Yeah, I didn't have anything to say, and now I do....
So my mom's friend wrote to me asking my mana'o (thoughts) about Lili'uokalani and her story and I didn't get the email until too late for his purposes because of computer issues, but it stirred me up and I'd meant to post about this long before. So here it is. The following is taken from this website with corrections to names and spelling by me, and commentary by moi in red.
Queen Lydia Lili'uokalani (September 2, 1838 - November 11, 1917)
Queen Lili'uokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawai'i was annexed to the United States and Queen Lili'uokalani was forced to give up her throne.
Actually, there were several things that she felt it was her mission as queen, preserving the islands just being one of them. Her brother, King Kalakaua started a bit of a Hawaiian Renaissance when he was reigning by encouraging or bringing back things that Calvinist and Congregationalist missionaries had bullied Hawaiians out of saying they were heathenistic and sins against their god. Oooh, and that's a rant for another time....
Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed by the advocates of a Republic for Hawai'i in 1893. She was born in Honolulu to high chief Kapa'akea and the chiefess Keohokalole, the third of ten children. Her brother (David La'amea later became) King Kalakaua. Lili'uokalani was adopted at birth by Abner Paki and his wife Konia. At age 4, her adoptive parents enrolled her in the Royal School. There she became fluent in English and influenced by Congregational missionaries. She also became part of the royal circle attending Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.
The adoption thing was common among Hawaiians, particularly the royalty, and she was raised as sister to Princess Bernice Pauahi - founder of the Bishop Estate, and one of the last of the Kamehameha line. I love that line about Congregational missionaries and their influence though, because she was all about her god, and trusting in him.
Lili'uokalani married a haole (non-Hawaiian), John Owen Dominis on September 16, 1862. Dominis would eventually serve the monarchy as the Governor of O'ahu and Maui. They had no children and according to her private papers and diaries, the marriage was not fulfilling. Dominis died shortly after she assumed the throne, and the queen never remarried.
See, you learn something new every day. I didn't know she wasn't happy with John O, but he was considerably older than she was and from the mainland. He'd also already had children before he'd married Lili'uokalani, so there was that too. Still, stupid docents at Washington Place (that's her former home) never tell that bit of information.
Upon the death of her brother, King Kalakaua, Lili'uokalani ascended the throne of Hawai'i in January 1891. One of her first acts was to recommend a new Hawai'i constitution, as the "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887 limited the power of the monarch and political power of native Hawaiians. In 1890, the McKinley Tariff began to cause a recession in the islands by withdrew the safeguards ensuring a mainland market for Hawaiian sugar. American interests in Hawai'i began to consider annexation for Hawai'i to re-establish an economic competitive position for sugar. In 1893, Queen Lili'uokalani sought to empower herself and Hawaiians through a new constitution which she herself had drawn up and now desired to promulgate as the new law of the land. It was Queen Lili'uokalani's right as a sovereign to issue a new constitution through an edict from the throne. A group led by Sanford B. Dole sought to overthrow the institution of the monarchy. The American minister in Hawai'i, John L. Stevens, called for troops to take control of Iolani Palace and various other governmental buildings. In 1894, the Queen, was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government was established which later became the Republic of Hawai'i.
Where to start on all of this? Here have another link and read all the way down. For Wikipedia, it's amazingly accurate. The Bayonet Constitution didn't get that name for being peaceful.
In 1893, James H. Blount, newly appointed American minister to Hawai'i, arrived representing President Grover Cleveland. Blount listened to both sides, annexationists and restorationists, and concluded the Hawaiian people aligned with the Queen. Blount and Cleveland agreed the Queen should be restored. Blount's final report implicated the American minister Stevens in the illegal overthrow of Lili'uokalani. Albert S. Willis, Cleveland's next American minister offered the crown back to the Queen on the condition she pardon and grant general amnesty to those who had dethroned her. She initially refused but soon she changed her mind and offered clemency. This delay compromised her political position and President Cleveland had released the entire issue of the Hawaiian revolution to Congress for debate. The annexationists promptly lobbied Congress against restoration of the monarchy. On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawai'i with Sanford B. Dole as president was proclaimed. It was recognized immediately by the United States government.
