Loading summary
Transcript123 lines
- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [00:23]
Verizon Advertiser
In a world where January is supposed to be boring, one staple of the holidays refuses to end the great deals at Verizon. The joy just keeps on coming. Right now you can save on four new phones and four lines. Critics agree it's the deal that keeps on giving. Come into Verizon and save on four new phones and four lines on unlimited. Welcome. Additional terms apply@seeverizon.com for details.
- [00:53]
Noah Dolom
Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
- [01:11]
Don Wildman
Learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection.
- [01:18]
Noah Dolom
And Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and Restrictions.
- [01:26]
Don Wildman
It is the afternoon of January 17, 1893, in Honolulu. From the veranda of Aolani Palace, Queen Liliuokalani watches as an incredible scene unfolds. US Marines have come ashore from the USS Boston. Marching into the city, they carry rifles not for ceremony, but for effect. No request has been made of their government. No threat has been issued against American lives or property. And yet, as the Marines fan out across Honolulu, positioning near government buildings, the message is unmistakable. Inside the palace, the Queen's advisors argue some urge resistance. Thousands of native Hawaiians stand ready to defend their queen. Liliuokalani knows this. She also knows resistance would bring bloodshed, the near certain destruction of her people at the hands of a far stronger power. The next day, a small group of American and European businessmen proclaims a provisional government to rule Hawaii. Faced with force she did not invite and cannot defeat, the Queen makes her choice. She does not abdicate. She yields her authority under protest, placing her faith, however fragile, in the belief that the United States will correct an injustice committed in its name. In her written statement, she is precise Hawaii's sovereignty has been seized, not surrendered. No battle is fought. But a kingdom ends not because its people abandoned it, but because a foreign power arrived by sea and rendered resistance impossible. Good day American history hit, listeners. Hello. Or should I say aloha? Well, perhaps not, given that I'm a guy raised in New Jersey, which as the crow flies, is about 5,000 miles from a certain gleaming archipelago in the middle of the vast ocean, where one can hear that greeting uttered properly by a native born speaker. But we're all Americans, right? Well, at least officially, since 1959, when the United States welcomed its 50th state into the union. And finally our nation stretched from sea to China shining sea and then beyond, all the way to that paradise of the Pacific, Hawaii. How Hawaii's US Statehood came to pass is a painful tale, more so than most US Mainlanders realize. One rife with issues of colonization and exploitation and even a good old fashioned coup d'. Etat. A controversial history brewing discontent even today on those glorious islands. And for anyone lucky enough to be planning a trip there or going there to live and work, it is a fundamental chronology we'll discuss today with Noah Dolom, assistant Professor of history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, focusing primarily on 19th century Hawaii. Professor Dolom, thank you for coming on the show.
- [04:32]
Noah Dolom
Thank you for having me, Don. I appreciate it.
- [04:34]
Don Wildman
I want to get one thing right just as we begin. What is the proper pronunciation of Hawaii?
- [04:41]
Noah Dolom
It is Hawaii. We call it an okina. It looks like a backwards apostrophe. It's a glottal stop. So you say it Hawaii.
- [04:49]
Don Wildman
Okay. And what does the word actually mean?
- [04:51]
Noah Dolom
We actually don't know what Hawaii means. It's such a old word. We have different stories of how the islands might have been named, but for our actual definition of Hawaii, we actually just don't have one. It's just such an old word in our culture.
- [05:07]
Don Wildman
Interesting. But it's a Polynesian, the language. Yeah. There have been stories of cultural appropriation and destruction throughout all of American history, but Hawaii is one example, as demonstrated by our mispronunciations of the language. Okay, so this episode specifically recounts the American overthrow of the Hawaiian sovereign leadership in 1898, the year of my grandmother's birth. Interestingly, how we seize this territory and why. But first, let's understand what sort of nation we're talking about. Can you describe the kingdom of Hawaii before European settlers came, politically, geographically, what were the islands and how do they compare to what we have today?
- [05:47]
Noah Dolom
Right, so prior to the unification of the Islands in 1810, Hawaii was actually not Hawaii. It was an archipelago of islands, each with its own name. Right. You have Kauai, Maui, Oahu, Hawaii Island. These are separate island chiefdoms or kingdoms. And then in the late 1700s, early 1800s, you had one chief in particular, Kamehameha, or Kamehameha the first, who goes on a military campaign to unify these islands. The islands were basically ruled in a chief structure. Each island had a major chief, and then you kind of fell in line, and then under that major chief with lesser ranking chiefs and then the common people living on the land.
- [06:32]
Don Wildman
And the year of unification, 1810, you say by that time it was a functioning, internationally recognized sovereign nation with its own political institutions, economy and diplomacy, correct?
- [06:44]
Noah Dolom
Not quite yet, actually. So 1810 is really the year when the islands first are formed under that blanket of that word, Hawaii. And the reason why Hawaii is called Hawaii is because Kamehameha came from Hawaii island, or popularly known as the Big Island. So that word got applied to all the islands, but it was not yet recognized on a, like, international stage as a sovereign country.
- [07:11]
Don Wildman
So interesting. This is a movement that's happening throughout the 19th century. Eventually, Italy has. Is famously united, where all these city states come together. So essentially, that's what you're saying, the islands were their own city states. And finally Kamehameha comes along and does that. 1778 is an important date, obviously, initial contact with Europeans, when British explorer James Cook lands on the islands, thus unfolds chapters that we see elsewhere around the world of the effect of this kind of arrival. Explain what happens. Tremendous amounts of disease eventually. Yes.
- [07:46]
Noah Dolom
Right. So at the time of Captain Cook's arrival, 1778, and he dies a year later in 1779, or doesn't die, he gets killed by native Hawaiians in 1779. His estimates by he and his crew place the Hawaiian population that around, you know, conservative estimate, 400,000. Upper estimate around 800,000 people.
