Hawaiian overthrow

A detailed Summary of Hawaiian overthrow

The 19th century will live in infamy in Hawaiian hearts; it was a century of great change in Hawaiian society. The old system of mana and the sharing of the land were slowly replaced, the arrival of missionaries would signal the period of greatest change in Hawaiian society. Between the arrival of Captain James Cook and the missionaries, the Hawaiian monarchy was able to maintain some sort of independence and keep the old Hawaiian system in place. Everything began to change that eventually lead to the overthrow of the monarchy and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. This was a very long process and it is hard to decipher who was responsible for the overthrow of the monarchy

What part did Queen Lili'uokalani play in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy? What actions did she initiate that provoked the Annexation group to arise and take over the Hawaiian kingdom that would become the republic of Hawaii and eventually be annexed to the United States? Was the queen the one to blame for the annexation of Hawaii? These are some of the questions that I would like to answer. The position of the queen and the influence she had on the whole affair is unclear to me at this point.

At age four Lili'u attended the royal school Run by the missionaries Amos Cooke and his wife. There she studied for over six hours a day after school and became a very good student. Lili'u also developed Christian beliefs that she would carry with her for the rest of her life. The school closed in Lili'u went to school closer to home. This made her very happy because she did not like the boarding school very much and missed her family a lot . Lili'u married at 24 years of age to John Owen Dominis, son of a very prominent ship captain. At the time of her wedding she moved to Washington Place until 1868 when she inherited some land in Waikiki. Lili'u loved this house and she loved to share in the beauty of the land in Waikiki. She would let all kinds of people stay at her house. People as prominent as Captains of ships down to the footmen and deckhands, she was a very compassionate women.

Robert Wilcox and V. Ashford among them, but they no longer agreed with her . They no longer could stand the way Lili'uokalani was running the government so they spoke out against it. This made many people in her advisory council mad and they started to believe that she could no longer be a capable leader.

Lili'uokalani took the throne upon the news of her brother's death when he arrived back in Hawaii in 1891. When she took the throne she swore to uphold the Constitution of 1887 even though later on she said "This constitution never in any way ratified, either by the people, or by their representatives, even after violence had procured the king's signature to it" . From the beginning Lili'uokalani wanted to establish that she had the power in the kingdom and that Constitution that passed was had no bearing on her decisions. She wanted to take power away from the people and move toward a more absolute monarchy. This could not have come at a worse time in Hawaiian society, the growing influence of the merchant class and the ever-growing power of the sugar industry in Hawaiian society caused many problems. In 1891 with the United States passing of the McKinley Act made Hawaii's situation even worse. The McKinley act placed no tariffs on sugar imported in the United States; this crippled Hawaii's sugar industry more and set the Hawaiian economy in despair. "When the Sugar industry was in trouble the whole kingdom was in trouble" . This presented Lili'uokalani with a problem, should she try to satisfy the plantation owners and try to help the United States in the process or she should go off on her own tangent?

I do believe a major reason for the overthrow and eventual annexation of Hawaii was the McKinley act of 1891, which basically made the reciprocity treaty of 1887 seem just like a ploy by the United States to gain control of Pearl Harbor. The McKinley act of 1891 allowed all the sugar in the world to be free of any kind of tariff. "The United States had Pearl Harbor, but Hawaiian Sugar no longer had any advantage over any other foreign sugar" . This would cause a major depression in the Hawaiian Kingdom and every time there is a depression someone will get blamed for it. The people would start to blame Lili'uokalani and she seemed very complacent. The sugar plantation owners were very influential people and Lili'uokalani knew this, but it seemed to me that she felt like she could not do anything. I think if she tried to appeal to the sympathies of other countries that had some interest in the Hawaiian islands things could have been a little different. Maybe it is the narrow view that I have, but I believe the British or the Japanese could have helped the Hawaiians out. I know the United States government was just becoming a world power then but Britain was already established and they were allies of the United States. I guess Britain was also p

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Approximate Word count = 2540
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History