Blount was a good man, but Cleveland was a pussy. Sorry if that offends you, but he was. He could've nipped it all in the bud but no. Princess Ka'iulani, Lili'uokalani's niece, went to speak on her aunt's behalf since she was already there on a tour before returning home after being educated in England. I think it just ironic that Hawai'i was turned into a Republic on the U.S.'s day of celebrating independence, don't you?
In 1895, Lili'uokalani was arrested and forced to reside in 'Iolani Palace after a cache of weapons was found in the gardens of her home in Washington Place. She denied knowing of the existence of this cache and was reportedly unaware of others' efforts to restore the royalty. In 1896, she was released and returned to her home at Washington Place where she lived for the next two decades. Hawai'i was annexed to the United States through a joint resolution of the U. S. Congress in 1898 . The "ex-"queen died due to complications from a stroke in 1917. A statue of her was erected on the grounds of the State Capital in Honolulu.
The above is such a quick way to put it, and it really doesn't even cover what they did to her. She was imprisoned in the palace her brother built because of a group of royalists who wanted to restore her to power and she was put on trial in her own throne room! Where the hell is the justice in that? Oh yeah, there was none, my bad. Doesn't this sound just like the U.S. today? They either don't like what's going on in your country or they want what you have and they take the steps to do it. People do the damnedest things in the name of the almighty fucking dollar, and essentially, that's what it boiled down to. Hawai'i was a port of call, a stopping point for ships in the Pacific. It was strategic so that they would want to station military there for future forays into other countries. Sugar thrived here to the point that if land wasn't being used for living, it was almost always cultivated for sugar for a time.
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So yeah, I haven't really even said what I wanted to yet, what Waldie's email was asking me for. He wanted to know as a Hawaiian what my feelings were about the queen, who she was to me. And I couldn't answer it in the few sentences he asked for because there's just something about how I feel that won't translate across the screen. It's like asking someone what they think of the Trail of Tears, and then asking a Cherokee about it. And not just any Cherokee (because I am part that as well) but someone who is directly affected by it -- the answers will be different. The fallout of them overthrowing our queen reached down through my family.
My grandfather was seventeen when she died, a young man in his own right. He was born after all of this happened, born in the Territory of Hawai'i, as his birth certificate stated. But she was still alive, and because of that, Hawaiians still revered her as their queen, no matter what the current government was. He was denied the right to learn his native language, something that carried on to the next generation (my dad's) and the next, mine. I can speak Hawaiian, but I had to go to the university to learn it and it's not the Hawaiian of my great-grandmother's time, I can assure you of that. It's ... standardized. In order to get a feel for what language might have been, you have to read old Hawaiian papers and look at songs written. Hawaiian wasn't even acknowledged as an official language of the state until 1978 because there had been a ban on the language after the queen was booted. Grandpa's mother and grandparents spoke Hawaiian, but only in secret. In secret. Can you imagine? I remember him telling me that he was sorry he couldn't teach me, but his mother had refused to teach him. Being denied your mother tongue.... Imagine someone telling you that you can't speak English as of right now, and all you can speak is ... Spanish for instance. If you don't already know it, you're at an immediate disadvantage, aren't you? That was one way they were able to put their 'imperial' foot on the Hawaiian people's necks.
But yeah, that's just one example of how it touches me, and I really can't get into it more because I'm already crying mad. On to Waldie's question.
I grew up learning and being almost obsessed with Hawaiian history, in particular the period of the monarchy for several reasons. One, I was fascinated by Ka'iulani's tragic life (she died at 22), and two, because it's rumored that my great something or other grandmother bore a child for Kalakaua; they're more than just figures in the history of the Hawaiian people to me, they're more like relatives.
