Hawaii and its annexation

[James the Red]

Today, I became interested in Hawaii and its history and culture, because I realized how little I actually knew, I wanted to know what it was like before and after contact with the Europeans, what was the religion like, how was warfare conducted, and other cultural aspects and ect...

So I tried looking on Youtube for a documentary or something on Hawaii, and what I found was, this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIq8x9vnLf4

What are your thoughts on the annexation and the current state of native Hawaiians and What do you think should be done?

[Red]

Give them "nation-within-a-nation" status like Native Americans and be done with it. Independence wouldn't benefit them at all.

[YuriVII]

except Hawaii today is not made up of Hawaiians. It is made of an asiatic mixture. Samoans with Japanese, Portuguese, Puerto Ricans, Chinese, and good old fashin' Ammmericans. The only pure Hawaiians are on a protected island called Nihau.

As for the annexation of Hawaii it was a blatant imperialistic adventure. It was so imperialist that the US President Cleveland rejected it. It was only when Harrison took power that it was accepted. Look up the Hawaiian republic. It was run by a consortium of Anglo-American pineapple plantation owners.Do you buy Dole bananas? Well it was Dole who was the President of that republic. The last days of Hawaii are very interesting, as well as the reign of Kamehameha I. He was like the Napoleon and Bismarck of Hawaii rolled into one.

Also... the Russians established a fort on the island of Kaui. It is called Fort Elizabeth. Hawaii really does have a fascinating and forgotten history to it. Infact, the island of Kaui was so close to be a Russian colony, only the the Tsar's orders cancled it. (the ambition was done unilaterally be a Dr. Scherrer without his authority). None the less, there were three Russian forts on that island. Fort Elizabeth survives today as a state park. Here are some pictures:




The last picture is what is left of the Russian forts today.

[James the Red]

This video goes more into the actual annexation of Hawaii and how it happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuKLY...eature=related

[Londinium]

The Japanese and British were interested in the islands aswell, a lot of the American political discourse at time suggested that if America didn't annex Hawaii, Britain would, which would threaten American transpacific trade. Remember at this time the British and American's hadn't undergone their early 20th century detente and then coming together.

This combined with American business interests in the islands led to a blatantly imperialistic annexation of the islands. It's not really surprising though, America was going through it's imperialist period at the time. Guam, Samoa, Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines were accquired around the same period due to imperialist impulses.

[James the Red]

Didn't Hawaii at the time have treaties with the Americans? And thus would Britain taking hawaii bring them into confrontation with the US?

[Londinium]

Didn't Hawaii at the time have treaties with the Americans? And thus would Britain taking hawaii bring them into confrontation with the US?

Very loose treaties mainly regulating trade and a minimum price for Hawaiian sugar, which benefitted America anyways as most of the Hawaiian plantation owners were American. A good book on the subject is Expansionists of 1898 by Julius W. Pratt. It explains the background and also how there was a real fear of the British taking Hawaii both in a first aborted attempt and in the actual annexation itself. Technically if the British had moved on Hawaii, it wouldn't have been a casus belli for America unless the British did something stupid like destroying American property.

[Orko]

There's also this, which is relevant and interesting(got me interested in Hawaii) documentary: