joint resolution to“acknowledge the 100th anniver-sary of the January 17, 1893, over-throw of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i,

and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians onbehalf of the United States for the overthrow of theKingdom of Hawai‘i.” It passed 65 to 34, with onlyone hour of debate on the Senate floor during whichserious questions were raised that went unanswered.On November 15 it passed the House in even lesstime, with no debate and no objections. There wereno public hearings or input. It was a triumph for sov-ereignty activists. It is an insult to the rest ofHawai‘i’s taxpayers and to the American people.

While resolutions do not have the force oflaw, some sovereignty groups already are using it asthe basis for their proposed creation of an independ-ent nation and for efforts to get reparations. Eachsovereignty group, regardless of its individual goals,sees the apology resolution as providing some kind oflegal basis for proposed actions. It seems incrediblethat a simple resolution presented as a good-faith rec-onciliation effort by Hawai‘i’s two senators, DanielAkaka and Daniel Inouye, could now be billed as

The Congressional Apology: A Travesty

Chapter Ten

271

Apology toNative Hawaiians

Resolutions donot have forceof law

O

having such authority and meaning. Senator Inouye stressed that it did not seek

special treatment for Native Hawaiians nor implyconsent for independence or reparations. SenatorAkaka, however, appeared to view it as the openingmove toward recognition and reparations, and it’snow being used for that purpose. Perhaps more star-tling, it surfaced in September 1997, that the sover-eignty movement views it as resolving by compro-mise the long-standing differences in interpretationof the events surrounding the revolution. DavianaMacGregor, a professor in the University of Hawai‘iDepartment of Ethnic Studies and the person credit-ed with having written the resolution, said in an arti-cle in The Advertiser, September 7, 1997:

“[The resolution] has closed the chapteron the role of the U.S. government in theoverthrow. . . . The U.S. Congress and thepresident . . . recount and agree upon the keyhistoric events leading up to and followingthe overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. . . .They finally admitted and accepted blame forinjustices committed . . . with the participa-tion of agents and citizens of the UnitedStates.”

As indicated later in this chapter, the resolu-tion appears to be totally derived from the BlountReport and hence in no way represents a compro-mise between Blount and Morgan’s findings. Nopublic hearings or public input were sought by ourSenators, who doubtless were astonished to readabout this conclusion by MacGregor.

On September 18, 1997, H.K. Bruss Keppeler,a middle-of the-road activist attorney, admitted to anaudience at The Pacific Club that MacGregor andothers are wrong with this interpretation. He said


272

Senators seeapology

differently

Resolution nothistory, not law

the apology resolution provides neither history norlaw; “it’s just a resolution.”

Only five senators participated in the debate.Three were opposed and two—Hawai‘i’s two—argued in favor. Senator Inouye stated several timesthat it was a “simple resolution of apology” and had“nothing to do” with whether Hawaiians are NativeAmericans or with the question of Hawaiian home-lands. The three senators who spoke in opposition,Slade Gorton of Washington, Hank Brown of Col-orado and John C. Danforth of Missouri, however,foresaw problems with the ambiguity of its limitedoperative language—justified concern given subse-quent actions of sovereignty activists.

The opening argument was made by SenatorAkaka, who was allowed fifteen minutes. He didn’ttake that long but he raised more than half a dozenpoints whose validity is questionable. In his first sen-tence, for example, he said this resolution concerns“U.S. policy toward its native peoples.” Hawaiians,while natives of the former Kingdom, and in manycases citizens of the nation governed by the Republicat the time of Annexation, never were native peoplesof the United States. They were native peoples of theRepublic of Hawai‘i, and along with all of its resi-dents became citizens of the United States on Annex-ation. Native Hawaiians thus never were NativeAmericans. Most sovereignty efforts are based on theunfounded assertion that Hawaiians are NativeAmericans, a technical description that opens anumber of legal doors. This description of Hawaiiannatives has not been accepted by any administrationor by Congress. In fact, U.S. Solicitor GeneralThomas L. Sansonetti issued a lengthy opinion inearly 1993 that Hawaiians are not Native Americans,a point reviewed later in this chapter. The opinion

The Congressional Apology

273

Hawaiians notconsideredNative Americans

Validity ofAkaka’s pointsquestionable

Little debate onresolution

was withdrawn later that same year for political rea-sons by the Clinton administration, but no contraryopinion has been issued in the ensuing years.

More to the point that the issue of NativeAmerican status was not under consideration duringdebate over the apology resolution, Senator Inouye,wrapping up the debate, said:

“As to the matter of the status of NativeHawaiians, as my colleague from Washingtonknows, from the time of statehood we havebeen in this debate. Are Native HawaiiansNative Americans? This resolution hasnothing to do with that (Ed.—emphasisadded).”

Senator Akaka earlier, however, had arguedfor several minutes that Hawaiians are Native Amer-icans. He said, “Too often, when the American pub-lic and U.S. policy makers think about Native Amer-icans, they mistakenly consider only Native Ameri-can and Alaska natives as native peoples of the Unit-ed States.” He must be aware of the continuing un-resolved debate on this point referred to by SenatorInouye, but he goes on to say:

“This misperception is based on a lack ofknowledge of events surrounding the 1893overthrow . . . and the current status ofNative Hawaiians in our nation’s politicalsystem.

“Long neglected by the United States,Native Hawaiians have literally fallenthrough the cracks when it comes to a com-prehensive federal policy towards NativeAmericans. . . . Native Hawaiians are, indeed,Native Americans. . . .”

The senator overlooks several striking differ-


274

Akaka: Hawai-ians are Native

Americans

ences between Hawaiians and Native Americans.The Native Americans lived in areas conquered bytroops of the United States in bloody warfare andtheir lands were directly seized by the United Statesto become federal lands until some were set aside asIndian reservations. It’s logical that North AmericanIndians are considered Native Americans: They con-trolled their lands and were living on them whenthose lands were seized by U.S. soldiers under aclearly stated U.S. policy of expansion and wipingout Indians and their control. Native Americanswere long denied citizenship. They deserve compen-sation for this treatment and this has been recog-nized for over one hundred years. Alaska natives,too, did not become citizens of the United States atthe time of acquisition—or of Russia, from whom theUnited States bought the lands.

Not so with Native Hawaiians. Hawai‘i wasneither conquered nor bought. Hawai‘i was acquiredby Annexation from the Republic of Hawai‘i, whichoffered itself and its people for that purpose, with theunanimous approval of its Legislature.

Hawaiians were native residents and subjectsor citizens, in succession, of the Kingdom, the Provi-sional Government and the Republic. They, alongwith all other citizens of the Republic, became citi-zens of the United States at the time of Annexation.They continued to get the same benefits from theirgovernment lands after Annexation as they hadbefore, and continue to do so today, although, as indi-cated earlier, most sovereignty activists are seekingextra, special benefits for Hawaiians alone.

Since the conquest of Kamehameha I, NativeHawaiians have not been treated as a conquered peo-ple. Not by the Provisional Government, not by theRepublic, not by the United States.


275

Hawaiians gotsame benefits asall citizens

Hawai‘i was notconquered orbought

Striking differ-ences betweenHawaiians andNative Ameri-cans

The Republic had existed for more than fouryears at the time of Annexation and was recognizedas an independent nation by the United States andevery other foreign government interested in thePacific. Association with America was somethingHawaiian leadership sought over the years. Sover-eign kings several times in the 19th Century hadoffered the Kingdom to the United States for Annex-ation or Statehood, Kamehameha III going so far asto negotiate a formal Annexation treaty, though hedied before it could be signed. These Hawaiian mon-archs believed that the association would benefittheir people by stabilizing the struggling Islandnation in friendly hands with fair treatment under astrong government.

The natives of Mexico who were in the Texasarea and the natives of Spain and Mexico who inhab-ited California before those areas became part of theUnited States, on the other hand, received discrimi-natory treatment. Their personal status at the timetheir lands were being considered for Annexationwas similar to the personal status of the natives ofHawai‘i: Native peoples of the district, they were liv-ing on land controlled by themselves or their inde-pendent local government when it became a part ofthe United States. But as individuals they were nottreated similarly when they became part of the Unit-ed States. None of the residents of Mexican or Span-ish ancestry qualified as American citizens whenthose in control of their independent countriesjoined the American Flag. None became NativeAmericans. None retained any interest in the landwhatsoever. None got the right to vote until muchlater.

Hawai‘i’s Annexationists fought long andhard to make sure the Hawaiian people would enjoy


276

Hawaiian mon-archs sought tostabilize nation

Hawaiian lead-ership sought

association withAmerica

the full benefits offered by the United States to itspeople. The Native Hawaiians did not become sec-ond-class citizens.

The vast lands of Texas and California atAnnexation and the lands seized from Native Amer-ican tribes went into the federal land bank. TheRepublic of Hawai‘i, on the other hand, through athree-man committee headed by L.A. Thurston, wasable to negotiate a transfer of its lands to the UnitedStates in the form of a sort of trust whose incomecould only be spent for the welfare of all of the resi-dents of the Islands.

Senator Akaka stated that “While the pri-mary purpose of [the] resolution is to educate my col-leagues on the events surrounding the 1893 over-throw, the resolution would also provide the properfoundation for reconciliation between the UnitedStates and Native Hawaiians.” No foundation waslaid for the need for reconciliation nor what it mightmean. He hinted he had reparations in mind. Ourother senator stated just the opposite: The resolutionwas not a step toward reparations or Native Ameri-can designation for Hawaiians.

Later Senator Akaka referred to anotherevent not based on any factual evidence and subjectto much debate: “In recognition of the complicity ofsome members of the church” (the United Church ofChrist, whose American Board of Commissioners forForeign Missions sent missionaries to Hawai‘ibetween 1820 and 1850), the church offered a publicapology in 1993 to Native Hawaiians. It is true thatthe national office of the church did make such anapology. But any Hawai‘i church members whomight have participated in the Revolution were notinvolved in it on the basis that they were members ofthe church. Yes, there were two second- and one


277

Akaka: Basis forreparationsInouye: Not abasis for repa-rations

Annexationistsfought forHawaiians

third-generation descendants of missionaries amongthe thirteen members of the Committee that spear-headed the Revolution. But they were there as sub-jects of the Kingdom, concerned for its future, andnot as representatives of a missionary viewpoint. In1893, the church was not asked to take a position onthe Revolution and it did not do so.

Local church members were not asked fortheir opinion or input on the 1993 apology by theirnational office and many Hawai‘i members of thechurch still are upset that the office took the positionit did. They resent the attempt to rewrite history tomake it appear that the church played a role in theoverthrow. And they resent the transfer to Hawaiianorganizations of endowment monies and land con-tributed to the Hawai‘i branch of the church over theyears by its members. It was an inappropriate apolo-gy, not based on any facts offered in evidence, theresult of lopsided research at best.

Senator Akaka sounded a theme muchexploited by sovereignists but bearing little relation-ship to fact; namely, that the overthrow somehowhad an adverse effect on the welfare of NativeHawaiians. Arguably, the overthrow created condi-tions that five years later helped rather than hinderedHawaiian welfare because it brought into play thesupport of the U.S. government. What SenatorAkaka said was:

“The deprivation of Hawaiian sovereign-ty, which began a century ago, has had dev-astating effects on the health, culture andsocial conditions of Native Hawaiians, withconsequences that are evident throughout theIslands today.”

The idea that somehow the Revolution is to


278

Revolution notto blame for

Hawaiian status

Church apologyinappropriate

Church notasked to take a

position on Rev-olution

blame for the health, cultural and social status ofHawaiians from 1893 until today is hard to fathom.Remember, too, that Native Hawaiians controlled theelective and appointed government offices up toWorld War II. If one is to hold any governmentresponsible for the welfare of the Hawaiian people inthe earlier part of the 19th Century, it should be theMonarchy. The Monarchy did its best to prepare itspeople for the inevitability of living with Westernculture but it wasn’t equipped financially to bear theburden and costs.

O.A. Bushnell, in his provocative 1993 book,The Gifts of Civilization, attributes the breakdown inHawaiian civilization in large part to the unsavorycharacters who were Hawai‘i’s visitors during thefour decades after Western contact and before themissionaries arrived. Many of the men who went tosea in those days and thus ended up in Hawai‘i couldwell be generalized as being of the lowest character.Social welfare was not their game and they certainlyevinced little consideration for their fellow man. Intheir viewpoint, Hawaiian natives were fair game forevery kind of exploitation.

Further, at the time of the Revolution, ex-penditures of the royal government on welfare andassistance to its people of necessity were virtuallynil. The Kingdom often was near bankruptcy. AfterAnnexation, Hawaiians became eligible for the bene-fits of the United States, a huge step forward. No oneargues that Hawaiian problems do not exist today,but they certainly shouldn’t be blamed on the Revo-lution.

The entire Akaka-Inouye resolution needs tobe examined in detail to demonstrate how one-sidedand distorted the campaign for sovereignty hasbecome. Even our good elected officials, who should


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Royal govern-ment spent littleon welfare

Monarchy triedto prepare peo-ple for Westernculture

have recognized the bias, accepted many of theclaims without question. The resolution’s thirty-seven whereas clauses are six times longer than theoperative body of the resolution and contain numer-ous errors of fact and distortions of the truth, begin-ning with the very first clause, discussed in detailbelow. In no way can passage of the resolution byCongress be considered an affirmation of these errorsas the “new truth.”

As Senators Gorton and Brown pointed outduring the brief debate, the congressional resolutionis not clear as to what it implies or means when itcomes to “acknowledging the ramifications of theoverthrow...[or]...the proper foundation forreconciliation” mentioned in its brief operating text.The committee report contained no additional infor-mation nor any explanation of what the resolutionsought by way of reconciliation or compensation.The questioning senators tried to get more informa-tion and asked for time to get it. Senator Inouye,without answering their questions in detail, deniedtheir request for an additional half-hour of debate“because a schedule has been established for the restof the afternoon.” Senate rules require unanimousconsent for an extension of time.

The mischief this congressional resolutioncan cause is evident by actions already taken by sov-ereignty groups. One, the “Nation of Hawai‘i” head-ed by Pu‘uhonua “Bumpy” Kanahele, has publishedan interpretation by its consultant on internationallaw, Francis A. Boyle, that maintains this so-calledsimple resolution entitles “the native people ofHawaii . . . to a restoration of their independent sta-tus as a sovereign nation state.” Boyle suggests Kana-hele’s group take its case to the United Nations andthe International Court of Justice. It seems obvious


280

Resolutionunclear on

compensation

Sovereigntycampaign distorted

British Captain James Cookopens Hawai‘i to Westernworld, exposing Islands todevastating diseases andcolonial ambitions.

Kamehameha I discussescession to Britain withCaptain James Vancouver,but the negotiations gonowhere.

Kaua‘i chief yields to Kamehameha I,who had conquered in bloody warfareall other competing chiefs in Hawai‘i,uniting the Islands in one Kingdom forthe first time in recorded history.

Kamehameha I dies. He is suc-ceeded by his son, Liholiho(Kamehameha II), but thepower lies with regent Ka‘ahu-manu. At her urging, Kame-hameha II eats with the womenof his court, ending the kapu(taboo) system and the old reli-gion, which also had includedinfanticide and human sacrifice.Brig Thaddeus brings first missionaries.

They teach almost entire nation to readand write, preserve the language in awritten form, translate the Bible and otherliterature into Hawaiian. They continue topreach in Hawaiian after the natives learnEnglish. Hawai‘i becomes one of most lit-erate nations in the world, surpassing theUnited States by mid-century.

Kamehameha III, who becameKing in 1824 after brother’sdeath, establishes a constitu-tional form of monarchy.

Kamehameha III seeksAnnexation with the UnitedStates but Washington isagainst it.

King proclaims Great Mahele (land distribution),gives about one-third of his land to NativeHawaiians, one-third to government and retainsone-third as “King’s lands,” later “crown lands.”

A Timeline through Hawai‘i’s History

Western Contact to Statehood

1778-19591778 1798

1810 1819

1820

1840

1848

KamehamehaIII signs treatyof “friendship,commerce andnavigation”with UnitedStates.

American Board of Missions winds down, then severs itsrelationship with the Hawai‘i missionaries, who eithergo on missions elsewhere or continue their work withthe support of local congregations. The Revolution of1893 thus occurs thirty years after the last of the mis-sionaries are active in Hawai‘i.

Kamehameha IV dies, is succeed-ed by his natural brother, LotKamehameha (Kamehameha V),who favors more absoluteMonarchy, continued ties toBritain.

Kamehameha IIIdies, is succeededby ha-nai (adopt-ed) son, Alexan-der Liholiho(KamehamehaIV), who with-draws treaty ofAnnexation withUnited States,favors tie withBritain.

Kamehameha V abrogates the Constitu-tion of 1852 after Legislature refuses toact on proposed amendments, replacesit with a new Constitution that returnscertain powers to the Monarchy andintroduces property ownership require-ments for voting.

The Kingdom’s Supreme Courtdenies claim by Queen Emma,widow of Kamehameha IV, to pri-vate ownership of the King’s lands.The court rules the lands are ownedby the King as a sovereign and notas an individual.

1849

1854

1862

1851

1851-1863

U.S. Secretary of State DanielWebster declares Americanswho settle in HawaiianIslands “have ceased to beAmerican citizens.” Mosthad become subjects of King-dom, but many believed theywere still U.S. citizens. Statusof “denizen” allows Kingdomvoting rights without need tobecome a subject.

Kamehameha III, UnitedStates begin negotiatingAnnexation treatydespite objections fromBritain and France.Treaty, with lack ofenthusiasm in Washing-ton, takes three years tonegotiate and King diesbefore it can be signed.

1864

Kamehameha III

Kamehameha IV

Kamehameha V

View ofHonolulu

Kamehameha V dies, endingKamehameha dynasty. Consti-tution provides for election bythe Legislature and Lunalilobecomes first elected king,defeating Kal-akaua.

Lunalilo dies, is succeeded in tumul-tuous election by Kal-akaua, who winslegislative vote over the more popularQueen Emma, widow of KamehamehaIV. Riots break out at the courthousewhere Legislature is assembled, at Fortand Queen Streets. U.S. troops arelanded to preserve order.

United States and Hawai‘i signa Treaty of Reciprocity, estab-lishing an exclusive trade linkbetween the two nations.

July 6:Community-wide distress over years of mismanage-ment of the Kingdom and dissolute excesses byKal-akaua culminates in mass meeting that imposesReform Constitution on King, diminishes powers ofMonarchy by putting control into hands of Cabinet.Opponents label it “Bayonet Constitution.” King’sarmed forces do not challenge the volunteer rifle-men, mostly haole, who are part of the mass meetingand who later lead 1893 Revolution.

Charles B. Wilson,later to be Lili‘uo-kalani’s marshal, anda group of his sup-porters face Kal-a-kaua and demandabdication in favor ofhis sister. Kala-kauadeclines, effort isdropped.

Later, Robert W. Wilcox, a European-trained half-Hawaiian artilleryman, launches an insurrectionagainst Kal-akaua. Lili‘uokalani, aware of the move,plans to succeed her brother if Wilcox forces him toabdicate. U.S. troops again are landed to protectAmerican lives and property, but, as in 1893, do nottake an active role. The rebellion is put down bysame men who saved Kal-akaua in 1887 and who in1893 oust Lili‘uokalani, in all three cases withoutasking for prior surrender of Monarchy’s forces.

“Pearl HarborClause” added toTreaty of Reciprocityas part of agreementfor further extension,granting exclusiverights to the UnitedStates for the useand development ofPearl Harbor.

1872 1874

1875

1887

1889

January:Secret Annexation Club is formed, sendsL.A. Thurston to Washington to sound outpossibilities of Annexation. He finds itcannot be accomplished without a requestfrom the Hawai‘i government. By July1893, 18 percent of club members areNative Hawaiians.

February:Hui Aloha‘a-ina, a Native Hawaiian politicalclub with several hundred members, is

formed to opposeQueen Lili‘-uokalani andfavor Annexation.

Thursday, January 12: The Kingdom’s Legislature, at theQueen’s behest and after much pres-sure and bribery, removes the Jones-Wilcox Cabinet, which opposed heropium and lottery bills. Under theConstitution, all bills must have theapproval of the Cabinet. She appointsa new Cabinet. The bills are approvedand the Queen signs them over com-munity objections.

Saturday, January 14:Morning:

After getting the opium and lotterybills signed, the Queen tells her newlyappointed Cabinet that she is promul-gating a new Constitution, in defianceof her oath to uphold the 1887 Consti-tution, which calls for legislative initia-tion and approval of amendments.

Hers would return the Kingdom to amore absolute Monarchy, disenfran-chising the foreign community andallowing her appointment of the upperhouse and the Cabinet. Her action isthe catalyst that gets the Revolutionunderway. The four-man Cabinetrefuses to approve her proposal, callsit unconstitutional.The Cabinet members, all Royalists,ask haole community leaders for sup-port to depose Queen. All four mem-bers meet with Lorrin A. Thurston andW.O. Smith in Attorney General A.P.Peterson’s office, prepare and signnotice to Queen of her ouster and signrequest to U.S. Minister John Stevensseeking support of U.S. troops if theyproceed. Neither document is deliv-ered as Queen changes her mind thenext day.

January:Kal-akaua dies. His sister, Lili‘-uokalani, named by him as hissuccessor, takes the throneafter swearing to uphold the1887 Constitution.

April:The McKinley tariff on Hawai-ian sugar entering the UnitedStates has serious effect on Isleeconomy until its repeal in1894.

Wilcox forms Hui Kalai‘a-ina, aNative Hawaiian political groupdissatisfied with Lili‘uokalani’sregime because of her associa-tion with Marshal Wilson.

The 1893 Revolution Begins

1891 1892

Lili‘uokalani

Saturday, January 14 (continued) Afternoon:

Meeting at the office of W.O. Smith fol-lows, expands to several hundred peo-ple. John Colburn, the Queen’s minis-ter of the interior, makes plea forarmed community support, backed byPeterson and her personal attorney,Paul Neumann; a hundred men sign upas armed resistance and a counter-rev-olution against the Queen are openlyadvocated. The thirteen-member Com-mittee of Safety is then named to carryit out.Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Boston returns toHonolulu with U.S. Minister Stevensaboard. The warship had been on aten-day trip to Hilo.

Night:Committee of Safety meets into theevening; Delegation calls on MinisterStevens to apprise him of what hastranspired, asks what he would do ifCabinet tried to oust the Queen. Hesays because Queen’s proposed actionwas revolutionary, he would recognizeCabinet as government and supportthem as he has supported Hawai‘i’sgovernment in past.

Sunday January 15:Morning:

Thurston wakes up Colburn and theywake up Peterson. Thurston tells themthe citizens are prepared to join them,follow their lead in declaring the Queenin revolution against the government,the throne vacant and the Monarchyabrogated. He says the Committee ofSafety is prepared to move against theQueen whether the Cabinet acts or not.The Cabinet says it is not ready to act.