Because of this, how I feel is complicated. Beyond the outrage there is a huge amount of sorrow that is personal in a way that it can never be for someone who isn't a Hawaiian, and I don't say that to be condescending. Some things just can't be explained, and the way it eats you up inside knowing that it's your people that were screwed over, that it was your Queen that suffered as she did is one of those things.
She remained stout in her convictions until the end, she withstood attacks on her character, she believed wholeheartedly in her god. She forgave the people who ultimately imprisoned her and took her throne from her. I'm sure she had many things that would be considered character flaws but in many ways, in my eyes she was a martyr. To save her people from a massacre, she stepped down and let people run roughshod over the rest of the Hawaiians. Some people will look at that and think it's weak of her. A part of me agrees because I know what happened in the aftermath of her doing so. Another part of me can't believe that she had been so naive. And yet, she had her faith that things would go right, that her god would intervene, that the goodness in mankind would show itself.
Thirteen years ago if you'd asked me this question, I might have said that I wished I had her conviction, that I too could believe so deeply in god. I mean, just look at Ke Aloha o Ka Haku and what it translates to. She wrote that when she was imprisoned, for crying out loud. It's ironic that the song is about the values she embraced from the Western culture that imprisoned her: forgiveness, love, faith and hope. I completely wanted to believe in the same god who brought her so much peace in the face of adversity.
She has always been held up to us as an example, but now in the wisdom of my years, the example isn't nearly as silver as it had been. It's tarnished, partly by my own beliefs or lack thereof in her god, it's tarnished by the bitter knowledge of what her peaceable actions brought about. Of course, who's to say that they wouldn't have simply committed genocide on Hawaiians then? I wouldn't be here now in that case.
So who is Lili'uokalani to me? I don't know anymore. Just thinking about her story and what they did to her pisses me off, but the process began so much earlier than just with her. What happened there really was the culmination of so many events that preceded her ascension to the throne.
Who says the haole (non-Hawaiians. These days they use it to translate to caucasian, but the word literally means one without the ha, or the same breath as the Hawaiians) and their god had the right of it? And yet, missionaries appeared here in 1819 to 'save' the Hawaiian people. Ugh, this is turning from my thing about the injustices done to the Hawaiian people into a religion rant and that will have to be saved for another post.
Queen Lydia Lili'uokalani (September 2, 1838 - November 11, 1917)
Queen Lili'uokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawai'i was annexed to the United States and Queen Lili'uokalani was forced to give up her throne.
Actually, there were several things that she felt it was her mission as queen, preserving the islands just being one of them. Her brother, King Kalakaua started a bit of a Hawaiian Renaissance when he was reigning by encouraging or bringing back things that Calvinist and Congregationalist missionaries had bullied Hawaiians out of saying they were heathenistic and sins against their god. Oooh, and that's a rant for another time....
Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed by the advocates of a Republic for Hawai'i in 1893. She was born in Honolulu to high chief Kapa'akea and the chiefess Keohokalole, the third of ten children. Her brother (David La'amea later became) King Kalakaua. Lili'uokalani was adopted at birth by Abner Paki and his wife Konia. At age 4, her adoptive parents enrolled her in the Royal School. There she became fluent in English and influenced by Congregational missionaries. She also became part of the royal circle attending Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.
The adoption thing was common among Hawaiians, particularly the royalty, and she was raised as sister to Princess Bernice Pauahi - founder of the Bishop Estate, and one of the last of the Kamehameha line. I love that line about Congregational missionaries and their influence though, because she was all about her god, and trusting in him.
Lili'uokalani married a haole (non-Hawaiian), John Owen Dominis on September 16, 1862. Dominis would eventually serve the monarchy as the Governor of O'ahu and Maui. They had no children and according to her private papers and diaries, the marriage was not fulfilling. Dominis died shortly after she assumed the throne, and the queen never remarried.
See, you learn something new every day. I didn't know she wasn't happy with John O, but he was considerably older than she was and from the mainland. He'd also already had children before he'd married Lili'uokalani, so there was that too. Still, stupid docents at Washington Place (that's her former home) never tell that bit of information.
