{"id":293870,"date":"2025-04-21T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T11:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=293870"},"modified":"2025-04-20T13:29:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T12:29:33","slug":"the-hawaii-land-grab-and-trumps-thirst-for-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/04\/the-hawaii-land-grab-and-trumps-thirst-for-greenland\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hawai\u2019i Land Grab \u2014 And Trump’s Thirst for Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hawaii – Photo by KOJI FUTAMI on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

How Hawaii’s queen was dethroned by a group of white US businessmen eager to avoid tariffs on their sugar exports.\u00a0<\/em>In 1887, the heir to Hawaii\u2019s throne attended a fellow royal\u2019s grand party: the jubilee celebration marking Queen Victoria\u2019s 50th<\/sup> anniversary as sovereign of the United Kingdom.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During her stay in London, the Hawaiian princess, Liliuokalani, marveled at the dazzling jewelry sported by guests at one reception. \u201cThere were duchesses with shining tiaras, noble ladies with costly necklaces or emerald ear-drops, little women who seemed almost bowed down under lofty circlets of diamonds over their brows, tall women bearing proudly off their adornment of stones of priceless values,\u201d she would later write. \u201cI have never seen such a grand display of valuable gems in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while she was witnessing the pomp of the world\u2019s greatest empire firsthand, an imperial power grab was happening back home. As soon as Liliuokalani and the rest of the Hawaiian delegation heard about it, they cancelled plans for a tour of Europe and rushed back.<\/p>\n

The princess\u2019s brother, King Kalakaua, had been forced to effectively surrender power to a group of mostly American businessmen who imposed what became known as the \u201cBayonet Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout any provocation on the part of the king,\u201d the princess wrote in her memoir, \u201chaving matured their plans in secret, the men of foreign birth rose one day en masse, called a public meeting, and forced the king, without any appeal to the suffrages of the people, to sign a constitution of their own preparation, a document which deprived the sovereign of all power, made him a mere tool in their hands, and practically took away the franchise from the Hawaiian race. This constitution was never in any way ratified, either by the people, or by their representatives, even after violence had procured the king\u2019s signature to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the beginning of a tumultuous decade of events resulting in the death of Hawaii\u2019s monarchy and the annexation of the islands by the U.S.<\/p>\n

Hawaii\u2019s history might be read as a cautionary tale for the leaders of Denmark, who have attempted to rebuff threats by President Donald Trump to take over Greenland.<\/p>\n

As the Financial Times reported last week:<\/p>\n

The US president spoke to Mette Frederiksen, the Danish premier, for 45 minutes last week. The White House has not commented on the call but Frederiksen said she had emphasised that the vast Arctic island \u2014 an autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark \u2014 was not for sale, while noting America\u2019s \u201cbig interest\u201d in it.<\/p>\n

Five current and former senior European officials briefed on the call said the conversation had gone very badly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A U.S. government willing to use all the tools at its disposal and unashamed to break diplomatic norms is a formidable foe.<\/p>\n

In Hawaii\u2019s case, the annexation push originated with Americans and descendants of U.S. missionaries who dominated business on the islands, but its fate ultimately rested with the politicians in Washington. Congress voted to annex Hawaii in 1898, and it was a U.S. territory for 61 years. In 1959, Hawaii and Alaska became states.<\/p>\n

There are major differences between Hawaii\u2019s experience and the Trumpian call to acquire Greenland. Not least is that the Hawaii annexation came after decades of social change that weakened the native leaders and empowered the white entrepreneurs who seized control. Trump mused about acquiring Greenland during his first term but he expressed his more pronounced interest only suddenly in the past few weeks. But in both cases, U.S. military and economy power is a key factor.<\/p>\n

Liliuokalani<\/h1>\n
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Lili’uokalani, the latest Monarch of Hawaii, was deposed by US marines on 17 Jan 1893 and died on 11 Nov 1917 under ‘house arrest’ at the Royal Iolani Palace in Honolulu. She was 79 years old.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Born to an influential family as Lydia Kamakaeha, the princess took the name Liliuokalani. Her 1898 memoir<\/a>, Hawaii\u2019s Story by Hawaii\u2019s Queen<\/em> reveals a woman of intellect, courage and taste.<\/p>\n

Liliuokalani writes evocatively of seeing<\/a> the 1880-1881 eruption of Mauna Loa. She describes her passion for composing music \u2014 she wrote an anthem for Hawaii, among many other compositions. \u201cTo compose was as natural to me as to breathe,\u201d she wrote. She married John O. Dominis, who was the son of a sea captain and became an important figure in Hawaii\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

The first Hawaiian king, Kamehameha I, had amassed a strong force of islanders who conquered local chieftains, establishing a monarchy in 1795. But Hawaii\u2019s military resources dwindled in the 18th<\/sup> century, and the islanders realized they were no match for the navies of powers such as Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n

Banning the hula<\/h1>\n

In the 1820s, Protestant missionaries from the United States began persuading many in the native-born population to adopt Christianity; Liliuokalani was herself a Christian. The missionaries objected to traditions such as the hula \u2014 \u201cthe meaning-rich, hip-swinging dance which the prim New Englanders saw as lewd,\u201d as Stephen Dando-Collins wrote in his book<\/a>, Taking Hawaii.<\/em><\/p>\n