At a 10 a.m. meeting of the Committeeof Safety at the home of member W.R.Castle, Thurston reports the Cabinetposition. The Committee meets most ofthe day as several of the Queen’s policekeep watch, reiterates its intention togo ahead without the Cabinet and callsa mass meeting for Monday afternoon.The Queen calls her own mass meetingfor the same time.

Afternoon:Queen’s Cabinet members meet withMinister Stevens, seeking support forher in the event of insurrection, and aretold that U.S. troops will not take sides.

Monday, January 16:Morning:

The Committee of Safety meets at 9a.m. in Thurston’s office, learns ofQueen’s mass meeting, reviews formalrequest from Cabinet for conference.The Queen’s marshal, Charles Wilson,stops by, calls Thurston out and tellshim Committee must stop its revolu-tionary plans. Committee declines.Subcommittee sent to meet with Cabi-net, finds it has gained promise fromQueen not to promulgate the new Con-stitution, members have changed theirminds about deposing her. Wilsongoes to Cabinet, asks permission toarrest entire Committee, which still is inThurston’s office. The Cabinet, whichhas kept Queen informed about Com-mittee’s plans, denies permission.Queen takes no action either, thoughU.S. troops are not yet ashore.

The 1893Revolution Continues

Monday, January 16 (continued)Committee decides to pursue actionagainst Queen in view of her state-ments that she is withdrawing newConstitution only until a more oppor-tune moment, and in view of quotesfrom her in the Hawaiian languagenewspapers that she will do it “soon.”

Afternoon:A 2 p.m. mass meeting of 3,000unarmed residents is held within ablock of ‘Iolani Palace. The meetinghears fiery speeches, cheers, unani-mously adopts a resolution calling forfreedom, continuation of the right tovote and for a strong and stable gov-ernment, all of which they believewould be lost under the Queen’s newConstitution. The meeting also adoptsresolution declaring the Queen to be inrevolt and authorizing the Committee ofSafety to do whatever is necessary.Committee makes its first request toStevens for landing of U.S. troops,delivering written request signed byentire Committee to him after the after-noon mass meeting.About 5 p.m., Capt. G.C. Wiltse, com-manding officer of the U.S.S. Boston,lands U.S. troops “...for the purpose ofprotecting our legation, consulate, andthe lives and property of American citi-zens, and to assist in preserving publicorder.”

Tuesday, January 17:Early Afternoon:

Lt. Cmdr. W.T. Swinburne, the seniorU.S. military officer on shore, tellsCommittee of Safety member CharlesCarter about 1 p.m.: “If the Queencalls upon me to preserve order, I amgoing to do it.”

On the front steps of the governmentbuilding, Henry Cooper reads procla-mation of Committee of Safety declar-ing throne vacant and establishing Pro-visional Government. A single volun-teer is with him besides Committeemembers and soon-to-be-president,Sanford B. Dole, as he starts, but addi-tional armed volunteers, responding tothe call, gather as he reads. CharlesCarter goes across the street and asksU.S. commanding officer Swinburne forprotection for the Revolutionists. “Iremain passive,” Swinburne responds.

Late Afternoon:Provisional Government takes over for-mer Monarchy responsibilities, is rec-ognized as successor government byU.S. Minister Stevens about 4:30 to 5p.m., accepts surrender of Queen’stroops, receives letter of protest fromthe Queen (who states she is surren-dering to U.S. and seeking arbitrationby Washington), advises foreign lega-tions of new government and gainstheir recognition over next 48 hours.Dole later points out Queen’s arbitra-tion claim was not negotiated or agreedto by Revolutionists.

Thursday, January 19:Provisional Government charters ship tosend five envoys to Washington, D.C.,to confirm recognition by MinisterStevens, seek Annexation. They allowship to carry letter from the Queen toPresident Harrison but deny passage toQueen’s envoys, who come at a laterdate. In her letter to the president, theQueen fails to mention anything aboutarbitration by the U.S. of her surrender.

The 1893 Revolution Continues

March-July: Former Rep. James H. Blount,on assignment from Presi-dent Cleveland, conductssecret investigation of theRevolution without tellingProvisional Government ofhis purpose. He fails to inter-view key Revolutionists,members of Committee ofSafety or leaders of Provi-sional Government, blamesU.S. troops for inappropriateaction, recommends censureof U.S. Minister Stevens andreturn of Monarchy to theQueen. Hawai‘i governmentdoesn’t get copy of his reportuntil late December, weeksafter public charges havebeen made by U.S. Secretaryof State Walter Q. Greshamand the president.

November 16:New U.S. minister to Hawai‘i,Albert Willis, meets in secretwith Queen to present Presi-dent Cleveland’s request thatshe grant amnesty to Revolu-tionists in return for her rein-statement. She replies shewill have them beheaded.

December 18:Lili‘uokalani, on third visit byWillis, changes mind on vowto have Revolutionistsbeheaded, but unknown tothe two of them, it is too late.President Cleveland hasturned the matter over toCongress on advice of hisattorney general, and U.S.Senate has called hearing byits Committee on ForeignAffairs, as one-sided nature,borderline diplomatic ethicsof Blount Report becomeapparent.

December 23:Minister Willis, unawareCleveland has dropped theball, presents ProvisionalGovernment with president’sdemand that it restore Queento throne. The demand isrejected. In letter written byDole a few days later, Cleve-land learns of ProvisionalGovernment’s viewpoint onrevolt, remains silent onHawai‘i matter for the rest ofhis term.

January, February:U.S. Sen. John T. Morgan conducts hearingby Committee on Foreign Relations intoHawaiian Revolution that exonerates MinisterStevens and U.S. troops, repudiates Blountfinding and efforts by Cleveland administra-tion to restore ex-Queen to throne.

July 4:The Provisional Governmentdeclares itself the Republic ofHawai‘i, includes Annexation goalin its Constitution, is recognized bythe Cleveland administration andall countries with Pacific interests.

1893 Revolution Aftermath

Sanford Dole

Lorrin Thurston

1894

U.S. Court of Claims deniesappeal by Lili‘uokalani of aterritorial Supreme Court rul-ing that denies the formerQueen’s claim to privateownership of the crownlands, formerly the King’slands. No individual hasclaimed ownership since,until the recent claims bysovereignty activists.

August 12, 1898: Congress adopts joint resolutionapproving Annexation. The day isknown as Annexation Day. Gov-ernment lands known as “cededlands” that were transferred suc-cessively from the Monarchy to theProvisional Government to theRepublic are ceded to the UnitedStates to be held in trust for thebenefit of all Hawai‘i residents.

April 30:Organic Act is passed byCongress, making Annexationofficial and creating the Terri-tory of Hawai‘i. In first elec-tion, Wilcox wins highestelective office, Native Hawai-ians dominate Legislature,other offices.

Hawai‘i becomes the 50thstate of the United States.Title of the ceded lands istransferred back to Hawai‘icontrol.

January:Royalists organize an unsuc-

cessful counter-revolution underthe leadership of Wilcox. Hun-dreds are captured and convict-ed of treason. Lili‘uokalani isconvicted of misprision—theknowledge of treason—and isconfined to ‘Iolani Palace foreight months. All other sen-tences are commuted by year-end.January 24:Lili‘uokalani signs abdicationdocument, swears allegiance tothe Republic.

1895

1900

1959

1910

1898

he is stretching the ambiguous language of the reso-lution, but as an attorney he knows ambiguity isready fodder for minds set on creating legal entangle-ments. Other activist attorneys, like Keppeler, sayBoyle is simply wrong.

Senator Gorton questioned the ambiguitiesand omissions. He said:

“It is clear the resolution accomplishesone goal. It divides the citizens of the State ofHawaii . . .”

With MacGregor’s newly articulated positionthat it clears away the fog of history, the resolutionwould wipe out existing history books except thosewritten recently by sovereignty activists.

Let us look at the resolution point by point.Senators Akaka and Inouye claimed its thirty-sevenwhereas clauses accurately reflect the history ofHawai‘i. They do not. The language is based on aone-sided approach that comes from incomplete andinadequate research. Hawai‘i-based activists workedup the document in Honolulu, where it was writtenapparently by MacGregor and sent to SenatorAkaka’s office. That office appears to have taken thelanguage of sovereignty activists as gospel. The fail-ure to hold any public hearings on the matter or seekinput from other historians prevented opposingviewpoints from being considered.

The whereas clauses unfairly portray aHawai‘i far from the Hawai‘i that existed at the timeof the Revolution. The clauses never acknowledgethat authorities disagree on many matters for thatperiod of Hawaiian history. (MacGregor says its pas-sage overrides these disagreements.) Sixty-five sena-tors accepted the clauses as fully fair and correctsince our senators said they were, and no one was


281

Opposing view-points not con-sidered

MacGregor’sposition woulderase history

Sovereigntygroups stretchambiguous lan-guage

there to argue about errors in the so-called historicalfacts. The haste of the action precluded anyone frominvestigating, including the three senators whoactively opposed the resolution.

The first whereas clause, for example, statesthat prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in1778, the Native Hawaiians lived in a “highly organ-ized, self-sufficient, subsistent social system based oncommunal land tenure with a sophisticated language,culture, and religion.” What actually was going on inpre-contact Hawai‘i instead of high and sophisticatedsocial organization was constant warfare amongchiefs on each island and constant efforts by the win-ners to move off-island and conquer other chiefs.The lands were not communally owned; they werecontrolled entirely by whichever chief currently wason top. Queen Lili‘uokalani in her writings speaks ofthe land as being owned by the monarch under a feu-dal system. The lands were communally used becauseeach chief needed the common people to work thesoil so he—and they—could subsist.

Because of the lack of metal, technologieswere necessarily primitive. The language was en-tirely oral until the missionaries came along forty-two years after Western contact. They put together awritten language and taught the natives to read andwrite. Communication had been limited in scope as itis with any purely oral language. Hawaiians and theearly whalers and merchants developed a form ofpidgin that bastardized the Hawaiian language butworked for business transactions.

Hawaiian religion before 1778 was builtaround idols and sacrifices and kapu (taboos) that ifbroken were punishable by death. While the systemdid not give individuals the personal freedoms wetake for granted today, it worked in its day to provide


282

Native languagewas purely oral

Pre-contactHawai‘i not

sophisticatedsociety

a basis for personal conduct. The very strictness ofits rules and punishments meant that the nativesobserved the system without question. Though intel-ligent, Native Hawaiians before 1778 realisticallycannot be called a “sophisticated” people by any def-inition of that word.

The second clause states that a “unifiedmonarchical government . . . was established in 1810by Kamehameha I, the first King of Hawai‘i.” Itwould be more accurate to say that this first king inHawai‘i’s recorded history established an absoluteMonarchy by making good use of European advisersto conquer in bloody warfare the people of everyisland except Kaua‘i.

The fifth clause contains a horrendousmisstatement that distorts the basis for consideringan apology when it states that U.S. Minister John L.Stevens “conspired with a small group of non-Hawai-ian residents of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i . . . to over-throw” the government. Not even the one-sidedBlount Report proves Stevens conspired with theRevolutionists. He was not even on O‘ahu whenplanning for the Revolution began and the Commit-tee of Safety was appointed to work out its details,though he arrived later that day. We do know, and healways admitted, that he was pro-Annexation, aswere his predecessor U.S. ministers, but there is noevidence he conspired to bring it about. The fifthclause also implies the Revolutionists had no vestedinterest in the welfare of the Kingdom. It fails topoint out that the thirteen members of the Committee(the “small group” mentioned by the clause) all wereresidents of Hawai‘i, all taxpayers, with more thanhalf being subjects of the Monarchy as well. Thehundreds of other Hawai‘i residents who were pres-ent at the mass meeting that had appointed the Com-


283

U.S. ministerpro-Annexationbut did not conspire

Kamehamehaestablishedabsolute Monarchy

Hawaiian reli-gion pre-1778was very strict

mittee, also all taxpayers, were rebelling against whatthey considered unconscionable acts of their owngovernment. They were not acting as a foreigntakeover group. As subjects they had the same stand-ing versus Queen Lili‘uokalani as the Americancolonists did who rebelled against King George III:they felt a change in government was necessary topreserve their country and their welfare.

The sixth clause continues the erroneousconspiracy charge and obscures the truth by statingthat Stevens caused “armed naval forces of the Unit-ed States to invade . . . to intimidate QueenLili‘uokalani and her government.” This is clearlyargumentative and not a fact for the “education ofmy colleagues,” as Senator Akaka described his reso-lution three times in his remarks. It is stretchingthings a bit to call landing of the troops an “inva-sion.” Webster defines “invade” as “to enter for con-quest or plunder,” as in raid or assault. Stevens’ andWiltse’s orders clearly stated the troops were landedto protect American lives and property. They were inthe harbor as guests of the Monarchy through theReciprocity Treaty. When they came ashore, they didnot point their weapons at anyone. They respectfullysaluted the Queen. They did not fire a shot—theywere ready but their rifles were stacked nearby—nordid they enter any government buildings. They madeno effort to seize control, and once the Revolution-ists, 24 hours later, announced they had taken con-trol from the Queen, the troops went back to theirship, a procedure they had followed on other occa-sions during the reigns of earlier monarchs. Theirmission on each of those occasions and on this onewas one of standing by to protect Americans andtheir interests. Admittedly this point falls into a dis-puted, gray, politicized area of Hawaiian history, and


284

Mission: to pro-tect Americans

Landing oftroops not an

“invasion”

if he had wanted to be fair to his colleagues, SenatorAkaka might better have described it in those terms.

The seventh clause perpetuates a myth bystating that the 1893 Committee of Safety “repre-sented . . . sugar planters, descendants of missionar-ies and financiers” as if those separate groups hadbanded together and selected individuals to act forthem in the Revolution. The most powerful sugarplanters in fact were against the Revolution andAnnexation, fearing Annexation would change therules under which they brought in labor. ClausSpreckels, for example, the major sugar baron of the19th Century, was an ardent supporter of both KingKala-kaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani. British planterssuch as Theo H. Davies also strongly supported theMonarchy and opposed Annexation. The descen-dants of missionaries at the time were no more acohesive group on the question of Annexation thanthe descendants of Hawaiians are today when itcomes to defining the goals of sovereignty.

The eighth clause is a semantic exercise thatimputes evil to the Provisional Government put inplace by the Revolutionists because it was formed“without the consent of the Native Hawaiian peopleor the lawful government of Hawai‘i and in violationof treaties between the two nations and of interna-tional law.” That argument, of course, would negatethe American Revolution. From QueenLili‘uokalani’s point of view, of course, the Revolu-tionists were acting illegally when they removed herfrom the throne. But they were acting as revolution-aries always do, with the moral justification ofbelieving their cause was right. They certainly didnot represent another nation. When they took con-trol of the country, the Provisional Government theyproclaimed became the lawful government of


285

Spreckels, sugarinterests backedMonarchy

Hawai‘i. They did not ask anyone to approve theRevolution, nor was that required.

The Monarchy had no treaties with the Unit-ed States or any other government ruling out revolu-tions, nor does international law oppose suchreforms.

The ninth clause sets forth the masterfulprotest statement issued by Lili‘uokalani when shesaid she was surrendering on the day of the Revolu-tion. She said she was surrendering to the UnitedStates, although it was the Revolutionists who wereasking her to give up without a fight. She submittedher protest to them, not the United States. Herprotest was delivered to Provisional GovernmentPresident Sanford Dole about 7 p.m. as the brief Rev-olution was running its course. Minutes earlier heand his supporters had completed the detailed stepsinvolved in making clear to foreign diplomats,including Stevens, that the Revolutionists had indeedtaken over the government of Hawai‘i. They hadoccupied the seat of government, had proclaimed theProvisional Government and were preparing to takeover the Queen’s army and the city police force.

It had been a long day and Dole knew theQueen was surrendering to his new government andnot some foreign power such as the United States. Hedid not represent the United States and the UnitedStates was not present while the Queen was dis-cussing surrender with her Cabinet and other advis-ers. The Provisional Government had a representa-tive there, S.M. Damon, but he was not there to nego-tiate for the Provisional Government. Dole acceptedher letter, as he explained later, as if it had comethrough the mails. Accepting it was a means of bring-ing about a bloodless and peaceful end to the Revolu-tion, and neither side wanted a drawn-out, bloody


286

Queen’s protestdelivered toProvisional

Government

Monarchy hadno treaties bar-ring revolutions

battle. The Queen’s statement has served as a con-fusing point, however, in subsequent analyses of theRevolution. It became the basis for an after-the-factnegotiating point for the Queen’s supporters, but notthe definitive argument implied by this clause.

The congressional resolution gets argumenta-tive again in its tenth clause, which states that with-out “active support and intervention” by U.S. diplo-matic and military personnel the “insurrection”would have failed. There is no evidence or factualway to determine this. It is not a factual matter. TheQueen had a few more troops at an early moment,but they were not as motivated as the Revolutionistsand failed to put up any kind of defense. Indeed,many Native Hawaiians, including those in her ownCabinet, wanted her deposed if she persisted inattempting to promulgate a new Constitution in vio-lation of terms of the existing Constitution she hadsworn to uphold. Key leaders of the Revolution werenot questioned by Blount about the impact of thetroops. They testified before the Morgan Committee,however, that they did not need the support of theU.S. troops to accomplish their mission and pointedto two previous occasions, in 1887 and 1889, whenthey, the same men, had prevailed over troops of theMonarchy.

The twelfth clause demonstrates the half-truths that plague efforts to ensure a balanced under-standing of what happened in 1893. The clausestates that President Cleveland sent former Con-gressman James H. Blount, a fellow Democrat, toHawai‘i in 1893 to conduct an investigation of theoverthrow and that Blount concluded that “U.S.diplomatic and military representatives had abusedtheir authority and were responsible for the changein government.” As Dole pointed out later, if this


287

Revolutionistsdid not needU.S. troops tohelp them win

Many NativeHawaiianswanted Queendeposed

Queen’s state-ment confusedthe issue

were the case, it was a matter for resolution betweenthe United States and its representatives, and not theProvisional Government. The clause fails to pointout the acknowledged criticism of Blount’s investiga-tion: that he interviewed sixty Royalists including allof their acknowledged leaders but only twentyAnnexationists, none of whom were leaders of theRevolution. It also fails to point out that a subse-quent investigation by Senator John T. Morgan, aDemocrat from Alabama, using only sworn testimo-ny, vindicated Stevens by a margin of 5 to 4 in thecommittee.

The fourteenth clause has President Cleve-land reporting “fully and accurately” on the over-throw without acknowledging his remarks werebased only on Blount’s one-sided investigation andtherefore could be neither full nor accurate. It was areport based on half the evidence laced with the inac-curacies one would expect from reliance on lopsidedresearch.

The nineteenth clause erroneously statesthat while the Provisional Government “was able toobscure the role of the U.S. in the illegal overthrow ofthe Hawaiian Monarchy, it was unable to rally thesupport from two-thirds of the Senate needed to rat-ify a treaty of annexation.” There are two errorshere, a small one of fact, the other a distortion of his-tory. The error of fact: the Provisional Governmenthad been replaced five years earlier by the Republicof Hawai‘i so it wasn’t the Provisional Governmentthat was dealing with the Congress in 1898 but a sov-ereign nation, the Republic, recognized around theworld. The distortion: U.S. Senate supporters in1898 did fail to adopt a treaty but instead simply andsuccessfully went the route of adopting a joint reso-lution of Annexation in lieu of the treaty. The same


288

Morgan’s Committee vin-dicated Stevens

No fault of Rev-olutionists if

Queen felt U.S.would help

Treaty notrequired forannexations

procedure had been followed in annexing the Repub-lic of Texas. The Annexation of Hawai‘i was legal.

The twenty-first clause says that QueenLili‘uokalani was imprisoned in ‘Iolani Palace andforced by the Republic to officially abdicate herthrone. True as far as it goes, but to be informative tothe senators, it should have added that she wasimprisoned for being part of an unsuccessful count-er-revolution. Incidentally, it was supported sub rosaby the United States, which allowed the shipment ofarms from California to the Queen’s forces. Allowingthe shipment of arms was a clear violation of U.S.and international law. The proposed smuggling ofarms and the counter-revolution plot were smokedout by the Republic’s Marshal, E. Hitchcock. Hissleuthing efforts reached the Republic before theQueen’s forces were ready to attack and her forceswere quickly suppressed when they had to move pre-maturely. Subsequently, additional arms were foundburied on the grounds of the Queen’s home, nowWashington Place.

The twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth clausessay that with Annexation the Republic of Hawai‘iceded public lands to the United States “without theconsent of or compensation to the native Hawaiianpeople or their sovereign government.” The sover-eign government of Hawai‘i at the time of Annexa-tion, recognized by the United States and every otherforeign nation involved, was the Republic. Treatieswere the province of its Senate, and that body, with anumber of Native Hawaiian members, voted unani-mously in favor of Annexation. The Republic con-trolled public lands as had its predecessor govern-ments, and with the approval of its elected Senate,consented to the transfer. Neither Native Hawaiiansnor any residents of the Islands as individuals con-


289

Shipment ofarms clear vio-lation

Senate support-ers adopt jointresolutioninstead of treaty

Government did approveAnnexation

trolled government lands. Not mentioned is the mas-ter stroke of Republic negotiators who got the Unit-ed States to agree to put the ceded lands in a sort oftrust for the people of Hawai‘i, with the income to bespent only in Hawai‘i, a benefit not achieved by anyother annexed territory and which opened the wayfor the current 20 percent distribution to OHA.

The twenty-ninth clause reiterates that the“indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relin-quished their claims to their inherent sovereignty orover their national lands to the U.S.” Again the reso-lution fails to point out that the “national” landswere government lands, public lands that never hadbeen owned by individual Native Hawaiians. Theywere set aside in 1848 by King Kamehameha III aslands for the government to use for support of allthe residents of Hawai‘i—public lands. The“indigenous Hawaiian people” had never tried togain title to these lands until the sovereignty move-ment surfaced.

The thirty-first clause records that on August21, 1959, Hawai‘i became the 50th state withoutadding that Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians votedoverwhelmingly, along with everyone else, in favor ofthat action. This is a pointed omission in view oferroneous claims in earlier clauses that NativeHawaiian peoples had not voted in favor of any asso-ciation with the United States.

The thirty-second clause states that the“health and well-being of the Native Hawaiian peo-ple is intrinsically tied to their deep feelings andattachment to the land.” A statement such as this inthe context of an apology resolution carries implica-tions beyond that of a simple apology. It has becomean accepted part of the Hawaiian mystique thatHawaiians, through religion and tradition, have an


290

National landsnever owned by

individuals

Hawaiians votedfor Statehood

unusual and special affinity for the land as a livingthing. The language along these lines wouldn’t bepart of the resolution unless those who wrote the res-olution planned to use that clause later to seek title.To tie the apology in with current claims for own-ership of the land misuses the non-ownership, spiri-tual relationship of early Hawaiians with the land.

