Introduction
In this paper I will look at evidence to determine if the United States is imperialist or not. I will focus on the case of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands: what led up to the annexation, the motives behind the United States annexing Hawaii, and if those motives were imperialist.
I will be arguing that the United States was not imperialist in its actions with Hawaii due to things that were going on with immigration into Hawaii as well as issues with the monarchy that was ruling during that time.
This paper will be divided into five sections: the introduction, the historical background of the United States’ relation with Hawaii, the alleged act of imperialism which is the annexation, the verdict on if the United States is in fact imperial based on its actions with Hawaii, and the conclusion.
Historical Background
Hawaii was recognized as an independent state long before the United States started to influence the country. However, once American missionaries started to arrive at the island for religious purposes, they saw the potential to make money via sugar cane plantations. As of 1875, the United States entered into a treaty with the independent Hawaiian state.
The speech delivered by Justin S. Morrill for Vermont on the Hawaiian Reciprocity treaty of March 18, 1875 outlines the history of the United States’ involvement in Hawaii, starting in 1855. It also mentions the failed Hawaiian treaty of 1869 due to the fact that the Congress considered that most of the people that would benefit from the treaty were not American. He outlines the concept of “most favored nation” that the United States abides by where they are not to give one nation better or worse trade deals than others, all nations are to get the same.
However, Morrill mentions that the reason that the treaty was able to pass at that point in 1875 is because there are mostly Americans who partake in the sugar industry. So, in his mind, and the mind of other members of the House of Representatives it does not interfere with the United States’ policy of most favored nation because they are helping the American people that do business in Hawaii by making the tariffs on sugar considerably lower.
But, he does mention that the treaty does not have a certain amount of time by which the United States has to abide by it.
The McKinley Tariff of 1890 impacted the Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty. Due to the protectionist nature of the bill, tariffs on foreign goods increased by an average of forty-nine percent.
This angered the settlers that were in Hawaii, the higher tariffs meant less profits when they sold their sugar to the United States. Because of this action, the American settlers started to push for Hawaii to be annexed by the United States so that the protectionist tariffs would not apply to them.
King Kamehameha III died in 1874 to be succeeded by King Kalakaua.
Kalakaua ended up being king for around twenty years until he died in 1891. However, his reign was not too peaceful. An example of this is that in July of 1889, an insurrection involving two half-Hawaiians and one hundred additional members occurred. The insurrection was eventually defeated by seventy members of the U.S.S. Adams.
When King Kalakaua died in 1891, Princess Liliuokalani became Queen of Hawaii, and she was the last monarch to rule the island.
Once she became queen she wanted to have an entirely new cabinet – which the supreme court found to be constitutional since the old monarch has died. And according to the 1894 Foreign Relations of the US: Affairs in Hawaii document from Congress, the queen and her cabinet was described as arrogant, and in a note sent from the Hawaiian minister, he believed that if the queen and her cabinet did not back down on things such as sugar tariffs, “the entire overthrow of the monarchy could not be long delayed.”
Not only from that were there tensions on the island, but there were also negative sentiments towards the heir to the throne. He was half English and was studying in England. This ignited revolutionary thoughts in the people that were in Hawaii. So much so that the U.S. Navy had to station a vessel in Hawaii to curb those sentiments.
Eventually, the dissatisfaction among the people that lived in Hawaii (mostly the foreigners such as the Americans) led to what the United States called the “peaceful revolution” which caused Queen Liliuokalani to be dethroned in favor for an American government in January of 1893.
The Alleged Act of U.S. Imperialism.
The alleged act of U.S. imperialism is the revolution in Hawaii and the dethroning of the queen following the revolution.
The supposed act of imperialism started when American missionaries settled in Hawaii for religious missions, like many others have done before in other countries. However, due to the profitable sugar plantations that existed in Hawaii many decided to stay and establish sugar businesses there.
The United States then signed a Reciprocity Treaty with Hawaii where they would significantly cut-down on the tariffs on common goods that Hawaii exported to the U.S., such as sugar. This is due to the fact that many Americans were living on the island and they partook in the sugar industry; so the U.S. government didn’t consider it to violate their policy of “most favored nation”
Trouble started with the McKinley Tariff which greatly increased the tariffs on goods imported into the United States to protect domestic markets. This caused many of the Americans living in Hawaii to get upset because it meant that they were making less profit on their goods. This is when they started going to their American representative in Hawaii to bring up the idea for the United States to annex Hawaii.
Although many people may think that the United States had to do with the uprisings in Hawaii, it was actually the settlers that lived there. The American government had very little to do with the overthrow of the queen.
Eventually the queen was overthrown in 1893 and the United States ended up annexing Hawaii after that.
Verdict: Is the U.S. Imperial?
Based on the actions of the United States both in Hawaii and in other nations that they could have been considered imperialist in, I find that the United States is not imperialist.
Using the example of Hawaii, based on what was outlined in Foreign Relations of the US, 1894: Affairs in Hawaii, the United States did not have imperialist thoughts when it came to Hawaii even though they could have greatly benefitted from owning the sugar plantations there. In fact, the document outlines that in 1836, Lord George Paulet of the Royal Navy negotiated a treaty with the King of Hawaii at the time, King Kamehameha III in which Hawaii became part of England. The document also outlines how later the United States, under the command of Commodore Kearney of the U.S. Navy arrived in Hawaii to protest the actions by the King and eventually in 1843 Hawaii regained its status as an independent state and what England did was disavowed.