- [08:10]
Don Wildman
Wow. A lot of people.
- [08:12]
Noah Dolom
Quite a lot of people. And that number plummeted throughout the next century. So by the end of the 19th century, in just over a little over a hundred years, the Hawaiian population was at 40,000. So you're looking at 90 to 95% population loss since the time of Captain Cook's arrival.
- [08:29]
Don Wildman
And we're chalking that up to smallpox and diseases.
- [08:32]
Noah Dolom
Smallpox, small POC, cholera. The big one in the 19th century is leprosy, whooping cough, some unknown diseases, but yes, venereal diseases that caused people to become sterile. So different effects on the population.
- [08:47]
Don Wildman
Early 1800s, small numbers of Americans and Europeans begin settling there as traders, sailors and advisors. You say that, and now that is an amazing backdrop to that arrival. You know, that further colonization or at least arrivals. I mean, terrible things are happening there. If it's that. To that scale and in that time frame. Amazing.
- [09:11]
Noah Dolom
Yes, it was because of disease. The Hawaiian leadership, the world, the Hawaii as a world was quickly changing. Yes, you're seeing your population diminish, but you're also seeing these new people starting to come into Hawaii. Not a major settlement of foreigners in that early period, but more so people coming and going. But it was definitely a quickly changing world. And technology, ships, Western weapons, food, clothing. Hawaii was really changing at a rapid pace in a very short span of time.
- [09:47]
Don Wildman
And as happens elsewhere in the world, missionaries come. In this case, the first Protestant missionaries come from New England and they begin to settle. And this really marks a more entrenched beginning of that settlement. Right. It's 1820 or so.
- [10:01]
Noah Dolom
Right. In 1820, the first Protestant missionaries or Calvinists who come from New England out of Boston and their connections to Yale and that religious community up in New England, they arrive in Hawaii in 1820. And this is the first like, real formal settlement of American foreigners or actually any group of. Of outsiders. Again, you had, like, more transient communities and, and, you know, people who deserted ships. But this was a real intentional settlement in Hawaii by these missionaries.
- [10:36]
Don Wildman
So by this time, this period from 1810, the unification onward, over the decades of the 19th century, governance begins to develop. Hawaii is recognized as a. As internationally as a sovereign nation. They have diplomats. I mean, their first constitution was written and adopted in 1840, right?
- [10:54]
Noah Dolom
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So even prior, even in the early period, even though there wasn't that formal recognition into the 1840s, the Hawaiian Kingdom had been trying to, you know, engage in diplomacy, international diplomacy, primarily with Great Britain. And that's a long story, but, you know, it's reflected in our Hawaiian flag and why we have the Union Jack Kamehameha the first, and then later his son the second. We're trying to make. We're trying to. Bringing the Hawaiian Kingdom closer to England. And with King George later on in the 1840s, that finally kind of came true in those diplomatic trips under Kamehameha III, who was another son of Kamehameha the First, in which that diplomatic trip in the 1840s secured international recognition from the United States, Britain and France as well.
- [11:46]
Don Wildman
And what was the attitude? I mean, we've talked about how wrecked the society must have been from the disease, but how was the attitude of the government towards these foreign governments? And economically, I supp. Suppose they see their role in this transoceanic culture that's happening Especially with the whaling industry.
- [12:01]
Noah Dolom
Right, right. And actually prior to whaling, you had sandalwood, the collection of sandalwood, which is native tree here in Hawaii. But it was found that Hawaiians actually didn't really use sandalwood at all, but it was prized by in the Chinese market because it was used as incense. So that really became like the first export of the Hawaiian Islands is sandalwood. And then you transition to whaling, which again brings in more of these people coming in and out and connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific as well. Because a lot of those whaling ships are coming out of New England, bringing foreigners to Hawaii, bringing Hawaiians into other places in the world around, you know, into China, into the Pacific Northwest, back to New England and the East Coast. So again, it was a world that was rapidly changing and rapidly broadening. So the Hawaiian monarchy had to adjust to those changes and build those relationships with other countries and other peoples.
- [12:57]
Don Wildman
And I was just about to ask you, that form of government practice is a monarchy, but with a bicameral legislature, very much in the British mode here, Houses of nobles, houses of representatives, a judiciary with a codified laws and courts and a constitution, as we mentioned. I mean, all of this was in place in the mid 19th century. And I guess Hawaii at that time was looking down the pike and seeing its role in this emerging industry of shipping, which was just advancing like crazy in those days. And boy, right there they are the important stopping point for all coaling stations as steamships come along and so forth.
- [13:33]
Noah Dolom
Right, right. And one of the reasons why the Hawaiian Kingdom went from absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy is that because now you have these foreigners settling in Hawaii. How do you make foreigners follow your laws? Yes, you have to make laws that were, you know, legible in all sense of that word to these foreigners to make them respect Hawaiian law and make them fall under order. And so, yeah, the Hawaiian constitution, based off of British and American, the American constitution and legal system, but also taking parts of Hawaiian traditional Hawaiian rulership as well. So you mentioned the House of Nobles, which was the upper house, or in like, in our modern vernacular, we'd call it like the Senators of Hawaii. That was really just what we call the aho, the aha olelo or the ahualii, which was a chiefly council that existed prior to the constitution. And they just took that body of chiefs and moved them and became the House of Nobles. So these are the high ranking chiefs of the kingdom. And then the bottom house, the House of Representatives, was the house of the peoples.
- [14:36]
Don Wildman
So commoners, we're Telling the story though, of how all this is appropriated and destroyed really inside of a matter of decades. And I can't help but think about this when I arrive. I've maybe done Hawaii three or four times in my life. I live in the east coast of the United States. It is a beautiful place, of course, but it's also incredibly welcoming. The culture is famously just a lovely feeling that you get that maybe Americans might chalk up to tourism and you know, the capitalistic version of that. But the culture itself prides itself on that quality, doesn't it?
