1
00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:03,880
Speaker 1: Welcome to this Day in History Class from how Stuff

2
00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:06,080
Speaker 1: Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff you

3
00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:08,560
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

4
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:10,720
Speaker 1: the past one day at a time with a quick

5
00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:17,880
Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome

6
00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:21,400
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's January seventeen.

7
00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:25,840
Speaker 1: Lilio Kolani, the last Queen of Hawaii, was overthrown on

8
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:30,520
Speaker 1: this day in eighteen nine three. Hawaii, as one unified

9
00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:34,640
Speaker 1: kingdom of islands was relatively new at this point. Commandma

10
00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:37,760
Speaker 1: the First had founded the Kingdom of Hawaii in eighteen

11
00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:43,920
Speaker 1: ten after consolidating the islands into one kingdom. Liliuokalani became

12
00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:46,840
Speaker 1: the queen eighty one years after that and was Hawaii's

13
00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:50,440
Speaker 1: only reigning queen. Her brother had been monarch during a

14
00:00:50,479 --> 00:00:54,080
Speaker 1: time when the United States was aggressively trying to establish

15
00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:57,360
Speaker 1: business interests in Hawaii, and in eighteen seventy five he

16
00:00:57,400 --> 00:01:00,360
Speaker 1: had signed a reciprocity treaty that allowed the s to

17
00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:03,560
Speaker 1: establish a naval base at Pearl Harbor and allowed the

18
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,080
Speaker 1: free trade of sugar between the US and Hawaii. That

19
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 1: agreement was renewed two years later. Even though American influence

20
00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:14,199
Speaker 1: on Hawaii had been really increasing, he had been trying

21
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 1: to bolster the monarchy and to revive some Hawaiian traditions

22
00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:22,040
Speaker 1: that threatened the white businessman and the lawyers who were

23
00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:26,640
Speaker 1: trying to establish a more American foothold on island. So

24
00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:32,800
Speaker 1: these white businessmen and lawyers wrote a new constitution for Hawaii,

25
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:36,920
Speaker 1: and they brought an armed militia called the Honolulu League

26
00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:40,200
Speaker 1: to force the king to sign it at gunpoint. This

27
00:01:40,440 --> 00:01:46,000
Speaker 1: was understandably nicknamed the Bayonet Constitution. This constitution reduced the

28
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:49,440
Speaker 1: power of the Hawaiian monarchy and it disenfranchised a lot

29
00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:53,240
Speaker 1: of Hawaiians by requiring property ownership in order to vote.

30
00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: It also allowed Americans to vote because it got rid

31
00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:01,200
Speaker 1: of the citizenship requirement for that the the Okolani took

32
00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:04,960
Speaker 1: the throne after her brother's death in eight and she

33
00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:07,840
Speaker 1: started out a lot more loyal to the people of

34
00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,920
Speaker 1: Hawaii than to the US business interests that had become

35
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:13,640
Speaker 1: so prominent. She started trying to find a way to

36
00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:16,840
Speaker 1: overturn the band at constitution, and then at about the

37
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:19,840
Speaker 1: same time, changes to the tariff in the United States

38
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,440
Speaker 1: made sugar production in Hawaii a lot less profitable, so

39
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:27,840
Speaker 1: American sugar growers started planning to have Hawaii annex to

40
00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:30,239
Speaker 1: be part of the United States to get back to

41
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,960
Speaker 1: being more profitable. On January sixteenth, eighteen nine, three four

42
00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:38,720
Speaker 1: boats of US Marines arrived in Hawaii, and the American

43
00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:43,400
Speaker 1: business interests in Hawaii used these troops to overthrow the

44
00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:48,080
Speaker 1: Hawaiian monarchy. They went to the palace on the seventeenth

45
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:52,280
Speaker 1: than they forced the queen to abdicate at gunpoint. Lawyer

46
00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:55,519
Speaker 1: Sanford Dole, who had been part of the Hawaii Supreme

47
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 1: Court since eighteen eighty six, established a temporary government. It's

48
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,279
Speaker 1: a I'm a misconception that he was part of Dole Pineapples.

49
00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 1: That was really his cousin, James Dole, So there were

50
00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:10,400
Speaker 1: definitely some family connections there, and having Sandford in Hawaii

51
00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:14,480
Speaker 1: for sure made things easier for James. But Sandford himself

52
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:16,560
Speaker 1: was not the person who later became known as the

53
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,280
Speaker 1: Pineapple King. Sandford Dole claimed that the Hawaiian government was

54
00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:22,919
Speaker 1: corrupt and that the overthrow of the monarchy was meant

55
00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:26,519
Speaker 1: to spread democracy. He started to petition the United States

56
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:29,920
Speaker 1: to annex Hawaii and the U. S. Minister to Hawaii,

57
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,359
Speaker 1: John Stevens, backed him up In all of this. Stevens

58
00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:37,120
Speaker 1: recognized Dole's temporary government and proclaimed the Hawaii was a U.

59
00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:40,520
Speaker 1: S protectorate. None of this had been approved by the U. S.

60
00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 1: State Department at all, but President Benjamin Harrison signed the

61
00:03:44,360 --> 00:03:46,640
Speaker 1: treaty of Annexation that was sent to him and then

62
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:50,480
Speaker 1: sent that onto the Senate before the Senate could ratify it. Though,

63
00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:54,920
Speaker 1: Grover Cleveland was elected president, and he ordered an investigation

64
00:03:54,960 --> 00:03:59,520
Speaker 1: which found that these actions in Hawaii were not proper. Dole, however,

65
00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,720
Speaker 1: used to restore the crown to the queen. Albert S. Willis,

66
00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:06,840
Speaker 1: who was Minister to Hawaii under Cleveland, offered the crown

67
00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:09,920
Speaker 1: back to the queen in exchanged for her pardoning the

68
00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:14,960
Speaker 1: people who had overthrown her. She understandably said no. Later

69
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:17,479
Speaker 1: she changed her mind, but she had kind of lost

70
00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:20,279
Speaker 1: her window of opportunity at that point. In Cleveland sent

71
00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:25,640
Speaker 1: the matter to Congress. On July four, Sandford Dole declared

72
00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 1: Hawaii to be a republic, and he declared himself to

73
00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:31,080
Speaker 1: be president. There was no voting about any of this,

74
00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:37,039
Speaker 1: but the US recognized this republic. He created anyway. Although

75
00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:42,760
Speaker 1: the initial coup was bloodless, after Liliukolani finally informally gave

76
00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:47,160
Speaker 1: up her crown on January, most of her supporters were

77
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:51,160
Speaker 1: arrested or killed. This, of course, is only one piece

78
00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:54,440
Speaker 1: of Hawaii eventually becoming a state of the United States.

79
00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:57,920
Speaker 1: And there's more to all of this on the julyisode

80
00:04:57,920 --> 00:04:59,600
Speaker 1: of Stuff He Missed In History Class, and then the

81
00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:02,640
Speaker 1: episode before that from July seven of that year provides

82
00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:06,200
Speaker 1: more of the historical context. Thanks to Casey Pegram and

83
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:08,599
Speaker 1: Chandler Maze for their audio work on the show. You

84
00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:11,160
Speaker 1: can subscribe to the Stay in History Class on Apple podcast,

85
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:14,000
Speaker 1: Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app, and wherever you

86
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:16,640
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for a totally

87
00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:17,240
Speaker 1: different dol