Hawaii sits 2,400 miles away from the United States mainland, its nearest major landmass. 2,400 miles, making it the most isolated population center on Earth. With beautiful beaches, lush vegetation, and comfortable year round temperatures, Hawaii is the quintessential island paradise. Just hearing the word paradise is enough to evoke visions of palm trees, hula dancers, and hibiscus flowers. Its earliest inhabitants had discovered a true utopia when they pulled their boats ashore around a thousand years ago and they did not take it for granted, coining the phrase “He ali‘i ka ‘āina, he kauwā ke kanaka,” which translates to “the land is chief, and mankind are its servants.” They knew what they had and they were determined not to squander it. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian’s respect for nature and cultural understanding that they were merely stewards of the Earth and not owners of it were not universal. Those earliest inhabitants could not have known then that, before long, this utopia would face a dystopian invasion, one that illegally stripped an independent nation of its sovereignty and forced it to bow to the will of a foreign power some 2,400 miles away. I’m talking about the overthrow of the kingdom of Hawaii of course and its eventual annexation as the 50th United State of America. But did you know, the way in which all this went down was so illegal, many believe Hawaii isn’t and never was part of the United States at all? Let’s fix that. 

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Shout out to Samantha on Instagram for suggesting this topic and also my sister’s friend, Alex, who first brought it to my attention on our New Orleans bachelorette trip. When two unrelated people reach out with the same History Fix topic, it gets bumped up the list. I’ve always known that there was a lot of localism in Hawaii, that the native Hawaiians were not fans of tourists and transplants that they viewed as invaders. And I get it. I live in a tourist destination, a resort town. I understand this. I’ve felt this. My town has a year round population of around 7,800 people but that swells to over 40,000 in the summer months. It can be really frustrating. Traffic is terrible. You can’t eat at a restaurant without a two hour wait. Everything is crowded. They’re rude and impatient and entitled. They leave their trash everywhere. They dig giant holes in the sand at the beach and leave them for people to fall in. Don’t do that by the way. It’s real dumb. I’ve often found myself stuck in traffic just trying to get to work on time, absolutely loathing every out of state license plate which is like every single body. I get it. But at the same time, my town wouldn’t exist without those tourists. They are our economy. So, you know, I know the sentiment is even way worse in Hawaii and it’s easy to be like “okay guys, chill out, it’s good for your economy,” or whatever but, honestly, after digging into the history of Hawaii and how it became a quote state, those anti-tourism anti-transplant feelings are completely warranted. Like, I can’t believe they aren’t just punching everyone who isn’t Hawaiian right in the face. That’s how messed up this story is. 

 

And yes I said quote state because, by the end of this episode, I think you’ll agree with me that Hawaii is not actually a state. It’s not actually part of the United States and it never was. I know, crazy right? But it’s kind of like, remember when Vencenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre? Just popped it off the hooks, stashed it under his smock, and hopped on the bus with it? It’s kind of like if, when he got caught, the authorities were just like “eh, okay, you can keep it. It’s yours now.” But no, it doesn’t work like that. Peruggia had to give the Mona Lisa back because he stole it. The United States stole Hawaii so blatantly that, according to international law, it should not be recognized as part of this country. We can delude ourselves all we want into thinking it’s the 50th state but what we really have here is a prolonged illegal occupation of a foreign nation. Allow me to convince you. 

 

There is some disagreement as to when humans first arrived on the archipelago that would come to be called Hawaii. This chain of 8 volcanic islands is so remote that it was spared human meddling throughout much of Earth’s history. Earlier theories suggested humans arrived as far back as the year 300 but more recent radiocarbon dating done in 2010 suggests a much later date between the years 1000 and 1200, likely in two separate waves of migration. These immigrants likely came from the Polynesian islands, the Marquesas, Samoa, and Tahiti, which are 2,000 miles away. So okay, year 1000ish, you may be wondering how the heck did they cross 2,000 miles of open ocean in boats from the year 1000? Great question and one that has puzzled people to no end, or at least people who are quick to discount the accomplishments of anyone who isn’t white or European. In fact, this feat, this crossing, is considered one of the greatest achievements of mankind. It’s that monumental. But we know they came from Polynesia because of how similar they are culturally and linguistically, sharing many of the same words in their respective languages. That doesn’t happen by chance. 

