How was Hawaii acquired by the U.S.?

Hawaii was acquired by the United States through a series of controversial political maneuvers and treaties that culminated in its annexation in 1898. It later became a U.S. territory (1900), and then a U.S. state (1959).

Background

After the Hawaiian Islands were charted in the late 18th century, American and European merchants, missionaries, and settlers began arriving there in earnest in the 1800s. These settlers and their descendants, particularly those involved in the sugar industry, sought greater control over the islands’ political and economic affairs. They championed the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 between Hawaiian King Kalakaua and the U.S. government, which established a duty-free market for Hawaiian sugar and other products in the U.S., while granting the U.S. special economic privileges in Hawaii. This treaty, which came into effect in 1876, laid the groundwork for future annexation efforts. It was renewed in 1887, at which point the United States also received exclusive rights to enter and establish a naval base at Pearl Harbor.

Also in 1887 a group of non-native businessmen in the islands, led by Lorrin Thurston and accompanied by a militia, forced Kalakaua to sign a new constitution that provided them with more political power at the expense of the king and the islands’ Native Hawaiian population; it was dubbed the Bayonet Constitution because the king had signed it under duress.

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By the 1890s Native Hawaiians made up a third or less of the islands’ population, and there was an even smaller white minority. There was, however, a robust immigrant population, in part due to a demand for cheap labor to work on the sugar plantations and in other businesses. Many were from Asian countries, primarily China and Japan. Also by this time, there was an entrenched class divide between the minority white business owners and groups of non-white workers.

Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

The king died in 1891 and was succeeded by his sister, Queen Liliuokalani. She wished to promulgate a new constitution that would restore some of the powers of the monarchy and Native Hawaiians, but this was opposed by the largely non-native U.S. business class. Thurston and others formed a group, named the Committee of Safety, and plotted to overthrow Liliuokalani and install their own administration, one that would be open to the United States annexing the islands. The group later asked Sanford Dole, a lawyer and jurist who was the Hawaiian-born son of American missionaries, to serve as president of their planned government.

Previous support on the islands for a U.S. annexation was not widespread—business owners were reliant upon the labor provided by immigrant workers and did not want to subject themselves to more restrictive U.S. immigration policies. This, however, changed after 1890, when the McKinley Tariff Act went into effect and allowed any country to export sugar to the United States duty-free. This countered the favorable conditions previously established under the Reciprocity treaties and drove down the value of Hawaii’s sugar exports in the following years, negatively impacting the business owners.

On January 17, 1893, the Committee of Safety deposed the queen and established a provisional government with the support of the U.S. Minister to Hawaii, John Stevens, and sailors (referred to as Bluejackets) and U.S. Marines from the USS Boston in Pearl Harbor. Headed by Dole, the provisional government requested that the United States annex the islands. The administration of U.S. Pres. Benjamin Harrison (1889–93) and the provisional government’s representatives signed an annexation treaty, which was sent to the U.S. Senate to be ratified.

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Before that could happen, however, U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland (1893–97) took office. He disapproved of the machinations that saw Liliuokalani replaced by the provisional government and withdrew the treaty from the Senate. He also demanded the restoration of Liliuokalani to the throne, which the provisional government rejected. Instead, in 1894 it established the Republic of Hawaii, and in the following years continued to attempt to build support in the United States for annexation.

Annexation

Though some American policy makers were proponents of expansionism and thus saw a possible U.S. annexation of Hawaii as a valuable and strategic acquisition, there were also many who disagreed for any number of reasons. For instance, there were anti-imperialists who worried about the moral and practical implications of annexation; there were some adherents of racist ideology who worried that the annexation would lead to an influx of a non-white population from Hawaii or any other new territories; and there were some segments of the population with very specific concerns, such as representatives from mainland states that had their own sugar-related industries and did not want additional domestic competition.

The next U.S. president, William McKinley (1897–1901), was in favor of acquiring Hawaii. In 1897 his administration signed an annexation treaty with the Republic of Hawaii representatives and sent it to the U.S. Senate, where it would need a two-thirds majority vote in order to be ratified. There already was some existing opposition among senators to the annexation, and the Native Hawaiian population successfully lobbied other senators to reject the treaty; in all, there was not enough support in the Senate to ratify the treaty.

Shortly thereafter, however, the United States went to war with Spain, reinvigorating support for the annexation of Hawaii since Hawaii’s location made Pearl Harbor an important coaling and naval station for U.S. military operations in the Pacific. U.S. legislators who supported the annexation then controversially proposed to do so by joint resolution, which would only require a simple majority of the vote in both houses of Congress. This was done later that year with the Newlands Resolution, which was passed by Congress and then signed by McKinley, thereby annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States in 1898.

Legacy

Two years after annexation, Hawaii was made a U.S. territory by the Organic Act of 1900, placing it under the authority of the U.S. federal government while stopping short of granting statehood. It became a U.S. state in 1959 after congressional legislation provided for statehood and Hawaiians approved it in a referendum vote.

The events leading up to the U.S. annexation of Hawaii, the manner in which it occurred, and the fact that it faced substantial opposition from Native Hawaiians have been sources of criticism and contention. In 1993 the U.S. government under Pres. Bill Clinton apologized to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the U.S. role in the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.