In pre-contact Hawai‘i, and in fact until theGreat Mahele in 1848, all land was under the directand absolute control of the monarch, and anyonewho preached otherwise wasn’t long for this world.Neither early religion nor traditions gave the Hawai-ian commoner anything more than the oppor-tunity—often the obligation—to work the land. Theidea of now parceling ownership out to descendantsof those early subjects because Hawaiians have “deepfeelings and attachment” to land will be hard to sell.Most Americans, regardless of race, have deep feel-ings for land. Imagine the feelings of the other 80percent of Hawai‘i’s people if public lands weresomehow taken from their government, where theybenefit all of the residents of Hawai‘i, and turnedover to members of the part-Hawaiian population!

That clause and the thirty-third say “thelong-range economic and social changes in Hawai‘iover the nineteenth and twentieth centuries havebeen devastating to the population and to the healthand well-being of the Hawaiian people.” There is nomention of any benefits from the multitude of feder-al welfare and other national monies and agenciesthat have assisted the residents of Hawai‘i in the20th Century. Responsibility for problems of the19th Century might more appropriately be directedto the Monarchy. Remarks like this go to a point well-made by Senator Danforth during the debate whenhe described what he called an annoying tactic of


291

Who is toblame for ills ofHawaiians?

Until Mahele,Monarchy con-trolled all land

sovereignists, that of portraying Hawaiians as vic-tims.

He testified first that the great challenge ofthis country has always been the challenge ofattempting to hold together diverse peoples:

“It is a challenge which is tested con-stantly. It is tested by bigots and by hatefulpeople; by mean people; by people who like tolord over others and discriminate againstother people.

“. . . it is possible to divide not only bybeing mean, but by making ourselves victims. . . and if we have not been victims ourselves,then somebody else has been a victim, someancestor has been a victim, so please apolo-gize.

“. . . by making ourselves a nation of vic-tims, it is possible to emphasize what dividesus and separates us, rather than what keepsus glued together.”

Senator Gorton earlier had spoken eloquent-ly to the same point, from a different direction. Hereferred to an experience in 1989 when he was partof a Senate visit to a conference on Eastern Europein Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. It marked the 600thanniversary of the Battle of Kossovo, a battle inwhich Turkish Moslems slaughtered the SerbianChristian army and ended the independence of Ser-bia for the better part of half a millennium. He notedthat a short two years later and continuing today,many of those Serbs were in the process of killingBosnian Moslems in significant measure to revengetheir loss at Kossovo in 1389.

That combination of ethnic politics andclaims to particular pieces of land is literally lethalacross stretches of Eastern Europe, throughout much


292

Sovereignistsportray Hawai-ians as victims

of Africa, and in many nations in Asia, Senator Gor-ton said. “It is an evil which we as Americans havelargely avoided. And with all of the respect that I canpossibly muster for my two friends and colleaguesfrom Hawai‘i and for all of the evident goodwill inthe world which they show, this resolution is a sign-post pointing toward that dark and bitter road,” hesaid in remarks quoted in the Congressional Record.

“In guidebooks about the State ofHawai‘i, and it is mentioned in our own his-tory, that State is given as an example of howpeople from different backgrounds can livetogether happily and peacefully. Yet here webegin that process of division.

“At the time of the commemoration ofthis coup, or this overthrow, last January(1993) the Governor of Hawai‘i caused theflag of the United States to be removed fromthe capitol for five days. I must hasten to addhe was denounced by the two Senators fromHawai‘i for having done so. But it was sym-bolic of the divisive nature of this kind ofproposal.”

Noting that Senator Akaka had not men-tioned monetary compensation in his openingremarks, Senator Gorton quoted from an article inthe Los Angeles Times regarding the aims of varioussovereignty groups that include compensation, inde-pendence, lands, etc.

The Times article said:“. . . these demands for compensation dif-

fer profoundly from those offered to Japan-ese-Americans . . . . Those reparations weregiven to individuals who were greatlywronged by their Government, who weredeprived of their homes and of their liveli-


293

Emphasizingdivision, nottogetherness

Ethnic politicsand claims toland lethal

hoods solely by reason of their race and eth-nic origin, and who were alive to receivereparations granted to them . . .”

The senator continued:“This [revolution] took place more than

100 years ago. No one is alive who played anyrole in it . . . . This is a different time and adifferent generation . . . . every square inch ofthe United States was acquired in a mannerwhich bears certain similarities to the acqui-sition by the United States of America ofwhat is now the State of Hawai‘i . . .

“In fact, we are no different than anyother society in the world today. I doubt thatthere is a square mile of the world which isoccupied by exactly the same people whowere the original human beings on the spot.But it is the genius of us as Americans, itseems to me, that this does not count inAmerica. What counts is that we are all citi-zens, and that we are all equal.

“In no realistic way did we apologize forthe acts by people over whom we had noresponsibility and with whom we shared nolife whatsoever. As a consequence . . . wemust look toward the consequences not onlyof what we do here but the consequences ofthat coup. The consequences of that over-throw are the fact that Hawai‘i [has becomea] State of the United States. The fact that ithas more than one million inhabitants livingtogether in peace and harmony in anextremely prosperous society, the fact that allexcept for aliens are citizens not only of theState of Hawai‘i but of the United States ofAmerica.

“Are these adverse or unhappy conse-quences? Are these consequences or


294

Consequence ofthe overthrow:

Statehood

Gorton: We areno different fromany other socie-

ty today

ramifications of that overthrow which wewish to undo?

“This Senator intensely regrets the factthat we are in this process creating a divisionwhich does not exist . . .”

After quoting former University of Hawai‘iPresident Harlan Cleveland that in his judgment the“. . . diffusion of American democracy and enterprisewith Hawaiian culture mixed now by immigrationand intermarriage with Japanese, Chinese, Korean,Filipino, and other workways and mindsets has pro-duced one of the world’s most intriguing experi-ments in the building of a multicultural society,”Senator Gorton notes this is the “actual real worldconsequence of something which took place morethan a century ago.”

He quotes Harlan Cleveland as saying that“sovereignty, which . . . many of the Native Hawai-ian groups wish, is unlikely to be the answer. . . .”

Senator Danforth added to the theme: “. . . warfare and divisions are not things

to be emphasized constantly . . . the past isnot something to be constantly relived with aview toward how to get other people to apolo-gize.

“There comes a time to put warfarebehind us and divisiveness behind us and todedicate ourselves to a common purpose,because we are all Americans, and because itis challenging enough to live together in thisone country as one people without constant-ly fighting the battles of the past.”

The operative language of the resolution fol-lowing the thirty-seven whereas clauses is containedin five short paragraphs, and change may be beyond


295

Multiculturalsociety a real-world conse-quence

Ex-UH boss:Sovereigntyunlikely to beanswer

Native Hawai-ians had no

self-determina-tion rights

under Queen’srule

our control as individuals. But it is proper to pointout that the language is specious in part.

The first paragraph “acknowledges the his-torical significance of the [overthrow],” without say-ing what that means, and then goes on to say it“resulted in the suppression of the inherent sover-eignty of the Native Hawaiian people.” The Queenwas the sovereign. The Hawaiian people were hersubjects. Perhaps in the language of internationaldiplomacy they had an “inherent sovereignty,” but asa practical matter in 19th-Century Hawai‘i they hadno power, no sovereignty. The people are sovereignin a democracy, but certainly not in a Monarchy likethe one Queen Lili‘uokalani sought to reimpose withher proposed new Constitution.

The third paragraph similarly goes beyondthe facts. It says the Congress apologizes “for theoverthrow . . . with the participation of agents andcitizens of the United States.” Was the Congressapologizing for the fact that some of America’s citi-zens, as residents and subjects of Hawai‘i, were over-throwing a monarchy in favor of a democratic formof government?

The resolution then goes on to include anapology for “the deprivation of the rights of nativeHawaiians to self-determination.” Since the NativeHawaiian people had no rights to self-determinationunder the Queen’s rule and would have been evenmore tightly ruled under the new Constitution sheproposed, this makes no sense. There is no logic inour Congress apologizing for the loss of somethingthat never existed and certainly wasn’t taken awayby the overthrow. Again, failing to hold a publichearing resulted in the Senate acting without knowl-edge of the facts.

The last two paragraphs contain the language


296

People are sov-ereign only in a

democracy

Resolution language is

specious in part

that mystified Senators Gorton, Brown and Dan-forth: The Congress (in the fourth paragraph)“expresses its commitment to acknowledge the rami-fications of the overthrow . . . in order to provide aproper foundation for reconciliation between theUnited States and the Native Hawaiian people,” andin the fifth paragraph urges the president to do thesame.

What those ramifications are, Senator Gor-ton points out, is “nowhere mentioned in the courseof the resolution or in the modest committee reporton that resolution.” In fact, the committee reportcontains little more than the remarks of SenatorAkaka that he repeated on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Gorton went on to say:“Is this a purely self-executing resolution

which has no meaning other than its ownpassage, or is this, in their minds (SenatorsAkaka and Inouye), some form of claim,some form of different or distinct treatmentfor those who can trace a single ancestor backto 1778 in Hawai‘i which is now to be pro-vided for this group of citizens, separatingthem from other citizens of the State ofHawai‘i or the United States?

“At the very least, before we vote on theirresolution, we ought to understand what thetwo Senators from Hawai‘i mean those rami-fications and consequences to be.”

As the song says, he got no satisfaction. Thedebate ended.

Perhaps the resolution is as Senator Inouyeexplained when he made his final argument in replyto Senator Gorton:

“. . . this is a simple resolution of apology,to recognize the facts as they were 100 years


297

Language mys-tifies senators

Gorton: Resolu-tion has nomeaning

ago. As to the matter of the status of NativeHawaiians . . . are Native Hawaiians NativeAmericans? This resolution has nothing todo with that. This resolution does not touchupon the Hawaiian homelands. I can assuremy colleague of that. It is a simple apology.”

But an apology to whom? To the hundreds ofNative Hawaiians who formed the Hui Hawai‘iAloha‘a-ina the year before the Revolution, calling forthe overthrow of the Queen? To the Native HawaiianCabinet members who sought to depose her beforethe Committee of Safety was formed? To the NativeHawaiians in the Republic’s Senate who unanimous-ly favored Annexation to the United States? Or per-haps the overwhelming numbers of Hawai‘i’s citi-zens, including Native Hawaiians, who embracedStatehood?

In due time, the resolution will lapse. It is thenature of resolutions to do that. They do not have theforce of law. But perhaps the best thing to do is repealit and start over.


298

Apology towhom?

Inouye: “A sim-ple resolution

of apology”

he proponents of Hawaiian sover-eignty have mounted a much moreeffective public information cam-paign than those who question themovement. Much of it is mastermind-ed from within the taxpayer-support-

ed Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University ofHawai‘i. The campaign has included wide use of UHprofessors as a speakers’ bureau and the writing ofcountless letters and articles to the editors ofHawai‘i’s newspapers.

This effective campaign has taken place inspite of the failure of the various advocates of Hawai-ian sovereignty to agree on common goals. On theother hand, those who question the notion of Hawai-ian sovereignty have no formal structure at all.Theirs is not an organized movement, and argu-ments tend to relate to narrow issues. Many special-ists writing in the newspapers on Hawaiian land, forexample, believe that sovereignty positions on thissubject are irrational and based on misinterpretationor misunderstanding of historical data. Articles tocorrect perceived misstatements on land issues haveappeared from time to time, but writers on this sub-ject seldom get into the broader aspects of sovereign-

Fact or Fiction?Chapter Eleven

299

Hawaiian Stud-ies Center mas-terminding cam-paign for sover-eignty

Sovereigntydoubters haveno central core

TT

ty. The overall result is that pro-sovereignty lettersand articles in general outnumber their opponents’efforts by ten to one.

While many good answers and major pointshave been made by writers who are opposed or con-cerned about sovereignty, the preponderance ofinformation is flowing mostly in the other direction.We need to take a look at the erroneous claims bysovereignty proponents that are made most often andare generally left unanswered. This chapter willattempt to separate fact from fiction.

Newspaper editors usually seek to balance“opinion pieces”—the longer articles that generallyappear opposite the editorial page—with pieces con-taining opposing views, either on the same day or onfollowing days. With the subject of sovereignty, how-ever, the sheer volume of articles offered by pro-sov-ereignty writers has made this difficult and the bal-ance is tilted.

With Letters to the Editor, the possibility ofthe public being provided with balancing viewpointsis even less. As a matter of newspaper policy, lettersrun unanswered. They often carry innuendoes thatdeftly chisel away at the facts. It’s a surreptitious wayto rewrite history, and if the revisionism is repeatedoften enough, it becomes difficult to set straight thefiction.

An example ran in The Advertiser on Decem-ber 2, 1995, over the signature of Kamal Kapoor.“Nation status won’t free Hawaiians from U.S. rule,”the headline states, catching the key point of the let-ter writer. But what is the reader to make of this?That Hawaiians want to be free of “U.S. rule” andbecoming a nation won’t do it?

Sophisticated readers know that the headlineabove a letter, while looking very positive, is not nec-


300

Letters to theEditor often

rewrite history

Trying to separate factfrom fiction

essarily a factual statement in itself; it is writtenmerely to call attention to the writer’s main point.Unfortunately some readers, skimming through theletters page, take the headlines as statements of fact.

In this case, the writer states that the“nation-within-a-nation” advocated by Ka La-hui andother Hawaiian sovereignty advocates “is not sover-eignty at all. It is merely another form of depend-ence.” The writer says that under this model theHawaiian people “must still get permission from theU.S. government to use their ‘independent’ land . . .”He restates the myth: “Congress can also take awaythe ‘sovereign’ people’s land whenever it sees fit . . .without permission from the Hawaiian people.

“The only way kanaka maoli can get what isrightfully theirs and be truly independent is toachieve full secession from the United States,” thewriter concludes.

On the surface the statements may soundrather logical, but there are several problems:

Problem l: The writer assumes that someform of sovereignty will be achieved; he admits to nogray area. But realistically, sovereignty is far frombeing a sure thing.

Problem 2: The implication is made over andover that land has been taken from the Hawaiianpeople. Buzz words are oft-repeated in sovereigntyletters, such as those in Kapoor’s letter: “their inde-pendent land,” “the sovereign people’s land,”“reclaiming without permission of the Hawaiianpeople,” “what is rightfully theirs.” Phrases likethese obviously are designed to give the impressionof theft. There is little opportunity for this to bequestioned, or for expert opinion to point out that inthe first place the Hawaiian people did not own theland being discussed; it has been government land

301

Assumption island was stolen

Many problemswith pro-sovereigntystatements

Readers takeheadlines asfact

Fact or Fiction?

since King Kamehameha III set it up that way. Beforehe gave a portion to the government, it was all his,not the people’s.

Problem 3: A naive reader of a letter like thiscould easily assume that secession from the UnitedStates is an option. Amazingly, not everyone remem-bers that this point was settled for Americans in theCivil War. “Full secession” is not an option and sov-ereignty leaders are engaging in a disservice to theirfollowers to imply that it is. Some, including Kapoor,think it is. They should heed the words of SenatorInouye on this point, on February 16, 1997, in anarticle in The Advertiser: “We had a Civil War overthat. I think that was very clearly articulated withblood.”

The confusion cuts many ways. Somedescendants of the ali‘i claim it is they and not thecommon Hawaiians who have rights to the land. Aletter in the Star-Bulletin on July 18, 1996, for exam-ple, over the signature of Monica Wilcox Hatori, tellsthe kanaka maoli to back off: “We, who can prove ourunbroken continuity relationship to King Kame-hameha and his father Keoua, are the true owners ofthese lands.

“If we, the descendants of the ali‘i, cannotreceive justice then what are the hopes for thedescendants of the people?”

That’s the fiction. The fact is the land isn’towned by the ali‘i descendants either, and never was.Once Kamehameha III turned over the lands to hisand future governments in 1848, those lands becamegovernment lands. Interestingly, until the currentclaims on the part of kanaka maoli, which no one asyet has taken to court, no commoners had tried togain title. Queens Emma and Lili‘uokalani, as men-tioned earlier, had tried unsuccessfully to do so.


302

Governmentland not ownedby ali‘i or com-

moners

Inouye’s words:Full secessionnot an option

Another side to the land question is the pay-ment by the state government to OHA of 20 percentof the revenues earned by the ceded lands. This rela-tively recent development is covered in depth inChapter Nine, “Land Is the Key.” Letter writers areall over the place on this one. A letter in the Star-Bul-letin on May 13, 1996, over the signature of Lance L.Luke, starts off erroneously by saying that the cededlands “are actually lands stolen by the state govern-ment and used by the state and federal governmentand other parties for free or for a small fraction of theactual rental value.”

Luke adds that the “Hawaiian people are stillgetting ripped off because although they are entitledto it, they do not receive 100 percent . . .” These lasttwo statements are the fiction.

The fact is the 1959 Congress-approvedAdmission Act, which made Hawai‘i a state andreturned the ceded lands to our control, providedhow those lands and the income from them could beused. The language limited their use to five areas,one of which was the welfare of Native Hawaiianswith 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood. That’s whythe Legislature allocated one-fifth—20 percent—toHawaiian welfare to be administered through OHA,which on its face introduces another layer of bureau-cracy before the monies reach kanaka maoli. Thehope is OHA will be more responsive than govern-ment agencies as a whole. Use of those ceded landfunds still is limited to those with 50 percent or moreHawaiian blood and this needs to be broadened bycongressional action. The Admission Act significant-ly broadened the language of the Annexation Actsixty-one years earlier, in 1898, which had admittedHawai‘i as a Territory. The earlier act transferred theceded lands to the United States but provided that

303

Admission Acttold how landscould be used

Letter incorrect-ly defines cededlands payments

Fact or Fiction?

revenues from them “shall be used solely for the ben-efit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands foreducational and other public purposes.”

On the general subject of commentary onsovereignty issues, there are a few Native Hawaiianletter writers who buck the tide. One of the moreprolific is a Waima-nalo resident named BennyOlepau, 80 years old in 1997, who describes himselfas a “100 percent Hawaiian.” Among his more thanseventy published letters since 1980, he commentson a wide spectrum of community events and hasoften written brief notes that attempt to bring sover-eignty activists back to reality. One, dated July 9,1996, is headed “Hawaiians should stop blaming oth-ers.” That statement is made in general tones onoccasion by other writers, but this particular letterrelates to the alleged loss of language and culture.“The educated Hawaiians blame the foreigners forthe loss of their language and culture,” Olepauwrites. He adds: “They are wrong. The Hawaiiansthemselves lost their language and culture becausethey became ‘haole-fied’.”

He reasons that “There were many foreign-ers of many races in Hawaii. England had the influ-ence . . . . When the United States took over Hawaii,the Hawaiian flag became part of the United States.”

Emphasizing what may well be the unex-pressed feeling of many Hawaiians, he continues: “Iam proud to be an American citizen of Hawaiianancestry. I volunteered in World War II and complet-ed my education under the G.I. Bill. I am a residenton Hawaiian Home Lands in Waima-nalo as a 100percent Hawaiian.”

Here are a few other words of counsel forHawaiians from Benny Olepau:

In a letter appearing September 19, 1995:


304

Many Hawai-ians proud to be

American citi-zens

“I agree with Walter F. Judd, who said, ‘Noland was stolen’ as the sovereignty movement claimsand ‘to describe the overthrow as non-Hawaiiansstealing from Hawaiians is to distort history beyondrecognition.’

“Hawaiians must bury the past and lookahead for the good of all who make Hawai‘i theirhome. Only then can Hawai‘i be the Aloha State.”

On October 6, 1995, another of his lettersstates: “Hawaiians are better off under the U.S. gov-ernment. Hawaiians cannot stand on their two feetwithout government assistance. Can a self-govern-ment assure better benefits for the Hawaiian race?My answer is loud and clear: No.

“Time will tell whether I am wrong,” headds. “Regardless of the outcome, I shall forever be acitizen of the United States because no other govern-ment can replace what I have.”

Finally, on September 6, 1997, he told his“fellow Hawaiians” that “A sovereign governmentfor Hawaiians is not for me . . . Non-Hawaiians bornin the . . . Islands are children of Hawai‘i and Hawai‘iis also their land.”

A major factor in the creation of revisionistconfusion is the congressional apology resolutionadopted in 1993. Typical of the problems it createsappeared in a letter in The Advertiser on October 21,1994, over the signature of Sondra-Field Grace ofAnahola, Kaua‘i. She says, “In your Oct. 15 article,‘OHA to buy ceded land from state,’ Clayton Hee‘acknowledged that some Hawaiians might questionhaving to pay for land they say already belongs to theHawaiian people.’

“In fact,” Grace continues, “U.S. Public Law103-150 states: ‘Whereas, the indigenous Hawaiianpeople never directly relinquished their claims to

305

Apology resolu-tion createdconfusion

Fact or Fiction?

their inherent sovereignty as a people or over theirnational lands (Ed.—emphasis by Ms. Grace) to theU.S., either through their monarchy or through aplebiscite or referendum...’

“Thus,” she adds, “it is not just ‘some Hawai-ians,’ but the U.S. Congress and President Clintonwho acknowledge this fact.”

Revisionists hail the apology resolution as“U.S. Public Law 103-150” as discussed in ChapterTen of this book. In actuality, it is not a coded part ofU.S. law. Its operative clauses express no point of lawand as a resolution would not be law anyway. Sover-eignists, however, describe the whereas clausesthemselves as having the force of law. Citations ofclaims set forth in the whereas clauses have appearedalready in law articles and court opinions. To com-pound the problem, many of these clauses are inerror. There appears to be no recognition thatwhereas clauses in general do not have the force oflaw. As Senator Inouye has said, “It is just a resolu-tion.”

An opinion piece on Ma-kua Valley in TheAdvertiser on June 21, 1996, over the byline ofSamuel L. Kealoha Jr., is another example of the dif-ficulties in resolving the question of ceded lands.Kealoha, a trustee of OHA at the time, said in thearticle, “What many ignorant souls, including TheHonolulu Advertiser, do not understand is that theland on both sides of the highway at Ma-kua . . .belongs to the Hawaiian people. It is part of the 1.4million acres that was ceded to this crooked state, viaStatehood, in 1959.”

His letter adds, “In a recent court decision,Judge Daniel Heely ruled that lands were illegallytaken without compensation or consent from theKingdom of Hawai‘i [by] the illegal overthrow. . . .”


306

OHA trusteecontinues fiction

Many clauses inapology resolu-tion are in error

Revisionists hailapology

Fact or fiction? What Kealoha is doing is con-tinuing the fiction. Keep saying the ceded landsbelong to the Hawaiian people even though as anOHA trustee he knows it is government land andthat by legislative action, 20 percent of its revenuesgo to OHA to administer. Keep saying that the courtshave said the lands were illegally taken when that isnot what they have said. No court has ever said theceded lands are anything but government lands. TheMonarchy’s own Supreme Court twice ruled they aregovernment lands. The highly controversial Heelydecision itself is under appeal.

