In the unabridged version of Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, the word "usurpation" is defined as: "The act of usurping; the act of seizing or occupying and enjoying the place, power, functions or property of another without right; especially the unlawful occupation of a throne." This is vital, because anyone with even a passing appreciation of the value of lawfulness should understand that the process by which the State of Hawaii was annexed to the United States lacked this lawfulness, and the breach was so obvious that in 1993, even the Congress of the United States apologized formally to the Hawaiian people. Moreover, this process was not a peculiarity of history, but was instead the same basic pattern by which Europeans stole the lands of native people everywhere they encountered them, through what history -- written by the victorious Europeans -- came to call "colonialism."

When the first Europeans came into contact with Hawaii, the native people accepted nudity and lived very simple, happy lives. This came to an end twenty years after the first Congregationalist missionaries landed on the islands in 1818. By 1838, nudity was prohibited and the native religious dance, the Hula, was outlawed. The missionaries devised the first alphabet for the Hawaiian language, and they taught the whole native people how to read and write. The chiefs of the seven principal royal families of Hawaii felt that the future of the islands lay with lands outside the Hawaiian worldview, which caused them to turn their princely children over to a missionary couple to educate. The missionaries lost no time introducing these innocent minds to the rigors of Christian theology.

In 1778 there was a total of 800,000 native-born Hawaiians; within a mere fifty years 80% of the native population would perish. Largely as a result of the "diseases of foreign contact," such as alcoholism and diseases for which the native people had no native immunity. This is the same basic pattern that took place in north America too, some estimates putting the native population at the time Columbus discovered the "New World" as high as fifty million. Many of them died before ever seeing a white man, from diseases like smallpox, that the first natives brought back with them, who had contact with the Europeans.

The missionaries openly used their influence to westernize the traditional society of Hawaii. Initially foreigners were not allowed to buy native land, which they clamored against right from the start. The first step in changing the native culture was to press for a "constitutional government," which, of course, meant different things to different people, a cloud of confusion the missionaries were eager to exploit in their own best interests. It was not too hard for the worldly missionaries to impress upon the simple native chiefs of Hawaii that a constitution would be an improvement for everyone, even though once this form of government was implemented, none of the chiefs had any experience operating such a government, and they gradually became totally reliant on the missionaries. Thus the missionaries soon ascended to Cabinet positions, giving them control over key segments of the native government.

Soon the missionaries pushed through a series of complex new "reforms" that they claimed were "democratic," but which ultimately only benefited a small elite. The "reforms" allowed foreigners to buy native Hawaiian land from the chiefs and the government, and before long less than 1% of the land was in the possession of the native Hawaiian people. The Hawaiians had lived in large multi-generational tribal groupings, just like the native American indians, and they really had no conception for the private ownership of property. Private ownership was alien to them, and no one went to any great effort to instruct them in the ins and outs of the private property convention; instead, their ignorance was ruthlessly exploited, and their families were scattered. Of course, families not only provided functional services, they also provided the heart and soul of the native society, and once the tribal families were scattered, it caused cultural devastation as well as economic hardship. The remnants of these tribal groupings moved to the towns, where they had to sell themselves as menial laborers to the missionaries, who were enriched by this destruction of the native culture by the acquisition of the native lands. Now the missionaries became prosperous plantation aristocrats, with a permanent interest in the government of Hawaii.

Ironically, it was the sugar business that ultimately led to the destruction of the native Hawaiian Kingdom. In 1874 an intensely nationalistic prince came to power as King Kalakaua, who was known by the title, The Merry Monarch. He brought back the Hula dance, and his intention was to limit the power of the missionaries over the government of the Kingdom. He was joined in this intention by his sister and heir, Lilioukalani. In 1876 he travelled to Washington DC to negotiate a treaty that opened up the U.S. market to Hawaiian sugar tax free. This enabled the sugar business to realize enormous profits, which would later become the dagger at the heart of the native culture.