- [15:10]
Noah Dolom
Yes, yes it does. I mean, you can look at that word hospitality in two ways. Like you mentioned, there's like the tourism version of hospitality in which I think there's some expectations for Hawaiians to act in a certain way, you know, providing for the guests and kind of being at the whim. But that's very much in the kind of touristic expectations. But it is a value that is embedded within our culture and hospitality. You know, you making, making sure that your guests have food, are safe, have culture. The Hawaiian Kingdom was a very inclusive space for foreigners, including, you know, is a very small population. But even there is people who had escaped from slavery or former slaves who ended up, ended up in the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Hawaiian Kingdom didn't practice slavery.
- [15:59]
Don Wildman
Yeah, I just really want to underscore this because it's obviously will play an enormous part. And I think it had a huge theme to that for those Americans who were seeing opportunity. Sometimes that quality of a culture is misunderstood and played upon. The word is love. I mean, you literally feel a sense of love when you're there and it's palpable everywhere you go. So that has gone back all the way and you know, to the indigenous culture certainly. But even visitors in the 19th century were having that feeling. So it's a really important thing to keep in mind as we talk about how things change so quickly. In 1887 we meet the first shift, let's call it, that there are constitutional changes all the way along which favor the wealthy and are influenced heavily by foreign born people, right?
- [16:46]
Noah Dolom
Yes. Especially in the 1840s, Kamehameha III starts allowing or chooses to involve former missionaries, new foreigners to serve in the Hawaiian government as ministers, as lawyers, as judges. And so some of these, these effects on legislation and the way things are run in the country are definitely influenced by foreigners. You had one major shift prior in the 1860s under Commandment of the Fifth. Commandment of the Fifth saw the, particularly the United States as a problem. So he actually Wanted to move the Hawaiian Kingdom kind of back towards his grandfather's vision of being more aligned with the British. But you had this influx of foreigners serving in politics, and that eventually would lead or be a big part of the downfall of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
- [17:44]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And was that done willingly on the Hawaiians part, or was that a forced issue by. By outside interests that people would be serving within the government?
- [17:53]
Noah Dolom
That was willingly. And of course, we benefit from hindsight. It's 20 20. Right. But the understanding was, especially in the early part of the constitutional monarchy in the 1830s, 1840s, when you're trying to build out this system that is taking bits and pieces, or not bits and pieces, but major pieces of American and European law, they needed people who were trained in American or European law.
- [18:23]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [18:23]
Noah Dolom
It made sense on the part of the chiefs to invite these lawyers or people who had been educated in the west to serve in these positions, even if they weren't all as qualified. There's. I won't get too far into it, but there's some instances where they literally were picking people who had no qualifications in a particular area, but, you know, they had got to school in the US or Europe. It was definitely the Hawaiian Kingdom trying to put people in the right places. But it didn't always work out for the benefit of Hawaiian people in the.
- [18:54]
Don Wildman
Hawaiian Kingdom because there's a modernization going on here. They're seeing their role in the world and the world is changing. So one of the fundamental aspects of that is a land reform that goes on. Right. There's a change in the way land is distributed and held. Can you explain? It's called the Great Mahele.
- [19:13]
Noah Dolom
Yep. Under Kamehameha iii, and I keep mentioning Kamehameha iii, he actually had the longest reign out of all the monarchs. He had a 30 year reign. So a lot of legal changes happened during his reign. And some of the context leading up to those land changes, you know, again, more set. More foreign settlers coming to Hawaii. And there's also a couple events of European aggression towards Hawaii. So at one point, the British actually held or occupied the Hawaiian Kingdom for about eight months. And we actually lost our sovereignty for about half a year.
- [19:50]
Don Wildman
What year was that?
- [19:52]
Noah Dolom
So this is in 1843.
- [19:56]
Don Wildman
All right.
- [19:56]
Noah Dolom
And so this is the Paulette affair. And so Commander III and his advisor are thinking, okay, how do we secure the sovereignty of the land and make sure that foreigners don't encroach further into Hawaiian land? And so their idea was that they were going to essentially re redistribute the land and recategorize land. And then the second half of that was to make private land tenure ship.
- [20:22]
Don Wildman
So until that point it had been that land was held communally, I guess, by the royal government. Is it?
- [20:28]
Noah Dolom
Yes. So the land, although basically all the land in the archipelago was under the. The sovereign, or what we call the moi. And then you had the lesser chiefs who kind of were like the land managers, and then of course again the people who lived on those lands. So those divisions of land that were managed in the system, but yes, kind of communally held by the sovereign.
- [20:51]
Don Wildman
Right. It's a system of stewardship that is intentionally changed in order to put land in the hands of Hawaiians, Native, Native born Hawaiians. It kind of backfires in some ways, right?
- [21:01]
Noah Dolom
Yes, yes. So basically out of that, that Mahele in 1848, the land, all the land in Hawaii is split into three categories or three interests. So a third, about a third of the land is kept by the sovereign as his private land. The next third was put aside for the government. So this is going to be for the Hawaiian Kingdom to build infrastructure, agriculture, whatever, but it was government land. And the last third went to the rest of the chiefs. And then following The Mahele in 1848 is the second half of that legislation, which was the Kuleana act in 1850, which helped spur that transition to private tenantships. So it required the Carmen people or the Makai Nana to put in land claims for the pieces of property they had already been living on. And so ultimately Makainana, or the common people, got very, very little land because.
- [21:57]
Don Wildman
That land was seized by large plantations for the most part, which has been not.