Articles appearing in the national press alsoconfuse the issue, hampered by space and the com-plexity of the problem. An article in The New YorkTimes on July 23, 1996, about Hawai‘i’s 1996plebiscite on a sovereignty convention is an example.It explains very well the idea behind the vote andwhere it could lead, and presents a reasonably bal-anced report on what sovereignty could mean.

But there are problems in three areas of TheTimes report:

l. The article states: “. . . the vote itself represents the crest of

a powerful swell of native Hawaiian revivalthat began in the 1970s and could, decadesdown the road, bring about the restoration ofindependence the island Kingdom lost whenAmerican businessmen, backed by marines,overthrew Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893.”

There are three problems with this sentence,one being repetition of the continuing myth that theUnited States somehow was responsible for the over-throw and that therefore independence for Hawai‘i isan option. An objective review of the testimony of

307

New York Timesswallows partyline on sover-eignty

Heely decisionwas appealed

Fact or Fiction?

those on the scene during the Revolution makes itclear that U.S. marines did not physically assist theRevolutionists. The marines themselves, only aboutone-fifth of the U.S. forces that were landed, wereassigned to the U.S. consulate and the U.S. legation.They and the rest of the troops were landed, as theyhad been on three tumultuous occasions in earlieryears, to protect American interests. Their experi-ence with the political necessity that they remainneutral led their officers to keep them out of sight,never on the offensive, never pointing their weapons.But they were caught in a political reversal in Wash-ington when the pro-Annexation Republican admin-istration of President Harrison was replaced by theanti-Annexation Democratic administration of Pres-ident Cleveland. The false message that U.S. marineswere backing the Revolutionists has been repeated sooften it is accepted by many as the shortcut versionof what happened. It is simply not true.

Secondly, the Revolutionists were not actingas “American businessmen.” Some were business-men and many of those businessmen were Ameri-cans. But as Revolutionists they were acting as resi-dents of Hawai‘i and community leaders, most ofthem subjects of the Kingdom, revolting against aQueen who days earlier had attempted a revolutionof her own. She had announced plans to promulgatea new Constitution that soon would have disenfran-chised foreign-born residents and given new powersto the Monarch, all in violation of the Constitutionshe had sworn to uphold when she took office. Heraction came about two years after she had triedunsuccessfully to take the Kingdom from her brotherby force and just days after she had betrayed many ofher supporters by signing lottery and opium bills shehad earlier disavowed. Not even her own appointed


308

False: U.S.marines backed

Revolutionists

Cabinet backed her on her attempts to rewrite theConstitution.

In the third place, the Revolutionists success-fully toppled a decaying Monarchy as a governingforce. They substituted a new and independent gov-ernment that opened citizenship to all, albeit withtemporary conditions that controlled voting rights,and openly sought Annexation to the United States.They knew this eventually would bring full citizen-ship and voting rights to all male members of thecommunity (women’s suffrage had not yet come intobeing).

This government was independent for fiveyears. To attempt now to disenfranchise today’sHawai‘i residents and turn the Islands over to a newform of government (surely no one thinks of a returnto monarchy?) is mind-boggling. Constitutionallawyers would have lifetime careers ahead of themon this one.

2. The Times article continues: “In 1978, a state constitutional conven-

tion created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs toadminister to the needs of native Hawaiiansand get them a share of the proceeds from theuse of 1.7 million acres of public land thatonce belonged to the kingdom of Hawaii.”

This sentence, seemingly innocuous, impliestwo conditions that give erroneous impressions.One, OHA was not designed to “get [Native Hawai-ians] a share of the proceeds from the use of 1.7 mil-lion acres of public land that once belonged to thekingdom of Hawaii.” Native Hawaiians already wereguaranteed a share in the proceeds from the cededlands under terms of the Admission Act that broughtStatehood. Secondly, by stating that the lands “once

309

OHA was notcreated to get ashare of pro-ceeds from pub-lic lands

Hawai‘i govern-ment independ-ent for fiveyears

Queen’s Cabinetdid not supportrewrite of theConstitution

Fact or Fiction?

belonged to the kingdom,” the implication is left thatthe lands and their benefits were taken from thatKingdom. In actuality, the transfer of administrationof the government lands from Lili‘uokalani’s Monar-chy to the new Provisional Government was as sim-ple an administrative act as was the transfer of themfrom Kala-kaua’s Monarchy to Lili‘uokalani’s. Theselands were government lands under the Monarchy,the Provisional Government and the Republic beforethey went to the United States in a form of trust andwere returned at Statehood. The people of Hawai‘ienjoyed the income from them at the beginning, andstill do.

3. And finally the article says: “There is consensus, even among the

haole, as whites are called here, that thenative Hawaiians are owed something fromthe United States for what American rule hascost them, from their threatened culture totheir lost lands.”

This is apparently based on a subsequentstatement in the article, that an Advertiser poll in1995 showed that “83 percent [of Hawai‘i residents]said they did think Hawaiians deserved some kind ofreparations or redress.” No specifics were presentedin that poll, nor had there been any educationalprocess in preparation for the asking of such a ques-tion of people who have had little background inHawaiian history. What most people know aboutsovereignty is what they read or hear on TV and thishas been heavily weighted with stories sympatheticto Hawaiians as victims of some kind. But to sayreparations would be in return for “what Americanrule has cost them” goes well beyond the poll’s ques-tion. What has American rule cost the Hawaiian? It


310

Hawai‘i’s peopleenjoy incomefrom govern-

ment lands

Transfer oflands a simpleadministrative

act

is hard to see how it has cost them anything, the ben-efits seeming to far outweigh any psychological loss-es that have been claimed. Becoming a part of Amer-ica, gaining citizenship and the benefits of associa-tion with the world’s most stable nation are positivemeasures, not negative “costs.” American rule didnot “cost them their lands.” The lands were held sep-arately in trust for all of us, not added to the federalland bank as were American Indian lands. They cer-tainly have not been “lost.”

A letter in The Advertiser over the signatureof Dene Edens in July 1993 is an early example of themoves to maintain that not only were the landsstolen, but so was the nation. “Hawaiian nation wasstolen,” reads the headline on the letter. The lettererroneously implies it was U.S. policy to overthrowthe Hawaiian Monarchy. In fact, as soon as PresidentCleveland decided to call the successful Revolutionan American venture, he ordered those involved toreturn the Monarchy to Queen Lili‘uokalani. Had itbeen U.S. policy to take over Hawai‘i, he certainlywould not have done that. Neither his administra-tion nor the previous Harrison administration advo-cated that the United States take over Hawai‘i.

A point made by Senator Inouye in a July 25,1993, article in The Advertiser exemplifies the powerof revisionist history. He states: “The United Statesowes to the Hawaiian people that which Hawaiianpeople were wrongly deprived of in 1893—the fun-damental right to govern themselves.” The assump-tion obviously is that in 1893 they were possessed ofa government that they had selected for themselves,a point sovereignty enthusiasts also attempt to make.The fact is that Queen Lili‘uokalani, like mostqueens, was not elected. She was appointed by herbrother to be his successor. The power of the people

311

Revisionist his-tory powerfulbut not true

Not U.S. policyto take overHawai‘i

Fact or Fiction?

American rule:What has itcost Hawaiians?

of Hawai‘i actually was used in 1893 to remove herafter she tried to promulgate a new Constitution inviolation of the existing Constitution of Hawai‘i shehad sworn to uphold.

Earlier in his article, Senator Inouye statedthat the Revolution of 1893 was “an action not sup-ported by the people of Hawaii, nor approved by theelected members of the legislature of the Kingdom . .. and most certainly not approved by the queen her-self.” The Revolution certainly wasn’t approved bythe Queen, but the outcome presents the possibilityit did have the support of the people. Although out-numbering the Revolutionists by 10 to 1, Hawaiiansdid not rise to support the Queen. People were votingwith the force of their emotions, and the sweep of theRevolution was clearly a test of wills. The Queen’sdid not prevail.

The Legislature of the Kingdom, of course,was not asked to approve the Revolution, thoughsome of its members took part. The Legislature of theRepublic, however, which was the next elected bodyrepresentative of the people of Hawai‘i, did approveAnnexation and by extension the Revolution itself.66

As noted earlier, many Native Hawaiians wereamong its members, including the speaker of theHouse. Perhaps the most telling indication of thequality of support for the Queen at the time of theRevolution lies in the actions of her Cabinet mem-bers, who, as detailed in Chapter Four, had comeclose to deposing her themselves.

Senator Inouye also said: “It would be diffi-cult to contend that the overthrow and the resultantchange in the status of the government of Hawai‘iwere carried out in a manner that was consistentwith the standards that were then recognized in theworld community.” His phrasing indicates he is open


312

Queen’s Legis-lature did not

approve Revolu-tion, wasn’t

asked

Republic’s Leg-islature

approvedAnnexation

to argument on the matter and it well can be arguedthat revolution was and always will be a well-estab-lished means of overthrowing an undesirable govern-ment. The fact that the new government was quick-ly recognized by every nation interested in the Pacif-ic, including the United States, is evidence there wasnothing in the action that inhibited other govern-ments from welcoming this new member into the fra-ternity of nations.

In the same article, Senator Inouye said thatat that point in 1993 he believed Native Hawaiianpeople should enjoy the same political status afford-ed Alaska natives and American Indians. He hasoften said this is a point that has been argued sinceStatehood. In June 1996, in a letter to The Advertiserconcerning the impending plebiscite, he noted theissue still is not settled. He said: “. . . the sponsors oflegislation to reform the federal acknowledgmentprocess affecting Native American tribes haveadvised me that any reference to Native Hawaiiansthat may have erroneously been included in federalIndian legislation either has been or will be deletedfrom those legislative proposals.”

He went on to imply that until Native Hawai-ians themselves are in agreement on whether theywant that status, nothing will happen. There are sov-ereignty proponents, including Senator Akaka, whoalready speak of Native Hawaiians as Native Ameri-cans. Senator Inouye, long associated with theNative American movement, makes it clear thatNative Hawaiians are not considered Native Ameri-cans and that in 1997 there were no legislativeefforts headed in that direction.

On a minor note, Sol Kaho‘ohalahala, chair-man of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Councilfor the 1996 plebiscite, was quoted in a September

313

No legislativeefforts to makeNative Hawai-ians NativeAmericans

Fact or Fiction?

Revolution ameans of over-throwingunwanted government

1996 report of the election, commenting on the Rev-olution: “The conspirators sneaked back to the backsteps of this building [the seat of Hawaiian govern-ment at the time], intentionally avoiding the generalHawaiian public.”

The opposite is true: The proclamationannouncing the new Provisional Government wasread from the front steps of the building in full viewof ‘Iolani Palace, with officers of the new governmentin attendance and the “general Hawaiian public”welcome.67 Every history of the event, based on testi-mony in the Blount Report and sworn statementsand testimony in the Morgan Report from men whowere there at the time, is in agreement on this point.Kaho‘ohalahala’s misstatement is typical revision-ism; sovereignists frequently try to belittle actions ofthe Revolutionists.

In the same article, Representative QuentinKawananakoa, a rational voice on the side of sover-eignty, is quoted as saying: “My great-grandfatherwas inside this building at the time of the overthrow. . .” The senior Kawananakoa was a high official ofthe Queen’s government and was among those whoelected to stay on during the transition to the newgovernment. He was instrumental that first night ingetting notice of the change in governments off toforeign governments represented in Honolulu, all ofwhom recognized the new government immediately.The Provisional Government removed only six peo-ple from administration of the government: theQueen, her marshal and the four members of herCabinet. All others were asked to stay on. Some, likeKawananakoa, stayed on for awhile, then left tobecome part of an opposition party and joined theQueen’s unsuccessful attempt at a counter-revolu-tion. With the defeat of that effort and her subse-


314

Kawananakoarational voice

on sovereignty

Proclamationread from

palace-sidefront steps

quent abdication, many became supporters ofAnnexation. Many also remained active in politicsunder the Republic and, of course, the Territory.68

Here’s a summary of erroneous statementsthat appear frequently in current efforts to rewriteHawai‘ian history:

Fiction: Lili‘uokalani was chosen by the peo-ple of Hawai‘i to be their Queen.

Fact: She was named by Kala-kaua, her broth-er, to be his successor. Kala-kaua, a man with lesserchiefly lineage himself, had been elected by the Leg-islature in 1874 by a narrow margin over QueenEmma. The election was so controversial it culmi-nated in an all-out riot that had to be quelled by U.S.troops, landed, as in 1893, for the purpose of pro-tecting American interests. Queen Lili‘uokalani wasnever approved by the vote of her people.

Fiction: Queen Lili‘uokalani was removedfrom her throne by U.S. marines.

Fact: A force consisting of one-fifth U.S.marines and four-fifths U.S. bluejackets was landedin Honolulu to protect Americans and their proper-ty, as had similar forces on three occasions duringthe reign of King Kala-kaua. In 1893, the troops nevercame face to face with the Queen or her forces anddid not participate in the Revolution.

Fiction: American missionaries and sugarinterests led the Revolution that unseatedLili‘uokalani. (Sometimes the phrase “Americanbusinessmen” is also used to describe, erroneously,the makeup of the leadership Committee. In othercases, the Revolutionists are referred to as “foreign-ers.”)

Fact: The thirteen-member Committee ofSafety included nine with American connectionsand four Europeans, all of whom were qualified vot-

315

Missionariesand sugar inter-ests did notunseatLili‘uokalani

Queen neverapproved byvote

Many supportedAnnexation

Fact or Fiction?

Lands, incomenot stolen

ing residents of Hawai‘i. The chairman, Henry Coop-er, a relative newcomer to the Islands, had qualifiedthe year before the Revolution. Only three of thethirteen were missionary descendants; one a secondgeneration and two, third generation. Of the thir-teen, seven were subjects of the Kingdom, havingsworn allegiance to the crown (including five of theformer Americans and two of the Europeans), fourwere American citizens and two were Europeannationals. Five were attorneys; none were sugarplantation owners or operators. Three had beenelected by the largely Hawaiian electorate as legisla-tors in the Monarchy’s House of Representatives.None worked for any of the handful of missionary-dominated businesses in Honolulu.

Fiction: Lands of the Hawaiian people werestolen from them.

Fact: Lands gained in fee simple by the chiefsor commoners as a result of the Great Mahele in 1848were held by them until sold or otherwise trans-ferred. None were stolen. Lands held by the govern-ment, later called the “ceded lands,” were govern-ment lands when they were so designated that sameyear by Kamehameha III. They were transferred, vir-tually intact, from monarch to monarch to the Provi-sional Government, to the Republic, to the UnitedStates when Hawai‘i became annexed as a territory,and back to Hawai‘i as a state in 1959. The incomefrom them was used for the benefit of the residentsof Hawai‘i when they were set aside as governmentlands, and still is to this date. Neither the lands northeir income were stolen. Individual Hawaiiansnever owned any of the ceded lands.

Fiction: The missionaries sought to kill theHawaiian language and stifle the culture.

Fact: The missionaries saved the Hawaiian


316

language when they arrived forty-two years afterCaptain Cook by translating it into a written lan-guage and teaching almost the entire Kingdom toread and write Hawaiian and, in most cases, English,too. They thought, in the strictness of their ownearly 19th-Century upbringing, that the hula was notcompatible with turning Hawaiians into Christians,and opposed it. But they taught music and harmonyto the Hawaiians, recorded history, fought disease,advocated temperance, struggled to prepare Hawai-ians for their inevitable exposure to the Westernworld, left the mission when requested to do so byHawai‘i kings to serve as advisers and consultants tothe government, though in total they constitutedonly 4 percent of the foreigners who served the vari-ous Hawaiian monarchs in the 19th Century. Themissionaries, probably more than any other elementof the community, worked to implement Kamehame-ha III’s decision to put fee simple ownership of thelands into the hands of Hawaiian natives.

Fiction: The missionaries and the Republicof Hawai‘i banned the Hawaiian language fromschools.

Fact: As reported earlier, far from banningthe language, the missionaries saved the Hawaiianlanguage by putting it into written form, printing lit-erature, including the Bible, in Hawaiian and preach-ing in Hawaiian throughout the 19th Century.Regarding actions of the Republic, A. Grove Day notes in his 1955 history, Hawai‘i and Its People, “Adecade before Annexation, a steady advance wasbegun toward achieving the American ideal of uni-versal, compulsory, nonsectarian, and tax-supportededucation. All English-language government schoolswere by 1888 free to students . . . . Under the Repub-lic, education was restored to its early important

317

Missionariessaved Hawaiianlanguage, didnot ban it

Missionariesworked toimplementKing’s landdecision

MissionariestranslatedHawaiian intowritten lan-guage

Fact or Fiction?

place under a separate Department of Public Instruc-tion, and English was made the classroom language.”The latter clause may have given rise to the interpre-tation that there was a ban on use of the Hawaiianlanguage. The author could find no record of a law,ruling or ordinance banning use of the language,though anecdotally many Hawaiian grandmothersrecall their use of the language being banned. It is notclear whether this was a result of government actionor parental action. By the mid-1920s the Legislaturehad passed a bill requiring that Hawaiian language courses be made available to anyone who wishedthem. But that does not indicate there ever was a banon use of the language itself.

Fiction: The congressional apology resolu-tion has the force of law and its whereas clauses havebecome factual by act of Congress as U.S. Public Law103-150.

Fact: Resolutions do not create public law.They are not codified as part of the laws of the land.The whereas clauses in particular are not part of thelaw nor did adoption of the resolution make themfactual accounts of history. No hearings were held toverify their accuracy. This resolution was called a“simple resolution of apology” by one of its twosponsors, Senator Inouye.

Fiction: Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly tohold a constitutional convention to provide for aNative Hawaiian government in the 1996 plebiscite.

Fact: Of the 79,400 ballots sent to eligibleHawaiian voters, 46,377 were not returned or werereturned blank, indicating 58 percent chose not tovote for the convention. Of the balance of 33,023,there were 22,294 votes in favor of the convention,or 67.5 percent of the ballots returned. Opponentspoint out, however, that the 22,294 “yes” votes also


318

Small percent ofHawaiians voted

for plebiscite

Resolutioncalled a simple

apology

mean only about 28 percent of those eligible to votesaid “yes” to the proposal.

Fiction: The 1997 Public Television video,Hawai‘i’s Last Queen, included an emotional episodethat said the Hawaiian Flag taken down at Annexa-tion was “cut up into little ribbons by the missionar-ies and given to their children as souvenirs of whatthey had done to the Hawaiians.”

Fact: There is no historical record of anysuch incident. The producers of the video knew noHawaiian historian had ever mentioned such an actand knew this fable first appeared in the 1950s as anitem written by a newspaper columnist known forher often fictitious tales of old Hawai‘i. They used itanyway, telling this writer that it captured the spiritof the Annexation period. H.J. Bartels, curator of‘Iolani Palace and sympathetic in a rational way tosovereignty issues, believes this flag incident is fic-tional. He suggests it may have sprung from an itemin the August 5, 1898, Pacific Commercial Advertiser,page 1, column 3. The item related that a commercialfirm had approached President Dole with the idea ofraising and lowering the flags on a colorful ribbon-like lanyard that then could be cut into pieces andsold as souvenirs. There is no report this was everdone but the Dole family in the 1970s sold to antiquedealer Robert Van Dyke a piece of cloth resemblingthis description, which may have been the lanyardsample shown to President Dole. At any rate, therewere no missionaries alive at the time of Annexationand the four missionary descendants who wereinvolved in leadership of the Revolution and the Pro-visional Government—Castle, Dole, Smith andThurston, all attorneys—certainly didn’t spend theirtime cutting up Hawaiian flags.

Fiction: All Hawaiians shut their windows

Fact or Fiction?

319

No missionariesalive at the timeof Annexation

No historicalrecord of mis-sionaries cuttingup HawaiianFlag

and stayed home during the Annexation Day cere-monies at ‘Iolani Palace, August 12, 1898.

Fact: Photographs of the day show Hawaiianleaders seated or standing with the dignitaries on aplatform at the makai entrance to the Palace, whileother Hawaiians are visible on the grounds. A muchpublicized picture shows Queen Lili‘uokalani and ahandful of her retinue seated in her home at the timeof the ceremonies, but not all Hawaiians, by anymeans, were opposed to Annexation.

Fiction: “Queen [Lili‘uokalani] was living,on February 12, 1897, in Washington, D.C., at theShoreham Hotel. Three days later she would move tothe Cairo Hotel after becoming alarmed over rumorsthat assassins had been hired by Lorrin Thurston tokill her at the Shoreham”—extract from the Presi-dent’s Remarks, front page of the ‘Iolani PalaceQuarterly, Spring 1997, under a photo of PresidentAbigail K. Kawananakoa.

Fact: In her book, Hawai‘i’s Story byHawai‘i’s Queen, Lili‘uokalani has this to say abouther 1897 visit to Washington:

“One day in February, the proprietor ofthe Shoreham notified me, that, as I hadfailed to engage my apartments for inaugura-tion week, he had rented them to others, andthat every room in the hotel would then beoccupied . . . . Rather than await the arrival ofthe future occupants of those rooms . . . itseemed best to me to move at once....[So] onor about the 14th of February, I moved withmy party to the large thirteen-story buildingon Q Street, N.W., known as ‘The Cairo’....Itsnewness and immaculate cleanlinessimpressed me favorably at once...[and] therewe remained until about the 9th of July, atwhich time I removed to New York City....”


320

Queen saidnothing aboutassassination

concerns

Not all Hawai-ians opposed

Annexation

You will note the Queen, who rarely had agood word to say about Thurston, also says nothingabout any assassination concerns at the Shoreham,although she often brought up such worries in herHonolulu diaries of the 1894 period (not that sheever mentioned Thurston in connection withthem!). “It was just a rumor,” notes Bartels. “We leftit in because it caught the state of mind of the times.”Interestingly, that’s about what the producer ofHawai‘i’s Last Queen said to me in a letter about theflag-cutting incident: “It may not be true, but wethink it catches the flavor of the period.” In otherwords, what’s wrong with a little baloney if it makesthe stew taste better?

Fact or Fiction?

321

Producer admitsshow containedpossible untruth

he Hawaiian Kingdom existed—eventhrived—in isolation for centuries, butsovereignty advocates generally

acknowledge the Monarchy days are gone forever.Beating the opposition into submission worked forKamehameha I, who was dealing with other Hawai-ians under their own 18th-Century rules of warfare.It can’t work in the 20th Century in a complex soci-ety governed by a Constitution and the rule of law.

The problems that face Hawaiians today canbe solved only in an atmosphere of mutual trust andsupport among all of the races and viewpoints nowin place in these Islands. We must work towardtogetherness and avoid actions that could be divisive.

