Colonizing Hawai'i/Part 5- The Bayonet Constitution

Portrait of King Kalākaua. James J. Williams. Circa 1882. Public Domain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kingdavidkalakaua_dust.jpg

King David Kalākaua’s reign began in 1874 with a bitter election and accusations of corruption. His opponent Emma Rooke, the widow of Kamehameha IV, retained significant popular support among many indigenous Hawaiians. On the other end of the political spectrum, he was under intense pressure, like his predecessors, to facilitate the priorities of wealthy plantation owners whose ultimate goal was US annexation.

Most Hawaiians favored allying the kingdom closer to Britain, another monarchy. However, the US had long made it clear they saw the Hawaiian islands as crucial to US security and would not abide another European power taking possession of the kingdom. The large number of American plantation owners and businessmen working in the Hawaiian government helped bolster this claim. American and European businessmen had already accomplished the political goals of converting the kingdom’s land tenure system to one of private property and passing laws allowing immigrants to purchase land. 

The main plantation commodity on the islands was sugar. Hawaiian and American agents attempted to negotiate a reciprocity treaty in 1855 but Louisiana sugar planters blocked this threat to their profits. 7 years later Southern planters were at war with the United States and Hawaiian sugar saw a boom. After the war concluded these profits decreased and talks for a reciprocity treaty renewed. 

US generals visited the islands in 1872 to evaluate areas for military use, and found Pearl Harbor a prime location. Hawai’i’s government was initially willing to grant exclusive use of the harbor to the US in exchange for the ability to import sugar to the US free of tariffs, but public outrage forced the government to withdraw the offer.

After his election in 1874, King Kalākaua renewed efforts to secure a reciprocity treaty for Hawai’i’s sugar planters. The US settled for a clause that prevented the kingdom’s government from leasing territory to any foreign power for the life of the treaty. The act was signed in 1875. The subsequent boom in sugar production also dramatically affected the demographics of the kingdom as the planters imported Chinese and Japanese contract laborers in large numbers.

When the agreement came up for renewal in 1885, the US took a firmer position on demanding exclusive access to Pearl Harbor. The agreement had been a boon for the sugar producers, and by extension the royal family that taxed them, but most Hawaiians saw little benefit and many of the indigenous Hawaiians were still adamantly opposed to ceding Pearl Harbor to the Americans or any other foreign power. King Kalākaua resisted adding the clause guaranteeing US naval access to the harbor, heightening tensions between his administration and the planter class.

The treaty did not benefit the US economically, but Hawai’i’s sugar producers stood to lose substantial gains if it was not renewed, causing them to tighten their grip on the Hawaiian government. A group of American businessmen, many descended from missionary families, organized an anti-royalist, pro-US-annexation “Reform Party.” Many of these men were also part of a secret cabal known as the Hawaiian League that planned to hasten annexation by staging a coup.

Lorrin A. Thurston. Approx 1892. Author unknown. Public Domain.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lorrin_A._Thurston,_1892.jpg

Lorrin Thurston, the grandson of missionaries, took the lead in executing an insurrection. He commanded a 300-man militia called the Honolulu Rifles. They were almost exclusively White. On June 30, the Hawaiian League demanded that King Kalākaua dismiss his cabinet, headed by Walter M. Gibson, a White politician who opposed the goals of the Hawaiian League.

The next day the Honolulu Rifles took control of a large shipment of arms from an Australian ship, nearly lynched Gibson, exiling him to San Francisco at the last minute, and proceeded to join the members of the Hawaiian League as they informed the king that they would replace his cabinet with their own members, Thurston among them, and that they were drafting a new constitution that he would be signing into law. The king sought counsel from several American and British ministers not aligned with the League, but none were confident enough to oppose them and advised him to comply with their demands. This document was literally signed at gunpoint, earning it the name, the Bayonet Constitution. 

It removed most of the king’s authority by giving the legislature veto powers and stipulating that any official actions required the signature of at least 1 cabinet member. It also changed the voting rights of the kingdom by allowing male citizens and resident aliens of American, European, or Hawaiian descent to vote, provided they could pass a literacy test in a language of those races, and meet the property and income requirements. The literacy and property requirements were features of previous constitutions, but the racial language was used to disenfranchise Chinese and Japanese residents, most of whom were plantation laborers or formerly had been, and at the same time give the vote to Portuguese laborers largely controlled by members of the Reform Party. 

The Bayonet Constitution was never ratified by the Hawaiian Legislature, even after the snap election that brought in a largely Hawaiian League government. Later that summer, the king signed the renewal of the reciprocal agreement, with the clause that guaranteed the US exclusive use of Pearl Harbor for the length of the treaty. Kalākaua remained the head of state, but was sidelined politically. The government of the kingdom was taken over by the Hawaiian League, and the United States gained a valuable naval base in the Pacific region. Most indigenous Hawaiians had long suspected American planters and politicians planned on replacing their government and began organizing against it.