The booming sugar business started to suffer from a shortage of labor, which led to the importation of large numbers of Asians to do the work. The Asians soon outnumbered the native-born Hawaiians in their own country. The tactic of importing people, such as slaves, was repeated everywhere the Europeans set up colonies, because the white man recognized the importance of diluting the influence of the natives through numbers, "democratic" theories all relying on the idea of majority rule.

The plantations, by 1885, were almost all in the hands of foreigners. Of course, they were the descendants of the first missionaries, so that they, themselves, now also had a kind of claim to being native born. Their plantations became the centers of European influence in Hawaii, importing the latest technology from the U.S. for the sugar production, so that soon Hawaii was the largest sugar producer in the world. This gave the white people a sense of duty to bring "high civilization" to the Hawaiian Islands; the more money they made, the more they felt entitled to control the government of the Kingdom. The white plantation owners came to call themselves, "The Missionary Boys," and they increasingly looked upon anything they did to pursue their interests as justified, even if it broke the very Christian principles they claimed to be an example of.

What really motivated the Missionary Boys to come together ultimately was the actions of the King, as he tried to save the last vestige of the sovereignty of the Hawaiian people. In 1881 the King left on a world tour, and he left his sister, Lilioukalani, in charge during his absence. Her first action was to close the port of Honolulu when it was discovered that a ship loaded with 4,000 Chinese was infected with the deadly smallpox. This infuriated the white business community, who characterized this lifesaving measure as a "tyrannical act," solely because it interfered with the business community's financial interests.

The King, while on his world tour, had been exposed to European royalty, and upon his return he intended to embellish the Hawaiian monarchy with the kinds of royal symbols that were taken for granted in Europe. He had the Iolani Palace built, at great expense, and to the utter horror of the white business community, he acquired a gunboat. These actions infuriated the white community, who saw in them the seeds of future actions that might enable the monarchy to re-assert its independence of the Missionary Boys. One man -- a hot-headed lawyer and journalist -- Lorrin Thurston, took it upon himself to set up a secret society of white businessmen, which became known as the Hawaiian League. It is important to understand that the reason this society was set up secretly was because its main objective, the overthrow of the government, WAS ILLEGAL. (This was the same complication that the early colonials had to confront, in the original thirteen colonies of the U.S., because they were busy stockpiling weapons just like the Hawaiian League, which joined forces with the "citizens militia," the Honolulu Rifles).

One thing led to another, and the vigilante group set up by Thurston brought their forces to the Iolani Palace, where they forced a new constitution upon the reluctant king at gunpoint! Christian principles of fellowship and love be damned! In this new constitution, which the king sarcastically referred to as the Bayonet Constitution, the Hawaiian people lost the right to vote in their own native land! The monarch lost all authority and became a puppet of the white business community, who for years had already exerted important control over the Legislature and the Cabinet. The first test of this came about when the U.S. demanded a permanent port at Pearl Harbor. The Missionary Boys used their newfound power to sign a treaty with the United States, which enabled U.S. warships to be stationed at Pearl Harbor, which now became a permanent niche on the soil of the Kingdom for a foreign power. (Perhaps there was some cosmic justice for this when, on December 7, 1941, the U.S. lost its Pacific Fleet while it was stationed at this same harbor). This all weighed heavily upon the heart of the king, who grew ill. Finally, in November, 1890, he had to sail for San Francisco for medical help. When his ship returned to the Islands, it bore his deceased body.

The late king's sister now ascended the throne, the last queen of Hawaii. Lilioukalani was 52 years old when she became queen in a private ceremony at Iolani Palace. She was determined not to succumb to the same despair as her brother, and her ascension to the throne was seen as a beacon of hope to the downtrodden native Hawaiian people, who were now disenfranchised and dispossessed in their own country. On 29 January, 1891, the day the queen ascended the throne, there were only 40,000 native Hawaiians left in the Islands.

