“Property is theft” - Proudhon
“So is theft” - Anonymous
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In 1890, it would have taken a few weeks to get from the capital of the United States to the Kingdom of Hawaii. Now it takes ten hours, or twenty, to get to our 50th state/colony. A little more than a hundred years ago, military men, businessmen, missionary-men, and politician-men made this trip to tend to their colonial interests in the sovereign Kingdom, a centuries-old civilization recently “discovered” (~1777 A.D.) by Captain Cook (dispatched by the Hawaiians when they learned he wasn’t a deity) and “unified” shortly after “discovery” by Kamehameha the Great, a Big Island Hawaiian, who “organized” the islands into a “constitutional monarchy.”
A central Unitedstatesian interest in these far-off tropical islands were the sugar plantations, whose cultivation, the missionary-capitalists made sure to point out, benefitted native Hawaiians too. Over the 19th century, Hawaiian rulers were coerced into granting larger and larger footholds (“treaties”) to foreign economic, military, and religious projects until, eventually, six white Hawaiian subjects overthrew Queen Liliuokalani (1893), armed forces arrested, convicted (conspiracy), and imprisoned her without process (1895), and the United States unilaterally and lawfully annexed the islands (1897). Queen Liliuokalani’s autobiography, Hawaii’s Story, narrates these events, all still very present. She made the reverse trip to Washington DC several times, first as Queen, later as subject and convict, always as a representative of her people.
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Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen (1898)
Queen Liliuokalani on Pearl Harbor’s “pre-history”:
The policy of [Kamehameha’s] new [white, Christian] cabinet was distinctively American… seeking to render the Islands a mere dependency… the entering wedge was the concession of a harbor of refuge or repair at Pearl River… vehemently opposed by those of native birth… love of the very soil on which our ancestors have lived and died, forbade us to view with equanimity the sight of any foreign flag… floating as a matter of right over any part of the land… the Pearl Harbor scheme of 1873 was… openly advocated as a preliminary to the obliteration of the native government by the annexation of the whole group to the United States.
… on the death penalty and Rule of Law:
While Mr. H.A.P. Carter was Minister of the Interior, he notified me one day that there was a death-warrant awaiting my signature. This was the first time it had been forcibly brought to my notice that the executive held the power of life and death, and it seemed to me a most terrible thing that I should be obliged to sign an order which would deprive one of my fellow-mortals of life. I simply could not do it… Finally Minister Carter again pressed… reminding me… considered and judged… justice delayed… sentenced unexecuted, and that it was absolutely my duty to sign the warrant, which I finally did, but with the greatest reluctance.
… on Her Majesty Queen Victoria:
She had been represented to me as short, stout, and fat, and not at all graceful in appearance; but I did not at all agree… I would not call her handsome; yet she had a kind, winning expression on her face which gave evidence of the gentle spirit within.
… on:
The mercantile element, as embodied in the Chamber of Commerce, the sugar planters, and the proprietors of the “missionary” stores, formed a distinct political party, called the “down-town” party, whose purpose was to minimize or entirely subvert other interests, and especially the prerogatives of the crown, which, based upon ancient custom and the authority of the island chiefs, were the sole guaranty of our nationality. Although settled among us, and drawing their wealth from our resources, they were alien to us in their customs and ideas respecting government, and desired above all the extension of their power… It may be true that they really believed us unfit… to administer the growing wealth… But if we manifested any incompetency, it was in not foreseeing that they would be bound by no obligations, no honor, or by oath of allegiance, should an opportunity arise for seizing our country, and bringing it under the authority of the United States.
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5/1887, on the press:
The government of the Sandwich Islands appears to have passed from the hands of the king into the hands of a military oligarchy that is more domineering that Kalakaua ever was. Before the recent revolt of the Europeans in Honolulu the press of the city was very plain-spoken…. Now, under the new regime, the newspapers are kept in check with military thoroughness.
… the Queen on the yellow wallpaper:
For three months prior [to a 1895 failed revolt] my physician, Dr. Donald McLelan… as I was suffering very severely from nervous prostration, prescribed electricity. For two years I had borne the long agony of suspense, a terrible strain, which at last made great inroads on my strength.
… on Constitutional Due Process:
On the very day I [was arrested], Mr. A. F. Judd [chief justice of Sup. Ct. of Hawaii] had gone to my private residence without search warrant; and that all the papers in my desk, or in my safe, my diaries, the petitions I had received…—all things of that nature which could be found were swept into a bag, and carried off by the chief justice in person… To this day the only document returned… is my will.
… on her trial:
The accusation was changed to “misprision [concealment] of treason.” The substance… I knew my people were conspiring… to throw off the yoke of the stranger and oppressor… I had never recognized except as unlawful usurpers of authority… The trial proceeded… Only charge against me really was that of being a queen. I remember with clearness… the words that issued from [the Judge Advocate’s] mouth about “the prisoner,” “that woman,” etc., uttered with such affectation of contempt and disgust. The object… to humiliate… make me break down in the presence of the staring crowd. But in this they were disappointed. My equanimity was never disturbed; and their own report relates that I preserved “that haughty carriage” which marked me as an “unusual woman.”
Part of the Queen’s testimony at trial:
In your actions you violate your own constitution and laws, which are now the constitution and laws of the land.
… on peoples and places being different:
The habits and prejudices of New England Puritanism were not well adapted to the genius of a tropical people, nor capable of being thoroughly ingrafted upon them. // The climate of Boston, they said, was one of great severity; especially was this true in its effect upon strangers, and they warned me to prepare myself most carefully against the dangers of a winter there.
Huh:
There is little question but that the United States could become a successful rival of the European nations in the race for conquest, and could create a vast military and naval power, if such is its ambition. But is such an ambition laudable? Is such a departure from its established principles patriotic or politic?…
Oh, honest Americans, as Christians hear me for my down-trodden people! Quite as warmly as you love your country, so they love theirs. With all your goodly possessions… do not covet the little vineyard of Naboth’s so far from your shores, lest the punishment of Ahab fall upon you, if not in your day, in that of your children, for “be not deceived, God is not mocked.” The people to whom your fathers told of the living God, and taught to call “Father,” and whom the sons now seek to despoil and destroy, are crying aloud… As [the American people] deal with me and my people… so may the Great Ruler of all nations deal with the grand and glorious nation of the United States of America.
The first sentences of the 1897 Treaty of Annexation (never ratified by the United States Congress):
The United States and the Republic of Hawaii, in view of the natural dependence of the Hawaiian Islands upon the United States, of their geographical proximity thereto, of the preponderant share acquired by the United States and its citizens in the industries and trade of said islands and of the expressed desire of the government of the Republic of Hawaii that those islands should be incorporated into the United States as an integral part thereof and under its sovereignty, have determined to accomplish by treaty an object so important to their mutual and permanent welfare... The Republic of Hawaii hereby cedes absolutely and without reserve to the United States of America all rights of sovereignty of whatsoever kind in and over the Hawaiian Islands and their dependencies; and it is agreed that all territory of and appertaining to the Republic of Hawaii is hereby annexed to the United States of America under the name of the Territory of Hawaii.