- [22:02]
Noah Dolom
Well, actually not yet. So there was limitations on how much land they could claim in those applications for their title. And a lot of people, they just didn't understand the point of privatizing land. So you had people like, you know, oh, what is this, like, private land? Like, why doesn't. This doesn't make sense. We've been living, Our family's been living here for centuries. Why do we need to show the government that we live on this land? So you had people who just kind of ignored it. There was also a financial aspect. You have to pay the surveyor to formally survey your property, which was like $12, which was big money for, you know, basically a.
- [22:42]
Don Wildman
Sure.
- [22:42]
Noah Dolom
A peasant quote, unquote, peasant for that time. So there's these different factors that lead to the commoner people in the Makayana receiving like a. Like, I forget what the exact Percentage is, but, you know, it's barely a fraction of the total land. I think it's 28,000 acres in total from that land.
- [23:01]
Don Wildman
So interesting. Yeah. You, you. There's so many parallels between what's happened with native indigenous peoples here in the. On the mainland and what happens on Hawaii. But it's different because it's more modern version of it. And also, the Hawaiians were energetically trying to master the system and redistribute those lands very energetically. Unfortunately, already there is a huge amount of interest, strategically and economically by European and American interests in the Hawaiian area. The location itself, as I've mentioned before, this is one thing when everybody was going through with sails, you know, the wind's free, but once you need to coal up your ships, you're going to need a coaling station. And boy, is it perfect for that. It's halfway across. It's not that far away. You can get there and find your needs. But also, economically is, of course, the idea of planting. And sugar is such a profitable product in the Atlantic, it's bound to become big here, and so that becomes the primary agricultural product. Is that true?
- [24:03]
Noah Dolom
Yes. The first sugar plantations popped up around, I believe, in the 1830s. The first couple of decades weren't too successful. Primarily, they needed labor. Hawaiians. There just wasn't enough Hawaiians to work in the plantations because of the population. And also wines didn't want to work in the sugar plantation. Did it make sense for them? Why would we work in a sugar plantation where we can grow our own food?
- [24:26]
Don Wildman
Right, right.
- [24:27]
Noah Dolom
So there's that. And it also wasn't lucrative as well, because they're made, you know, they're primarily exporting to the United States. United was growing its own sugar. So sugar was somewhat slow in that first half of the century. And the big change, the biggest change for Hawaiian sugar was the Civil War. So this is the. The melding of U.S. history and Hawaiian history coming together. When the Civil War breaks out, the sugar production, you know, in the. In the south, in the American south, comes to a halt. And this is the prime opportunity for these sugar planters in Hawaii to. To fill that void. And so the sugar plantation owners are making money like they've never seen before during the 1860s. And, of course, the Civil War is ended, and that cash cow comes to a screeching halt. And they are left pretty desperate and begging the Hawaiian Kingdom, begging the sovereign, hey, can you do something about this? We just made a lot of money. It stopped. We have to figure some kind of trade agreement or something with the United States that allow us to continue these profitable gains.
- [25:38]
Don Wildman
And is that accomplished?
- [25:40]
Noah Dolom
Yes, that actually is, eventually. And that is under the reign of Kalakaua. King Kalakaua, who takes office in 1874.
- [25:49]
Don Wildman
Okay.
- [25:50]
Noah Dolom
Klakawa agrees to a major piece of international diplomacy called the Reciprocity Treaty. And the Reciprocity Treaty, as in its name, reciprocity. There's a benefit for the United States, and there's a benefit for the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Hawaiian Kingdom was able to export sugar to the U.S. tariff free. There's sugar and a whole bunch of other products, but primarily sugar was the cornerstone of that agreement. And then for the US and this is kind of tying economic and then the military advantage together. The US Wanted exclusive rights to a place called Pu' Uloa in Hawaii. And Pu' Uloa is the traditional name for what people, what most people in the United States and around the world might know as Pearl Harbor.
- [26:39]
Don Wildman
Pearl Harbor. There we are.
- [26:41]
Noah Dolom
It was a natural harbor. It was deep. It is essentially a perfect harbor. Naturally formed harbor for big ships. And so the US Asked the Kwan Kingdom, if we do this treaty with you, then we want exclusive rights to build a coaling station in Pearl Harbor. No other country can, you know, come into Pearl harbor except for the United States. And this goes into agreement in 1874, and it's renegotiated again in 1887.
- [27:08]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Be careful letting the US military come in, because watch out. And there we are, and we're talking about this era. There's a bookend to this. It starts kind of 1810, as we say, the unification, but it's going to end this period. And then we'll take a break with 1887 and what's called the Bayonet Constitution. Explain that to me. It's probably 10 years after what you're talking about, right?
- [27:30]
Noah Dolom
Yeah. Yeah. So again, I had mentioned King Kalakaua is probably the most misunderstood, controversial, all the different adjectives you can think of, of his reign and his personality. But what he was primarily known for was his interest in restoring Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian traditions. So he was interested in the study of genealogy, of publishing traditional Hawaiian stories, bringing back the performance of hula. Hula had. The public practice of hula had been banned for the past, like, what, 40, 50 years. So when he has his birthday party, when he has his coronation, he allows the public practice of hula at the. At the palace grounds. And this was a big deal amongst the foreign community, which is still adhering to those missionary values of, you know, not being promiscuous and not being, not spending money. So he drew the negative attention from a lot of those settlers. And a lot of these settlers were also these plantation owners as well. And they were. And it was a mixed group of people. You had these white plantation owners were missionary descendants. So people who had been born in Hawaii to missionary parents and also newer foreigners who made up those plantation ownership. And they grew very dissatisfied with Klakaua's reign coupled on with that post civil war downturn in sugar. So by 1887 they had formed secret society which plotted against Kalakaua. They write a new constitution that basically shifted all of this executive power into the legislative branch. Then they forced Kalakawa to sign this constitution under the threat of violence, which is why it's called the Bennett Constitution.
