How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [135]
Sen. Plumb: What is the feeling of the people of Dakota about it? We are taking away what is apparently valuable property from the Territory of Dakota, which is here seeking admission as a state. It seems to me we ought to have regard for the wishes of those people.…
Sen. Saunders: This bill was before the Senate more than a year ago.…
Sen. Hale: Is there any population there?
Sen. Saunders: There is no population.…
Sen. Teller: I should like to inquire if the Indians are not affected by it? …
Sen. Dawes: The Indians have all been removed to the Indian Territory.
Sen. Edmunds: At the point of the bayonet.
Sen. Dawes: They have been removed at the point of the bayonet, so that the bill does not affect them.
Relocation of Nebraska border
Congress relocated the boundary.
Standing Bear lived out his remaining days on his ancestral land along the Niobrara River. Thomas Tibbles and Bright Eyes married each other in 1882 and continued to write on Indian issues. Other Poncas returned to what, by then, were their individually owned plots of lands. Most of the tribe, however, now settled and adjusting to the Indian Territory, opted to remain where they were. Standing Bear died in 1908 and was buried on his allotment of land in Nebraska. In the 1920s the property was sold to a white farmer who plowed the land, with the result that the location of Standing Bear’s remains is now unknown.
HAWAII
LILI’UOKALANI AND SANFORD DOLE
Bordering on Empire
They were followed by her Majesty the Queen, dressed in a light colored silk which tended to add somewhat to her dark complexion and negro-like features, and more plainly exhibiting in the facial outlines a look of savage determination.… Next came four homely ladies-in-waiting, dressed in the loud colors so much admired by all dark-colored races.… And then the dignified [white] justices of the supreme court, whose manly bearing and intellectual appearance gave a relief to what had preceded. One of them, Mr. Dole, afterwards became President of the Republic.
—LUCIEN YOUNG, THE REAL HAWAII, 1899
Of all the American boundaries, Hawaii’s is, far and away, the most far and away. How and why did the United States extend its border to such an extreme?
In 1893 citizens in Hawaii overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani, replacing the island chain’s monarchy with a democratic republic. Being a small, remote nation, the new Hawaiian government sought the protection of a powerful but like-minded democracy, the United States, in the form of annexation.
Or one could say: In 1893 a cabal of wealthy white people living in Hawaii overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani and established a government in which representation was gerrymandered to ensure that the white population would rule. The first president of this new government was Sanford Dole. Since Hawaii’s white population—composed primarily of Americans or descendants of Americans—was a small minority in this remote chain of islands, Dole and his associates sought increased protection and control through annexation to the United States.
Both of these versions of events are true. But there are buts in both. Numerous white people in Hawaii, including some wealthy owners of sugar plantations, opposed the overthrow of the monarchy; others opposed annexation to the United States. Multiple issues were involved. Each of those issues remains a major factor in American politics today: involvement in foreign affairs, cheap immigrant labor, racism, and an issue that was new at the time: the power of Japan.
American annexation of Hawaii had first been proposed in the mid-nineteenth century by Hawaiians. King Kamehameha V feared that his realm was being eyed by Europe’s colonial empires, particularly France. Since Hawaii had only scant experience with foreign governments, its king turned to the few whites living on his islands for advice. They urged numerous changes, including an elected legislature to advise the