Sources: 

King David Kalākaua- wbur

The 1887 Bayonet Constitution: Beginning of the Insurgency- Hawaiian Kingdom blog

Lorrin A. Thurston- Encyclopedia Britannica

Robert William Wilcox- Crown of Hawai’i

La Croix, Sumner J., and Christopher Grandy. “The Political Instability of Reciprocal Trade and the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” The Journal of Economic History 57, no. 1 (1997): 161–89.

Moblo, Pennie. “Leprosy, Politics, and the Rise of Hawaii’s Reform Party.” The Journal of Pacific History 34, no. 1 (June 1999): 75–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223349908572892.

Osorio, Jonathan Kamakawiwo’ole. “‘ What Kine Hawaiian Are You?’: A Mo’olelo about Nationhood, Race, History, and the Contemporary Sovereignty Movement in Hawai’i.” The Contemporary Pacific 13, no. 2 (2001): 359–79.

Colonizing Hawai'i/Part 4- The Great Māhele

A view of 'Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii. 2021. Gage Skidmore. Cc-by-sa-2.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iolani_Palace_(51872681413).jpg

The official Māhele took place in 1848 but the term is also used as a catch-all for a process that spanned 1845-55. The Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles was created in 1845. It was made to facilitate and arbitrate land claims by private individuals, native and foreign, that would ensue from the coming land reforms. Between January and March of 1848 the Māhele proper occurred as the King reached agreements with 240 ali’i and konohiki (Hawaiian chiefs) concerning their lands, after which they were to submit their claims to the Board.

The Hawaiian royal family and other indigenous elites throughout the islands had more access to the resources necessary to secure their land claims. Ordinary Hawaiians often did not. Language barriers, as well as the cost of surveyors, added to the challenge of navigating the Māhele’s legal requirements. By the 1848 claim deadline, many commoners had not filed either out of frustration, or outright resistance to what they saw as an alien system.

Also in 1848,  the king divided his own lands into those owned by the Hawaiian government, and those that were his own personal property. The last 2 major steps in the process of the Mālehe occurred in 1850. First the Legislature passed an act to allow foreigners to acquire land in “fee simple.” Fee simple, meaning as private property in the Euro-American fashion. Finally, the Kuleana Act of 1850 gave Hawaiian commoners who had acquired title to their lands by submitting claims, to sell it, completing their transition to fee simple ownership. 

Photograph of William Little Lee and Charles Reed Bishop. Photographer unknown. 1846. Public Domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Little_Lee_and_Charles_Reed_Bishop_1846.jpg

2 Americans who went on to serve in the Hawaiian government during this period were William Little Lee and Charles Reed Bishop. Both hailing from New York State, the young professionals had set out for Oregon in 1846, but found opportunities in Hawai’i before reaching the west coast of North America. 

Lee, a lawyer, was soon appointed as judge in O’ahu and made a member of Kamehameha III’s privy council. In 1848 he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Hawaiian Supreme Court. Lee was instrumental in drafting some of the laws of the newly formed constitutional monarchy and served on the land commission that facilitated the Great Mahele. He also helped draft the 1852 constitution which gave the other branches of government increased oversight over the king’s powers. Towards the end of his life, Lee was working on passing reciprocity treaties with the US. He died of tuberculosis in 1857 before the negotiations could be completed.

Charles Reed Bishop found work as a lawyer, then as an agent for the US consul, and then as a customs agent for the Kingdom of Hawai’i. He courted a member of the royal family, Bernice Pauahi Pākī. They were married in 1850. Bishop continued to prosper, founding a bank, and serving on the privy council to several Hawaiian monarchs. He was appointed to the House of Nobles by Kamehameha IV. He and his wife founded the Kamehameha Schools, a school system that educated children of Hawaiian ancestry. 

Kamehameha IV, born Alexander ʻIolani Liholiho Keawenui (1834–1863) Hawaii State Archives. Approx. 1863. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kamehameha_IV_(PP-97-8-002).jpg

Kamehameha IV reigned from 1855-1863 following the death of his predecessor. He worked to balance American subjects’ influence over the kingdom, as they were the largest landowners besides the Hawiian elite, and in many cases far wealthier. His successor, Kamehameha V went even further, refusing to uphold the 1852 constitution. He called a convention to draft a new one in 1864. This constitution abolished the office of kuhina nui, restored some of the king’s autonomy, and converted the House of Nobles and House of Representatives into a single Legislative Assembly. 

King Kamehameha V. Charles Weed. 1865. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kamehameha_the_Fifth.jpg

Kamehameha V died without naming a successor. Choosing the new sovereign from eligible royal family members fell to a vote by the Legislative Assembly. King Lunalilo was elected in 1873, but fell ill with tuberculosis and died in January of 1874. 

Another election was held between David Kalakaua and the former queen and widow of Kamehameha IV, Emma Rooke. Kalakaua won the election amid much controversy, leading to the Honolulu Courthouse Riot. Rooke’s supporters targeted legislators that had supported Kalakaua, injuring many. British and American soldiers docked nearby were called in to restore order.