- [29:22]
Don Wildman
And who was these? These were American interests, these were American businessmen who were threatening this.
- [29:28]
Noah Dolom
So these were a mix of American and other European settlers. So they didn't kind of funky because they are American, but they're not acting on behalf of the United States. They are domestic to Hawaii. A lot of them are citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but they come from those American families.
- [29:49]
Don Wildman
The takeaway is they've stripped the monarchy of most of its power, much of its power, shifting that to the legislature, disenfranchising many native Hawaiians while empowering American and European residents. Petitions, public meetings, political organizing was already taking place prior to this overthrow. But this changes everything. And so let's take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about the new legacy of the bayonet constitution and what happens towards the end of the century.
- [30:23]
Verizon Advertiser
In a world where January is supposed to be boring, one staple of the holidays refuses to end. The great deal's at Verizon. The joy just keeps on coming. Right now you can save on four new phones and four lines. Critics agree it's the deal that keeps on giving. Come into Verizon and save on four new phones and four lines on unlimited welcome. Additional terms apply@seeverizon.com for details.
- [30:52]
Baha Mar Advertiser
Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine and the cool Bahamian breeze. Baha Mar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, over 45 fine dining and nightlife venues, Jon Batiste's all new jazz club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino, and one of a kind experiences for the entire family like our 15 acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world class golf course and so much more. Visit bajamar.com today. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas and endless sunshine. And the cool Bahamian breeze. Baja Mar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels. The richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars and lounges, Baja Mar serves up delicious dining from world renowned chefs like Daniel Boulud and Marcus Samuelsson. Nightlife venues like the new Jean Baptiste Jazz Club and and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Baja Mar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one of a kind experiences for the entire family like Baja Bay, our 15 acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences including our daily flamingo parade, world class golf, tennis spa and so much more. Visit bajamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime time. Baha Mar Life Spectacular this episode is.
- [32:22]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching your insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money. When you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [32:56]
Don Wildman
Welcome back. We're speaking with Professor Noah Dolom of the University of Hawaii. Noah, in the late 19th century, as events unfold, the monarch in power, what we're about to speak about, her name is Queen Liliuokalani, who has ascended the throne after the death of her brother. Who was this queen and what were her goals?
- [33:16]
Noah Dolom
Right. So Queen Liliuokalani was one of the younger sisters of Kalakaua who had been the previous monarch. Liliu, even more so than her brother, came into a horrible situation as a manor. Her brother had been forced to sign that bayonet constitution and it was thus the constitution that Liliuokalani herself inherited. So she was under a tremendous amount of pressure to kind of figure this thing out and where the Hawaiian Kingdom was going to go. And between 1887 and her ascent to the throne, there's a lot of pressure for from Hawaiians to get rid of the bayonet constitution, to write a new constitution. And Liliu heard those calls. And that was her main goal during her reign, was to write a new constitution for the Hawaiian Kingdom. But this was a very hard task because of the limitations of the bayonet constitution that the bayonet constitution had placed on her as a monarch.
- [34:16]
Don Wildman
Right. So she basically wants to take back the Power that the monarch used to have and so forth. And this was a legal proposal, but it threatened the American and European elites who had benefited from the 1887 Constitution. 1893, a small group of mainly American businessmen and plantation owners set up a Committee of Safety. We know that from the American Revolution. I mean, this is. They're getting together to figure out what to do here. January of 1893, it's all comprised of descendants of missionaries, sugar planters. They represent, this is important, a tiny fraction of the population and. And some members openly supported American annexation.
- [34:55]
Noah Dolom
Yes.
- [34:55]
Don Wildman
I have to wonder, was this talked about for decades or is this a brand new idea?
- [35:01]
Noah Dolom
Actually, the first talks of annexation were in the mid century, in the 1850s.
- [35:07]
Don Wildman
Okay.
- [35:08]
Noah Dolom
And Hoy was actually quite close to annexing or giving itself up to the United States to be annexed. But it was eventually chopped. And then, you know, there's kind of whispers in each decade, but it wasn't a real, you know, kind of reality until that last period where, oh, this could actually really happen under this new Committee of Safety. And I just wanted to remind the listeners too, this Committee of Safety that was working against Lili Gokulani and eventually orchestrated the overthrow were the same group of men that had forced Kalakaua to sign the Bennett constitution as well. Yeah.
- [35:44]
Don Wildman
What was the decisive factor that causes the overthrow of The Hawaiian government? 1893.
- [35:50]
Noah Dolom
Right. So as I was saying, you know, again, Liu had inherited that constitution. And our main goal, the people, the Hawaiian people, were asking the queen, please, please write a new constitution. Because that constitution, it didn't just affect the monarchy, it did affect the people. That constitution brought in stricter voting qualifications, stricter qualifications for serving in the House of Representatives. So Hawaiian people themselves were disenfranchised from the government. They also, the Committee of Safety, also were able to gain seats in the House of Nobles as well. So some of the same men who wrote that constitution are now sitting in the House of Nobles in that upper house. So Liligo Karani goes, she's hard at work writing a new constitution. She actually finishes a draft of that constitution. She wants to put it before the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom. And the Committee of Safety, they have spies all over. We don't know who exactly it was, but there is allegedly, you know, somebody within Lili' U's camp who is relaying information to the Committee of Safety. So they get wind that, hey, the queen is done with this constitution and she's gonna put it before the legislature. And that's when they decide to act upon that and basically cut off the queen before she can do any damage to their goals. And that's the catalyst. Yeah.
