In 1893 United States marines equipped with an assortment of weapons invaded the Islands of Hawaii in an attempt to overthrow their government. However, this was the final phase of a takeover in Hawaii that started in the late eighteenth century. In the 1770s, Captain James Cook landed on the islands with his crew. He named the Sandwich Islands but as the Native Hawaiians would explain: "he was not the first man to 'discover' the Hawaiian Islands. He was the first known European to arrive." (hawaiianroots.com).
Between the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century whalers, merchants and American missionaries traveled to the Hawaiian Islands to either make a profit or convert the natives. In 1852, groups of Chinese people began to immigrate to the islands, many of which worked on the plantations. By 1884 there were over eighteen thousand Chinese people on the islands. The next large migration by a group of people was from Japan. They began arriving in Hawaii in 1868 and by the turn of the century Japanese people made up 40 percent of the population. These mass immigrations were followed by immigrants from Germany and Portugal in the late nineteenth century.
After a massive influx of immigrants, in 1893 Queen Lili'uokalani surrendered her power to the United States, despite it being under protest. A couple years after she was overthrown, along with people who remained loyal to her, she tried a failed revolt. After, she was arrested and forced to liver under house arrest. A few years later, President Mckinley signed the annexation papers, Hawaii officially became part of the United States. Hawaii continued to be a territory of the United States until 1959 when it became the 5oth state of the United States.
The movement for Hawaiian sovereignty has been a movement on the islands since they were founded around 700 A.D. During the first one thousand years of human inhabitation of the islands, it rarely came into contact with foreign nations. After coming into contact with European nations in the eighteenth century, it continued to be a sovereign nation. In 1843 the United Kingdom and France signed a document that recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii. In this declaration it is stated that they "consider the [Hawaiian] Islands as an independent state." (Hawaii-nation). Treaties and other documents of this subject were signed by several nations and Hawaii, including the United States, throughout the nineteenth century.
This did not stop the brutal way in which the United States marines landed on the Hawaiian Islands and overthrew their government. As reported above, in 1893 the military of the United States, under the approval of the government and President Cleveland, took the Hawaiian Islands under control of the United States. One hundred years later, President Clinton and the Congressmen from Hawaii wrote out legislation in which they officially apologized to the Hawaiian people for the unfair way in which the United States overthrew Hawaii.
The Hawaiian sovereignty movement is not just a political movement but also a social change. The situation in Hawaii is very similar to the situation that, according to Alexander, takes place in the Caribbean. The sovereignty movement acknowledges that tourism is the "primary source of Hawaii's economic vitality" (Hawaii-nation). However, tourism is to blame for many of the current Hawaiian problems. The social change will follow the political change and Hawaii will, due to its geographic location, become the center of trade in the Pacific Ocean. Hawaiian independence will not only be good for Hawaii but also the world.
According to works written by Frantz Fanon and Karl Marx the Hawaiian Islands have been treated unjustly. In Fanon's theory of social change the natives of Hawaii cannot earn sovereignty on their own. The people on the countryside will need help from people that Fanon calls "radical intellectuals." These are people from the city, or in this case the mainland, who have been educated and want to help with the revolutionary process. It is the job of the "intellectuals" to educate the people on the countryside and motivate them to revolt against the group in power. Fanon was an expert on natives revolting against a controlling group from another land. He grew up on a French colony in the Caribbean and studied the Battle of Algiers in which Algeria gained its independence from France. Marx would agree with Fanon that the natives of Hawaii should rebel against the controlling group. Marx's motivation would be different from Fanon's, however. He would suggest that the workforce should revolt against the owners of the companies, which are mostly people from the mainland. In Marx's model the group he calls the "proletariat", the working class, is where the roots of the revolution lie.
This group would not suggest that Hawaii should become independent through a violent revolution. We would just like to acknowledge that a country that had been recognized as a sovereign nation was taken over by a foreign force, which itself even recognized as being illegal.
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