The majority of Hawai‘i’s people are not like-ly to vote for independence or even an independentHawaiian “nation-within-a-nation.” These basicchanges in our structure would have to be decided atthe federal level anyway.

Hawai‘i’s majority is not likely to approveownership transfer of any significant measure of thestate’s ceded lands to the part-Hawaiian minorityexcept possibly as part of negotiated settlementsresolving monies due OHA and the Hawaiian HomesCommission from disputes of past mismanagement.

Where Do We Go From Here?Chapter Twelve

323

Problems can besolved withmutual trustand support

Majority unlike-ly to approvetransfer of own-ership to minor-ity

TT

The majority, however, already does appearto accept the idea of special allocations of tax moniesbeing controlled by Native Hawaiians. It has accept-ed the earmarking of 20 percent of the income fromceded lands directly for Hawaiian welfare under thedirection of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Intoday’s environment of concern over anti-discrimi-natory actions, that allocation may be challenged. Itwas accepted, however, by the majority at the time ofStatehood and, if killed, should be rescued somehow.It provides the funding for a wide and potentiallyproductive variety of Hawaiian-based programsdespite the extra layer of bureaucracy involved in get-ting this money from the land revenues to the ulti-mate beneficiaries. And, it could help hold the stateand its people together instead of further dividingthem.

In their enthusiasm, sovereignty leaders haveled thousands of Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians tobelieve the major goals of independence and controlof all of the ceded lands are achievable. The failure toachieve these major objectives will lead to inevitabledisappointment.

New directions for the sovereignty effort areneeded. These seem not only possible but their foun-dations are already in place, waiting for cohesiveleadership. The enthusiasm of sovereignty activistscould play a major role in making sure that leader-ship is provided and is productive. To be most effec-tive, this new leadership should recognize that somegoals are beyond reach and viable alternatives mustbe developed. Developing alternatives is in the inter-est of us all. There could be disastrous effects if noth-ing were to happen, leaving the Hawaiian communi-ty with only lost expectations after these many yearsof pursuing sovereignty. Unfulfilled expectations


324

Sovereigntyneeds new

direction

Majority acceptsearmarked

income fromceded lands for

Hawaiians

could translate into more cultural or socio-economicproblems.

Many aspects of sovereignty already havewide approval. These accepted aspects should be pur-sued by both Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians as goalsand activities to fill the emotional gap that could oth-erwise come about with the failure of the more pub-licized sovereignty goals to be achieved.

The most obvious widely supported goal isthe pursuit of Hawaiian culture. Progress is beingmade in this area with the resurgence of interest inHawaiian language and the teaching of other cultur-al aspects in elementary and higher schools. Thekumu hula are doing a great job in the further revivaland development of interest in dance. But we shouldmove beyond the argument that foreigners in the19th Century sought to destroy Hawaiian culture orsought to ban the language. Teaching of the language,saved originally by the missionaries who put it in awritten form, fell by the wayside in the Republic’sstruggling years when English was proclaimed to bethe language of the classroom, but it is widely sup-ported again today. To continue the argument overwhen or whether it was banned, for how long, bywhom and why, is needlessly divisive.

We should back off also from the erroneousthought that Hawaiian culture is something onlyHawaiians can appreciate. Immersion languageschools and classes in culture should be open to allstudents. Such an approach would lessen the dangerthat students of Hawaiian ancestry begin to thinklearning the language, for instance, is an end-allachievement. For our youngsters to become success-ful in today’s world, English is still essential and weare shortchanging young Hawaiians to preach other-wise. Long the international language of business,

325

English isessential forsuccess

Language banargument isunnecessary

Pursuit ofHawaiian cul-ture supported

Where Do We Go From Here?

English has replaced French as the international lan-guage of diplomacy. It is not a thoughtful act to allowan American citizen to grow up without a good com-mand of English.

Hawaiian as a second language could be asvaluable and satisfying to Islanders as the pursuit ofother languages is in schools throughout the country,and it should be encouraged. Hawaiian language courses have been mandatory under Hawaiian lawsince 1925 and need to be made available in fact aswell as law wherever there are students or familiesinterested.

The effort to set aside Kaho‘olawe as anexclusive Hawaiian preserve is an example of anunnecessarily divisive approach to the preservationof Hawaiian culture. Why isolate Hawaiian culture?Why should a significant portion of the state be setaside for the benefit of just one segment of the popu-lation? No lands of the Kingdom ever were set asidefor use by one race only. Development of Kaho‘olawewill take significant monies beyond expected initialhelp from the federal government in clearing remain-ing armed bombs. It would be unfair enough to setaside lands for use by only one segment of the popu-lation, much less compound the unfairness by usinggeneral tax revenues to pay for their upkeep.

Labeling Kaho‘olawe as a revered and specialHawaiian place is an unnecessary stretch of fact andcredibility in the first place. All of the Islands containplaces that were important in Hawaiian history. Siteson the other islands, however, far exceed in impor-tance those that exist on Kaho‘olawe. Physical fea-tures of the island itself—its lack of water and forestsand very limited agricultural potential—kept it fromplaying an important role in early Hawaiian history.The Hawaiian hierarchy had its choice of places to


326

Historicallyimportant places

found on allislands

Hawaiian as asecond language

valuable

live and enjoy and certainly would not have opted fora near-barren island when garden spots existed onnearby islands. Fishermen of course visited it fromtime to time. Kamehameha I, who often visited thesouth shore of Lanai, may even have stopped by.House or shelter platforms do exist.

The Treaty of Reciprocity between the Unit-ed States and Hawai‘i of 1855 contained a bleakdescription of Kaho‘olawe in the mid-19th Century:

“Separated from East Maui by ‘Alala-keikiChannel, 6 miles wide, [the island] is about 11 milesin length and 8 miles wide.

“It is low and almost destitute of every kindof shrub or verdure (vegetation), excepting a speciesof coarse grass. The rocks of which it is formed arevolcanic, but nothing is known of any active orextinct craters on the island.

“At one time this island was used as a penalsettlement; but it is now chiefly used as a sheep run,the soil of decomposed lava being too poor a qualityfor cultivation.

“No towns noted; probably none exist.” Its value today lies in its virtually untouched

availability. This value is negated to a large extent bythe damage inflicted on it by its early use as grazinglands and later as a target island, useful though thelatter may have been to U.S. security over the years.

By legend, Kaho‘olawe was the starting pointfor voyages to Tahiti, though voyaging canoes wouldhave been built, stocked and loaded with people else-where. With this background, there is logic in havingthe island developed and administered as a Hawaiianproject by Hawaiians and Hawaiian organizations.As indicated earlier, however, doing so as an exclu-sive arrangement for a single ethnic group is divisive,discriminatory and unnecessary. Kaho‘olawe should

327

Exclusivearrangement forHawaiians isdivisive

Kaho‘olawebleak in 1800s


be accessible to everyone either as potential partici-pants or as visitors. The sovereignty movementwould benefit from the support of others thanHawaiians.

The massive compensation for past misman-agement of the Hawaiian Homes Administration land program has stretched tolerance for furthercompensation at the expense of non-Hawaiian racialgroups about as far as it can be stretched. Most of themonetary values for so-called injuries to Hawaiiansby misconduct of the program were determined arbi-trarily by the Waihee administration. There was nopublic process, just a swirl of action that was enact-ed by a Legislature under pressure to do somethingfor Hawaiians. In the case of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, it was an overdue corrective processand justification for the correction existed. But con-tinuing to pay off past injuries or mistakes with taxmonies from people who had nothing to do with theoriginal problems is too divisive. We must get thepotential for divisiveness behind us. Our combinedefforts and monies should go to developing and car-rying out new projects that will bring the communi-ty together.

It is unfortunate that many sovereignty advo-cates continue to claim that Hawaiians have beenbadly treated in their homeland and are not getting afair share of benefits from the land that was onceowned by their leaders. The record shows otherwise.

The Statehood Admission Act was the firsttime Native Hawaiians were designated as benefici-aries of the ceded lands. The act tied the definition ofNative Hawaiian to the Hawaiian Homes Commis-sion Act, however, which meant that only peoplewith 50 percent Hawaiian blood are among thosespecifically designated as beneficiaries by the Admis-


328

Record showsHawaiians havenot been treated

badly in theirhomeland

Compensationfor Hawaiianinjuries arbi-

trary

sion Act. OHA has resolved this problem somewhatby agreement with the state Attorney General’sOffice to segregate OHA revenues, using the Admis-sion Act definition when it dispenses ceded land rev-enues, and using the broader definition set by the1978 Constitutional Convention when it uses otherstate revenues, or revenues from other sources. Con-gress, of course, could amend the Admission Act def-inition, but today’s concern with enacting specialrules and privileges for minorities will make this dif-ficult.

Native Hawaiians, as broadly defined,already receive significant special dispensation. Inaddition to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act(HHCA), there are now some 10 other state and fed-eral acts whose benefits go to Native Hawaiians.

At the state level, recent amendments andrulings have tightened provisions of the HHCA topreclude non-Hawaiians from using those lands, andKaho‘olawe was set aside for the practice of NativeHawaiian traditions. At the federal level, NativeHawaiians benefit from the Older Americans Act of1965, the National Historic Preservation Act of1966, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the NativeAmerican Programs Act of 1974, the DevelopmentalDisabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights ActAmendments of 1987, the Indian Health CareAmendments of 1988, the Disadvantaged MinorityHealth Improvement Act of 1990, the Native Hawai-ian Health Care Improvement Act of 1992 and theNative Hawaiian Education Act of 1994. As StuartMinor notes in his comprehensive Yale Law Journalarticle published in December 1996, some of thesesingle out Hawaiians of 50 percent native blood.

Most, however, he says, use the recentexpanded definition, which is more in keeping with

329

Singling outHawaiians of 50percent nativeblood

Non-Hawaiiansprevented fromusing lands

Native Hawai-ians receivespecial dispen-sation


the treatment of Native American Indians. ManyHawaiians hope to become defined as Native Ameri-cans and thus gain benefits given Native Americansunder that designation, including the right to buildand operate casinos. OHA leadership has already dis-cussed the casino potential with its Washington con-tacts, though in 1996, Patton Boggs, one of the top-level law firms and leading lobbyists in the capital,urged then-OHA Chairman Clayton Hee to down-play the issue for the time being. Hee lost his chair-manship in October 1997.

Hawaiians, as members of the general public,share along with everyone else in the 80 percent ofceded land revenues that go toward generic publicpurposes such as schools, parks, roads, agriculturalinfrastructure, etc. Since Native Hawaiians consti-tute about 20 percent of the population, they share tothe extent of about 20 percent in those general bene-fits. Twenty percent of 80 percent is 16 percent.Adding this 16 percent to the 20 percent of overallceded land revenues that is set aside exclusively forNative Hawaiians, we find that 36 percent of cededland revenues are being used today for the benefit ofpersons of Hawaiian descent. No one is complainingabout this percentage at the moment. Sovereigntyactivists and others who claim erroneously that theceded lands were stolen from the Hawaiians mightdo well to pause and perhaps deal with this distribu-tion in a positive manner instead of inviting attackby seeking more.

A.A. Smyser, contributing editor of the Hon-olulu Star-Bulletin, in an article dated November 6,1996, looked in depth at the question “Are Hawai-ians Being Treated Fairly,” and concluded theanswer is a “qualified yes.”

He noted they share like everyone else, as


330

Thirty-six per-cent of cededland revenues

used to benefitHawaiians

OHA chairmanurged to down-

play casino discussions

mentioned above, in facilities and lands that are pub-lic, including public schools, and in addition benefitfrom the monies of six landed trusts and variousfunded programs. He listed these as:

“(1) the Princess Bernice Pauahi BishopEstate, which educates Hawaiian childrenthrough its Kamehameha Schools, “(2) the Hawaiian Homes program, which isfinally picking up steam because of land andcash infusion and has about 6,250 families onlots, “(3) the Queen Lili‘uokalani Trust, whichhelps needy Hawaiian children, “(4) the King Lunalilo Trust, which main-tains a home for aged Hawaiians, “(5) the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, withassets well above $200 million and currentannual income from the state—which Gover-nor Cayetano wants to reduce sharply—ofabout $15 million, “(6) numerous federal grants (listed above),many of them administered by Alu Like and “(7) the Queen Emma Foundation, whichincludes the Queen’s Medical Center. Themedical center serves all Hawai‘i’s people butthe estate focuses its investment spending onHawaiians.”

Smyser goes on to note that more than 100part-Hawaiian heirs of the James Campbell Estate,four of the Mark Robinson Estate and many part-Hawaiian holders of private land holdings ranging insize from the 225,000 acres of Parker Ranch to sin-gle-family homes are benefiting from the lands.

What could be done to make all of these pro-grams for the support of Native Hawaiians moreeffective? For one thing, they could be better publi-

331

How programs forHawaiians canbe more effec-tive?

Six trusts andvarious fundedprograms bene-fit Hawaiians


cized. But in the main, they would benefit fromHawaiian organizations themselves getting behindthem and making them work.

These and other programs should be support-ed more strongly by the major Hawaiian trusts andestates. Bishop Estate trustees could take a broaderlook at their mandate as custodians of Hawai‘i’slargest trust. Taking refuge today in a supposed fidu-ciary mandate that they maximize the return fromtrust assets, they have invested hundreds of millionsof dollars from the proceeds of land sales in businessdeals. But they have done so largely outside ofHawai‘i—where the business climate and potentialdollar returns arguably are better. They point outthey are charged with preserving and increasing thereturn from the assets left by Princess Pauahi inorder to further the education of Hawai‘i’s childrenand hence must look for safety and the highest rateof return. In 1996, they canceled a key program thatwas serving 10,000 preschool Hawaiian children andthey consistently ignore the implied challenge ofPauahi that they use her assets to benefit Hawaiianchildren. Imagine the benefits that could accrue toHawaiians (and everyone else, incidentally) if theBishop Estate invested those hundreds of millions ofdollars in Hawai‘i—in housing projects, hotels point-ed toward the Hawaiian experience, or other pro-grams. These might or might not produce fewer dol-lars in returns for the estate but would boost theeconomy and provide work for part-Hawaiians. Ifthey fear a charge of malfeasance for neglecting thehighest possible dollar returns, perhaps the Legisla-ture could take them off the hook by confirming asprudent, if not mandating, a more sensitive and localapproach to the use of income from Hawai‘i’s lands.In the latter part of 1997, estate trustees were under-


332

Bishop Estateshould invest in

Hawai‘i

Programs needmore support

from Hawaiiantrusts and

estates

going scrutiny by the state Attorney General’s Officeas the result of a general outcry over their handlingof the estate.

The same mandate for a more Hawai‘i-sensi-tive approach could be applied to other landedestates, even the private ones such as Campbell andRobinson, and probably would be well-received bytrustees sensitive to the source of the estates’ wealth.The other ali‘i trusts—Queen’s Hospital Foundation,Lili‘uokalani and Lunalilo—already are looking forways to better serve their Hawaiian constituents.

Jeremy Rifkin, in his provocative 1995 book,The End of Work, raises issues and offers solutionsthat have direct application to the future of our part-Hawaiian population. Rifkin examines the impact ofinformation age technologies on the job market andhis title summarizes the direction he believes we areheading: Human beings in every sector are beingreplaced with computers, robotics and other tech-nologies. In his discussion of solutions, he suggeststhe increased development of a social economy, acommunity services sector, to balance the traditionalgovernment and business sectors of our economyand provide job opportunities for the millions of dis-placed workers. Job opportunities for the part-Hawaiian population already are limited. Unemploy-ment rates among them are the highest for any eth-nic segment in these Islands. Rifkin’s suggestions forexpansion of the social sector are cast in a global con-text and advocate compensation for community serv-ice. He calls for examination of innovative ways tofinance expanded community service through suchmeans as a value-added tax, reduction of the work-week, a government-guaranteed annual income, etc.

This kind of thinking suggests an opportuni-ty for OHA and other Hawaiian organizations to pull

333

Hawaiianunemploymentrate highest inthe state

Job opportuni-ties for Hawai-ians are limited

Ali‘i trusts look-ing to betterserve Hawaiians


the Hawaiian community together. OHA could, forexample, use some of its revenues to provide directsupport for unemployed part-Hawaiian workers inreturn for their working together on housing pro-grams—such as those conducted by Alu Like, theHawaiian Homes Commission and the OHA Habitatproject. There are other activities that would benefitboth the workers and their community. The develop-ment of Hawaiian culture parks, the rehabilitationand perpetuation of heiau, beaches, streams, trailsand taro patches are examples of other projects thatcould become community service applications fund-ed by OHA monies. They would make Hawai‘i moreinteresting for visitors and more productive for resi-dents.

OHA already is studying the idea of usingsome of its settlement monies to invest in businessventures in Hawai‘i, as Maori organizations havedone in New Zealand; this seems like a wise move.

Certain of the ceded lands could well providethe environment for high-tech development. Toentice that kind of investment the land usage wouldnecessarily have to be combined with justifiable gov-ernment subsidies and changes in the present stateattitude toward business. Revenues from theincreased value of ceded lands used for such devel-opment could be earmarked for the training ofNative Hawaiians who may not have the necessaryhigh-tech skills as well as for the community servicecompensation described above.

The high-tech industry seeks out places towork that would appeal to its skilled workers as goodplaces to live. Hawai‘i, if its favorable climate andbeauty were supplemented with a supportive attitudeby the government and its people, would be hard tobeat in the world market.


334

Earmark moneyto train Native

Hawaiians

OHA shouldcontinue with

communityservice projects

The climate of developing a better relation-ship with Hawaiians would benefit simply by a com-munity-wide backing off of the ongoing efforts topaint Hawaiians as “victims.” One outspokenHawaiian, Benny Olepau of Waima-nalo, thinksHawaiians should stop trying to take advantage oftheir relationship to the Island culture and their feel-ing that as victims they deserve better treatment.

“We Hawaiians cannot turn back the clockand expect to live in the past with modern materials.We cannot favor only Hawaiians; we must include allresidents in Hawai‘i.

“We are responsible for our misfortunes,” hewrote.

In connection with analyzing the problemsand progress of Hawaiians, much thought needs tobe given to a workable and realistic definition of“Hawaiian.” Intermarriage with foreigners began atthe moment of Western contact and descendants ofsuch early marriages often have minimal amounts ofHawaiian blood. It barely makes sense to call thosedescendants “Hawaiians” forever.

The determination to label one’s self “part-Hawaiian” seems sometimes like a business deci-sion—what’s going to be most effective economical-ly. And it could lead to abuse. In future years, somepart-Hawaiians with minimal levels of native bloodmight be tempted to call themselves Hawaiian onlyfor some financial consideration—entitlements, landawards, participation in the ownership of a casino,etc.—but desire to be like everyone else when itcomes to voting, schooling, working, receiving bene-fits and the like.

Defining a Hawaiian as one with an eighthnative blood may be far enough down the line to gofor formal recognition. Further dilution could lose

335

Part-Hawaiianlabel a businessdecision

Realistic definition forHawaiian

Stop paintingHawaiians asvictims


recognition of the effect, value and influence of theHawaiian gene.

Even formalizing the “Hawaiian” designa-tion at the one-eighth measure would mean a signif-icantly smaller number of persons calling themselvesHawaiian. It would have a much more realisticimpact on the statistics measuring the status ofHawaiians. At the moment these statistics must beviewed with suspicion because of the vast mix ofblood and genes. There’s no realistic way to deter-mine which gene is responsible for a social condi-tion.

If one needed an eighth share of Hawaiianblood to be called Hawaiian, the Hawaiians as aracial grouping might no longer find themselves atthe bottom of the scale in so many measures of socialwelfare. The value to self-esteem of those callingthemselves “Hawaiian” could be considerable.

Hawaiian culture has much to offer in manyother areas, such as medicine, ocean navigation andinterracial relationships.

Early Hawaiians, with no contact with theWestern world, had a long history of the use of herbsfor various maladies. Uses they developed over thecenturies are becoming known, but concentrated andextensive study and replanting probably couldexpand significantly what is known of these ancientpractices. Who knows what the blending of knowl-edge and experiments with the healing powers of thevarious herbs could develop?

The March 1997 issue of OHA’s monthlypublication, Ka Wai Ola o OHA, reports on therecognition of Hawaiian herbal healer “Papa” HenryAuwae as a “living treasure.” The Hongpa Hong-wanji Buddhist Temple of Honolulu in making theaward noted his outstanding contributions.


336

Hawaiians havelong history ofusing herbs for

maladies

A smaller num-ber of peoplecalling them-

selves Hawaiian

Ka Wai Ola notes:“‘Papa’ Auwae, 91, is a native of Kokoiki,

Kohala, and now lives in Keaukaha, Hawai‘i.He is noted for helping to bridge the gapbetween traditional Hawaiian la‘au lapa‘auherbal healing and western medical methods.He has shared his knowledge of Hawaiianherbal healing with Queen’s Health Systems,National Cancer Institute and North Hawai‘iCommunity Hospital, with Native Ameri-cans, and at many community gatheringsthroughout Hawai‘i. He is a seventh-genera-tion la‘au lapa‘au healer and was trainedfrom the age of seven by his great-great-grandmother. He is recognized as a masterkahuna la‘au lapa‘au with knowledge of theuse of 2,500 medicinal herbs. His studentsnot only learn about use of the plants but alsoabout preservation of the environment inwhich they grow, and the spiritual basis oftrue healing, which he believes comes fromGod.”

They also learn much about the values ofearly Hawaiian lore and culture.

The astonishing recovery of ancient naviga-tional methods pioneered by the first Ho-ku-le‘a voyageis another area of great pride for Hawaiians. Expand-ed experiences with these skills will further developpride and self-esteem and as a practical matter couldcast new light on where the early visitors to theseIslands came from.

Archeological studies have been going on fordecades, but new skills and equipment are availableand can be developed more fully. Better-financedstudies and research on migration routes going allthe way back to Sulawese and other possible South-

337

New skills andequipmentimprove studiesof archeology

Students learnto preserveenvironment

Bridging thegap betweenHawai‘i and theWest


east Asian jumping-off places for the original migra-tions could be expanded to include Hawaiian schol-ars. The potential is enormous.

Studies such as these, of course, are ongoingon a limited basis, but they could benefit from a con-certed and expanded OHA or state-funded programto enlist scholars with Hawaiian ancestry and broad-ened goals.

The state-wide sovereignty conference votedon in 1996 and sure to be the subject of continueddiscussion in the years to come might productivelyfocus, if it ever convenes, on formulating a programthat would include these notions and others. Bothprivate and public sources of financing programs likethese exist and could be enlisted.