 

The Polynesians were master navigators of the sea and they are not in like massive sailing ships or anything substantial. They crossed this distance, 2,000 miles, in double hulled canoes called va’a. And it’s not like they had compasses and maps either. They used the stars, observations of migratory birds, ocean currents, rainbows, and whales to navigate and find land. Rainbows and whales you guys. According to the National Park Service, they brought with them pigs, dogs, chickens, taro root, and sweet potatoes, as well as other edible and medicinal plants. And I want to pause on the sweet potatoes for a second because I mentioned this briefly in episode 4 about Vikings reaching the Americas way before Columbus. The Polynesians clearly did too. Sweet potatoes are indigenous to the Americas. They come from Central and South America. They don’t appear in Polynesia until around the year 1,000 leading scientists to conclude that the Polynesian people traveled to the west coast of South America some time before that and brought sweet potatoes back with them. So not only are these guys navigating their canoes 2,000 miles to get to Hawaii, they’re making round trips to South America even before that. You guys, South America is 4,200 miles away from these islands. In canoes. It is wild. And it’s not just the sweet potatoes that proves it. In 2020, DNA was tested from 807 people. Samples came from 14 Polynesian islands and also Central and South America and ding ding ding you are the father to quote Jerry Springer. According to a Reuters article by Will Dunham quote “People from four island sites in French Polynesia - Mangareva and the Pallisers in the Tuamotu archipelago and Fatu Hiva and Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands - bore DNA indicative of interbreeding with South Americans most closely related to present-day indigenous Colombians at around 1200 AD.” end quote. So like, Christopher Columbus who? Why are we even still halfway entertaining these eurocentric misconceptions? It’s time to let go. And I just want to point out, the Polynesian explorers did not feel compelled to try to conquer every single thing on Earth. They got to South America and they were like “oh, woops, sorry guys. Didn’t realize there were already people here. We’ll just take some sweet potatoes and be on our way.” Columbus got to the Caribbean, realized there were already people there and was like “great, this is perfect. We’ll take their land, force our religion on them, demonize them as cannibals, and enslave them to benefit our own financial gain. This is perfect.” Cause sometimes people come at me with the argument “well someone has to be the conqueror someone has to be the dominant group, the victors. That’s how it is in the animal kingdom. Someone has to come out on top.” Do they? Or maybe they could just pack up some sweet potatoes and head on home?

 

Anyway, the Polynesians are traveling all over the Pacific, making pit stops in South America, setting up camp in Hawaii because it was, you know, uninhabited, and they’re back and forth for a while just zipping around following rainbows and whales. Eventually, the back and forth travel stops and contact with other islands ends. Hawaii is now its own separate thing. They’re not in contact with Polynesia anymore. And throughout the next 500 years a unique Hawaiian language, culture, and way of life develops. Hawaii had a pretty strict social hierarchy. The upper ruling class, the nobility, were called Ali’i, these were the chiefs. Below that were the kahuna who were professionals, experts on things like medicine, canoe building, and spiritual rituals. Then there were the maka ‘ainana who were like farmers, fisherman, builders, that sort of thing. Right so we’ve got like leaders, the ali’i, white collar dudes, kahunas, blue collar dudes maka ‘ainana, and then the lowest rung was the kauwa. These were essentially prisoners. They were people who broke the law. Because Hawaiians were pretty strict with their laws which were called kanawai. In Hawaiian society, there were certain things that were forbidden or kapu. It’s basically a code of conduct. For example, it was kapu for men and women to eat together. Also women could not eat pork, coconuts, or bananas which like come on. Those are some of the tastiest things. But it was forbidden. They also had strict regulations on the use of environmental resources like restricting how many fish you could catch and what types of fish you could catch which this is still a thing today, it makes sense. They restricted the amount and types of seeds that could be planted and also the harvesting of crops, what could be harvested and how much you could actually take. And I think a lot of these come from the way Hawaiians viewed Earth as something that they needed to take care of and respect. They didn’t exploit the Earth for its natural resources. They took only what they needed and they fiercely protected the rest. We could stand to take a few pages out of this book. Just saying. Not the women not eating bananas thing but the protection of the natural resources. Kapu was serious. If you broke kapu you could be sentenced to death, depending on the severity of the crime, or you could be downgraded to a kauwa which remember are the lowest rung of the social hierarchy, the prisoners. 

