Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

On 17 January 1893, a group of mainly American and European residents of Honolulu, organised as the Committee of Safety, deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani and ended the rule of the Hawaiian monarchy. United States sailors and marines, landed at the request of the American minister, were ashore during the coup, and the queen yielded under protest to what she called the superior force of the United States. Five years later the islands were annexed by the United States, and a century later Congress formally apologised to Native Hawaiians for American involvement.

The Hawaiian Kingdom, founded by Kamehameha I in 1795, was recognised as independent by the United States and other powers. In the nineteenth century, sugar plantations, many run by American-born planters, came to dominate the economy. A reciprocity treaty of 1875 let Hawaiian sugar enter the American market duty-free, and in 1887 the United States began leasing Pearl Harbor. Many Native Hawaiians, who regarded the land as sacred, feared that the whole country might be lost.

In 1887 a group of mostly non-Hawaiian businessmen, backed by an armed militia, forced King Kalākaua to accept a new constitution that sharply reduced royal power. Because it was imposed under threat, it became known as the "Bayonet Constitution". New property and income requirements for voting for the upper house shut out about two-thirds of Native Hawaiians, while American and European residents could vote without giving up their own citizenship.

Kalākaua died in 1891 and was succeeded by his sister Liliʻuokalani, at a time when an American tariff law had removed Hawaii's advantage in the sugar trade. The queen sought to replace the 1887 constitution with one that would restore the monarch's authority and widen the vote for Hawaiian subjects while removing the privileges of foreign residents. Her plans appear to have had broad support among Native Hawaiians, who signed a long petition in favour, but her own cabinet refused to back them.

In January 1893 her opponents, led by the newspaper publisher Lorrin Thurston and chaired by Henry Cooper, formed a thirteen-member Committee of Safety with the stated aim of deposing the queen and seeking annexation by the United States. The queen's marshal, Charles Wilson, asked for warrants to arrest its members and gathered about 500 royal guards and police, but the cabinet refused, fearing escalation. On 16 January, citing danger to American lives and property, the US minister John L. Stevens had 162 sailors and marines from the cruiser USS Boston brought ashore; they did not fire a shot, but Cleveland later argued that their positions commanded the government building and the palace rather than American property. On 17 January the committee proclaimed a Provisional Government under Sanford Dole. To avoid bloodshed, Liliʻuokalani ordered her forces to stand down, yielding her authority, she wrote, until the United States should undo the actions of its representative and reinstate her.

The new president, Grover Cleveland, blocked immediate annexation and sent James Blount to investigate. Blount's report concluded that American diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority, but a Senate committee report cleared Stevens. The Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed on 4 July 1894 with Dole as president. After a failed royalist rising in January 1895, the queen was arrested; on 24 January she abdicated, and she was then convicted by a military tribunal. Under President William McKinley, the Newlands Resolution provided for annexation, which took effect on 7 July 1898. Most Native Hawaiians stayed away from the annexation ceremony in August.

Hawaii became a US territory in 1900 and later a state. In 1993, on the centenary of the overthrow, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Apology Resolution, acknowledging the role of American agents and citizens in the overthrow and that Native Hawaiians had never directly given up their claims to sovereignty. The events of 1893 remain central to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

Our 1880 map shows the Hawaiian Kingdom, and the 1900 map shows the islands after annexation by the United States.