The key, of course, is the coming together ofHawaiians to create a master plan for sovereigntygoals. Right now the focus seems to be on power.Each sovereignty group has its own agenda and seesitself as the central corps for a renewed Hawaiianoutlook. It will take a new Kamehameha with thevision of the historic leader to put aside the romanticbut futile notion of a new nation, and build uponwhat is already available and achievable. Properlyorganized and explained, the master plan could gainwide public support. It could become the basis for anew Hawaiian renaissance.


338

Master planneeded to bring

about newHawaiian ren-

aissance

Historical Figures

341

A List of Historical Figures Appearing in this Book


342

Akaka, Daniel—junior U.S. senator from Hawai‘i in late 20thCentury. With Senator Daniel Inouye, introduced the con-gressional apology resolution in 1993, the hundredthanniversary of the 1893 Revolution.

Alexander, William De Witt—early Western historian ofHawai‘i, born in 1833 of missionary parents, testified atlength before Morgan Committee after Blount rejected him.

Armstrong, Samuel Chapman—missionary descendant whobecame a general in the Union Army at the age of 26, com-manded an African-American regiment; later foundedHampton Institute in Virginia for African-Americans.

Ashford, Volney V.—Canadian turned Hawaiian Royalist whowith his brother, C.W. Ashford, led abortive 1889 revolutionagainst Kala-kaua, opposed successful 1893 Revolutionagainst Lili‘uokalani, and was involved in her unsuccessful1895 counter-revolution. Throughout, felt Annexation toU.S. was best overall solution for Hawai‘i.

Bayard, Thomas F.—U.S. secretary of state in Kala-kaua period.Bishop, Charles Reed—philanthropic businessman,

traveling to Oregon with William L. Lee, arrivedby accident in Honolulu from Boston on October12, 1846; married Bernice Pauahi, great grand-daughter of Kamehameha I. She created BishopEstate; he created Bishop Museum and foundedpredecessor of First Hawaiian Bank.

Blount, James H.—former Georgia congressman sent to Hawai‘iin 1893 by President Cleveland to investigate the overthrowof the Hawaiian Monarchy, recommended censure of U.S.Minister John L. Stevens and reinstatement of Lili‘uokalani.

Bolte, Crister—German national, Hawaiian subject, member ofthe Committee of Safety, was sent to contact Dole about histaking presidency of Provisional Government.

Brown, Andrew—Scottish national, member of Committee of

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Safety. Fairly obscure man, coppersmith with the HonoluluIron Works at time of Revolution.

Bush, J.E.—sent by Kala-kaua to take over Samoa during King’sabortive effort to unite Polynesia. Later a Native Hawaiianbacker on occasion of Lili‘uokalani, but, as editor of Hawai-ian newspaper and leader of liberal party, generally opposedher. Favored Annexation over continuation of Monarchy.

Carter, Charles L.—American, naturalized Hawaiian, member ofCommittee of Safety and one of five ministers sentto Washington to negotiate Annexation. Law part-ner of L.A. Thurston. Only Provisional Govern-ment fatality in the counter-revolution. Oldest sonof H.A.P. Carter, minister of foreign affairs forKala-kaua, and Sybil A. Carter; nephew of Queen’sadviser, J.O. Carter.

Carter, Henry A.P.—called by Historian Ralph Kuykendall “per-haps the ablest diplomat ever to serve the Hawai-ian Kingdom,” Carter was born in Honolulu ofnon-missionary American parents and marriedmissionary daughter Sybil Judd. Served Kala-kauaand Lili‘uokalani as minister to the United Statesand Europe from 1875 until his death in 1891.

Carter, Joseph O.—brother of H.A.P. Carter and uncleof Charles Carter, but on the opposite side of the fence polit-ically to his nephew, Charles. J.O. Carter was president of C.Brewer and a close adviser to Lili‘uokalani, was with herwhen she surrendered in 1893, got her to finally agree toamnesty for the Revolutionists during her three meetingswith Minister Willis, then was forced by his Annexation-minded stockholders to resign as Brewer president when hisrole was revealed. In his earlier years, he was a reporter onThe Pacific Commercial Advertiser when it was founded in1856.

Historical Figures

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Castle, William R.—member of Committee of Safety born inHonolulu in 1849, graduate of Harvard and Columbia lawschools, worked in New York until he returned to Hawai‘i asattorney general in 1876 at request of King Kala-kaua; servedin the Legislature in 1878, ’86, ’87, ’88, turning against Kala--kaua in 1887. In 1887 and 1888 he was president of the Leg-islature. Appointed Hawai‘i minister to Washington afterU.S. Secretary of State Gresham forced L.A. Thurston towithdraw in 1895.

Cleghorn, Archibald S.—appointed governor of O‘ahuby his sister-in-law, Lili‘uokalani; father of PrincessKa‘iulani, who was designated successor to thethrone had Monarchy continued. Advised Queenstrongly against the lottery bill.

Cleveland, Grover—president of United States 1893-97.Sent Blount to Hawai‘i to investigate Revolution. Tried torestore Lili‘uokalani to throne, but dropped the idea whenshe would not agree to grant amnesty to rebels.

Colburn, John F.—Native Hawaiian minister of interior at timeof overthrow. With Peterson went to business communityfor support to oust Queen if she continued effort to promul-gate new Constitution. Became supporter of Annexation in1895 after abortive counter-revolution, Queen’s abdication.

Cook, Capt. James—his landing in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778was its first recognized contact with the Western world.

Cooke, Charles M.—son of missionaries Amos Starr and JulietteM. Cooke, born in 1849 at the Chiefs’ Children’s School. Co-founder of Bank of Hawaii. Involved in development ofsugar plantations. One of the original trustees of BishopEstate, appointed by Bernice P. Bishop herself.

Cooper, Henry—arrived in 1890 from Indiana, named chairmanof the Committee of Safety at mass meeting on January 14,1893, appointed its other twelve members. Circuit court


344

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judge in 1893-95, served four years as minister of foreignaffairs for the Republic among other duties. Acting presidentwhen Dole went to Washington in 1897, became first secre-tary of the territory after Annexation.

Cornwell, W. H.—Royalist, minister of finance for the Queen in1893; with Colburn sought community backing to oust her ifshe persisted in promulgating new Constitution.

Damon, Samuel Mills—born in 1845 of missionary par-ents, close adviser and friend of Lili‘uokalani, sentby Dole to seek her surrender to avoid bloodshed.Finance minister and consultant for Kala-kaua in1887, for the queen from 1889-1890, for theRepublic, 1893 to 1900. Member of Kingdom’sprivy council 1884 to 1889. Pioneer banker withBishop in founding what is now First Hawaiian Bank. Anoriginal trustee of Bishop Estate. Creator of Moanalua Gar-dens on land left him by Pauahi Bishop. Died 1924.

Dole, Sanford Ballard—president of the ProvisionalGovernment. Had been justice of Monarchy’sSupreme Court. Became president of the Republicand first governor of the Territory, serving until1903. Appointed a federal judge in Hawai‘i, 1903-1916. Son of Punahou School’s first principal, hewas born in 1844 on the campus. Died 1926.

Dominis, John—husband of Lili‘uokalani. His father built Wash-ington Place, her home until her death in 1917 when itbecame home to Hawai‘i’s governors.

Emma Rooke, Queen—granddaughter of John Young,widow of Kamehameha IV, contender for thecrown against Kala-kaua but lost to him in bitterelection by Legislature in 1874, which resulted inriot that had to be quelled by U.S. troops. StrongBritish leanings. With her husband founded

Historical Figures

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Queen’s Hospital and St. Andrew’s Priory School.Emmeluth, John—businessman, had two stores in the

1890s. Held American citizenship, member ofCommittee of Safety. Became one of the “ExtremeAnnexationists”; to push cause, helped create theevening Hawaiian Star in 1893.

Foster, John W.—U.S. secretary of state in Harrisonadministration, to whom Stevens wrote two weeks after theRevolution his famous despatch: “The Hawaiian pear is fullyripe and now is the golden hour for the United States topluck it.”

Gibson, Walter Murray—adviser to Kala-kaua, gained lands, spe-cial favors from the King. Ordered out of Kingdom as anunsavory character at time of 1887 Reform Constitution.

Gregg, David L.—U.S. minister to Hawai‘i who completed three-year negotiation of a formal treaty of Annexation in 1854 atrequest of the Hawaiian government. Kamehameha III, whohad started the proceedings in 1851, died before the treatycould be signed and his successor withdrew the agreement.

Gresham, Walter Q.—U.S. secretary of state under Cleveland,opposed Annexation, strongly favored restoration ofLili‘uokalani as Queen, advised Minister Willis in ill-fatedeffort to get Provisional Government to return control toher. Demanded recall of L.A. Thurston as minister in 1895after heated argument over diplomatic protocol.

Harrison, Benjamin—president of the United States at the timeof the Revolution, recognized new government, sympatheticto Annexation but unable to gain passage of treaty before hissuccessor, Grover Cleveland, took office and withdrew it.

Hartwell, A.S.—respected jurist who with L.A. Thurston wasapproached by Queen’s Cabinet members on January 14,1893, for support from the community to oust her; drew upproclamation for them to carry it out, which became moot in


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their minds when she agreed to withdraw temporarily hereffort to promulgate her new Constitution.

Inouye, Daniel—powerful late-20th-Century U.S. senator forHawai‘i. Introduced the congressional apology resolutionwith Senator Akaka, explained it did not seek special treat-ment for Hawaiians and did not have the force of law—“It’sjust a simple [resolution of] apology,” he told the Senate dur-ing hour-long debate on the matter in 1993.

Jones, Peter Cushman—businessman born in Boston in 1837,came to Hawai‘i in 1857 with 16 cents in pocket.Became partner in C. Brewer in 1871, president in1883. Founding president of Bank of Hawai‘i andHawaiian Trust Co. Built Pala-ma Chapel, out ofwhich grew Pala-ma Settlement. Chairman of massmeeting that forced Kala-kaua to accept the 1887Reform Constitution; served as minister of financein Cabinet that Lili‘uokalani dumped two days before 1893Revolution.

Ka‘ahumanu—favorite wife of Kamehameha I. At his direction,became regent after his death, guiding young Liholiho,Kamehameha II. Responsible for ending kapu system andbanning Hawaiian religion before arrival of missionaries.Advised Liholiho to let them come ashore for trial year.

Ka‘iulani, Princess—daughter of the Cleghorns, niece of QueenLili‘uokalani, named by her as successor if the 1895 counter-revolution had succeeded, schooled in England for fouryears, returned to Hawai‘i after Revolution, died at age 24.

Kala-kaua, King David—second of the elected kings ofHawai‘i, served from his tumultuous election in1874 after the death of Lunalilo until his owndeath in 1891 in San Francisco. Known as the“Merrie Monarch,” did wonders for the Hawaiianpsyche, but effectively ruined the economy of the

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Kingdom with wild schemes and profligate spending, leadingto mass meeting forcing Reform Constitution on him in1887. Built ‘Iolani Palace in 1882. Attempt to oust him in1889, which had approval of his ambitious sister,Lili‘uokalani, led to battle on Palace Grounds that killedseven, was quelled by same men who overthrew Queen in1893.

Kalaniana‘ole, Jonah Ku-hio-—would have been third in line forthe throne in 1895 had counter-revolution succeeded, elect-ed in 1902 as Hawai‘i’s second delegate to Congress, servedtwo decades, gained passage of Hawaiian Homes Act.

Kamehameha I, King—most powerful chief in Hawai‘i history,born about 1736, according to early Hawaiian historianSamuel Kamakau; by 1795 had conquered in bloody battlesall of the Islands except Kaua‘i, making use ofWestern arms, ships, advisers. By 1810 unified allIslands into Hawaiian Kingdom when Kaua‘i chiefsurrendered without a fight. Died in Kailua, Konaon May 8, 1819 as missionaries were preparing toleave for Hawai‘i.

Kamehameha II, King—‘Iolani Liholiho, son of Kame-hameha I and Keopuolani. Born 1797. Ruled 1819-1824before he and his Queen died of the measles during a visit toLondon. Under the influence of Ka‘ahumanu, appointedkuhina nui (regent) by Kamehameha I, ended the ancientreligious system of the islands. Allowed the first missionar-ies to land, fill the religious vacuum with Christianity.

Kamehameha III, King—Kauikeaouli, born 1814,longest-term Hawai‘i ruler in recorded history,1825-1854. Son of Kamehameha I and Keopuolani,was named successor by Liholiho, became King atage 9 with Ka‘ahumanu continuing as kuhina nuiuntil her death. Became King on his own at age 18


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in 1833. In 1840, promulgated first written laws of Islands,instituting constitutional Monarchy. In 1848, promulgatedGreat Mahele, division of lands. In 1852, promulgated newConstitution after constitutional convention, Legislatureagreed on terms. Actively sought Annexation to UnitedStates in 1851 when he could see Hawai‘i was going to betaken over by one colonial power or another, died beforetreaty of Annexation could be signed.

Kamehameha IV, King—Alexander Liholiho, born 1834, ruled1854-1863 under Constitution of 1852, grandsonof Kamehameha I; adopted and named as heir in1835 by Kauikeaouli as a favor to his cousin andsuccessor kuhinanui, Kina‘u, by way of reconcilia-tion for her ouster as kuhina nui when he,Kauikeaouli, became 18. Son of Kina‘u (a daughterof Kamehameha I and Kaheiheimalie) and MataioKeku-anao-a, a high chief and governor of O‘ahu. FavoredBritain slightly over United States so withdrew unsignedtreaty of Annexation worked out by his predecessor. Withhis wife, Queen Emma, a great-granddaughter of a youngerbrother of Kamehameha I, founded Queen’s Hospital, andbrought in Episcopal Church.

Kamehameha V, King—Lot Kamehameha, born 1830, ruled1864-1872, promulgated new Constitution on hisown in 1864 after Legislature rejected constitu-tional convention—same illegal move tried byLili‘uokalani but he got away with it. He addedproperty ownership as requirement for voting forHouse. Never married. Died without naming suc-cessor, thus ending Kamehameha dynasty, prompting in1873 first election of a Hawaiian king, by popular vote withconfirmation by the Legislature.

Kaulukou, John L.—Native Hawaiian speaker of the House of

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Representatives under the Republic at time of Annexation.Had been a strong Royalist political and legal figure in daysof Kala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani—marshal, legislator, judge.Publicly called Annexation to the U.S. the best thing possi-ble for Hawai‘i and its people.

Kawa-nanakoa, Prince David—would have been secondin line for succession to throne if Monarchy hadbeen reinstated in 1895. Helped Provisional Gov-ernment keep things running after 1893 Revolu-tion but soon left government. Was involved inattempted counter-revolution.

King, Capt. James A.—pioneer inter-island shipping magnateappointed by Dole as minister of interior of Provisional Gov-ernment and then of Republic. Married to Hawaiian. Parentsof Delegate to Congress and later Governor Samuel WilderKing and grandparents of Federal Judge Samuel P. King.

Kinney, W.A.—Hawai‘i-born subject of the Kingdom, member ofHouse of Representatives in 1887, 1888 sessions, played rolein writing and adoption of Reform Constitution. Early lawpartner of L.A. Thurston and W.O. Smith.

Kuykendall, Ralph S.—early-20th-Century historian, wrotedefinitive three-volume history of Hawai‘i covering period1778-1893. Died in May 1963 just before completion ofthird volume of The Hawaiian Kingdom, which was complet-ed from his notes by a fellow University of Hawai‘i histori-an, Dr. Charles H. Hunter.

Lansing, Theodore F.—American member of Committee of Safe-ty. Came to Honolulu to join M. Phillip & Co. and with thatfirm organized Pioneer Building and Loan Co. in 1890 toprovide financing for home building. In 1898 formed Gear,Lansing & Co., residential land developers involved in subdi-visions in Makiki and Kaimuki- on land acquired from DavidKawa--nanakoa and Ku-hio- Kalaniana‘ole.


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Lee, William L.—arrived by accident in 1846 with close friendCharles Bishop, became chief justice of SupremeCourt in his 20s, wrote 1852 Constitution. Workedtirelessly for Kamehameha III after Great Mahelein 1848 to get lands into hands of Hawaiiannatives. Most important American adviser toKamehameha IV. Died in 1857 at age 36.

Lili‘uokalani, Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Dominis—born1838, last of the Hawai‘i monarchs, overthrown in1893 after she tried to promulgate new Constitu-tion without following procedures she had swornto uphold in 1891 when she took office as desig-nated successor to her brother, Kala-kaua. NewConstitution would have expanded powers ofMonarchy beyond those of Kala-kaua before theReform Constitution of 1887. Died November 11, 1917.

Lunalilo, King William C.—first of the elected kings, toppingKala-kaua in legislative vote in 1873. A very popular figure,he died without naming a successor. Created Lunalilo Trustwith gift of more land than was in Bishop Estate, but histrustees sold most of the land to build home for aged Hawai-ians and the trust now barely is able to maintain it.

Macfarlane, E.C.—close adviser of Queen Lili‘uokalani whowent on her behalf at Blount’s suggestion to Washington in1893, conferred with Secretary of State Gresham, MinisterWillis and Minister Mills, bringing back word that Blount’sgoal and recommendation would be for her reinstatement.

McCandless, John A.—entrepreneur, businessman, American,arrived 1881, naturalized Hawaiian member of Committeeof Safety. Member of Provisional Government AdvisoryCouncil; elected to Senate of Provisional Government andRepublic, 1894-98. Held no sugar stock at time of Revolutionbut later became vice president of Pioneer Mill, O‘ahu Sugar,

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president of Home Insurance, director of Bank of Hawaii,president of McCandless Bldg. Co. and director of WaialuaPlantation.

McChesney, F.W.—American member of Committee of Safety,came to Hawai‘i from Iowa in 1855, formed wholesale gro-cery and feed store. Blount declined to interview him, butMcChesney told Morgan Committee that contrary to Blount,Revolution would have succeeded without U.S. troops com-ing ashore and that he “never expected U.S. troops to fightour battle.”

McKinley, William A.— U.S. president following Cleveland.McKinley was more sympathetic to Annexation, whichpassed in 1898 during his term.

Mills, Ellis—U.S. consul general in Hawai‘i appointed by Cleve-land to succeed Stevens after Blount turned down the job.Had taken notes for Blount during his interviews and laterwas man behind the screen recording Lili‘uokalani interviewwith Willis, when she said she would behead the Revolu-tionists if she were reinstated, causing Cleveland to back offhis effort to put her back on throne.

Moreno, Celso Caesar—controversial figure in Honolulu forabout a year, 1879-1880, who endeared himself to Kala-kaua,the Legislature and a number of Native Hawaiian leaderswith various schemes for opium licenses, a $10 million loan,etc. Appointed minister of foreign affairs by the King onAugust 14, 1880, and removed within days after an uproarin the diplomatic corps. He left Honolulu, taking Robert W.Wilcox with him for military training in his native Italy.

Morgan, James Francis—born in New York City, 1862. Came toHawai‘i at age three. Started working at 12 at EP AdamsAuction Co., eventually becoming sole owner. Helped organ-ize Honolulu Stock and Bond Exchange, served as its presi-dent. Member Provisional Government Advisory Council.


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Morgan, John T.—Democratic U.S. senator from Alabama whoseCommittee on Foreign Relations took sworn testimonyabout the 1893 Revolution; in 5-4 decision exoneratedStevens, U.S. troops from blame for Revolution.

Neumann, Paul—attorney and adviser to Lili‘uokalani, with J.O.Carter wrote letter claiming her surrender was to the “supe-rior forces of the United States” instead of the ProvisionalGovernment that had demanded it. Dole noted receipt of thedocument, unintentionally opening door to charges U.S. hadplayed key role in success of the Revolution.

Nordhoff, Charles — Reporter with New York Herald. Staunchsupporter of the Royalists, wrote inaccurately about Provi-sional Government, which sought to expel him from Hawai‘ibut yielded to protest by his good friend, Blount, and let himstay.

Opukahaia, Henry (known back east as Obookiah)—YoungHawaiian runaway from enemies in Kealakekua Bay whoended up in Yale Divinity School and whose death in 1818was largely responsible for the first missionaries deciding tocome to Hawai‘i to carry on the work he had planned to do.

Parker, Samuel—Native Hawaiian minister of foreign affairs inthe Cabinet appointed by close friend, Lili‘uokalani, justbefore Revolution. After 1895 failure of counter-revolution,he joined his fellow former Cabinet member, John Colburn,in coming out in favor of Annexation. Grandson of founderof Parker Ranch where Ka‘iulani died.

Pauahi, Bernice Bishop—daughter of High Chief Pa-ki-

and his wife Konia; great-granddaughter of Kame-hameha I. Married Charles Reed Bishop. Resistedattempts to name her successor to Kamehameha Vthough she was of Kamehameha line and had goneto Chiefs’ Children’s School with other royal chil-dren. Parents adopted Lili‘uokalani and at one

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time, after she and Bishop were married, they all livedtogether in Haleakala-, Bishop house on King Street betweenFort and Alakea. House torn down to construct BishopStreet at turn of century. Pauahi probably Hawai‘i’s ultimatebenefactress—her will established Kamehameha Schools andmultibillion-dollar Bishop Estate.

Pierce, Henry—U.S. minister to Hawai‘i in early 1870s. Like hispredecessors was in favor of Annexation. Brought troopsashore to help quell 1874 riot when Kala-kaua was elected.

Peterson, A.P.—Caucasian Royalist who was attorney general inLili‘uokalani’s last Cabinet at time of Revolution. Soughtsupport of business community against Queen’s proposedConstitution. Had cast deciding vote for opium and lotterybills in 1892 legislature, earning scorn of community.

Pua, S.K.—member of Monarchy’s House of Representatives,long-time supporter of Queen, but concerned about MarshalCharles Wilson’s influence and tried to get a resolutionthrough 1892 Legislature to have him removed.

Smith, W.O.—attorney, member of Committee of Safety. Born onKaua‘i, 1838, son of missionaries James Williamsand Millicent Smith. Highly regarded by royal fam-ily, asked by Lili‘uokalani to handle her estatedespite his involvement in 1893 Revolution andsubsequent governments. Before the Revolution,served as sheriff on Kaua‘i and then Maui, wasdeputy attorney general of Monarchy for nearlyseven years while serving intermittently in Legislature from1878 to 1892. Attorney general of Republic, 1893-1898. Oneof original trustees of Bishop Estate. Died 1929.

Spreckels, Claus—sugar baron from California, manipulator,supporter of Kala-kaua and Lili‘uokalani. Loaned Monarchymoney in exchange for influence. Queen’s diaries show shethought he would be means to restore her to the throne.


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Stevens, John L.—United States minister to Hawai‘i in 1893whose Annexation leanings put him at the center of the con-troversy after the Revolution, but whose role has probablybeen vastly overstated.

Tenney, Edward Davies—Arrived in 1877 at 18. Member of Pro-visional Government Advisory Council. Started in sugar atHilo and by 1880 was a junior clerk at Castle and Cooke,eventually becoming president. In 1942 was president ofMatson Navigation while still president of C&C.

