First colonized around 200 A.D. by intrepid Polynesian islanders,
Hawaii existed for hundreds of years in splendid isolation. Foreigners did not visit the islands until 1788, when Captain Cook, looking for the fabled Northwest Passage, stumbled upon this nation with its own belief system and culture. Three decades later, fourteen Calvinist missionaries left Boston bound for Hawaii, and when they arrived they converted the royal family to Christianity, and set up missionary schools where English was taught.A thriving monarchy had ruled over Hawaii for generations. Taro fields and fish ponds had long sustained native Hawaiians but sugar plantations had been gradually subsuming them. This fractured, vulnerable Hawaii was the country that Queen Lili?uokalani, or Lili?u, inherited when she came to power at the end of the nineteenth century. Her predecessor had signed away many of the monarchy's rights, but while Lili?u was trying to put into place a constitution that would reinstate them, other factions were plotting
annexation. With the help of the American envoy, the USS Boston steamed into Honolulu harbor, and Marines landed and marched to the palace, inciting the Queen's overthrow. The annexation of Hawaii was extremely controversial; the issue caused heated debates in the Senate and President
Cleveland gave a strongly worded speech opposing it. This was the first time America had reached beyond the borders of the continental U.S. in an act of imperialism. It was not until
President McKinley was elected and the
Spanish-American War erupted, that Hawaii became a critical strategic asset, and annexation finally passed Congress in 1898.
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Background Information
The Hawaiian Islands were an independent monarchy but fell under the influence of American sugar growers and was eventually brought into the United States as first a territory and then a state in 1959. In 1893 an American-inspired revolt removed the Queen of Hawaii from her throne, but Grover Cleveland refused to let the annexation treaty through Congress. In 1896, William McKinley restored Republican control of the White House after the second administration of Grover Cleveland but, shortly after hs re-election to a second term, he was assassinated. The Spanish-American War was a militarily easy conquest by the United States to eliminate the last vestiges of the Spanish colonial empire.
