The U.S. Conquest of Hawaii

August 21 marks the 60th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood. Most Americans know little more than "Pearl Harbor" about the 50th state, and few realize that when the U.S. naval base there was attacked by the Japanese, it was not at the time U.S. territory. We know even less about how Hawaii came to have an important U.S. naval base that could help trigger a world war. This national "ignorance" of vital historical matters is a manifestation of what James Baldwin called American "innocence," the inability to face or even recognize essential facts about ourselves. In relation to Hawaii this innocence renders us oblivious to the imperial power grab that robbed the islands of their independence 125 years ago.
As long as Great Britain deterred rival powers from colonizing the islands, the United States championed Hawaiian independence. In 1842, President James Tyler declared that Washington wanted "no peculiar advantages, no exclusive control over the Hawaiian Government, but is content with its independent existence and anxiously wishes for its security and prosperity." Therefore Washington would oppose any nation's attempt "to take possession of the islands, colonize them, and subvert the native government." So was the Monroe Doctrine extended to Hawaii. Hawaiian independence was also recognized by the major European powers, among others, and affirmed by many treaties and proclamations.

As the nineteenth century proceeded, the balance of power shifted towards the United States, offering new imperial opportunities. U.S. colonists developed a booming sugar industry, enhancing the importance of Hawaii as an imperial stepping-stone towards outposts in Asia.  Rear Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont went on record declaring that "It is impossible to estimate too highly the value and importance of the Hawaiian Islands, whether in a commercial or a military sense." So the U.S. "self-defense" perimeter expanded to include Hawaii, which was menaced by a 90% majority of indigenous Hawaiians that the white planter class called a ninety percent "ignorant majority." So Washington assumed the white man's burden of guiding and assisting the Hawaiians - so "low in mental culture" - on their journey from grass hut backwardness to civilized existence. 

In 1886, Planters Monthly editorialized that the naive Hawaiian "does not yet realize" the "bounds and limits fixed" and the "moral and personal obligations attending" the gift their imperial benefactors had bestowed on them: "The white man has organized for the native a Government, placed the ballot in his hands, and set him up as a lawmaker and a ruler; but the placing of these powers in his hands before he knows how to use them, is like placing sharp knives, pointed instruments and dangerous tools in the hands of infants." Such sentiments will be all-too-familiar to the student of Euroamerican foreign policy (always conducted by "men of best quality") going back five centuries. 

The Marines landed to support the U.S. colonists in 1873, just 30 years after President Tyler had loudly endorsed Hawaiian independence. When the plantation oligarchs failed to take power in the elections of 1886, they launched a coup d'état the following year assisted by their military arm the Hawaiian Rifles. The "Bayonet Constitution" imposed on the king awarded U.S. citizens the vote while banning Asians as "aliens" and excluding a large part of the native population with property qualifications. The coup also delivered the Pearl River estuary as a site for a U.S. naval base. 

An annexation treaty presented by President Harrison to the U.S. Congress expired after an investigation of the coup revealed popular backing for Queen Liliuokalani rather than the provisional government of the planter class. With a continuing influx of Asians to the islands heightening U.S. fears of a redistribution of wealth via the ballot box, Teddy Roosevelt bellowed of "a crime against white civilization." Only one remedy stood out: union with the white-dominated mainland in order to dilute the Asian majority and preserve white rule.

Further acts of U.S. benevolence followed in due course. In 1891, the U.S.S. Pensacola arrived "to guard American interests," which by then included ownership of a modest four-fifths of the arable land. In January 1893, Queen Liliuokalani made a final effort to preserve Hawaiian independence, eliminating wealth qualifications and granting the right to vote exclusively to Hawaiians. On orders of U.S. Minister John Stevens, a staunch annexationist known for his "partiality for white folks," U.S. troops landed and imposed martial law in support of "the best citizens and nine-tenths of the property owners of the country," in the words of the expedition's commanding officer. Stevens informed the U.S. Secretary of State that "the Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour to pluck it." 

U.S. planters and their Hawaiian collaborators issued a proclamation officially declaring the belief on the part of the "overwhelming majority of conservative and responsible members of the community" - who constituted a few hundred men - "that independent, constitutional, representative and responsible government, able to protect itself from revolutionary uprisings and royal aggression, is no longer possible in Hawaii under the existing system of government." Queen Liliuokalani surrendered under protest to the "superior force of the United States of America" and its troops, abdicating in hopes of sparing her followers the death penalty. She herself was fined $5000 and sentenced to five years at hard labor for her crimes against U.S. benevolence, though the sentence was commuted in 1896. With the usual patriotic fanfare the Republic of Hawaii was established on July 4, 1894, with American pineapple baron Sanford Dole proclaiming himself president. 
  Sources:

Kent, Noel J., Hawaii: Islands Under The Influence, (Monthly Review, 1983)

Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States, (Harper, 1995)

Schirmer, Daniel B., Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War, (Schenken Publishing, 1972)

Chomsky, Noam, Year 501 - The Conquest Continues, (South End, 1993)