 

According to the National Parks Service quote “daily life for a villager was varied and consisted of tasks to ensure the survival of the community. Villagers engaged in fishing, collecting seaweed, salt, and shellfish at the shoreline while raising dogs, chickens, and pigs in their farm plots. Men and women each had separate daily tasks as well. Men pounded kalo into poi, while women beat the bark of the wauke (paper mulberry) into kapa (bark cloth.) The villagers also worshipped akua (gods) and told moʻolelo (stories) of their history through mele (song,) oli (chant,) and hula (dance.) Through the generations, these traditions were passed down. The rhythms of daily life were interrupted when the period of contact with the outside world began after the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.” end quote. Wah wah wah. Of course this paradise could not fly under the radar forever. Although I will say, 1778 is pretty late, they had a good run. 

 

So who’s this Captain Cook fella? He was an English explorer and navigator best known for exploring the areas around Australia and New Zealand. He also traveled to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus, circumnavigated the Earth, explored the Antarctic region of the South Pacific, and was responsible for the first European contact with Hawaii which honestly marks the beginning of the end for the Hawaiian way of life. When Cook gets to Hawaii, he names them the Sandwich Islands. Yes there are already people there, no he does not bother to call it what they already named it hundreds of years ago. He calls it the sandwich islands after John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich! What are the chances? I just talked about this dude last week! The guy with such a bad gambling problem that he literally could not pause to eat a meal and so invented sandwiches in order to continue squandering all of his money. Cook calls them the sandwich islands, which is the dumbest name ever, because Montague was a patron of the expedition. He gave them some of his gambling money or whatever and he was the Earl of Sandwich so there you go. So glad that name didn’t stick. 

 

Cook’s men are received well by the Hawaiians. It reminds me a lot of how the initial Roanoke colonists were received before Ralph Lane screwed everything up. Same scenario. They get there and the native people are pretty intrigued by them. They have these huge ships and metal and gunpowder and the Hawaiians are fascinated by this new technology it has almost a religious, spiritual significance and they welcome the English as possible allies. According to a History.com article quote “Cook provisioned his ships by trading metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex,” end quote. And yes I did a double take at that too. For real? Don’t eat the bananas but prostitution is a go? That was apparently not kapu. 

 

They leave after a nice little island get away. They’re trying to find a passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Good luck with that. They obviously give up because the Northwest Passage isn’t discovered for another 70 some odd years and they find themselves back in Hawaii about a year after their first voyage there. They’re like “we brought more iron nails.” They are once again received well and really honored by the Hawaiians. History.com says quote “welcomed as gods,” which I am hesitant to believe. This was a common theme among the reports of European explorers. They loved talking about how the indigenous people mistook them for gods. And I don’t know how true this ever was. It seems like they’re just a little full of themselves and it also seems like a way to make the indigenous people look stupid. And of course we don’t have the other perspective, that of the indigenous people themselves. We don’t have their accounts so who’s to say what they were actually thinking when they met Europeans for the first time. It’s not inconceivable that they were just being hospitable and welcoming and polite because they’re decent people and not because they mistook Europeans for gods. I don’t like the “they thought we were gods” claim. I’m gonna need some proof of that sir. 

 

But anyway, second voyage, they are welcomed back with open arms. However, this welcome, this hospitality does not last long. This time, they come bearing infectious diseases that the Hawaiians have no natural immunities to. They are getting worked by these diseases and it starts to sour the way they view the English. Same thing we saw on Roanoke. Disease ushered in a turning point for peaceful relations. Cook and his men must have sensed this because they tried to leave. They were like “sorry we got everyone sick, we’ll just be going then” and they sailed off. But rough seas damaged their ship and they’re forced to return to Hawaii. When they arrive this time, the Hawaiians start throwing rocks at them. Quite a different reception from what they’re used to. They also steal one of their smaller cutter ships. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu go nowhere and violence breaks out after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death. Same story all over again. Captain James Cook actually gets killed during the violence that followed and the skeleton crew that makes it back to the ships returns to England. 

