Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hawaii's Last Queen & Annexation
When Kalakaua died while visiting San Francisco, California in 1891, his sister and heir,
Liliʻuokalani, ascended the throne. The queen fought against foreign intervention and
control, and she secretly drafted a new constitution to restore Hawaiian voting rights and
the monarchy's powers. However, in 1893, before Liliʻuokalani could present this, a
hastily formed 'Committee of Safety' put in motion the Hawaiian League's long-brewing
plans to overthrow the Hawaiian government.
First, the Committee of Safety requested support from US Minister John Stevens, who
allowed American marines and sailors to come ashore in Honolulu Harbor 'only to pro-
tect American citizens in case of resistance.' The Committee's own militia then surroun-
ded ʻIolani Palace and ordered Queen Liliʻuokalani to step down. With no standing army
and wanting to avoid bloodshed, she acquiesced under protest.
Immediately after the coup, the Committee of Safety formed a provisional government
and requested annexation by the US. Much to its surprise, US President Grover Cleve-
land refused: he condemned the coup as illegal, conducted under false pretext and against
the will of the Hawaiian people, and he requested Liliʻuokalani be reinstated. Miffed but
unbowed, the Committee instead established their own government, the short-lived Re-
public of Hawaii.
For the next five years, Queen Liliʻuokalani pressed her case (for a time while under
house arrest at ʻIolani Palace) to no avail. In 1898, spurred by new US president, William
McKinley, Congress annexed the Republic of Hawaii as a US territory. In part, the US
justified this act of imperialism because the ongoing Spanish-American War had high-
lighted the strategic importance of the islands as a Pacific military base. Indeed, some
feared that if America didn't take Hawaii, another Pacific Rim power - say, Japan - just
might.
Shoal of Time
:
A History of the Hawaiian Islands
by Gavan Daws is an in-depth look at
Hawaiian history, from Captain Cook's precipitous arrival in 1778 through the end of the
Hawaiian monarchy and post-WWII statehood.
Matson Ships & Waikiki Beachboys
In 1901 WC Weedon, the owner of Waikiki Beach's first resort hotel, the Moana, went
on a promotional tour of San Francisco with a stereopticon and daguerreotypes of palm-
fringed beaches and smiling 'natives'. Just two years later, 2000 visitors a year were
making the nearly five-day journey to Honolulu by sea. Travelers departed San Francisco
aboard Matson Navigation Company's white-painted steamships, inaugurating the so-
called 'White Ship Era' that continued until the mid-1930s, when flying made travel by