Thurston, Asa—with wife, Lucy Goodale, member ofthe pioneer missionary group. Born in Fitchburg,Mass., in 1787, stayed in church service his wholelife, dying in Honolulu in 1868. Graduated fromYale in 1816 and Yale Divinity School in 1819.Came to Hawai‘i in 1820.

Thurston, Asa Goodale—son of Asa and LucyThurston, born 1827 in Kona; father of Lorrin A. Thurston.Left in 1840 to school for ten years; prep school, Yale, and in1849 became Hawai‘i’s first graduate from Williams College.Elected to Legislature in 1853. Married missionary daughterSarah Andrews in 1853. Speaker of the House during lastyear of reign of Kamehameha III in 1854. Founding presi-dent of Mission Children’s Society formed to send mission-aries to South Seas. Died at 32 when Lorrin was a little overone year old, daughter Helen not yet born.

Thurston, Lorrin A.—born in Honolulu in 1858, grandson offour missionaries; grandfather of this author.Spoke Hawaiian fluently as had his father andgrandfather. Lawyer; elected to House of Represen-tatives in 1886 at age 28, House of Nobles in 1892,served Hawaiian government as minister of interi-or, 1887-1890, under Kala-kaua, became his primeminister, wrote Reform Constitution and was

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instrumental in 1893 Revolution. After Revolution, workedardently for Annexation. Married Clara Shipman in 1886.She died in childbirth in 1891 and he married Harriet Potterin 1894. In 1898, became owner/publisher of The PacificCommercial Advertiser, later The Honolulu Advertiser, helpedset aside Haleakala- and Ki-lauea as federal preserves, fosteredKi-lauea Observatory. Died in 1931.

Thurston, Lorrin Potter—son of Lorrin and Harriet, born 1900.Was publisher of The Honolulu Advertiser 1931-1960,founder of Pacific Area Travel Association, chairman ofStatehood Commission at time Hawai‘i became state.

Thurston, Lucy Goodale—grandmother of Lorrin A., she camewith the first company of missionaries in 1820, was last sur-vivor of that group when she died in 1876. Wrote The Lifeand Times of Lucy G. Thurston, detailed record of the rigorsof missionary life, including account of her radical mastecto-my without anaesthesia in 1855.

Thurston, Sarah Andrews—mother of Lorrin A., raised threechildren after husband’s death at age 32 by teaching atschools on O‘ahu and Maui. Daughter of missionaries Lorrinand Sarah Andrews. Her father wrote first Hawaiian diction-ary, founded Lahainaluna School, taught engraving to natives.

Waterhouse, Henry—Hawaiian subject of Tasmanian birth,came to Hawai‘i in 1851. Member of Committee of Safety.Pressed for and helped draft the Reform Constitution in1887. One of the two members of the Committee of Safety tobe interviewed by Blount, who took statement from him try-ing to determine time of recognition of new government byU.S. Minister Stevens, called Waterhouse a liar when hisrecollection didn’t parallel that of Queen’s witnesses.

Wilcox, Robert W.—Hawaiian activist, called “chronic revolu-tionist” by boyhood friend, L.A. Thurston. Thurston said hecalled him that because it didn’t seem to make much differ-


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ence to him which side he was on as long as he was engagedin a fight. Led attempted revolution against Kala-kaua in1889, abortive revolution in 1892, sat out 1893 Revolutionbut was leader of the unsuccessful counter-revolution in1895. Sentenced to death but sentence was commuted. AfterAnnexation, got back into politics and with new Hawaiianmajority, was elected Hawai‘i’s first delegate to Congress in1900. Defeated in 1902, he ran for sheriff of O‘ahu in theoff-year county election of 1903 and died on Oct. 23, 1903,during the campaign.

Wilder, William C.—American, Hawaiian subject member ofCommittee of Safety. Wealthy shipping magnate, arrangedfor himself and other four Annexation ministers from Provi-sional Government to leave for Washington two days afterRevolution. President of the Republic Senate, 1897. Editor ofPacific Commercial Advertiser in 1890s.

Willis, Albert S.—special U.S. minister sent to Hawai‘i by Presi-dent Cleveland to reinstate Lili‘uokalani, depending onwhether she would grant amnesty to Revolutionists. Whenthe ex-Queen refused, Cleveland’s plot, a violation of inter-national diplomatic codes, fell apart. Queen later recantedher non-amnesty position, Willis asked Dole administrationto turn government back to her but his request was denied.

Wilson, Charles B.—marshal of Kingdom, chief of police at timeof Revolution. Strong supporter of Queen. His influenceopposed by many, including Hawaiian political leaders, butif he had arrested Committee of Safety when he wanted toon Sunday, January 15, Revolution might not have succeed-ed. Son John, later mayor of Honolulu, built Pali Road.

Wiltse, G.C.—captain of U.S.S. Boston who gave order for troopsto go ashore to protect American lives and property after hisofficers reported great unrest developing January 16 at twomass meetings, one native, one the rest of community.

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Wodehouse, James H.—British minister to Hawai‘i at time ofRevolution, a great friend and supporter of Lili‘uokalani.Strongly opposed Annexation of Hawai‘i to United States.

Wolf, Fraulein—Lili‘uokalani’s German teacher-turned-seer whoprovided questionable psychic readings for the Queen, par-ticularly concerning the lottery bill and Cabinet appointees.

Young, Alexander—mechanical engineer, arrived in 1865; set upfoundry and machine shop in Hilo. Bought interest in Hon-olulu Iron Works and invested in sugar. An interior ministerafter the Revolution. Member of House of Nobles, 1889;member of Advisory Council of Provisional Government.Built the Alexander Young Hotel, acquired the Moana andlater the Royal Hawaiian.

Young, John—boatswain of the British ship Eleanora who left hisship on the Kona coast of the Big Island in 1790, provedinvaluable advisor to Kamehameha I in trade negotiationsand in his conquest of the other islands. Married daughterof chief, served on king’s advisory council until his death.His granddaughter, Emma Rooke, married Kamehameha IVand became Queen Emma.

Young, Lucien—U.S. naval lieutenant, second in command of theU.S.S. Boston in 1893 who testified decision to land troopswas made by Capt. Wiltse, not Minister Stevens. Also testi-fied troops ordered to remain neutral, were located so as toavoid siding with either government or rebels.


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Adler, Jacob, Claus Spreckels: The Sugar King in Hawaii, (Mutual Pub-lishing, Honolulu 1966)

Adler, Jacob and Robert M. Kamins, The Fantastic Life of Walter Mur-ray Gibson: Hawaii’s Minister of Everything, (University of HawaiiPress, Honolulu 1986)

Alexander, Elizabeth, et al., ed., Missionary Album, Portraits and Bio-graphical Sketches of the American Protestant Missionaries to theHawaiian Islands, Sesquicentennial Edition, (Hawaiian MissionChildren’s Society, Honolulu 1969)

Alexander, William De Witt, Two Weeks of Hawaiian History, (Hawai-ian Gazette Co., Honolulu 1893)

Alexander, William De Witt, History of Later Years of the HawaiianMonarchy . . . and the Revolution of 1893, (Hawaiian Gazette Co.,Honolulu 1896)

Allen, Helena G., The Betrayal of Liliuokalani: Last Queen of Hawaii1838-1917, (The Arthur H. Clark Company, Glendale, CA 1982)

Allen, Helena G., Sanford Ballard Dole: Hawaii’s Only President, (TheArthur H. Clark Company, Glendale, CA 1988)

Andrade, Ernest, Jr., Unconquerable Rebel: Robert W. Wilcox andHawaiian Politics, 1880-1903, (University Press of Colorado,Niwot, CO 1996)

Bailey, Paul, Hawaii’s Royal Prime Minister: The Life & Times of Wal-ter Murray Gibson, (Hastings House, New York 1980)

Benjamin, Stuart Minor, Equal Protection and the Special Relationship:The Case of Native Hawaiians, (The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 106,No. 3, Dec. 1996)

Bingham, Hiram, A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the SandwichIslands; or the Civil, Religious and Political History of those Islands,(Hezekiah Huntington, Hartford 1847)

Bushnell, O.A., The Gifts of Civilization: Germs and Genocide inHawai‘i, (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1993)

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Andrew Farrell, (Honolulu Advertiser Publishing Co., Ltd., Hon-olulu 1936)

Thurston, Lucy G., Life and Times of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, (S.C.Andrews, Ann Arbor 1882)

Unknown, A Narrative of Five Youth from the Sandwich Islands, (J. Sey-mour, New York 1816)

Whitney, Caspar, Hawaiian America: Something of its History,Resources and Prospects, (Harper & Brothers, New York 1899)

Zambucka, Kristin, Princess Kaiulani: The Last Hope of Hawaii’sMonarchy, (Mana Publishing Co., Honolulu 1984)

Hawaii, Fact and Fiction, Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, (Hon-olulu 1967)

Hawaii, Handbook No. 85, Bureau of the American Republic, (Wash-ington, D.C. 1897)

Hawaiian Hansard: A complete Verbatim Report of the Proceedings andSpeeches of the Hawaiian Legislative Assembly of 1886, (Daily Bul-letin Steam Printing Office, Honolulu 1886)

Hawaiian Journal of History, Volumes 26-30, (Hawaiian HistoricalSociety, Honolulu 1992-96)

Hawaiian Laws 1841-1842, Translation of the Constitution and Lawsof the Hawaiian Islands, Established in the Reign of KamehamehaIII, (Lahainaluna 1842, Reprinted by Ted Adameck, Green Valley,NV 1994)

House Ex. Document No. 48, 53rd Congress, second session, 1893.San Francisco Chronicle, July 28, 1898Senate Executive Documents No. 45, 52nd Congress, Second Session

to No. 60, 53rd Congress, Third Session. (1893-1895)Reports of Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,

1789-1901, 1st Congress, First Session, to 56th Congress, SecondSession, Diplomatic Relations with Foreign Nations–HawaiianIslands, Vol. VI, (Government Printing Office, Washington 1901)

University of Hawaii Law Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, Fall 1995United States Court of Claims decision, May 16, 1910.


362

Chapter One1. Russ, William A. Jr., The Hawaiian Revolution 1893-94, (Susquehan-

na University Press 1959) 351.2. Ibid, 169.3. Russ, William A. Jr., The Hawaiian Republic 1894-98, (Susquehanna

University Press 1961) 53; and Thurston, Lorrin A., Memoirs of the HawaiianRevolution, edited by Andrew Farrell, (Honolulu Advertiser Publishing Co.,Ltd. 1936) 535-537.

Chapter Two4. Congressional Record, 52nd Congress, Second Session, Senate Ex.

Document 45.5. Ibid.6. Ibid.7. Bushnell, O.A., The Gifts of Civilization: Germs and Genocide in

Hawai‘i, (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1993) 107.8. Alexander, Elizabeth, et al., Missionary Album, Portraits and Bio-

graphical Sketches of the American Protestant Missionaries to the HawaiianIslands, Sesquicentennial Edition, (Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society1969) 17.

9. Ibid, 33.10. Ibid, 31, 112, 128, 162.11. Blount Report, contained in House Ex. Doc. No. 48, 53rd Congress,

second session, 1893.

Chapter Three12. Official correspondence Pierce to Fish, Sept. 2, 1973.13. Thurston, Memoirs . . ., 23-4.14. Hartwell correspondence.

Chapter Four15. Morgan Report, Reports of Committee on Foreign Relations, United

States Senate, 1789-1901, 1st Congress, First Session, to 56th Congress, Sec-

363

Footnotes

ond Session, Diplomatic Relations with Foreign Nations–Hawaiian Islands,Vol. VI, (Government Printing Office, Washington 1901) Blount’s report is180 degrees from this sworn testimony. Blount alleged Thurston approached theCabinet members, but he did not interview him or his colleagues.

16. Ibid, 963-98.17. Ibid, 817-19.18. Ibid, 807-10.19. Thurston to Foster, Feb. 21, 1893, USDS notes from Hawaiian Lega-

tion Vol. 4.

Chapter Five20. Fuchs, Lawrence H., Hawaii Pono: A Social History, (Harcourt, Brace

& World, Inc., New York 1961).21. Kuykendall, Vol. II, 115-118.22. Kuykendall, Vol. III, 344.23. Ibid, 578.24. Morgan Report, McCandless testimony 967-975; Thurston, Memoirs . . . and others.25. Alexander, William De Witt, Two Weeks of Hawaiian History,

(Hawaiian Gazette Co. 1893) and Blount Report.26. Ibid.27. Ibid.28. Morgan Report, Thurston statement.29. Blount Report, Parker to Blount.30. Ibid, Stevens.31. Morgan Report, Swinburne testimony.32. Ibid.33. Proclamation Abrogating Monarchy, Archives of Hawai‘i.34. Senate Report No. 227, Morgan Report findings, Feb. 26, 1894.35. Russ, The Hawaiian Republic, 95.36. Ibid, 205.37. Fuchs, 158.38. Ibid, 406 and Honolulu Star-Bulletin.39. Fuchs, 161.40. Fuchs, 162.

Chapter Six41. Russ, The Hawaiian Revolution, 71.42. Kuykendall, Vol. 1, 420.43. Ibid, 420-428.44. Morgan Report, 563.

Chapter Seven45. Russ, Morgan Report, Thurston.46. Russ, The Hawaiian Revolution, 205-8.47. Senate Executive Doc. 13, Gresham to Willis Dec. 3, 1893.


364

48. Russ, 243.49. Morgan Report, 812-13.50. Ibid, 946.

Chapter Eight51. Blount Report, J.W. Jones to Blount.52. Blount Report, 673, Ashford statement.53. Kent, Harold Winfield, Charles Reed Bishop: Man of Hawaii, (Pacific

Books, Palo Alto 1965) 90.54. Morgan, William M., Strategic Factors in Hawaiian Annexation,

(Claremont Graduate School 1980) 85.55. Ibid.

Chapter Nine56. Irwin, Jeffrey, The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonization of the

Pacific, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992).57. Kotzebue, Otto Von, A New Voyage Round the World, in the Years

1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. II, (Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, London1830) 153.

58. Bushnell, 6.59. Senate Executive Doc. No. 13, 53rd Congress, Second Session, Blaine

to Comly June 30, 1881.60. Kuykendall, Vol. I, 69.61. Ibid, 41.62. Correspondence, Persis Collection of the Stamps and Postal History

of Hawai‘i.63. Kuykendall, Vol. I, 286-287.64. Ibid, 289.65. Hobbs, Jean, Hawaii: A Pageant of the Soil, (Stanford University

Press 1935) 118.

Chapter Eleven66. The Honolulu Advertiser, Sept. 10, 1897.67. Morgan Report, McCandless testimony, 985; Alexander, History of

the Later Years . . . , 58.68. Thurston, Memoirs . . . , Colburn to Thurston, letter dated Jan. 30,

1895; Archives of Hawai‘i.

Footnotes

365

1893 Revolution i, vii, 1-2, 11-13, 61, 83-86, 107-110 See also, Revolution of 1893

AAdmission Act 266-267, 303-304, 310,

328-329Ahupua‘a 248-249Akaka, Daniel, U.S. senator 5-6, 270, 271-

274, 277, 282, 284-285, 293, 297, 313,342

Alexander, William D., historian 39, 41-42,213-214, 247-248, 342

Alexander & Baldwin 165Alexander, William P. 141Ali‘io-lani Hale 68, 75, 107, 108

See also Government BuildingAmalu, Samy, columnist 53American Board of Commissioners for For-

eign Missions 25, 26, 238 American Examiner 246Angell, Benjamin Franklin, U.S. consul 208Annexation i, iv, viii, xi, xv, xvi, 7, 8, 11,

13, 14, 20, 22, 35-36, 49, 54, 74, 81, 83,85-87, 89, 90-91, 96, 102, 106, 111, 121,123, 126, 128, 129-131, 133treaty in 1897 129-130treaty of 9

Annexation Club 8-9, 32, 74, 85, 89, 94,107, 132

Annexation Day iv, 131, 147, 266, 319,320

Armstrong, Richard, Cabinet minister 29Armstrong, Samuel C., Civil War general

28, 342Armstrong, William N., Cabinet minister

30Ashford, Volney V. 212-213, 342Asiatic confederation 46Auwae, “Papa” Henry, healer 336-337

BBayard, Thomas, U.S. secretary of state

45, 342Benjamin, Stuart Minor, legal scholar 268,

270Bishop, Charles Reed, philanthropist 42,

43, 53-55 342concern about Provisional Government 55favored Ka‘iulani 55guardian to Lili‘uokalani 54on Annexation 54on Kala-kaua 42-43on Lili‘uokalani 55on Spreckels 54

Bishop Estate 30See also Pauahi, Bernice Bishop, Princess

Blount Report 67, 69, 77, 78, 81-82, 95-96, 120-122, 124, 175-176, 178, 180,190-191, 201-206, 314accuses Stevens 175, 283-284based on secret interviews 175

Blount, James H., former U.S. representa-tive 39-40, 42, 69, 78, 79, 103, 109, 110,122, 123, 138, 147, 149, 154, 156, 175,188, 188-204, 213, 225, 272, 287-288,342about lottery 58blames Stevens 122concern about Japanese 225Dole on Blount probe 113-115, 117ignores key leaders 111, 123, 188, 190, 191,

287interviews Parker 80-81lack of neutrality 182, 184, 288leading questions 190, 191Lili‘uokalani’s statements 58mission called unconstitutional 124misstatements 201-203on Ali‘io-lani Hale 108on Cabinet 67-68, 184 on Committee of Safety 95on citizenship 95on conspiracy 78-79on troops 124, 190, 201-202on U.S. responsibility 120, 122requests Annexation Club roster 86sends signals to Queen 177-182sent by Cleveland 121-122sparred with Waterhouse 158-160Thurston on 195, 196, 199-200

Bluejackets 84Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Title

258-259Bolte, Crister 148-149, 160, 163, 170, 191,

342Boston, U.S.S. 76, 91, 96, 100-101, 104-

107, 115Britain 18, 45

See also EnglandBrown, Andrew 149, 342-343Brown, Cecil, Republic senator 129Brown, Hank, U.S. senator 273, 280, 297Bush, J.E., newspaper editor 10, 47, 49,

173, 213, 343Bushnell, O.A., author 279

CCampaign for a Color-Blind America 269Campbell, James, Estate 331

Index

367

Cantacuzene, Prince, Russian minister 10Carter, Charles L. 127-128, 343Carter, Henry A.P., minister to U.S. 45,

128, 343Carter, Joseph O., Queen’s adviser 109,

127-128, 183, 343Castle & Cooke 150, 161, 165Castle, S.N., missionary 161Castle, William R. 30, 57, 67, 78, 94-95,

107, 168, 185, 191, 319, 344biographical information 149-152 Committee of Safety 94, 107Morgan testimony 200-201

Ceded lands 12, 242, 243, 265, 266, 267,290, 302, 303, 306-307, 310, 316, 323-324, 328-330, 334 See also government landsSee also land

Center for Hawaiian Studies, U.H. 299Charles Reed Bishop, Man of Hawai‘i 42-43,

54-55Chicago Times-Herald 151The Chiefs’ Children’s School 30, 161, 255Chun Lung, opium peddler 46Cleghorn, Archibald S. 93, 157, 180, 344Cleveland, Harlan, former U.H. president

295Cleveland, Grover, U.S. president 7-11, 40,

67-69, 84, 96, 102-103, 111-116, 118, 119,120-128, 147, 175-177, 183-184, 189,201-205, 223, 225, 344administration 9, 89-90, 311

recognized Republic 9Clive, John, author iiColburn, John F., Royalist minister of interi-

or xi, 61-63, 65-67, 74-76, 80, 185, 198,344

Colonialism 17-18, 22, 33, 87-88Comly, J.M., U.S. minister 44Committee of Public Safety 71-72Committee of Safety 64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73,

74, 77, 79, 100, 101, 102, 104, 109, 135,136, 138, 147, 148, 149, 152, 154, 160,161, 162, 184, 194, 202, 203, 298asked for troops 200-201call on Stevens 96-97decides to depose Queen 95favored Annexation 96formation 71-72, 198ignored by Blount 123Ka‘iulani on 221mass meeting 195members’ citizenship 77, 94, 185, 316no agreement with Stevens 106, 283no personal gain 132

not backed by sugar 285plans not secret 79, 80, 97-98proclamation of overthrow 107statement to Morgan 191-193supports Cabinet 99Wilson wants to arrest 79

Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Sen-ate 61, 100

Congressional apology 32-33, 242-243,271-298, 305-306, 318

Constitution of 1887 40, 61-62See also Reform Constitution

Constitutional Convention of 1978 267-268, 309-310, 329

Constitutional Monarchy 35-36Cook, James, British captain 17, 246, 249,

251, 317, 344Cooke, Amos Starr, missionary 30, 150Cooke, Charles M. 160-161, 344Cooke, Juliette Montague 30, 161Cooper, Henry 107, 132, 152-153, 168,

316, 344-345Cornwell, W.H. 61-62, 73-76, 80-81, 170,

345Coronation 42-43Counter-revolution attempt, 1895 xi, 11,

55, 81, 126-128, 131, 137, 151, 212, 226smuggled arms 11, 126, 151, 289

Crown lands 45, 186, 257, 264-265

DDamon, Samuel M. 109-111, 154, 161-162,

168-172, 196, 286-287, 345Dana, Richard H., writer 26Danforth, John, U.S. senator 273, 291-292,

295-297Davies, Theo H. 90Daws, Gavan, author 39, 44-46Day, A. Grove, author 317-318Dole, Sanford B. xvi, 68, 91, 149, 152, 153,

156, 163, 165, 168, 173, 178, 213, 224,288, 345arguments with Blount 181-182appointments 132-133criticizes Blount 82, 194-196flag-cutting fiction 319-320letter from Thurston 228-233letter to Willis 112-120, 233

on 1892 Legislature 117on U.S. troops 118protest U.S. try to usurp authority 116refuses to reinstate ex-Queen 119

lied to by U.S. officials 203on Kala-kaua 41on surrender of Queen 110-112, 170president of Provisional Government 104


368

Queen’s protest letter delivered 286refuses suffrage to Japanese 226takes over government 107-108

Dole, James, pineapple planter 154Dominis, John O., Lili‘uokalani’s husband

52, 103, 345Dowsett, James 56-57Durant, Will & Ariel, historians i

EEmma, Queen, wife of Kamehameha IV 30,

38-39, 42, 44-45, 57, 103-104, 136, 143,169, 256, 264, 302, 315, 331, 345, 346boycotts coronation 42election defeat 57on Kala-kaua 39

Emmeluth, John 94, 153-154, 346England 19, 22

See also BritainEthnic Studies, U.H. Department of 272

FFish, Hamilton, U.S. secretary of state 21,

208-209Fitzpatrick, Gary L., author 263, 264Flag, fictional cutting of Hawaiian 319Foster, John W., U.S. secretary of state 77,