More significantly, the missionaries and their descendants would transform Hawaii\u2019s economic system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of personal land ownership was alien to the Hawaiian people,\u201d Dando-Collins noted. \u201cConsequently, the idea of allocating control of land by means of a piece of paper, and of buying and selling land, was laughable to them. This encouraged the missionaries in the islands to pressure King Kamehameha III into looking at ways of dividing up the land in western style\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The result was \u201ca four-member commission to which all chiefs were required to submit their land claims.\u201d The accepted claims were entered into a ledger called the Mahele Book.<\/p>\n

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King David Kalakaua, the brother of Queen Liliuokalani. She became queen upon his death in 1891. (Hawaii State Archives)<\/p><\/div>\n

Dando-Collins noted that Hawaii\u2019s chief justice, a recent arrival from New York, \u201cwas himself granted title to 2500 acres of prime agricultural land, much of which he soon planted with sugar cane. The American missionaries of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches claimed many thousands of rural acres during this Great Mahele, as the land grab became known.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sugar power<\/h1>\n

The route was now set for outsiders and their children to build huge fortunes as sugar cane growers and merchants, and with that commercial success came the seeds of political power.<\/p>\n

An 1875 free-trade treaty negotiated by the king with the American government \u201cgave Hawaiian sugar growers unrestricted access to the American market, and as a result sponsored a massive expansion of the sugar industry in the islands. The amount of Hawaiian land sown to sugar cane increased tenfold over the next decade, and sugar mills, including the largest, most modern steam-powered sugar mill in the world, soon sprang up on the islands,\u201d wrote Dando-Collins.<\/p>\n

Hawaii grew completely dependent on the U.S. as its market for sugar exports. But the passage of the McKinley tariff in 1890 ended Hawaii\u2019s exclusive trade reciprocity with the U.S., incentivizing the sugar growers to press even harder for annexation.<\/p>\n

Liliuokalani, who had become queen on the death of her brother in 1891, wanted to replace the Bayonet Constitution with one more favorable to Hawaiian natives. \u2018Not surprisingly, the planter elite perceived the Queen as a threat to their political and economic ascendancy,\u2019 wrote<\/a> historian Bonnie M. Miller. \u201cThey decided she had to be deposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller added:<\/p>\n

In January 1893, a group of these elite businessmen in Hawaii, most of whom were Americans, overthrew Queen Liliuokalani\u2019s regime with the support of the U.S. government. The U.S. minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, landed an American warship, the U.S.S. Boston<\/em>, along the shore at the time of the coup. Fearing an invasion, the Queen abdicated her throne, and Sanford B. Dole, the son of Protestant missionaries in Hawaii, set up a provisional government. Dole assumed the presidency of the new republic of Hawaii and made an immediate appeal to U.S. President Benjamin Harrison for annexation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was February 1893, toward the latter part of Harrison\u2019s term, when the annexation treaty came before the Senate, but it did not come up for a vote. Grover Cleveland, Harrison\u2019s successor, soon took office. Believing that Queen Liliuokalani had been unjustly deposed, President Cleveland withdrew the treaty from Senate consideration. So far, political conditions were not yet favorable for Hawaiian annexation to pass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, in 1898, with the start of the Spanish-American war, annexation supporters could claim a military rationale for U.S. control of a strategically situated group of Pacific islands, and Congress voted in favor of taking over Hawaii.<\/p>\n

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Hawaiian flag flies above the Iolani Palace before the annexation ceremony in 1898.\u00a0 (Hawaii State Archives)<\/p><\/div>\n

Greenland is also being viewed as a strategic prize, at least in Trump\u2019s eyes. In an era of heightened major-power competition in the Arctic, the world\u2019s largest island is well situated to exert military influence. And again, tariffs are an issue.<\/p>\n

Trump has threatened to impose heavy duties on imports to pressure Denmark to yield up Greenland. \u201cPeople really don\u2019t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security,\u201d Trump said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last word<\/h1>\n
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\u201cIs the American Republic of States to degenerate, and become a colonizer and a land-grabber?\u201d \u2014 Queen Liliuokalani<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

In the concluding pages of Hawaii\u2019s Story by Hawaii\u2019s Queen<\/em>, Liliuokalani eloquently and forlornly makes the case for her nation\u2019s autonomy. Maybe there is a “Right of Conquest, under which robbers and marauders may establish themselves in possession of whatsoever they are strong enough to ravish from their fellows. I will not pretend to decide how far civilization and Christian enlightenment have outlawed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, she asks, \u201cIs the American Republic of States to degenerate, and become a colonizer and a land-grabber?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd is this prospect satisfactory to a people who rely upon self-government for their liberties \u2026 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

For <\/em>Now It\u2019s History\u2019s look at how President Donald Trump is trying to turn back the clock on tariffs and trade, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Nuuk, Greenland (Photo by Quintin Soloviev)<\/p><\/div>\n

Go to Original – nowitshistory.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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