Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [18]
He spent money lavishly, piling up massive debts. Kalakaua wanted Hawaii’s monarchy to be equal to any in the world, so he built a new ’Iolani Palace, beginning in 1879, and held an extravagant coronation in 1883. Foreign businessmen considered these to be egotistical follies, but worse, Kalakaua was a mercurial decision-maker given to summarily replacing his entire cabinet on a whim.
A secret, antimonarchy group called the Hawaiian League formed, and in 1887 they presented Kalakaua with a new constitution. This one stripped the monarchy of most of its powers, making Kalakaua a figurehead, and it changed the voting laws to exclude Asians and include only those who met certain income and property requirements – effectively disenfranchising all but wealthy, mostly Caucasian business owners. Finally, since the Treaty of Reciprocity had run out, this renewed it by accepting US demands to give America permanent rights to Pearl Harbor. To ensure the profitability of its businesses, the Hawaiian League was ready to pay the price of Hawaiian sovereignty.
Under threat of violence and against his wishes, Kalakaua signed, leading this to become known as the ‘Bayonet Constitution.’ When King Kalakaua died in 1891, his sister and heir, Princess Lili’uokalani, ascended the throne. The queen fought against foreign intervention and control, and she secretly drafted a new constitution to restore Hawaiian voting rights and the monarchy’s powers. However, in 1893, before Lili’uokalani could present this, a hastily formed ‘Committee of Safety’ put in motion the Hawaiian League’s long-brewed plans to overthrow the Hawaiian government.
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In Legends and Myths of Hawaii, King David Kalakaua captures the shimmering nature of ancient Hawaiian storytelling by seamlessly mixing history (of Kamehameha, Captain Cook, the burning of the temples) with living mythology.
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First, the Committee requested support from US Minister John Stevens, who allowed 150 marines to come ashore in Honolulu Harbor ‘only to protect American citizens in case of resistance.’ The Committee’s own 150-strong militia then surrounded the palace and ordered Queen Lili’uokalani to step down. With no standing army, and wanting to avoid bloodshed, Lili’uokalani acquiesced under protest.
After the coup, the Committee of Safety formed a provisional government and immediately requested annexation by the US. However, much to their surprise, new US President Grover Cleveland reviewed the situation and refused: he condemned the coup as illegal, conducted under false pretext and against the will of the Hawaiian people, and he requested Lili’uokalani be reinstated. Miffed but unbowed, the Committee instead established their own government, the Republic of Hawaii.
For the next five years, Queen Lili’uokalani pressed her case (for a time from prison) – even collecting an anti-annexation petition in 1897 signed by the vast majority of Native Hawaiians – to no avail. In 1898, spurred by new US President William McKinley, the US approved a resolution for annexing the Republic of Hawaii as a US territory. In part, the US justified this colonialism because the ongoing Spanish-American War had highlighted the strategic importance of the islands as a Pacific military base. Indeed, some feared that if America didn’t take Hawaii, another Pacific Rim power (like Japan) just might.
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Shoal of Time by Gavan Daws (1968) remains perhaps the most well-written account of Hawaiian history from Captain Cook’s arrival to statehood in 1959.
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Return to beginning of chapter
PEARL HARBOR & THE JAPANESE PROBLEM
In the years leading up to WWII, the US government became obsessed with the Hawaiian territory’s ‘Japanese problem.’ That is, they asked, what were the true loyalties of 40% of Hawaii’s population, the first-generation (issei) and second-generation (nisei) Japanese? During a war, would they sabotage Pearl Harbor for Japan or defend the US? Neither fully Japanese nor American, nisei also wondered