- [37:16]
Don Wildman
John l. Stevens, the US minister to Hawaii, is the central figure in this. January 1893. Stevens orders the U. S. Marines to land in Honolulu. They take up positions near the government building. Show of force was not authorized by the Hawaiian government. Their presence intimidates royalist forces, made resistance very risky. It was pretty much exactly what they wanted to do. These, these forces coming on. And in the end, the queen seeks to avoid bloodshed and yields authority stating she trusted the US Government to reverse the illegal action. Okay, there you go. That's the Hawaiian love at work here. We're looking for the best in humanity and not the worst. Well, in this case, that's going to get you in trouble. What was the reaction of the Hawaiian people to this? Were the measures taken by the U.S. yeah.
- [38:03]
Noah Dolom
So leading up to the actual January 17, you know, Stevens, the minister, the U.S. minister to Hawaii and the community were. They were in cahoots already. Minister Stevens was acting on his own accord and which. Which leads to him getting fired by the United States because it was not an authorized call for to. To land. Those marines that shipped the USS Boston had actually been in Honolulu harbor for quite a while. Quite a while. But administer. Stevens took it upon himself to call those Marines ashore as a show of force and, you know, quote unquote, you know, to protect the American people and property. But it was really to. To be the, you know, unofficial, or part of the unofficial militia for this Hawaiian League. Sorry, Committee of Safety. As far as the responses of Hawaiian people, I mean, this is devastating. Right. You've seen the last five years where monarchy is stripped of its power. And then this is kind of like the nail in the coffin with the actual overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. And I might also remind viewers too, especially with some of these men who were missionary descendants. These are men that people knew over time, even amongst the chiefs, they had grown up with some of these people. So this was a huge. This wasn't just a random takeover. This is people who are. Who betrayed the queen as a country.
- [39:29]
Don Wildman
Well, that's the thing about this. And what I've tried to pepper throughout this conversation is that there's a unique quality to Hawaiian culture that in the end gets them in trouble in this situation, ends up being great for tourism. But in this political situation, foreign interests are going to use that vulnerability to their own benefit. Where does the US Government come down on this situation?
- [39:50]
Noah Dolom
Right. So over that span of the 1890s the United States switching back to the US history side. The United States had kind of reached the end of the quote, unquote, frontier. They had essentially quelled at least the major wars in the west against Native American people. And there's this question of where should the United States go? Should the United States remain an isolationist country? Does it need to expand and now look for new markets? And that was a question that had that kind of determined the presidencies that was being talked about in the American legislature, especially amongst very powerful senators. But when the overthrow happens, it's the end of William Harrison's presidency, the what is called a provisional government, which is formed in Hawaii. They try and offer Hawaii up for annexation, but it's just too late in Harrison's presidency. And then for the bulk of the 1890s, it's President Cleveland Rover Cleveland, who is very sympathetic towards Lili'. U. Lili' U goes back and forth between Hawaii and D.C. to talk to Cleveland, and Cleveland does its own investigation. And they determine, yes, this was an unjust, unlawful overthrow. But unfortunately, Cleveland has his hands tied, especially in his relationship with Congress, because of very, very powerful expansionist senators who were kind of waiting for this moment to see how these other chips would fall, I guess. Yeah.
- [41:22]
Don Wildman
I want to really underscore Grover Cleveland's role in this. We're talking about 1893. This is the first of his two terms that he ends up doing. He is opposed to international expansion. And that's an important point at this. At this point in American history. There are those who do want us to stay home, don't get into foreign affairs. He ends up launching an investigation into this overthrow. It ends up with a report, the blunt report, which establishes that there's an overthrow carried out by an improper U.S. involvement. All those interests, American officials, abused their authority. The Queen was unlawfully deposed. At this point, Queen Liliya would have thought, good, my strategy worked out. They're going to reverse all of this. But why doesn't that happen?
- [42:06]
Noah Dolom
I think there's things on the ground that are happening. There's also, again, in that kind of global. In that global international situation with global politics. And again, the US questioning whether it wants to go overseas or not. And also, and most kind of ironically, the Provisional government changed its name to the formal Republic of Hawaii in 1894. They pulled we're an independent country card on the United States and tell Cleveland to stay out of our business, which is incredibly ironic. Right now they're telling the United States President, hey, we're actually A sovereign country. And you can't just meddle into international affairs.
- [42:46]
Don Wildman
That's a tricky chess game, isn't it? Yes. US Government acknowledges their wrongdoing, but they fail to reverse what happened. 1895, a failed royalist counter rebellion led to the Queen then being arrested and imprisoned in Ayalani palace, the building that still stands in the middle of Honolulu. And she is forced to abdicate. When her supporters are threatened with execution. Things get really ugly. Yes. The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was not a popular revolution, but a small organized couple driven by foreign economic interests, enabled by U.S. military and diplomatic support. We learn a lot from the Hawaiian situation that we carry forth into the 20th century, don't we?
- [43:25]
Noah Dolom
Yes. This was, we call it. There's actually a documentary called act of War. It was an act of war against the Hawaiian Kingdom orchestrated by business interests and all for all, really, to secure an economic future for a small group of people who are, you know, committed to agriculture and it's, you know, kind of supporting industries and, you know, greed. But also, of course, with the racialized undertones of, you know, why they thought they were justified in doing this. Because they saw Hawaiians as inferior as.
- [43:59]
Don Wildman
Well, exactly. And weak and vulnerable, which was actually a welcoming thing they were taking advantage of. So Hawaii at that point has lost its queen, its constitution, its independence. Very tragic. But it was not yet officially part of the United States. And we'll be discussing how that happens after this break.
- [44:19]
Baha Mar Advertiser
Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine and the cool Bahamian breeze. Baha Mar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels. The richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip Slide, and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars and lounges, Baja Mar serves up delicious dining from world renowned chefs like Daniel Boulud and Marcus Samuelson, nightlife venues like the new Jean Baptiste Jazz Club and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Baja Mar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one of a kind experiences for the entire family, like Baja Bay, our 15 acre luxury tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world class golf, tennis spa, and so much more. Visit bajamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Baja Life Spectacular.