223, 346France 18-19, 22, 81, 86-87

GGeorge III, British king 86, 127, 284George IV, British king 18, 253Germany 18-19, 22, 81Gibson, Walter Murray, Kala-kaua adviser

44-45, 89, 216, 346The Gifts of Civilization 279Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) 19Glade, H.F., German consul 77, 157Goemans, John W., attorney 268Gorton, Slade, U.S. senator 273, 280, 292-

297Government Building 68, 107,108, 314

See also Ali‘io-lani HaleGrapes of Canaan 23Great Mahele 12, 35-37, 291, 316Gregg, David L., U.S. minister 208, 346Gresham, Walter Q., U.S. secretary of state

10, 67, 102, 111, 113, 115, 119-120, 125,138, 151, 160, 180, 184, 203, 206, 228-233, 346

HHandbook on the Annexation of Hawai‘i, A

19, 233

Harrison, Benjamin, U.S. president 7-9,111-112, 188, 308, 346administration 74, 89-90, 102-103, 121, 311

Hartwell, A.S. 55-56, 65, 69, 75, 143, 156,346-347

Hawai‘i Aloha‘a-ina 212-213, 298See also Hawaiian Patriotic League

Hawai‘i and Its People 317-318Hawai‘i’s Last Queen 319, 321Hawai‘i’s Story by Hawai‘i’s Queen 43, 55-56Hawaiian(s)

American citizenship ii, iv, 6ancestry 3as Native American 5-6, 273-277, 298blood quantum 4-5culture 1-2, 15, 26-27, 146, 278-279, 282-283,295, 304, 310-311, 317-318, 325-327, 334-338definition 3-6domination of public jobs iv, 132language dedication page, 1-2, 14-15, 26,317-318, 325-326literacy 26nation 6, 302population 22

disease impact 17, 24, 31, 37, 250-251losses 17, 22, 24, 31, 37, 234, 250-251, 253

religion 24-25, 253, 282-283, 291See also Native Americans

Hawaiian America 128Hawaiian Board of Missions 238The Hawaiian Gazette 71Hawaiian Home Lands 304Hawaiian Homes 267-268, 331Hawaiian Homes Administration 328-329Hawaiian Homes Commission 323-324,

328-329, 334Hawaiian Homes Commission Act 146,

267, 328-329The Hawaiian Kingdom 39, 50, 100Hawaiian Patriotic League 212

See also Hawai‘i Aloha‘a-inaHawaiian plebiscite, 1996 xiii, xiv, 307,

313-314, 318-319The Hawaiian Republic 127-130The Hawaiian Revolution xiv, 10, 32, 47

re reinstatement of Queen 10Hee, Clayton, former OHA chairman 305,

330Hitchcock, Edward G., Republic marshal

289Holstein, H.L., Republic senator 129-130Homestead acts 13Honolulu Advertiser, The iii, 28, 52-53, 90,

146, 272, 300, 305-307, 310-313See also Pacific Commercial Advertiser

Index

369

Honolulu Star-Bulletin 154, 302, 330See also Honolulu Bulletin

Honolulu Bulletin 144, 154, 173, 210, 223Hui Ka-lai‘aina 48Hunter, Charles H., author 50

IIaukea, Curtis 55Industrial Revolution 15Inouye, Daniel, U.S. senator 271-274, 277,

279-282, 297, 302, 306, 311-313, 318, 347International Court of Justice 281‘Iolani Palace iv, 42, 50, 62, 65, 74, 108,

122, 127, 147, 166, 170, 196, 199, 202,204, 314, 319, 320

Irwin, W.G., Queen’s adviser 55Isenberg, Paul, German sugar planter 90

JJapan 18-19, 22, 46, 81, 222-227, 234Johnson, Andrew, U.S. president 21Jones, J.W. 85-86Jones, Peter Cushman 128, 163-164, 167-

168, 185,-187, 347Jones-Wilcox Cabinet 73, 91-92, 97, 164,

187Judd, A.F. 30Judd, G.P. 29

KKa La--hui, sovereignty organization 301Ka Leo o Ka La-hui 49, 173, 213Ka Wai Ola o OHA 336-337Ka‘ahumanu 24-25, 53, 252, 347Kaho‘ohalahala, Sam 313-314Kaho‘olawe 326-328Kahuna 252, 337

and Lili‘uokalani 50Kai-miloa 47Ka‘iulani, Princess 18, 55, 90-91, 93, 180,

220-221, 347marriage plan 46

Kala-kaua, David, King xv, 18, 22, 37-45,51, 56-57, 64, 89, 94, 103, 117, 128, 137,141, 143, 145, 149-150, 161, 164, 186-187, 214, 217, 220, 285, 310, 315-316,347-348$2 million loan 44, 45and “King Claus” 44and Moreno 44Asiatic confederation 46attempted coup 98Bishop on 43budget 42capricious character 216coronation 42-43

crowns 42crown lands 45Dole on 41efforts to sell Islands 41election 45. 57election riot 57, 103-104, 169election tactics 39-41financial stress 44genealogy reconstruction 39indebtedness 186opinions on 39opium license 46ponders abdication 57re British 45re dismissing ministers 44re Pearl Harbor 209Reform Constitution 46, 88, 92, 98, 155spendthrift 41-42unscrupulous advisers 37Wilson & abdication 57

Kalaniana‘ole, Prince Jonah Ku-hio- xii, 131,154, 348

Kamehameha dynasty 37-38, 215Kamehameha I 18, 24, 53, 244, 248-250,

251, 253, 256, 275, 283, 323, 327, 348Kamehameha II (Liholiho) 18, 24-26, 29-

30, 348death 30re kapu 253

Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) 8, 12, 18,20, 29-30, 35, 136, 139, 253-254, 258,290, 317, 348Annexation treaty 276constitutional government 35-36, 88establishes Royal School 161Great Mahele 258, 290land gift 12, 290, 302-303, 316Lili‘uokalani on the Great Mahele 246provisional cessation to U.S. 207treaty of friendship 20

Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho) 18,29-30, 36, 136, 265, 349withdraws Annexation treaty 208

Kamehameha V (Lot Kamehameha) 29,36-37, 88, 92, 349

Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate 5,162, 255-256, 331

Kanahele, Pu‘uhonua "Bumpy," activist280-281

Kanaka maoli 258, 300, 302-303Kapoor, Kamal 300-302Kapu 252-253, 282-284Kauhane, John, Republic senator 129Kaulukou, John L., Republic speaker of

House xi, 8, 129, 216-220, 349-350Kawananakoa, Abigail 320-321


370

Kawananakoa, David, Prince 110, 154-155,220-222, 314-315, 350

Kawananakoa, Quentin, state representa-tive 221-222, 314

Kealoha, Samuel Jr., activist 306-307Kekuaokalani, last Hawai‘i battle 253Kent, Harold Winfield, author 42-43Keppeler, H.K. Bruss 272-273King, James A., captain 162,-163, 350King, Samuel W., former governor 163King, Samuel P. Sr., federal judge 163Kinney, W.A. 143, 350Kuykendall, Ralph S., author, historian 39,

41, 45, 50, 58, 100, 151, 184, 210, 350

LLaird, Charles, U.S.N. lt. 107, 122Land 6-7, 35

See also ceded lands, government landsclaim of theft 2, 6-7, 14, 316crown lands 12Republic 8transfer of 8

Lansing, Theodore F. 154-155, 350Lee, William Little, Monarchy chief justice

37, 255-256, 258-265, 351Lessons of History, The iLiberal Party 48-49Lili‘uokalani, Queen (Lydia Kamakaeha

Dominis) ii, iii, viii, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 12-14,22, 30, 36, 38, 44, 47, 50, 53-58, 61-81,84, 89-102, 117-118, 126-127, 135-137,141, 156, 161, 164, 166, 170-172, 210,212, 214-216, 220-221, 228, 236, 256,284-287, 302, 307, 310, 320, 351abdication paper 55Amalu on 53and counter-revolution 126, 226and Damon 161-162and lottery 51, 58appointed successor by brother 312, 315Blount recommends reinstatement 188Cabinet considers deposing her 61-81claimed owned crown lands 264-265Cleveland apology 9diary 18, 41, 50-52, 56-58, 63, 177-182, 212Hawaiian leaders’ reaction 216-221imprisonment 289influenced by seer 50Jones on 186-187letter on feudal lands 246, 282Macfarlane 180-182marines 315 not chosen by people 315on Annexation Day 320

on Dowsett 56on Great Mahele 246plot to overthrow Kala-kaua 56-57proposed Constitution 58, 61-62, 66-68, 70-

71, 287, 296protest 110, 112-113, 286re Annexation xii, 212, 236Richardson 63seer on Dominis 52Smith on 156Spreckels support 285statements to Blount 58, 179succeeds Kala-kaua 47Trust 30, 256, 331, 333urges Damon to join new government 162

Lodge, Henry Cabot Sr., U.S. senator 227Loomis, Albertine, author 23Lottery issue 50-52, 58, 62, 73, 80, 92-93,

121, 164, 182, 187, 190, 214, 309Lunalilo Trust 30, 256-257, 331, 333Lunalilo, King 29, 30, 39, 103, 256-257, 351

election over Kala-kaua 142-143

MMacfarlane, E.C., Queen’s adviser 109-110,

179, 180-182, 351Mahele - See Great MaheleMaine, U.S.S. 239Maori 28Marcy, William L., U.S. secretary of state

208Mariana Islands 19Marines 84, 103-104, 202-204, 308, 315Mariposa 52Marquesans 244-245McCandless, John A. 64-72, 95, 155, 351McChesney, F.W. 68, 72, 155, 352McCullough, David, historian, vMcKinley, William, U.S. president 128,

239, 352McPhee, Roderick, Punahou president

emeritus i-vMcWilliams, Tennant S., historian 188-189Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution (Dole)

41, 110, 168Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution

(Thurston) iii, 38-40, 42, 46-47, 56-57,65, 67, 74-76, 79, 104

Menehune 245Merrill, G.W., U.S. minister 103Midkiff, Robert R., businessman, historian

20Mills, Ellis, U.S. consul general 181-183,

352Mission Boys 32Missionaries 1, 22-32, 36-37, 138-140,

Index

371

149, 161, 178, 247, 251, 253, 259-265,277-279American missionaries first here 28-29and Hawaiian language 25-27, 282, 317, 325and land 241, 259-261, 317arrival 253as Calvinists 27-28as government counselors 29-32blaming 30-31companies 29, 156cutting Flag fiction 319first census 251former, as Cabinet members 29, 136instructions from American board 25Kamehameha II and 30Lili‘uokalani reference 178not behind Revolution 32, 277-278, 285, 315Punahou founded by 139stem disease 251

Moffat, Riley M., author 263-264Monarchs, elected 36-38Moreno, Celso Caesar 44, 352Morgan Committee hearings 69, 72, 79,

95, 101, 149, 155-156, 176, 190-193,200, 202-207, 287Alexander testimony 213-214Blount testimony 176-177Castle testimony 200-201Committee of Safety affidavit 191-193Jones testimony 167-168, 185-187McCandless testimony 64-72sworn testimony 176, 288Thurston statement 193-200

Morgan Report 18, 124-125, 184, 203-206, 314Congressional resolution ignores 272credibility 189faults in Blount Report 189-203findings 124, 203-206map of troops location vs. residences 202sworn testimony 176, 288

Morgan, James F., 164-165, 352Morgan, Sen. John T., U.S. senator 61, 100,

123-124, 175, 188-204, 353Morgan, William M., author 222-225Muller, Herbert J, historian iv

NNation of Hawai‘i 280Native Americans 268, 270, 273-277, 298,

313, 330, 337Native Hawaiian Rehabilitation Fund 268Nawahi, Joseph 10Neumann, Paul, Queen’s adviser 51, 55,

65, 67, 78, 109-110, 177, 198, 210, 353Fraulein on 52

New Guinea 19New South Faces the World, The 188New York Sun, The 229New York Times, The 307-310New York Tribune, The 26Not by Fact Alone iiNordhoff, Charles, reporter 182, 353

OObookiah, Henry (Opukahaia) 23, 25, 140,

353Occult influences 50-51Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) 5-6, 267,

268, 290, 303, 305-307, 309, 323-324,329-330, 334, 336, 338

Okinawa 19Olepau, Benny, philosopher 304-305, 335Onipa‘a motto source 216Opium issue 46-48, 58, 62, 80, 92-93,

121, 164, 187, 309Organic Act 239, 266

PPacific Commercial Advertiser 32, 160, 319

See also Honolulu AdvertiserPalmer, Julius 56Parker Ranch 51, 331Parker, Samuel, Queen’s cabinet minister

50-52, 55, 61-63, 73, 75, 80-81, 90, 170,177-179, 353Fraulein on 52

Patton Boggs, Washington law firm 330Pauahi, Bernice Bishop, Princess 30, 42,

53-54, 332-333, 353-354appoints estate trustees 156, 161-162bequeaths lands to Damon 162boycotts Kala-kaua coronation 42creates Bishop Estate 256ha-nai sister of Lili‘uokalani 54legacy 30marries Charles Bishop 255

Pearl Harbor 41Peterson, A.P., Queen’s last attorney gener-

al 52, 61-63, 65-67, 69-70, 73-76, 80,198, 354

Pierce, Henry, U.S. minister 21, 39, 103-104, 208-209, 354

Pilipo, G.W. 40Population 126, 234Pratt, Julius W., scholar 188-189Provisional Government 9-10, 12-13, 32,

51, 54-55, 56, 109-116, 119-121, 124,132, 144, 155, 161-163, 165, 170-171,181-184, 192-195, 201, 205, 223-224,228-229, 233, 285-286, 288ample forces 192


372

Bishop's concern about 55Cleveland on 126first proceedings 167government lands 265, 310-311, 316Harrison recognized 111Hawaiian support 214Japanese suffrage question 224-225Kaulukou urges support 219kept virtually all government officials 314-315land transfer 12-13martial law 169no U.S. control 84not informed of Cleveland charges 176not missionary dominated 319not shown Blount Report 115, 180, 184on agreement with ex-Queen 112proclaimed on front steps of Ali‘io-lani 314proclamation of 118Queen's surrender & protest 170-171, 286-287re lottery bill 182recognition by foreign governments 9, 121refuses to reinstate ex-Queen 119Spreckels opposition 54Stevens concern of vulnerability 222Stevens recognition 107, 160Thurston minister to U.S. 228treatment of Hawaiians 236, 275tries for Annexation 207U.S. attempt to subvert 203Willis U.S. minister to 123, 183-184

Pua, S.K., Hawai‘i representative 49-50,354

Punahou School v, 28, 139, 141, 142, 144,149, 161, 164

Public lands 316

QQueen Emma Foundation 256, 331Queen’s Hospital 30, 256

RReciprocity Treaty & Act 21, 41, 90, 208-

209, 284, 327Reform Constitution 42-43, 46, 61-62, 88-

89, 92, 94, 98, 118, 145, 150, 155, 158,164, 186, 215-217See also Constitution of 1887

Republic of Hawai‘i 8-9, 11-13, 64, 126,128, 130, 131-132, 145-147, 152-153,155, 161-163, 207, 233-239, 265, 273-276, 288-290, 312, 315, 317Constitution of 237during counter-revolution 127first election 128-130five years of independence 206hard-nosed 128

Japanese demand for voting rights 224-226majority in House were Hawaiian 129, 237masterful negotiations on land 239, 277on arms smuggling 11, 289public lands 289-290, 310, 316public relations for Annexation 227-228recognition of 8, 9, 276, 289Senate votes for Annexation 129-130strained relations with U.S. 151Thurston recommends name 232

Republic Senate 8Revolution of 1893 6-7, 16, 33, 40, 44, 49,

54, 55, 57, 61, 69-73 not secret 79question of U.S. role 7-11troops 7-8See also 1893 Revolution

Richards, William, Cabinet minister 29Richardson, John, Queen’s adviser 10Rickard, W.H., sugar planter 106Rifkin, Jeremy, author 333Russ, William A. Jr., historian xiv, 10, 32,

47-48, 108, 127-28, 130, 162Russia 10, 19Ruth, Princess, boycotts coronation 42

SSansonetti, Thomas L., U.S. solicitor gener-

al 273Samoa 19, 47San Francisco Chronicle 147, 217-221San Francisco Examiner 210Sandalwood 248, 252Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,

U.S. 123-124, 185See also U.S. Senate Committee on...

Severance, Luther, U.S. commissioner 21Shipman, Clara 138, 144Shoal of Time 39, 46Skerrett, J.S., U.S.N. admiral 179, 201, 225Smith, W.O. 64, 69, 72-76, 78, 94-97,

105-106, 132, 143, 149, 156-157, 185,191, 198, 200, 202, 319, 354

Smyser, A.A. “Bud”, columnist 330-331Society Islands 19Sovereignty ii, iii, vii, viii, xii-xiv, xvi, 1-3,

8, 15, 69, 281, 285, 290, 314, 325, 338alleged U.S. conspiracy 79, 84and language 26-27and Native American classification 273, 313ceded lands 324, 330claim adverse effects from Revolution 278-279commoners had none 296counter opinions 304-305distortion of Revolution motives 132

Index

373

erroneous claims 300, 311government lands 264-265Honolulu Advertiser poll 3, 310ignore Morgan report 124-125ignore U.S. precedent for Annexation 239Kawananakoa on 222land claims 6, 14, 241missionary influence 148Nation of Hawai‘i 280Nation-within-a-nation 301, 323needs broader support 328new direction needed 324plebiscite on 307portrayal of Hawaiians as victims 2, 5re congressional apology 271-272some Hawaiians don’t support 214sugar influence 148U.H. Center of Hawaiian Studies 299

Spanish-American War 239Spreckels, Claus, sugar baron 44-45, 52,

54, 90, 354St. Andrew’s Priory School 30Statehood i, 13-14, 35, 130, 239, 242,

266, 268, 274, 276, 298, 306, 310, 313,324, 328

Stevens, John L., U.S. minister 11, 77, 101,107, 179, 201, 222-223, 286, 355and congressional apology 283, 284and U.S. policy 103and landing U.S. troops 7, 109, 125, 175, 203,

222and Capt. Wiltse 100, 103, 106-107, 284accused of recognizing new government too

early 7, 108, 109, 160Blount on 122, 159, 175, 184, 188, 223, 283

charged conspiracy 191both sides seek his help 96Cabinet planned to ask help 76Castle on 200-201Cleveland on 9, 115-116, 176Cleveland replaces 126Committee of Safety affadavit 191-193Committee of Safety approaches 76-77, 105Democrats feel Stevens went beyond authority

205ill during Revolution 168in defense of 108meets with Cabinet 99Morgan Committee exonerates 123, 176, 204,

288minority of Democrat members disagree 124

no deal with Committee of Safety 106no quick contact with Washington 102re Lili‘uokalani 47-48Thurston on 196, 199, 200

trip to Hilo 91, 96-97, 197to protect American lives and property 78, 96-

97, 99-100, 105, 200would not assist against Monarchy 125

Sugar 70, 83, 87, 90, 106, 146, 148, 158,165, 268, 285, 315

Sugar plantation owners 14, 90, 106Suhr, Ed 157-158Surveying the Mahele 263-264Swinburne, W.T., U.S.N. lt. cmdr. 101, 168,

TTaboo 24-25, 252-253, 282-283Tahiti 18-19, 244-246, 327Tansill, Charles C., author 45Tenney, Edward D., businessman 165, 355Territorial government 13Territory of Hawai‘i 7, 130-133, 153, 208,

239, 270Thaddeus, Brig iii, 25The Third Wave 15-16Thurston, Asa, missionary 23, 140, 261,

355Thurston, Asa Goodale 138, 355Thurston, Lorrin A. iii, xvi, 19, 30, 38-40,

55, 56, 63, 65-70, 73-79, 94-95, 110,127, 154, 156, 170, 185, 236-238, 355-356and U.S. Flag 147and Harrison administration 102-103Annexation planning 228-232at mass meeting 152biographical information 138-146Blount backward on Cabinet role 184-185budgets for Kala-kaua 42continuing argument with Gresham 151, 233conversation with Wilson 57, 79, 199declines presidency 104drafts proclamation 168fluent in Hawaiian 138A Handbook on the Annexation of Hawai‘i 233heads land negotiation committee 277ill on Jan. 17 107, 168, 170loss of brother 141-142love of Hawai‘i 146minister to United States 228on Annexation 1884 210on Kala-kaua 38-39on Kala-kaua election tactics 40on Lili‘uokalani/Kala-kaua 56-57on Revolution planning 104on secrecy 197, 198on Stevens 77, 97on opium license 46on troops landing 106, 125, 196-197on Wilcox 141


374

public office 143-144, 144-146Punahou expulsion 142re plot for Kala-kaua abdication 57statement to Morgan Committee 193-200to Washington in 1892 89, 91untruth about assassins 320-321

Thurston, Lorrin P. 356Thurston, Lucy Goodale 356Thurston, Margaret Carter 144Thurston, Sarah Andrews 139, 140-141,

356Twigg-Smith, Thurston, author ii, iii, iv, vToffler, Alvin, author 15-16Tong Kee, opium peddler 46Tourism 2Troops, U.S. 7, 57, 103, 196Two Weeks of Hawaiian History 71-72

UU.S. congressional apology 32, 271-298U.S. Court of Claims 14U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Rela-

tions 11See also Senate Committee on ForeignRelations

United Church of Christapology 32disservice to early missionaries 32

Uses of the Past, The iv

VVan Dyke, Robert, collector 319Vancouver, George, British captain 18, 252

WWaihee, John, governor 267, 328Walker, John G., U.S.N. admiral 225-226

Waterhouse, Henry 95, 158, 160, 356The Washington Star 229Webster, Daniel, U.S. secretary of state 21White, William, Monarchy legislator 58Widemann, H.A. 55Wilcox, Robert W., unconquerable rebel

xii, 10, 48-49, 57, 131, 141, 356-357Wilder, William C. 68, 73-74, 76-77, 121,

160, 162, 357Willis, Albert S., U.S. minister 9, 110-113,

115-116, 118-120, 123, 127, 176, 181,183-184, 194, 203-204, 228, 231, 233,357

Wilson, Charles B., Queen’s marshal 13,48-50, 54-55, 57, 79, 102, 109, 159, 173,198-199, 354, 357re Kala-kaua abdication 57

Wiltse, G.C., U.S.N. captain 100-101, 103,106-107, 202, 357

Wodehouse, James H., British minister179-180, 184, 357

Wolf, Fraulein 50, 51, 52, 177, 358Wundenberg, Fred W., turncoat 202

YYale 20, 23, 139, 140

Law Journal 268, 329Young, Alexander 165, 166, 358Young, John, adviser to Kamehameha I 30,

250, 358Young, Lucien, U.S.N. lt. 106, 147, 201,

358

Index

375