merican expansionists were interested in taking hawaii in the late 1800’s. Because Hawaii was located 2,000 miles west from california it was a great place for coaling stations and naval bases for ships going to and from Asia. Americans were not the only ones interested in hawaii. A british explorer named Captain james cook, has been to the island in 1778, and then hawaii was very well known to other parts of the world. After cook’s arrival chief kamehameha united the eight major islands under his leadership. He made a monarchy and began a profitable trade in sandalwood.
In the 1820’s u. s. Ships began arriving with traders and missionaries. Most of the missionaries came from new england to change to the Hawaiians christianity. After that the missionaries and their families started to make homes there in hawaii. The foreigners brought diseases like leprosy, so the Hawaiians were vulnerable. The population went from 300,000 in the 1770’s to 40,000 by 1893. After more americans came to Hawaii so did the sugar industry. Americans liked sugar so sugar planters got rich. They got more workers from Japan, China, and the Philippines. Kalakaua was king by 1874.
About that time America had control over Hawaii’s nationalistic. He hated american influence over his government and said he’d put native Hawaiians back into power. He later allied himself with landowners so he could hopefully make Hawaii’s economy stronger. He made a treaty in 1875 that let Hawaiian sugar to enter the United states tax free. But a group of american businessmen belonging to the sugar and pineapple industry formed a secret society called the Hawaiian league. It was made to overthrow the monarchy and make a democracy in Hawaii under control of the americans.
That’s stealing someone’s home, how would you feel if someone did that to you? Issues between American business leaders and the king got bigger in 1886. The united states wanted the port of pearl harbor in exchange for renewing the sugar treaty. But the king said no, he didnt want to give up the independence of any part of Hawaii. The king was forced to sign a new constitution at gunpoint in July 1887. The king called it the bayonet constitution. It restricted his authority by a lot, and got rid of the Hawaiians right to vote. The king was forced to give pearl Harbor to the united states.
The united states was taking Hawaii’s lands by force, for their own benefits and they probably didn’t care about what happened to Hawaii as long as america got what they wanted. This gave u. s. Warships a lasting port in Hawaii. American sugar planters now had political control over Hawaii. The economy took a bad fall in 1890. The United States revoked the sugar treaty in order to support sugar producers on the mainland. The sugar producers in Hawaii though the only way to save their business was to become part of the united states, so they secretly had talks with u. s. Officials about annexation.
When king Kalakaua died in 1891, his sister Liliuokalani became queen. The queen was a Hawaiian nationalist who wanted to get rid of the bayonet constitution. In January she announced she wanted to restore the power of the Hawaiian monarchy. Were given orders, which means they didn’t have a choice. The business owners planned to overthrow the queen, and they wanted the islands to be controlled as a territory of the united states. Without authorization John L. Stevens, an american minister chose to help the rebel sugar planters, and ordered four boatloads of u. s. Marines to go ashore.
And that is unfair to hawaii because a bunch of people wanted hawaii to become apart of the united states just for the one reason that they didn’t want to pay taxes. They took positions around the royal palace, aiming guns and cannons at the building. The rebels said they were ending the monarchy. The queen gave up under protest on January 17, 1893. Hawaii was put under protection by the u. s. , while the Senate made a treaty to annex the islands. Despite her plea “to undo the actions of its representatives”, united states government didn’t allow her to access her thrown at that time.
One side of the story the businessman told was that the only reason they overthrew the queen of Hawaii was because it was corrupt and dissolute regime. To be honest i think they were more interested in installing the advance democratic principles. Troubled by the events in hawaii, the president Grover Cleveland put the treaty on hold and ordered an investigation. I don’t see the point in that because they’ve already taken over Hawaii. Eventually the throne was given back to the queen of Hawaii. Cleveland agreed, but dole did not step down. Cleveland wasn’t going to use military force to back Liliuokalani.
And he wouldn’t support the annexation of Hawaii. Mckinley wanted the annexation, ad congress narrowly voted its approval in 1898. Hawaii became an American territory and eventually in 1993 congress apologized for the u. s. Role in overthrowing the queen. It’s about time they apologized for kicking her off the throne, breaking treaties, making new ones, endangering her life, investigating everything and then finally giving her thrown back but still making Hawaii a part of the United states. Early on Hawaii attracted american interests because it was a convenient place to stop for fuel and supplies on their way to china.
American traders had been going to China since 1784. Even so China stayed nearly isolated from the rest of the world. It strictly controlled foreign trade, allowing foreigners only in the port of Guangzhou. Then in 1842 the british forced China to open five ports to british trade. So throughout all this imperialism, and industrialization it’s just america and other countries taking more countries lands, kicking out kings and queens, making treaties then breaking them, forcing other countries to give them what they want, and then give so little back. But don’t worry, maybe america will give them a tiny apology.