Upon the death of her brother, King Kalakaua, Lili'uokalani ascended the throne of Hawai'i in January 1891. One of her first acts was to recommend a new Hawai'i constitution, as the "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887 limited the power of the monarch and political power of native Hawaiians. In 1890, the McKinley Tariff began to cause a recession in the islands by withdrew the safeguards ensuring a mainland market for Hawaiian sugar. American interests in Hawai'i began to consider annexation for Hawai'i to re-establish an economic competitive position for sugar. In 1893, Queen Lili'uokalani sought to empower herself and Hawaiians through a new constitution which she herself had drawn up and now desired to promulgate as the new law of the land. It was Queen Lili'uokalani's right as a sovereign to issue a new constitution through an edict from the throne. A group led by Sanford B. Dole sought to overthrow the institution of the monarchy. The American minister in Hawai'i, John L. Stevens, called for troops to take control of Iolani Palace and various other governmental buildings. In 1894, the Queen, was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government was established which later became the Republic of Hawai'i.
Where to start on all of this? Here have another link and read all the way down. For Wikipedia, it's amazingly accurate. The Bayonet Constitution didn't get that name for being peaceful.
In 1893, James H. Blount, newly appointed American minister to Hawai'i, arrived representing President Grover Cleveland. Blount listened to both sides, annexationists and restorationists, and concluded the Hawaiian people aligned with the Queen. Blount and Cleveland agreed the Queen should be restored. Blount's final report implicated the American minister Stevens in the illegal overthrow of Lili'uokalani. Albert S. Willis, Cleveland's next American minister offered the crown back to the Queen on the condition she pardon and grant general amnesty to those who had dethroned her. She initially refused but soon she changed her mind and offered clemency. This delay compromised her political position and President Cleveland had released the entire issue of the Hawaiian revolution to Congress for debate. The annexationists promptly lobbied Congress against restoration of the monarchy. On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawai'i with Sanford B. Dole as president was proclaimed. It was recognized immediately by the United States government.
Blount was a good man, but Cleveland was a pussy. Sorry if that offends you, but he was. He could've nipped it all in the bud but no. Princess Ka'iulani, Lili'uokalani's niece, went to speak on her aunt's behalf since she was already there on a tour before returning home after being educated in England. I think it just ironic that Hawai'i was turned into a Republic on the U.S.'s day of celebrating independence, don't you?
In 1895, Lili'uokalani was arrested and forced to reside in 'Iolani Palace after a cache of weapons was found in the gardens of her home in Washington Place. She denied knowing of the existence of this cache and was reportedly unaware of others' efforts to restore the royalty. In 1896, she was released and returned to her home at Washington Place where she lived for the next two decades. Hawai'i was annexed to the United States through a joint resolution of the U. S. Congress in 1898 . The "ex-"queen died due to complications from a stroke in 1917. A statue of her was erected on the grounds of the State Capital in Honolulu.
The above is such a quick way to put it, and it really doesn't even cover what they did to her. She was imprisoned in the palace her brother built because of a group of royalists who wanted to restore her to power and she was put on trial in her own throne room! Where the hell is the justice in that? Oh yeah, there was none, my bad. Doesn't this sound just like the U.S. today? They either don't like what's going on in your country or they want what you have and they take the steps to do it. People do the damnedest things in the name of the almighty fucking dollar, and essentially, that's what it boiled down to. Hawai'i was a port of call, a stopping point for ships in the Pacific. It was strategic so that they would want to station military there for future forays into other countries. Sugar thrived here to the point that if land wasn't being used for living, it was almost always cultivated for sugar for a time.
***************************************
So yeah, I haven't really even said what I wanted to yet, what Waldie's email was asking me for. He wanted to know as a Hawaiian what my feelings were about the queen, who she was to me. And I couldn't answer it in the few sentences he asked for because there's just something about how I feel that won't translate across the screen. It's like asking someone what they think of the Trail of Tears, and then asking a Cherokee about it. And not just any Cherokee (because I am part that as well) but someone who is directly affected by it -- the answers will be different. The fallout of them overthrowing our queen reached down through my family.