King Kalakaua was staunchly opposed to ceding any land to foreign nations. At the same time, he negotiated a reciprocity treaty with the US that enriched the owners of Hawai’i’s sugar plantations. Most of these were IS, many of whom advocated American annexation of the kingdom.

Sources:

Kamehameha IV

Kamehameha V

King Lunalilo

King Kalākaua

Banner, Stuart. “Preparing to Be Colonized: Land Tenure and Legal Strategy in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii.” Law & Society Review 39, no. 2 (2005): 273–314.

Kashay, Jennifer Fish. “Agents of Imperialism: Missionaries and Merchants in Early-Nineteenth-Century Hawaii.” The New England Quarterly 80, no. 2 (2007): 280–98.

Kessler, Lawrence H. “A Plantation upon a Hill; Or, Sugar without Rum: Hawai ‘i’s Missionaries and the Founding of the Sugarcane Plantation System.” Pacific Historical Review 84, no. 2 (2014): 129–62.

Colonizing Hawai'i/Part 2- Americans Immigrate

European merchants made frequent visits to the Hawaiian islands once Captain James Cook documented its location in 1778. Not only was it an ideal source of resupply for whaling ships, it was also a convenient stop gap between Canton, China and the western coast of the Americas, major nodes in a prestigious and growing trade network. Merchant ships traded furs, sugar, and coffee for Chinese items like silk, tea, silver, and spices. 

Agents of these trade corporations, like the Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as their suppliers, set up shop in Hawai’i throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s. Unlike many of the lands Europeans rediscovered around the globe, the Hawaiian islands were consolidated politically under a single royal government. Merchants made deals with the royal family or Ali’i or Konohiki (subordinate chiefs), to acquire land. This property was revocable at any time and was still technically owned by the Hawaiians they’d contracted with. 

Missionaries, as in other frontier regions of Euro-American societies, were not far behind the merchants. The first missionaries arrived in the 1810s and 20s. As in other locales, their method of Christianizing indigenous populations centered around European style agriculture and property ownership. In these early decades of the 19th century there was much antagonism between merchant and missionary communities, each blaming the other for encouraging vice and discouraging proper industriousness among the Hawaiian commoners. After the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) revoked funding for the Hawaiian missionaries after an economic downturn in 1837, they became more amenable to large scale plantations, rather than the small scale farming they had administered previously. 

Queen Ka’ahumanu. 1822. Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine after painting by Louis Choris. Public Domain.

Kamehameha the Great had several wives. The most influential was Ka'ahumanu. She was born on the island of Maui to an elite family. Upon the king’s death, she informed his council that the king had wished her to rule alongside his named successor. The council created the title of kuhina nui, a sort of prime minister position. Kamehameha II, the former king’s firstborn son (not with Ka’ahumanu) reigned from 1819-1824. He died of measles while visiting London. As his brother and successor, Kamehameha III was only 10 at the time of his ascension, Ka’ahumanu continued her role as regent of the kingdom until her death in 1832. She was one of the primary elite Hawaiians to embrace Christianity and instigate reforms of traditional practices. This was not universally welcomed among Hawaiians, elite or commoners, but she had considerable influence over enough of the population that her leadership in this area was either accepted or cautiously tolerated. 

Kamehameha III in military uniform. Alfred Thomas Agate. 1838-42. Public Domain.

Kamehameha III hired numerous European and American advisors to assist him with foreign trade and increasingly became convinced it was in his kingdom’s and his people’s interests to reform his dynasty as a constitutional monarchy modeled on the British system with a 3-branch government system. It is impossible to say for certain why he took this course, but there were many possibilities.  As he came of age, many islands in the Pacific, such as New Zealand and Tahiti were claimed by the British and French Empires. Kamehameha III had his own brush with a hostile takeover when Lord George Paulet was sent to secure British possessions on the islands, and instead took the opportunity to claim the islands themselves for Britain. The king explained that he had already sent emissaries to settle these disputes, but Paulet was unmoved and threatened to open fire on the island. Under duress, the King yielded to Paulet, who raised the British flag over Hawaii. This episode only lasted 5 months, as Paulet’s superiors were outraged by the act and soon restored Hawai’i’s sovereignty. 

Many historians argue that incidents like these, as well as the high mortality of native Hawaiians to European diseases, convinced Kamehameha III and much of the Hawaiian elite that colonization was inevitable and that the best way to safeguard their land was to convert the kingdom to a constitutional monarchy with a system of land ownership that a colonizing Western power would recognize. Most of the king’s British and American ministers encouraged this view. It should be mentioned that they and other White residents stood to gain immensely by such changes, whether colonization occurred or not.

The Constitution of 1840 formally converted Hawai’i to a constitutional monarchy. In 1845 a land commission was established to process land claims by all of Hawai’i’s residents, native and foreign. This process took until 1855 to complete. It is known as the Great Māhele (ma-hail-ay). While intended to safeguard the lands of all Hawaiians, we will take a closer look at how the Māhele fell short of its goal.

Sources:

Ka’ahumanu- Punahou School

Paulet Episode 1843- Ka’iwakīloumoku 

Aftermath: the 1840s and Resistance- Punahou School