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Republic of Hawaii

The Republic of Hawaii (Hawaiian: Lepupalika o Hawaiʻi) was a short-lived one-party state in Hawaiʻi between July 4, 1894, when the Provisional Government of Hawaii had ended, and August 12, 1898, when it became annexed by the United States as an unincorporated and unorganized territory. In 1893, the Committee of Public Safety overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani, the monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, after she rejected the 1887 Bayonet Constitution. The Committee of Public Safety intended for Hawaii to be annexed by the United States; however, President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat opposed to imperialism, refused. A new constitution was subsequently written while Hawaii was being prepared for annexation.

Republic of Hawaii
Lepupalika o Hawaiʻi

Honolulu

William Chauncey Wilder

 

July 4, 1894

January 6, 1895

January 9, 1895

August 12, 1898

The leaders of the Republic, such as Sanford B. Dole and Lorrin A. Thurston, were Hawaii-born descendants of American settlers who spoke the Hawaiian language but had strong financial, political, and family ties to the United States. They intended the Republic to become a territory of the United States. Dole was a former member of the Royal Legislature from Koloa, Kauai, and Justice of the Kingdom's Supreme Court, and he appointed Thurston—who had served as Minister of the Interior under King Kalākaua—to lead a lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., to secure Hawaii's annexation by the United States. The issue of overseas imperialism was controversial in the United States due to its colonial origins. Hawaii was annexed under Republican President William McKinley on 12 August 1898, during the Spanish–American War. The Territory of Hawaii was formally established as part of the U.S. on June 14, 1900.


The Blount Report "first provided evidence that officially identified the United States' complicity in the lawless overthrow of the lawful, peaceful government of Hawaii."[2] American officials immediately recognized the new government and troops from the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) were sent by the U.S. Minister to aid in the overthrow. The Queen's supporters claimed that the Marines presence frightened the Queen and thus enabled the revolution.[3] Blount concluded that the United States had carried out unauthorized partisan activities, including the landing of U.S. Marines under a false or exaggerated pretext, to support the anti-royalist conspirators; that these actions were instrumental to the success of the revolution; and that the revolution was carried out against the wishes of a majority of the population of Hawaii.[4]

Territorial evolution of the United States

American imperialism

Allen, Helena G. Sanford Ballard Dole: Hawaii's Only President, 1844-1926 (1998).

Grenville, John A. S. and George Berkeley Young. Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy: Studies in Foreign Policy, 1873-1917 (1966) pp 102–124 on Hawaii policy, 1893-1895

Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson. Hawaii: A History, from Polynesian Kingdom to American State (1961)

Morgan, William Michael. Pacific Gibraltar: U.S.-Japanese Rivalry Over the Annexation of Hawaii, 1885-1898 (Naval Institute Press, 2011). A major scholarly history; see

online review by Kenneth R. Conklin, PhD

Russ, William Adam. The Hawaiian Revolution (1893-94) (1992)

Russ, William Adam. The Hawaiian Republic (1894–98) and its struggle to win annexation (Susquehanna U Press, 1992); a major scholarly history

Schweizer, Niklaus R. His Hawaiian Excellency: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the Annexation of Hawaii (1994).

Online images and transcriptions of the entire Morgan Report

morganreport.org

. University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa Library. Retrieved June 17, 2010.

"Blount Report: Affairs in Hawaii"

. Hawaiian Digital Collection. University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa Library.

"The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Documents"