 

So that was their first experience with Europeans. When Kalaniopuu dies, his nephew Kamehameha takes over and he unites all of the islands under his rule. Before this there were various chieftains on the different islands. Kamehameha becomes the first supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii, they’ve leveled up. Kamehameha died in 1819 and his son Kamehameha II took the throne. The very next year, 1820, a group of Christian missionaries arrived from the United States. This group was called the Pioneer Company of American Protestant Missionaries and, according to the Historic Hawaii Foundation, they were actually prompted to travel to Hawaii after a Hawaiian named Henry Ōpukaha‘ia made his way to New England and converted to Christianity. He was like, this is great, you guys gotta go to Hawaii and teach my people this stuff. And they were like okay, rubbing their palms together. And, poor Henry, probably had the best of intentions in sicking them on Hawaii that way. Unfortunately the missionaries would do so much more than convert the Hawaiians to Christianity. 

 

But that is how it started. The missionaries arrive, they’re building churches, they’re building schools. They’re doing a lot of great things. Kamehameha II becomes a Christian and abolishes the Kapu, that strict code of conduct that guided the Hawaiian way of life. He also had many traditional religious sites destroyed. Part of converting the Hawaiians to Christianity, unfortunately, is doing away with a lot of their cultural customs. The missionaries start preaching against traditional Hawaiian customs and beliefs. This is nothing new. We’ve seen this in every hostile take over in the name of God. Where people try to act like they’re saving people’s souls but really they’re erasing them so they can take what was theirs. They are high and mighty but their true motives are thinly veiled. 

 

One somewhat helpful major change that came along with this though was literacy. Hawaii did not have a written language before this. Everything was passed down orally. They were all about storytelling and singing to pass on their history. They didn’t read and write. That was introduced by the missionaries and embraced by Kamehameha II who helped develop an alphabet to record the Hawaiian language. But then, in 1824, Kamehameha II and his wife traveled to England to meet King George IV in order to strengthen Hawaii’s international relations and try to get it officially recognized as a nation. Unfortunately he and his wife both contracted measles during their time in England and died there. 

 

His brother became the next leader of Hawaii taking the name Kamehameha III and he took the literacy thing very seriously, launching a nationwide literacy campaign that would change the 0% literacy rate of 1820 into a 95% literacy rate just 14 years later. That is incredibly impressive. He also continued working to secure Hawaii’s place as an independent nation, work that was continued by his successors Kamehameha the IV and V over the next 50 years. 

 

After Kamehameha V died in 1874, a new king named King Kalakaua was voted into power. I suppose there was no direct heir in the line of succession but Kalakaua was closely related to the Kamehameha line. Kalakaua was a true world leader. He was the first foreign leader ever to be welcomed at the White House for a State Dinner in December 1874. He was also the first head of state to circumnavigate the Earth in 1881. Dude sailed around the world. He did this to strengthen ties with other countries but also to learn about new technology and innovation that could be brought back to Hawaii. After attending the International Exposition of Electricity in Paris and meeting Thomas Edison in New York, he had electric light bulbs installed at ‘Iolani Palace in 1886, more than five years before the White House. By 1890, around 800 residences in Hawaii had electricity which is well ahead of other nations. 

 

So Kalakaua was really an aspiring world leader bringing Hawaii into the modern age, but at the same time, he also tried to bring back its cultural roots and customs that had been somewhat stamped out by the missionaries. He brought back hula dancing, traditional music, traditional healing, and storytelling. But this of course rubbed the missionaries the wrong way. Cause they’re still there. They didn’t just successfully convert the Hawaiians to Christianity and head back home. Oh no. Because it was never just about that. The missionaries have been there this whole time. They’ve started businesses and set up plantations. They’ve been rubbing shoulders with the ali’i the nobility who in turn appoint them to government positions. Their power has been growing this whole time. And they actually help secure Hawaii’s status as a sovereign nation with a constitutional monarchy. That worked in their favor at the time. But, but that all starts to change as a new business opportunity emerges. Which like, oh you thought this was about God? No, this is about money. They want to start exporting sugar to the United States. Here we go with the freaking sugar again. But they don’t want to have to pay tarifs to import it into a foreign country. So they start to think, ya know, I know we sort of helped Hawaii become a sovereign nation and all but what if it were actually part of the United States instead? We could sell our sugar there without all of these pesky importation taxes. They form a political party called the missionary party and begin plotting to have Hawaii annexed into the United States. 