Although in the document the possible effects that the American citizens suffered under the rule of the English in Hawaii was cited. I think that is not the only reason that the United States would have interfered. I think that if the United States really respected the imperialist tendencies of other independent states, such as England, they would have just let it be and let England keep Hawaii, however they went to Hawaii and fought against that.
Going forward to 1871 in a letter from U.S. Minister to the Hawaiian Islands, Henry A. Pierce, he gave many compelling reasons as to why the United States might be interested in obtaining Hawaii, but none of them fell under the spectrum that could be considered imperialism. He said that the population of the indigenous Hawaiian people was decreasing at an alarming rate, citing the previous census of 1866 where the population of Hawaiians was fifteen-thousand more than the amount of indigenous people on the island at the time of his letter. Another point that he makes referring to the population on the island is that there is an increasing amount of Americans that live on the island due to the business that they do there – around two-thousand people and a total of about six-thousand foreign peoples in total.
Another point that Pierce makes is about the current monarchy in the Hawaiian state. He says that the king that is in power at that point, Kamehameha III, is the last in the bloodline of the crown and he has no children to pass the crown onto. Not only that, but Pierce described the king as being quite obese with many health problems brought on by that condition, it was believed that the king was going to die soon.
I think that this shows that, based on what the minister is saying, he believes that Hawaii is not going to do well once the king dies. I thinkhe was right about this. Hawaii went through two different monarchs after King Kamehameha III died. The first one, dying only twenty years after he took the throne so in his eyes it will be better for both Hawaii and the United States for Hawaii to be annexed. Not to mention the point that Pierce makes about the amount of foreigners and Americans that live on the island, compared to the decrease in Hawaii. He believes that eventually all the natives of the island will be gone, and in Pierce’s mind it only makes sense that the people that are left would be under the American flag, not the Hawaiian flag with no Hawaiians left.
In fact, in the document Message from the President of the United States on the Hawaiian question, it is explicitly said that,
“Neither can the government of the United States allow an arrangement which, by diplomatic finesse or legal technicality, substitutes for the native and legitimate constitutional Government of Hawaii, the controlling influence of a great foreign power.”
This shows that even back in 1881, the United States did not want Hawaii to be controlled by a foreign nation that, in their mind, had no business being there.
Not only that, the revolution that happened in Hawaii that eventually overthrew the queen was not started by the United States government. In fact, it was started by the settlers that were in Hawaii and partook in the sugar business. Although these settlers were foreigners; and many were Americans, there is no proof that the United States’ government had any intervention with the revolution. In fact, like mentioned before they parked a Navy vessel in Hawaii to hopefully stop the revolutionary stirrings before they happened.
I do find that what happened in Hawaii was very similar to the United States’ involvement in the Philippines later on. In particular when referring to what Minister Pierce said in one of his letters to the Secretary of State. Like mentioned before he said that when the last of the bloodline monarchy dies with no heir, the Hawaiian government would collapse into chaos. This is very similar to what happened in the Philippines. After the United States fought against England as an imperial power in the Philippines, they started the Sherman Commission to determine if the Philippines could survive as an independent nation. The commission concluded that no, they could not survive on their own. The United States wanted to get involved in that because if they installed a government for the Philippines and helped them figure out what they were doing, they would be able to survive and eventually trade with the United States under normal trade relations. So, Congress passed the Jones Act of 1917 to help the Philippines become an independent nation in twenty years. And once they were able to govern on their own, the U.S. pulled out.
Although the case of Hawaii is only similar to the Philippines case in that in both cases the U.S. determined that they wouldn’t be able to survive without U.S. intervention, they key difference is that Hawaii had many Americans living and participating in industry in Hawaii.
Even though Minister Pierce mentions that Hawaii is a very strategic spot in the Pacific Ocean for the United States to have, he mostly focuses on the issue of Hawaiian bloodline ending, and the number of Americans that live in Hawaii. I think that the base was mostly an added bonus, especially considering the fact that the United States already had access to Pearl Harbor in exchange for the tariff agreement.
Conclusion.
In conclusion, the United States is in fact not imperialist based on its actions in Hawaii.
The biggest reasons that government officials from the United States had to annex Hawaii was due to the foreign population that lived on the island due to the sugar industry that they participated in.
Also, one of the biggest things that the minister to Hawaii, Pierce, thought was that since King Kamehameha III was obese, sickly, and (in his opinion) going to die soon. This caused several changes in the monarchs that ruled Hawaii, ending up with Queen Liliuokalani, who was overthrown; not only because the settlers were upset about the sugar tariffs, but according to Pierce, her and her cabinet were not very popular in the political sphere.
So, although it may have seemed like the United States had imperialist tendencies when annexing Hawaii, I think that their motives were not imperialist. Like mentioned in the verdict section of this paper this is a similar situation as the Philippines, but since there were so many Americans living in Hawaii the United States just annexed it instead of nation-building like they did in the Philippines.