Colonizing Hawai'i/Part 6- The 1893 Coup, Lili'uokalani Overthrown

Robert Wilcox. 1900. Unknown author. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_William_Wilcox_1900.jpg

The Bayonet Constitution all but nullified the political power of the Hawaiian monarchy, and assured White control of the legislature by disenfranchising Chinese and Japanese citizens and residents of the kingdom. 

In July of 1889 Robert Wilcox, a young teacher and representative from Maui, led a revolt in an attempt to force King Kalākaua to sign yet another constitution that would reverse the effects of Bayonet. Some believe he also intended to force the king to abdicate the throne in favor of his heir and sister Lili’uokalani. After a pitched battle with the Honolulu Rifles, Wilcox and his forces surrendered. He was charged with treason and tried, but a Hawaiian jury declined to convict him, indicating the widespread opposition to the Reform Party faction that had instituted the Bayonet Constitution. Wilcox returned to the legislature and worked to build political opposition.

In 1890 the United States passed the McKinley Tariff, which removed the tariffs on imported luxury goods such as sugar. This eliminated the economic advantage to sugar planters the Reciprocity Treaty had created. Hawai’i’s sugar barons grew increasingly worried about their profits and political power after this development. 

Queen Lili’uokalani. Stanislaw Julian Ostrorog. 1887. Public Domain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Liliuokalani_in_London_(PPWD-16-4.014).jpg

In January of 1891, King Kalākaua died while visiting San Francisco. Queen Lili’uokalani ascended to the throne. The legislature that assembled soon after was sharply divided among political factions and repeatedly voted to remove the Queen’s cabinet, a power created by the Bayonet Constitution. Meanwhile, the Queen was petitioned relentlessly by Hawiians to draft a new constitution that would curtail the power of the Reform Party and plantation owners. Once it became known to them that the Queen was in fact drafting such a document, the Hawaiian League devised a plot to depose the Queen, abolish the monarchy, and secure annexation of the islands by the United States. Largely led by Lorrin Thurston and Sanford Dole, they formed the Committee of Safety, officially chaired by Henry E. Cooper.

On January 17, 1893 a Hawaiian policeman named Leialoha was shot while investigating a wagon of weapons intended for the Committee of Safety. The Honolulu Rifles and other armed forces were mobilized to converge on ‘Iolani Palace and other key locations. John L. Stevens, the US minister to Hawai’i, authorized Captain Wiltse of the USS Boston to land marines and sailors to “secure American property.” The Committee demanded that Queen Lili'uokalani relinquish her throne and remain under house arrest. Seeing no alternative to widespread violence that would likely end in defeat, the Queen surrendered. In her written statement she formally protested all acts of the Committee of Safety and yielded to the “superior force of the United States of America.”

The Hawaiian League assembled a commission to travel to Washington DC to secure US annexation. As with the coup, this was facilitated by Minister Stevens. Lorrin Thurston headed the commission and made sure to leave before the Queen’s allies in order to head off their petitions. In the meantime, the League assembled a provisional government to manage the kingdom in the interim. 

President Harrison’s secretary of state helped the League’s commission draft an annexation treaty and submitted it to the US Senate. Perhaps because of the unusual circumstances, or because the Harrison administration was on its way out, the Senate declined to ratify the treaty before an investigation of the events. Within his first week in office, Grover Cleveland sent agents to Hawai’i to investigate the coup, the role of the US military, and the sentiment of the general population regarding the prospect of American annexation. 

President Grover Cleveland. Unknown author. National Archives. Public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grover_Cleveland_-_NARA_-_518139_(cropped)_(2).jpg

It was not hard to ascertain that the Provisional Government had little support from the people, and had improperly used the US military to bolster the illegal overthrow of a friendly nation. The Cleveland administration issued a demand to the Provisional Government that they restore the Queen to her constitutional authority. Outraged, Sanford Dole replied that the Provisional Government did not recognize the president’s authority to interfere with their domestic affairs. He charged the Queen with heading a corrupt government and stated that his government was the rightful authority of the islands and would continue to advocate union with the United States.

President Cleveland’s position was that the Queen should be restored and the Committee of Safety should be granted amnesty for the coup, that political matters should essentially revert back to the status quo before the occupation of Honolulu by US forces. Citing the limits of his office, Cleveland referred the matter to the Congress. It was accompanied by his formal recommendation and the official investigative report of Congressman Blount that charged the Committee of Safety and Minister Stevens with illegally using US forces to aid the overthrow of Hawai’i’s government. Senator John T. Morgan conducted his own investigation into the coup. Despite his 809-page manifesto arguing for annexation, the Senate resolved the matter with the Turpie Resolution which instituted a policy against both annexation and restoration of the Queen.

Resolved to wait for a more friendly US administration to pursue formal annexation, the Hawaiian League established the Republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894. In the meantime, more revolts by Native Hawaiians were in the works. Robert Wilcox led the Hawaiian Counterrevolution in January of 1895. It consisted of 3 battles over 4 days, ending in defeat for the Hawaiians. Wilcox was tried for treason before a military tribunal and sentenced to death, commuted to 35 years imprisonment. A cache of weapons were discovered and attributed to the Queen who was arrested on January 16 and charged with “misprision of (aiding) treason.” During this confinement Queen Lili’uokalani abdicated her throne in writing, stating that she did so only in exchange for the lives of her supporters who had been sentenced to death. She was found guilty by a military commission of the Republic of Hawaii and sentenced to 5 years of hard labor and a $5000 fine. It was commuted to house arrest in ‘Iolani Palace. 

Sources:

Kūkahekahe: The Overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani- Kamehameha Schools

Queen Lili’uokalani- Crown of Hawai’i

Hawaiian Situation: The President’s message to Congress- Library of Congress

Kualapai, Lydia. “The Queen Writes Back: Lili’uokalani’s Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 17, no. 2 (2005): 32–62.

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.