Immediately, the U.S. Representative John Stevens, a genuine rabble-rousing troublemaker, threatened the queen outright, that she should not follow the course her brother had tried to pursue. In the mind of the usurper, self-defense by the wronged party is a crime... The sugar business was now a massive commercial enterprise that had turned the village of Honolulu into a bustling commercial capital. The making of a showdown was in the works, and the poor queen didn't realize that some of her subjects were secretly conspiring against her in an underhanded manner so morally wrong that she could not imagine it.

The spark that ignited the flame came about as a legal technicality. Two months into the queen's reign, the United States revoked Hawaii's special tax free right to sell sugar in the U.S. market, to protect domestic markets. Anyone who believes that the United States was practicing free enterprise in the 1800s is in for a shock when they review the historic record, because the whole history of the U.S. republic is one long scandal of protectionist legislation designed to further the interests of those corporations that had the wealth to finance the careers of ambitious politicians. Starting with the first administration of the first president, and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Government has always seen it as its role to protect the interests of the very rich, starting with the bonds sold to the rich to finance the revolution.

The revocation of Hawaii's favored trading status with the United States became a powerful motivation for the Missionary Boys to pull out all the stops, to engineer the overthrow of the legal Hawaiian Government, for the purpose of having the Hawaiian Islands annexed to the United States. This would place Hawaii's sugar industry squarely within the domestic markets of the United States.

Lorrin Thurston, who was already responsible for so much trouble in the Kingdom, now set up a new ultra-secret vigilante group, which overtly aimed at the annexation of the Kingdom by the United States. It is incredible to think that this man was a lawyer! The illegality of his intentions and actions could not of escaped his own notice, which was why there were no records kept of the meetings of his new vigilante group, which met in absolute secrecy. Thurston travelled to Washington, DC, where he sounded out the United States position on annexation, and the Federal Government agreed to it on the grounds that it be by the request of the legal Hawaiian Government. Of course, this was impossible as it stood, but this inspired Thurston to go forward with his plan for a coup.

Queen Lilioukalani also had secret plans. Her plans were secret because she was far outnumbered by the members of the white business community, who she recognized to be the enemies of any plan she might evolve for the restoration of the original Hawaiian constitution. She wanted to rescind the Bayonet Constitution, which weighed heavily on the native population by disallowing them the right to vote or the right to hold high political office. On the 14th of January, 1893, the queen met with her Cabinet, unaware that most of them were plotting behind her back to usurp her throne. She announced her intention to restore the office of the monarch to its former status, and her intention to restore the right to vote of native Hawaiians, and in an outright act of betrayal, the Cabinet outwardly agreed to support the queen, even though secretly several members of the Cabinet informed Thurston's vigilante group of her plans.

That evening rumors had circulated that the queen was going to act to save the Kingdom, and crowds gathered around the Iolani Palace. Foreign diplomats gathered in the Throne Room. The queen was meeting with her Cabinet. She asked her ministers to do their lawful duty and sign the new constitution, but the ministers refused, to the queen's amazement. Her ministers had led her to believe that they supported her, causing her to proceed with the reform; once she was out on a limb, they exposed their true treacherous positions, allowing the queen to fall. She faced the crowds, promising a new constitution "tomorrow," using a Hawaiian word that was ambiguous as to the actual timeline involved: It could have been the next day, or the next decade. This only stirred up more tension between the white community and the queen. She was accused of trying to cause a revolution against the Bayonet Constitution! She, who was the lawful queen, was accused of trying to overthrow her own government!

At this point the revolution-oriented vigilantes now went into full gear. Their ultra secret group took the respectable-sounding title Committee of Safety, following the less-than-respectable example of the French Revolution. That same night that the queen attempted to restore the constitution, the so-called Committee of Safety met with prominent members of the business community, and cooked up full-scale plans for the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom. They drafted documents for the new "government," and anointed Sanford Dole, a Missionary Boy, to be president. (Ironically, "democratic principles" were only relevant to the Missionary Boys when it seemed to serve their interests, such as when it hamstrung the native Hawaiians, and made them defenseless against the plans of the Missionary Boys). The coup plotters knew that they had the support of the U.S. Representative John Stevens, who was an unrepentant expansionist.

