Kaua'i - Hawaii - page 1060

Farm-born and raised, Gerald Kinro brings personal insight and scholarship to A Cup of
Aloha , an oral-history portrait of Kona's coffee industry. Hawaiʻi's Pineapple Century by
Jan K Ten Bruggencate is another highly readable account of plantation life in Hawaii.
Downfall of the Merrie Monarch
King Kalakaua, who reigned from 1874 to 1891, fought to restore Hawaiian culture and
indigenous pride. He resurrected hula and its attendant arts from near extinction. Along
with his fondness for drinking, gambling and partying, it earned him the nickname 'the
Merrie Monarch' - much to the dismay of Christian missionaries. Foreign businessmen
considered these pastimes to be follies, but worse, Kalakaua was a mercurial decision-
maker given to summarily replacing his entire cabinet on a whim.
Kalakaua spent money lavishly, piling up massive debts. Wanting Hawaiʻi's monarchy
to equal any in the world, he commissioned ʻIolani Palace, holding an extravagant coron-
ation there in 1883. He also saw Hawaiʻi playing a role on the global stage, and in 1881
embarked on a trip to meet foreign heads of state and develop stronger ties with Japan es-
pecially. When he returned to Hawaiʻi in November of that year, he became the first king
to have traveled around the world.
Even so the days of the Hawaiian monarchy were numbered. The 1875 Treaty of Re-
ciprocity, which had made Hawaiʻi-grown sugar profitable, had expired. Kalakaua re-
fused to renew, as the treaty now contained a provision giving the US a permanent naval
base at Pearl Harbor - a provision that Native Hawaiians regarded as a threat to the sov-
ereignty of the kingdom. A secret anti-monarchy group called the Hawaiian League, led
by a committee of mostly American lawyers and businessmen, 'presented' Kalakaua
with a new constitution in 1887.
This new constitution stripped the monarchy of most of its powers, reducing Kalakaua
to a figurehead, and it changed the voting laws to exclude Asians and allow only those
who met income and property requirements to vote - effectively disenfranchising all but
wealthy, mostly white business owners. Kalakaua signed under threat of violence, earn-
ing the 1887 constitution the moniker 'the Bayonet Constitution.' The US got its base at
Pearl Harbor, and foreign businessmen consolidated their power.
Part political statement, part historical treatise, To Steal a Kingdom: Probing Hawaiian
History by Michael Dougherty takes a hard look at the legacy of Western colonialism
and the lasting impacts of missionary culture.