- [45:18]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states.
- [45:45]
Don Wildman
Noah, with Hawaiian sovereignty effectively non existent, what was stopping the US from just immediate annexation?
- [45:54]
Noah Dolom
Right. So from the 1880s and particularly post overthrow, there was massive, massive resistance from Hawaiian people, not just of the monarchy and the chiefs, but of the people of the land. Yeah, and this resulted in petitions. It resulted in actually formalized groups, political groups that were going actually to the US they were writing in newspapers, doing all types of things, and you know, kind of in conversations with the queen as well. One of the big outcomes of this political organization by Native Hawaiians was the 1897 petitions against annexation. And these petitions were hand delivered across the Hawaiian Islands by a group called Huialoha Aina, which is generally translated as the Hawaiian Patriotic League. These petitions in total were about 28,000 signatures, which was, you know, kind of like the bulk of the adult population of Native Hawaiians.
- [47:01]
Don Wildman
The Kue population.
- [47:02]
Noah Dolom
Yeah, the Kue. Yeah, Kue petitions and Kue. That word Kue is important. I'm glad you brought that up, Don. Kue means to cool, means to stand. And a means like different or in opposition to. So to stand in opposition to. So a resistance petition. So my great great, great great grandparents actually have their signatures on that petition. And some of our other family, we have, you know, high definition scans of those petitions today. They're actually located in Washington D.C. in the National Archives because they're a hand delivered to Washington D.C. in 1897 and it actually stops an attempt at annexation in that year.
- [47:43]
Don Wildman
Amazing.
- [47:44]
Noah Dolom
Yeah. And so, yes, the US on the US side, they realize, hey, this whole annexation thing, it seems like the actual Hawaiian people or the bulk of the population is not aboard with this annexation thing. So they start rethinking and to, to, to actually go through with annexation, it would have required the majority of Congress to approve annexation. So they see these petitions as kind of evidence that, hey, this might not be a popular movement in Hawaii.
- [48:14]
Don Wildman
And in the midst of that, the Spanish American War breaks out. And this brings in the whole conversation, we don't have time for today, but about the Philippines and all of that effect and how Hawaiians must have been looking very close at what was happening to the Philippines with the Americans there taken over. But the fighting in the Pacific, especially in the Philippines, makes it obvious, if it wasn't already, that we were going to need, the United States would need a strategic outpost in the Pacific. So all of what has happened, you know, makes that that much more strategic and urgent for Americans. The new president is Going to be William McKinley, who's all about expansion.
- [48:51]
Noah Dolom
Yes.
- [48:51]
Don Wildman
And he sees this as a military necessity. So in a sense, Hawaii is annexed through a joint resolution passed.
- [49:00]
Noah Dolom
Yes.
- [49:01]
Don Wildman
By a simple majority in Congress. It's called the Newlands Resolution. Again, too much rabbit hole there. But there's a lot of little chapters. Is the point moving onwards to the 1950s, which seems like, you know, a blink ago when you're talking about all this other stuff that happens. It is formally made a US territory in 1900. All that while Queen Liliu continues to fight. Right, right, right.
- [49:27]
Noah Dolom
So, and I just want to point out one thing about the annexation again for listeners. There is no treaty of annexation that ever existed between.
- [49:36]
Don Wildman
No, no, I meant from the American stands. From the American standpoint, we next.
- [49:41]
Noah Dolom
Yeah, but it's funny because, you know, we have a. We have a high school in Honolulu called. Named after McKinley. McKinley High School. There's a statue of McKinley there, and in his hand he's holding a document called the Tree of Annexation. So the joke here in Hawaii is that that's the only treaty that exists, is on that statue. And they recently put. They recently put up a sign explaining that, the actual real history. But going back to your question about Lili and the end of her life. So Lili, who, she doesn't pass away until 1917. So she has another, like, almost 20 years after annexation. And what she has, she. She's living her life, but she doesn't just fade away into, you know, obscurity. She's trying to fight for the return of her land. So going back to that Mahele in 1848, which set aside about a third of all the lands in Hawaii as the private lands of the monarch. Lili' U was never compensated for those lands. The provisional government, when it ceded power to the United States and a transition to territoriality, it combine the government lands and the private lands together. And the private lands, we also refer to those as crown lands, so belonging to the Crown. And so Liliu tries to ask the United States, hey, I would like my. These lands back there supposed to be in my private lands. The United States says no. And she says, oh, if you're not going to give me the lands, I'm going to sue you for a sum of money. So her last request, I believe, was in, like, 1912, it was like, for $400,000, which now seems absurdly low for how many, how much land? That was, you know, over a million acres of land. The United States again, says no. And Sookalani is never properly compensated for those lands that were lost, those crown lands and those crown lands until today, until or now in 2026, are a huge part of land issues in Hawaii because of their suspect transition to between the Republic and the United States and also because a lot of important infrastructure in Hawaii was built upon those particular lands like airports and other forms of infrastructure.
- [51:55]
Don Wildman
A lot happens in the 20th century. Obviously much of it reflects the way other native populations are treated in all of this expansionism of the United States. Hawaiian language education eventually is banned in schools, traditional practices discouraged, even criminalized land dispossession, as you're suggesting, continues throughout all this time period. We're not even talking about the industrial side of this, the dole plantations, the rise of the pineapple, and all sorts of agricultural aspects of this. And never mind tourism, of course, right by the mid 20th century, Native Hawaiians faced disproportionate poverty, health issues and lawlessness due to all of these populate all these annexation era policies that had gone on. The United States attention, of course, has been shifting back and forth all over the place, from the Philippines and Spanish American War to the World War I to World War II. A lot happens in this period of time and we're letting that sit for a while. It is when probably the Cold War plays a big part of this, when the United States really has to nail this down as far as they're concerned that Pearl harbor is ours and this is how it's going to be. And that's when 1959, the Hawaii becomes the 50th state after a plebiscite. Now let's talk about that because how do we go from all of this intricacies of what happened over the previous decades to the final resolution, which is we're going to make you a state. How many Hawaiians were even in favor of that?