My grandfather was seventeen when she died, a young man in his own right. He was born after all of this happened, born in the Territory of Hawai'i, as his birth certificate stated. But she was still alive, and because of that, Hawaiians still revered her as their queen, no matter what the current government was. He was denied the right to learn his native language, something that carried on to the next generation (my dad's) and the next, mine. I can speak Hawaiian, but I had to go to the university to learn it and it's not the Hawaiian of my great-grandmother's time, I can assure you of that. It's ... standardized. In order to get a feel for what language might have been, you have to read old Hawaiian papers and look at songs written. Hawaiian wasn't even acknowledged as an official language of the state until 1978 because there had been a ban on the language after the queen was booted. Grandpa's mother and grandparents spoke Hawaiian, but only in secret. In secret. Can you imagine? I remember him telling me that he was sorry he couldn't teach me, but his mother had refused to teach him. Being denied your mother tongue.... Imagine someone telling you that you can't speak English as of right now, and all you can speak is ... Spanish for instance. If you don't already know it, you're at an immediate disadvantage, aren't you? That was one way they were able to put their 'imperial' foot on the Hawaiian people's necks.
But yeah, that's just one example of how it touches me, and I really can't get into it more because I'm already crying mad. On to Waldie's question.
I grew up learning and being almost obsessed with Hawaiian history, in particular the period of the monarchy for several reasons. One, I was fascinated by Ka'iulani's tragic life (she died at 22), and two, because it's rumored that my great something or other grandmother bore a child for Kalakaua; they're more than just figures in the history of the Hawaiian people to me, they're more like relatives.
Because of this, how I feel is complicated. Beyond the outrage there is a huge amount of sorrow that is personal in a way that it can never be for someone who isn't a Hawaiian, and I don't say that to be condescending. Some things just can't be explained, and the way it eats you up inside knowing that it's your people that were screwed over, that it was your Queen that suffered as she did is one of those things.
She remained stout in her convictions until the end, she withstood attacks on her character, she believed wholeheartedly in her god. She forgave the people who ultimately imprisoned her and took her throne from her. I'm sure she had many things that would be considered character flaws but in many ways, in my eyes she was a martyr. To save her people from a massacre, she stepped down and let people run roughshod over the rest of the Hawaiians. Some people will look at that and think it's weak of her. A part of me agrees because I know what happened in the aftermath of her doing so. Another part of me can't believe that she had been so naive. And yet, she had her faith that things would go right, that her god would intervene, that the goodness in mankind would show itself.
Thirteen years ago if you'd asked me this question, I might have said that I wished I had her conviction, that I too could believe so deeply in god. I mean, just look at Ke Aloha o Ka Haku and what it translates to. She wrote that when she was imprisoned, for crying out loud. It's ironic that the song is about the values she embraced from the Western culture that imprisoned her: forgiveness, love, faith and hope. I completely wanted to believe in the same god who brought her so much peace in the face of adversity.
She has always been held up to us as an example, but now in the wisdom of my years, the example isn't nearly as silver as it had been. It's tarnished, partly by my own beliefs or lack thereof in her god, it's tarnished by the bitter knowledge of what her peaceable actions brought about. Of course, who's to say that they wouldn't have simply committed genocide on Hawaiians then? I wouldn't be here now in that case.
So who is Lili'uokalani to me? I don't know anymore. Just thinking about her story and what they did to her pisses me off, but the process began so much earlier than just with her. What happened there really was the culmination of so many events that preceded her ascension to the throne.
Who says the haole (non-Hawaiians. These days they use it to translate to caucasian, but the word literally means one without the ha, or the same breath as the Hawaiians) and their god had the right of it? And yet, missionaries appeared here in 1819 to 'save' the Hawaiian people. Ugh, this is turning from my thing about the injustices done to the Hawaiian people into a religion rant and that will have to be saved for another post.