The coup plotters felt that time was running out, because they felt certain that the queen was planning moves of her own. This only increased the tensions. Two days later John Stevens sent word to an American warship that was anchored in the harbor, to land a company of United States Marines to protect U.S. interests. (Remember United Fruit in Guatemala?) This was in clear violation of the law, because Stevens had no authority to order the landing of U.S. forces, which he did solely upon his own discretion. Four boatloads of Marines came ashore with Gattling guns and 14,000 rounds of ammunition, two revolving cannons, and a hospital unit.

The landing of forces was wholly a violation of all the standards and norms of international law, and the pretense of legality was maintained right up to the end. The queen watched 162 American soldiers march up to the Palace, and when they passed it, they lowered their flags and made a traditional salute with drumroll in the direction of the queen. By that evening, the soldiers had taken up positions facing Iolani Palace and the queen, and the following day the so-called Committee of Safety -- a vigilante group -- proclaimed a new Hawaiian government, under the control of the Missionary Boys. Within hours, Representative Stevens diplomatically recognized the usurper-regime on behalf of the Federal Government of the United States.

The queen was ordered to resign. She met with her Cabinet under the duress of the guns of the Marines, deciding not to resist the usurpation of her authority on the grounds that blood might be shed. She refused to acknowledge the authority of the usurper Provisional Government set up through the treachery of her own ministers, and instead surrendered as a sovereign queen to the United States on 17 January, 1893, a day that will TRULY live in infamy forever. She always believed that the United States, once it realized the great injustice forced upon her, would restore her to the throne that by legal right, was hers. News of the coup did not reach the outside world for a full ten days.

The queen had the palace guard disarmed, and the same day the Honolulu Police Department swore allegiance to the Provisional Government of Sanford Dole, the new president who succeeded to power without the benefit of a democratic election. Queen Lilioukalani took pride in the fact that no blood was ever spilled on behalf of her cause, and she disallowed any uprisings on her behalf to restore her to power. One modern commentator expressed his opinion that had the queen allowed an uprising, that she would have survived as queen.

Thurston and his cohorts sailed for Washington, D.C., to request the immediate annexation of Hawaii to the United States, but unfortunately for him, a friend of the queen was president at the time, and he had no intention of allowing the usurpation of her authority to stand. On 1 February, 1893, Representative Stevens lowered the Hawaiian flag from all government buildings, and raised up the American flag. There was a "blackout" of news, which is typical any time a government is overthrown, and martial law was declared. The rag-tag "Army of the Republic" was charged with enforcing the martial law, which was probably the harshest measure ever imposed in the Hawaiian Islands up to that point in history.

Protests took the forms of silent acts of resistance. The Hawaiian flag was banned, so the natives used its design to embellish quilts, keeping the spirit of their Kingdom alive. Natives took to wearing black armbands with the Hawaiian word for LOYALTY emblazoned upon them. President Cleveland was not happy with the turn of events in the islands, and he sent his own agent, a Southerner named Blount, to investigate the goings on in Hawaii. Blount was horrified at the law- breaking that was recounted for him, which led to the usurpation of the legal government of the Kingdom, and the recommendations he spelled out in his report strongly supported the dismantling of the Provisional Government, and the restoration of Queen Lilioukalani. When President Cleveland asked that the Dole Government resign in favor of the queen, it stubbornly refused, and sandbagged the Iolani Palace, which had subsequently been renamed the Executive Mansion.

In 1894 Queen Lilioukalani was implicated in the plot of the former captain of her palace guard, to restore the legal government of the queen to power. The plot was discovered, and one of the sons of the Missionary Boys was killed in the fracas, leading to the arrest of the queen. She was held under house arrest at the Iolani Palace, where she awaited trial as a private citizen, even though she had never formally abdicated. She was accused of "trying to bring the law into her own hands..."