 

In 1887, at the peak of King Kalakaua’s popularity, the missionary party strikes. They call a meeting with the King. They’re like “yeah, we just want to chat.” But when he arrives he is met with an all white militia. Faced with violence, he is forced to sign new legislation that will become known as the Bayonet Constitution because it was signed at literal gunpoint. These new laws stripped native Hawaiians of many of their rights. It made it so that people couldn’t vote unless they owned land. Well two thirds of native Hawaiian’s did not own land. So there goes the majority of their voices in government. It also took power away from the monarchy and gave it to this group of white missionaries turned businessmen. 

 

King Kalakua died 4 years after signing the bayonet constitution and his sister Lili‘uokalani became Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In her words, Kalakua died quote “heartbroken by the base ingratitude of the very persons whose fortunes he had made,” end quote. But he is remembered for issuing in a sort of Hawaiian Renaissance, bringing back Hawaiian culture after it was suppressed by the missionaries back in 1820. So Lili’uokalani is in power. She’s like screw this bayonet constitution. This is garbage. She’s determined to give the power back to the Hawaiian people despite death threats and whispers of insurgency. She ain’t scared. She writes up a new constitution, but before she has a chance to enact it, the missionaries hatch a new plan. They form a new group called the Committee of Safety and they start claiming that the new constitution endangers American lives and property. I really don’t know how. Hawaii is not part of America, this isn’t even about them. But that’s what they’re going with. They’re like “if actual Hawaiians can vote about Hawaiian stuff that’s not good for us. That’s not safe.” And they use this as justification to stage a coup. 

 

In January of 1893 over 160 US marines march to the palace with this committee of safety led by Sanford B. Dole and forcibly remove Queen Lili’uokalani from power. They set up a provisional government which made it so that Hawaiians could not vote or be government employees without signing an oath of allegiance to this new Hawaiian Republic which many refused to do. Some of the queen’s supporters attempted a counter revolution to reclaim the government that was unsuccessful. Hundreds were thrown in jail and 6 were sentenced to death. In order to release those that had been imprisoned, Queen Lili’uokalani was forced to sign a document relinquishing her throne and then was imprisoned in her palace on basically house arrest. She wrote quote ““I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this Kingdom. That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said provisional government. Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.” end quote. 

 

So these missionaries overthrew the Hawaiian government with force and put their own government in place which Hawaiians were not allowed to be part of. And you may be thinking, okay 160 US marines marched on the palace so this was all sanctioned by the US government. No. It wasn’t. These actions were never approved by congress or the President or anybody. They had gone rogue. And Lili’uokalani clearly thought that, once the US realized what had been done, they would reverse the actions and put her back in power. And they do at least launch an investigation into it. US president Grover Cleveland appoints Special Commissioner James Blount to carry out the investigation. He goes to Hawaii and starts gathering intel and this is ultimately his report which he presents to the president upon his return, quote “the Provisional Government was established by the action of the American minister and the presence of the troops landed from the Boston, and its continued existence is due to the belief of the Hawaiians that if they made an effort to overthrow it, they would encounter the armed forces of the United States. The Government of Hawaii surrendered its authority under a threat of war, until such time only as the Government of the United States, upon the facts being presented to it, should reinstate the constitutional sovereign, and the Provisional Government was created ‘to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon. Should not the great wrong done to a feeble but independent State by an abuse of the authority of the United States be undone by restoring the legitimate government? Anything short of that will not, I respectfully submit, satisfy the demands of justice,” end quote. 

 

President Cleveland is like okay, yeah this was gross misconduct and a complete abuse of power. He addresses Congress saying quote “on the 16th day of January, 1893, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, a detachment of marines from the United States steamer Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men, upwards of 160 in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts filled with ammunition and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. [This] military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of the Queen, which at that time was undisputed and was both the de facto and the de jure government. In point of fact the existing government instead of requesting the presence of an armed force protested against it. A candid and thorough examination of the facts will force the conviction that the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States,” he concluded that this was a quote “act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress,” end quote.

