Hawaii’s last queen was under house arrest. Did she look out that day, from the tall windows of her chambers in Iolani Palace?
Six minutes to twelve. The Hawaiian flag is lowered in front of Liliuokalani’s residence, followed by the Stars and Stripes. It is Friday, August 12, 1898, and Hawaii is now formally a U.S. territory.
James Cook arouses desires
1778: James Cook lands in Hawaii. The news of an earthly paradise in the South Seas reaches Europe, desires are aroused. In 1816 the Russians stopped by, then missionaries came from New England, and in 1839 a French fleet. Finally, the USA is also showing interest in the archipelago in the Pacific. Volker Depkat, Americanist from the University of Regensburg.
“A very important date is the end of the Civil War, 1865, which coincides with the beginning of massive industrialization.”
Soon the United States is producing more than it can consume at home. The American economy dreams of expanding into East Asia.
“Here, above all, China was a legendary market, and on the way to East Asia you pass by Hawaii. In this respect, the importance of Hawaii for a long time was that of a strategic outpost that provided safe accommodation and safe stopovers for American merchant ships.”
A second point of interest: sugar cane plants. Sugar cane mills have been in Hawaii since the 1830s. But it wasn’t until the Hawaiian-American trade treaty of 1875 that production started on a large scale, by American sugar barons.
Economically, Hawaii has been under American control since the trade treaty. The many US citizens who now live here would also like to install the American model in Hawaii politically. But they encounter a long monarchical tradition. At least the royal family is open to the idea of a constitutional monarchy, and the sugar barons are enforcing a constitution. But:
“In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani tried to roll back the islanders’ rights to political participation.”
There is a calculation behind it.
“It was about strengthening monarchical power at the expense of democratic co-determination, in order to assert the country’s independence from the USA, but also from other colonial powers, and to regain more room for maneuver.”
The bill doesn’t add up
Liliuokalani’s calculation doesn’t add up. A republican uprising ensues, but the queen lacks the military means to put it down. She has to resign.
The insurgents are demanding that Washington annex Hawaii in its entirety.
“But the United States rejects that.”
They shy away from direct colonial rule.
“Because they say that we ourselves are a country that came into being through a revolution against a colonial power, we cannot afford to have colonies in order to be able to survive in front of ourselves.”
Five years later, in 1898, all doubts are thrown overboard. The US wins the Spanish-American War and is on the rise to become a Pacific power. Now they are annexing Hawaii – and almost simultaneously the Philippines.
Ethnically colorful like no other US state
In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th US state and today is ethnically diverse like no other. Descendants of the Polynesian natives, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese, African American and white, many Portuguese, all ethnic groups are present, but no group is in the majority. Former President Barack Obama grew up here.
“So he always had a completely different view of racial relations in the USA and just didn’t allow himself to be squeezed into this black and white scheme, because that doesn’t quite fit in Hawaii either.”
Hawaii’s last queen never experienced any of that. Liliuokalani died in 1917. By the end of her life she had found her destiny. When Hawaiians died in World War I, she herself flew the flag over Iolani Palace to half-mast. Not the Hawaiian, but the Stars and Stripes.