At trial she was found guilty and was fined $5,000.00, and five years of hard labor. She, herself, told others that her only "crime" was that she was queen. During her imprisonment at the Palace she composed many of her favorite songs, which became anthems to the native Hawaiians, to whom she was the embodiment of the lost Kingdom. It was also during her imprisonment that she was coerced into signing an instrument of abdication, under the threat that if she refused to abdicate, six Hawaiians would be executed! To the native Hawaiians, even though she signed the paper, she was still their queen! Soon afterwards, the outlaw Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed to replace the Provisional Government, which never enjoyed even a shred of legitimacy.

On 6 September, 1895, after eight months of imprisonment, the queen was finally paroled, and allowed to return to her private home. Her civil rights were not restored for an additional two years! What finally motivated the United States to annex the Hawaiian Islands was the geopolitical realities of 1898, when the U.S. was busy conquoring its own colonial empire. Ironically, the conquest of the mainland United States is never looked upon as a process of colonialization, as if the myth of Manifest Destiny was actually a justifiable legal principle. Someday, historians will revisit the process by which new lands were "acquired" by the U.S. by conquest, through the process of setting up Territorial, and later State, governments. Because even those lands that were allegedly "purchased" had to be physically wrested through conquest and violence from anyone who was occupying them when the United States arrived to take control of its new "acquisition."

In 1898 the Spanish-American War broke out over Cuba. When it was realized that the remnant of the Spanish Empire was so weak that it could not protect itself, the cannibalistic instinct took over, the same as it did when the break-up of the Ottoman Empire was imminent, and diplomats all over Europe discussed the Eastern Question, a euphemism for the plans of various European states to "acquire" parts of the moribund Turkish empire once it drew its last breath. The implications of the Spanish collapse, however, involved the Island of the Phillipines, which the United States immediately claimed as a war prize. Suddenly, any question of principles or legal right were jettisoned for the convenience of the United States, which came out of the Spanish-American War as a new world power. And the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, as a refueling stopover for American forces in their administration of the new colony of the Phillipines, was immediately perceived as an over-riding interest that had to be implemented. President McKinley, who appointed the future-President Taft to the post of governor of the Phillipines, gave his assent to a Congressional resolution to annex the Hawaiian state, and on 12 August, 1898, "President" Dole surrendered the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Republic to the United States. When the Hawaiian flag was lowered, it was immediately cut into small pieces and given to the children of the missionaries as a souvenir of their victory over the Hawaiian Kingdom. To the native Hawaiians, it was a day of mourning.

Queen Lilioukalani lived for another 20 years as an American citizen, dying at the age of 79. While she lived she came to embody the Kingdom for the entire Native Hawaiian people. Ironically, whereas the native American indian tribes acquired treaty rights, and were at least accorded the formal status of tribal nations, even with nominal control over a remnant of their old homelands under a reservation system, native Hawaiians received no such recognition. There is a movement underway to create a reservation for the native Hawaiians, but due to the fact that property with value would have to be transferred to them, there has been foot-dragging and procrastination. Not waiting for the white man to give them anything, however, there is now a movement among native Hawaiians to set up one of the descendants of the royal chiefs as a chief today, who would be the equivalent of the King.

The only moral or legal way to make restitution to the Hawaiian Nation is for the United States to enable the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Nationalist Movement of the Regent of the United States, who seeks to restore the legal institution of the Crown of America, has agreed to recognize the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a constituent sovereign state of the Kingdom of the United States of America. No other political leader in the United States has had the courage to admit the wrongs and injustices perpetrated upon the native peoples of America, and it is the Regent's intention to make restitution with all the tribal nations for the crimes committed against them in the name of the American people. It is the hope of the Regent that the native peoples will find common cause with the American Nation, so that the human community of North American can finally live together in peace.

Her Royal Majesty,

Queen Lilioukalani of Hawaii
Last Queen of Hawaii

---

RETURN TO NEWS INDEX

---

RETURN TO ARCHIVE