 

Meanwhile, this Sanford Dole guy submits a treaty of annexation to the US Senate, trying to make Hawaii part of the US to benefit his own business ventures, cause that’s what it was always really about, and they’re like um no way after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did not want to be annexed into the United States. Cleveland sends a new minister to Hawaii to put Lili’uokalani back on the throne but Dole refuses to step aside and Cleveland doesn’t want to overthrow him by force. So they’re just kind of stuck. Like, he knows it’s wrong but he’s too big of a wuss to do anything about it. Then William McKinley becomes president and the Spanish American war breaks out. Now this is a wrench in the spokes because of Pearl Harbor, a very important US naval base in Hawaii which they needed during this war. So the position of the US government shifts from Grover Cleveland’s proclamation that Hawaii was taken in an unauthorized act of war to McKinley being like “oh but Pearl Harbor, we kind of need it.” And this pushes Congress to approve official annexation despite it all. Hawaii became a territory of the United States in 1900 with freaking Dole as its first governor and it was eventually made a state in 1959. 

 

But here’s the catch, annexation into the United States was a violation of international law. I know there’s the saying “all is fair in war and love,” but it’s not exactly true is it? There are laws governing how wars work, laws of war and laws of neutrality. These laws state that if a country is attacked, invaded in an act of war, which Grover Cleveland clearly concluded that this was, any occupation of that country by an enemy force is illegal. It is an illegal occupation until a peace treaty is signed. After a peace treaty is signed, maybe power is restored to the original country, maybe it’s transferred legally to the conquerors. But there has to be a peace treaty. If there’s no peace treaty, it’s still an illegal occupation. You can’t annex illegally occupied land into your country. According to James Crawford, Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge and author of the book “The Creation of States in International Law,” quote “belligerent occupation does not not affect the continuity of the State, even where there exists no government claiming to represent the occupied State,” end quote. Translation, even though the US illegally occupied Hawaii and forced its queen to abdicate, Hawaii was still its own independent country, continuity of state. There was never a peace treaty reassigning control to the United States. Which means that annexation as a territory and then a state was illegal and honestly what it really means is that Hawaii is still legally its own country. 

 

Queen Lili’uokalani spent the rest of her life petitioning the US government for the restoration of her country and the return of rights to the Hawaiian people. She died in 1917 and to this day, her petitions have been ignored. And if you dig into this you may say “well, Shea, hold on a minute. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, the people had been practically begging the US for it for years. 93% of Hawaiian voters voted for statehood.” And while yes, that may be true you have to remember that the missionary party that overthrew the government took away the voting rights of many native Hawaiians. Allow me to skew that 93% statistic for you a little bit. Out of 600,000 people living on the Hawaiian islands when that vote was cast, only 155,000 of them were registered voters. To put that into perspective, roughly half of the US population right now is registered to vote. Only 25% of Hawaiians were registered to vote. So 93% of 25% voted to become a state. 

 

Even if it was an accurate representation of what the population wanted, there’s a good chance many of them simply just did not know that they were being illegally occupied by the United States and were technically still their own country. And that was very intentional. Missionary Samuel Damon who assisted in the coup that illegally overthrew the Hawaiian government said quote “if we are ever to have peace and annexation the first thing to do is obliterate the past,” end quote. This is what oppressors do. They obliterate the past. Because if we don’t know about it, we can’t do anything about it. Hawaii is not the 50th state of the United States of America, despite what we may tell ourselves. It is an independent sovereign nation, the Kingdom of Hawaii under illegal US occupation for 131 years and counting. And the only reason more people don’t know that, the only reason there isn’t absolute outrage over that, people demanding that Hawaii be given back to Hawaiians, is because the insurgents admittedly tried to obliterate that history and it worked. We simply cannot let that happen.  

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from PBS, Hawaiian Airlines, NEA Today, History.com, Ted Ed, hawaii-nation.org, the National Parks Service, Reuters, and the Historic Hawaii Foundation. Links to these sources can be found in the show notes.