- [53:22]
Noah Dolom
Right. So that plebiscite in 1959 and really the push for statehood began in the 1840s. So post World War II, again, it's a long history that we don't have hours to talk about, but a lot of it was driven by returning Japanese American veterans, so the second generations who had fought in World War II. And of course Hawaii has a very big Japanese American population and also push back against what we call the Big Five. So the Big Five were these five corporations who began in the Hawaiian Kingdom period. Again, this is missionary descendants, other American and European businessmen who basically formed the oligarchy. And this is again the same. This is the same group of men that we've been talking about, but their power and their grip, the economic and social grip over Hawaii lasts well into the 20th century. So there's this pushback there. And also, like you, like you had explained, not only just World War I, but definitely World War II and have proved the need for the United States to, to hold on to Pearl harbor as a, you know, important geopolitical location as well.
- [54:30]
Don Wildman
And the attack on it, of course, is the iconic reason for all of that. 1959, Hawaii officially becomes the 50th US state. We're past that point. It's still a controversial issue for decades afterwards. That remains so today, 1993, the Congress passes the apology resolution formally acknowledging all of what was already known as century before, which is that this was all done in an illegal overthrow with lack of native consent, no reparations or restoration of sovereignty. And today that remains the real sticking point, isn't it?
- [55:06]
Noah Dolom
Yeah. So like you said, 1993, which was the 100th year anniversary of the overthrow, Bill Clinton signs the apology resolution, which if you read it, it's the apology for, primarily for their role in the overthrow and you know, the landing of the Marines, but it doesn't address the annexation part. So it's very calculated. And it also, I think there's a stipulation in there that, you know, like the United States cannot be held liable, yada, yada, yada, of course. So, but, but it was an important moment. You know, the 1990s spurred Native Hawaiians to really think about sovereignty. And like, what does sovereignty mean from a national perspective or national meaning within, like Hawaiian national perspective? And what does that future look like? So since then, that was really the catalyst for that really deep political thought about sovereignty, which again continues until today.
- [56:02]
Don Wildman
Is there any chance of some major change and sovereignty being replaced or not?
- [56:07]
Noah Dolom
That's the million dollar question. And since the 1990s, you know, there's different facets of the community that have very different ideas about what sovereignty might look like. You know, one of the obvious, you know, kind of example would be full sovereignty, a break off from the United States and going back to some kind of independent nation, whatever that might look like. On the other side of the spectrum, you have like the nation within a nation or, you know, Native American tribal model that has kind of been pushed top down, like more from the federal and some federal agencies. And there was several attempts to move towards a nation within a nation status, but that's primarily been resisted by Native Hawaiians for a number, a number of reasons that I won't get into for. For sake of time. I think where we're at now, especially with our economy and especially in the post Covid world where a lot of local families have moved from Hawaii and you know, there's now, sadly, there's more native Hawaiians that live outside of Hawaii than in Hawaii. I think there's some particular issues in Hawaii that people have turned their energy towards and kind of thinking of sovereignty and thinking of those issues as other forms of sovereignty to take care of. So, like food, like food security, housing, education. Because what's the point of having a, you know, politically sovereign nation if you don't have sovereignty over those building blocks of community first? So I think the energy has been to kind of take care of those things before we can like, move forward to like some grand idea of sovereignty.
- [57:49]
Don Wildman
What a, what a mission you must feel as a professor of history there.
- [57:53]
Noah Dolom
Right? And it's, you know, and I'm very blessed to have my position and just to see, you know, the generation that I grew up in, seeing like my mom's generation of how much education they got, like in, you know, specifically Hawaiian education versus my grandparents generation. I was also very lucky to spend a lot of, you know, 25 years with my great grandfather being alive in my life. And my great grandfather, he was born in 1920 and his parents didn't teach him Hawaiian language.
- [58:23]
Don Wildman
Interesting.
- [58:24]
Noah Dolom
So that was, you know, that kind of, that was the break in our family for like, at least language. You know, we kind of kept parts of culture, of course, because we live it. But seeing that, I always look to that as like, wow, that was a break in our family in terms of language. And then the ability for me growing up to learn Hawaiian language from middle school until now, and then now you can, you know, you can do a Hawaiian language degree in the University of Hawaii system or Hawaiian culture. Those changes have been amazing to see even within my time. Like, I thought we were so far ahead. And then I see the kids now where they're learning about all the, you know, the overthrow and annexation when they're like in elementary.
- [59:04]
Don Wildman
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:05]
Noah Dolom
I didn't even know anything really about the kingdom itself until like middle school, high school. So seeing that, that kind of education reach the children earlier has been really special to see and, you know, it contributes to the work that I'm trying to do.
- [59:20]
Don Wildman
Exactly. Well, still go there. You got to go there. And now keep that in mind as you loll on the beach, you know, and order your, your, your cocktails. There's a whole other aspect to this experience for you. Noah Dolem is an assistant professor of history at the University of Hawaii at manoa, specializing in 19th century Hawaii. I hope to speak with you again, sir. It was a real honor. Thank you.
- [59:41]
Noah Dolom
Thank you so much, Don. I appreciate it.
- [59:45]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes. Two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.
- [60:21]
Verizon Advertiser
In a world where January is supposed to be boring, one staple of the holidays refuses to end the great deals At Verizon, the joy just keeps on coming. Right now you can save on four new phones and four lines. Critics agree it's the deal that keeps on giving. Come into Verizon and save on four new phones and four lines on unlimited. Welcome. Additional terms apply@seeverizon.com for details.
- [60:51]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.