🇺🇸👑🌺 Nation Within: The Story of America’s Annexation of the Nation of Hawaii
👑🌴📜 A history of the 1893 illegal overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani’s government by American interests, the subsequent fervent Native Hawaiian resistance, and the legally contested U.S. annexation of a sovereign nation through political maneuvering, not legitimate treaty.
🏆 Tom Coffman’s Hawaii Annexation Strategy
🔨 Overthrow Mechanics
- 🤝 Conspiracy: Committee of Safety (American/Euro business elites) orchestrates coup.
- 🇺🇸 US Involvement: U.S. Minister John L. Stevens, backed by U.S. Marines, provides crucial support to insurgents.
- 👑 Queen’s Stance: Queen Lili’uokalani yields authority under protest to the U.S. government, not the Provisional Government, anticipating U.S. intervention to restore sovereignty.
🏛️ Provisional & Republic Phases
- 💼 Dole’s Leadership: Sanford B. Dole serves as President of the Provisional Government and later the Republic of Hawaii.
- 🚫 Cleveland’s Opposition: President Grover Cleveland condemns the overthrow as an act of war, withdraws annexation treaty, and demands the Queen’s restoration, but lacks military enforcement.
📜 Annexation Process
- ❌ Treaty Failure: Efforts to annex via treaty repeatedly fail in the U.S. Senate due to strong opposition, including Native Hawaiian petitions.
- 🤝 Joint Resolution: Annexation eventually occurs in 1898 under President McKinley via a controversial joint resolution of Congress, bypassing the two-thirds Senate majority required for a treaty.
💪 Native Resistance
- ✊ Active Opposition: Native Hawaiians engage in organized, persistent resistance against the overthrow and annexation through petitions, political societies, and lobbying efforts.
- 🗣️ Unacknowledged Will: Their overwhelming opposition is largely ignored by the annexing powers.
⚖️ Critical Evaluation
- 🚨 Illegality of Overthrow: The book’s central claim that the 1893 overthrow was illegal is strongly supported by historical accounts, including U.S. President Grover Cleveland’s condemnation and the 1993 U.S. Apology Resolution. The Apology Resolution acknowledged that the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States and that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty.
- 🕵️ U.S. Complicity: Sources confirm that U.S. Minister John L. Stevens’s deployment of Marines directly aided the coup, making U.S. government involvement undeniable. President Cleveland’s inquiry, the Blount Report, concluded that the coup would have failed but for the landing of the United States forces upon false pretexts.
- 🌺 Native Hawaiian Resistance: The narrative of active and sustained Native Hawaiian resistance, often overlooked in mainstream accounts, is corroborated by evidence of extensive petitions and lobbying against annexation. More than half of all Hawaiians signed petitions against the annexation treaty in September 1897.
- ❓ Legal Dubiousness of Annexation: The book’s assertion that annexation by joint resolution was constitutionally questionable is echoed by contemporary constitutional scholars and debates within Congress at the time. The U.S. Senate failed twice to approve an annexation treaty, leading to the use of a joint resolution.
✅ Verdict: Nation Within presents a meticulously researched and largely historically accurate account of the American annexation of Hawaii, particularly its focus on the illegal nature of the overthrow and the active Native Hawaiian resistance. Its core claims align with and are significantly bolstered by primary historical documents and later U.S. government acknowledgements.
🔍 Topics for Further Understanding
- 📈 The long-term socio-economic impact of annexation on Native Hawaiian communities and their cultural practices.
- 🌎 Comparative analysis of U.S. imperial expansion in the Pacific (e.g., Philippines, Guam) and its commonalities/differences with Hawaii.
- 📜 International legal frameworks and arguments for indigenous self-determination and decolonization as they apply to Hawaii.
- 🎶 The modern Hawaiian cultural resurgence and its relationship to the sovereignty movement.
- 💰 The role of sugar interests and economic motivations in shaping U.S. foreign policy towards Hawaii.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
💡 Q: What caused the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom?
✅ A: The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893, was orchestrated by the Committee of Safety, primarily American and European businessmen, who sought to protect their economic interests (especially sugar) and facilitate annexation to the United States. Queen Lili’uokalani’s attempt to promulgate a new constitution to restore monarchical power and Native Hawaiian voting rights was the immediate catalyst.
💡 Q: Who was Queen Lili’uokalani and what was her role in the annexation?
✅ A: Queen Lili’uokalani was the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, reigning from 1891 to 1893. She vehemently opposed the efforts to undermine Hawaiian sovereignty, attempted to restore power to the monarchy and her people, and protested the overthrow and subsequent annexation to the United States. She temporarily relinquished her throne to the United States, rather than the Provisional Government, hoping for U.S. intervention to restore rightful governance.
💡 Q: What was Sanford B. Dole’s role in the annexation of Hawaii?
✅ A: Sanford B. Dole was a Hawaii-born lawyer and jurist of American descent who played a central role in the overthrow of the monarchy. He became the president of the Provisional Government established after the coup and subsequently the only president of the Republic of Hawaii. Dole was a key advocate for Hawaii’s annexation by the United States and later served as the first governor of the Territory of Hawaii.
💡 Q: How did the United States officially annex Hawaii?
✅ A: The United States formally annexed Hawaii in 1898 through a joint resolution of Congress, known as the Newlands Resolution, rather than a treaty. This method bypassed the requirement for a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate, which had previously blocked a treaty of annexation due to significant opposition, including from Native Hawaiians.
💡 Q: What is the Hawaiian sovereignty movement?
✅ A: The Hawaiian sovereignty movement is a grassroots political and cultural campaign by Native Hawaiians to reestablish an autonomous or independent nation or kingdom of Hawaii. It seeks self-determination, self-governance, and redress from the United States for the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani in 1893 and the subsequent annexation. The movement views both the overthrow and annexation as illegal acts.
📚 Book Recommendations
📖 Similar
- 🌍 Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer
- 👑 Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani (first-hand account)
- 🌺 From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii by Haunani-Kay Trask
🆚 Contrasting
- 🏝️ Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii by James L. Haley (offers a broader historical narrative, potentially with different interpretations of events)
- 🇺🇸 The Americans in Hawaii: An Annotated Bibliography by William R. Tansil (focuses on American perspectives)
➕ Related
- 🇺🇸🏹 An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- 🇵🇭 The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, & the Philippines by Paul A. Kramer
- 🌍 Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin
🫵 What Do You Think?
🤔 What aspects of the annexation of Hawaii do you find most disturbing, and what parallels, if any, do you see with other historical instances of nation-building or regime change?