(c) Copyright 2010 by
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
All rights reserved
SUMMARY
A book published in May 2010 seems intended to serve three noble and benevolent purposes: show well-deserved appreciation to an elderly volunteer, Mrs. Anne Jurczynski, who has given 24 years of service to Iolani Palace; celebrate the importance of the Palace in Hawaii's history; and help children learn Hawaiian language by telling a story in simple words where every page has a paragraph in English and the same paragraph in Hawaiian. But the book "Ka Pu'uwai Hamama -- Volunteer Spirit" contains some commonly repeated historical falsehoods which serve the purpose of arousing resentment, anger, and racial hostility. In the present essay the worst falsehoods are quoted and disproved with explanations of what is true and citations where proof can be found. If the book's author Kim Hunter was innocently repeating commonly heard myths, then he should promptly recall the book and either refund the purchase price or else replace the book with a revised second edition, in the same way Tylenol capsules with cyanide were recalled in 1982 and Toyotas with accelerator problems were recalled in 2010. Otherwise the book will poison the souls of innocent readers as surely as cyanide killed seven Tylenol consumers, and the book's author will be deserving of a Goebbels Award for Outstanding Use of Media for Propaganda Disguised As Fact.
The book is Kim Hunter (author) and Patti Carol (illustrator), "Ka Pu'uwai Hamama -- Volunteer Spirit" (Wai'anae, HI: One Voice Publications, May 2010)
A webpage showing the book's cover and providing information about the author/publisher is at
http://onevoicepublications.net/ka_pu‘uwai_hāmama_volunteer_spirit
Here are the most flagrant historical falsehoods or distortions found in the book (either directly stated or implied by innuendo) and disproved in this book review. When reading these falsehoods, remember that one of the major purposes of the book is to use it as a primer for elementary school children to learn Hawaiian language and Hawaiian history.
TWISTED: When King Kalakaua's dead body unexpectedly came home from San Francisco to Iolani Palace in 1891, the evil (haole) sons and grandsons of the missionaries took advantage of Liliuokalani's grief and confusion to force her to take the oath to support the Bayonet Constitution of 1887 that had been forced on her brother Kalakaua. (pages 11 and 12)
TWISTED: Kalakaua signed the reciprocity treaty with the U.S. only under pressure from the (haole) sugar plantation owners. And when a new reciprocity treaty was needed to extend the old one, and Kalakaua didn't want to give Pearl Harbor to the U.S., the (haole) missionary boys forced the bayonet Constitution on Kalakaua. (pages 13 and 14)
TWO MAJOR FALSEHOODS THAT INFLAME RACIAL HATRED: The Bayonet Constitution stripped most native Hawaiians of the right to vote and/or hold high office; and Kalakaua signed it only because otherwise the (haoles) were going to kill him. (page 14)
TWISTED: Queen Liliuokalani's (haole) cabinet ministers betrayed her and publicly humiliated her by refusing to agree to a new Constitution she was planning to proclaim -- they did this at the very moment she was ready to proclaim it, when foreign ministers were waiting in the throne room and thousands of natives were eagerly waiting in front of the Palace. (page 16)
THREE MAJOR FALSEHOODS PLUS ADDITIONAL TWISTING: "On January 17th, 1893, 162 U.S. marines invaded Hawaii at the request of the U.S. Minister. With guns and cannons pointed at 'Iolani Palace the group of American businessmen proclaimed a new government and ordered the Queen to resign. Fearing bloodshed on both sides, the Queen surrendered to the U.S. and not to the provisional government." (page 18)
TWISTED: U.S. President Grover Cleveland sent his personal representative James Blount to Hawaii to investigate the U.S. role in the overthrow of the monarchy, and Blount wrote an unbiased report saying it was wrong for the U.S. to invade Hawaii in support of the overthrow of the monarchy by white businessmen. (page 23)
ONE MAJOR FALSEHOOD PLUS ADDITIONAL TWISTING: Liliuokalani discouraged Hawaiians from attempting a counterrevolution because she didn't want bloodshed, but when it happened in 1895, the Sheriff went to her home and arrested her, (falsely) accusing her of knowing about the plan. (page 25)
TWISTED: Liliuokalani, imprisoned and on trial under threat of a death sentence, gave up her throne and said the monarchy was finished. (page 27)
MAJOR FALSEHOOD: In 1897 "Nearly all Hawaiian people signed petitions opposing annexation." (page 29)
MAJOR FALSEHOOD WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE IS TO INFLAME RACIAL HATRED: In 1898, at the ceremony of annexation, "The Hawaiian flag was lowered from above the former Palace and cut into small strips to be given away as souvenirs" (to the haoles who had overthrown the monarchy). (page 31)
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INTRODUCTION -- WHY A BOOK CONTAINING HISTORICAL FALSEHOODS SHOULD BE RECALLED LIKE A DEFECTIVE PRODUCT (BECAUSE IT CAN POISON THE SOULS OF INNOCENT READERS AND AROUSE RACIAL HATRED)
A book published in Hawaii in May 2010 seems intended to serve three noble and benevolent purposes: (1) show well-deserved appreciation to an elderly volunteer, Mrs. Anne Jurczynski, a 92-year-old woman from Ohio who has given 24 years of service to Iolani Palace; (2) celebrate the importance of the Palace in Hawaii's history; and (3) help children learn Hawaiian language by telling a story in simple words where every page has a paragraph in English and the same paragraph in Hawaiian.
The book is well written and nicely illustrated. The story of Mrs. Jurczynski's life and her special relationship with Hawaii is touching and beautifully told. Much of the content about Kingdom history is interesting and some of it is true. Unfortunately some of the history is provably false. The false items are commonly heard myths which have been repeated so often that most people imagine they are true. The falsehoods require considerable research to disprove, so most people do not have the time to investigate them, nor the interest to read the often dull facts that disprove them. Worst of all, the falsehoods poison the minds of innocent readers (especially the children for whom the book is intended) by arousing their resentment and anger against Caucasians from Europe and America over things that never happened or things that did happen but not in the way the book implies.
To kill someone all that's needed is a small amount of poison hidden inside a sweet treat, or a defect in the way a product is made. The killing can take place suddenly, as happened with cyanide-laced Tylenol pills sold in drugstores and supermarkets in 1982, and sticky gas pedals in Toyota cars and trucks sold by dealers in 2009-2010. But the killing can also take place slowly over months or years, as with a husband who repeatedly puts a drop of arsenic in his wife's cup of tea, or a manufacturer who used asbestos in car brakes or home construction before it was known that asbestos would give lung cancer to the laborers who made the products or the consumers who used them. As those examples illustrate, the killing can be intentional murder or it can be an accident caused by people who don't realize they're creating a problem.
A book filled with historical falsehoods that arouse racial hostility can poison the souls of innocent readers as surely as arsenic or asbestos could poison their bodies. The question is: Does the author/publisher of this book know about the falsehoods and is he deliberately poisoning the minds of innocent readers like the murdering husband putting arsenic in his wife's tea? Or is the author/publisher ignorant of the facts and merely passing along often-repeated myths, like the manufacturer who sincerely thought asbestos is a safe and effective fire retardant or insulator? There's one way to find out.
As soon as Johnson and Johnson (the manufacturer of Tylenol) became aware in 1982 that someone had sabotaged the product by putting cyanide in some bottles, J&J ordered a recall. On March 23, 2002 an article in the New York Times celebrated the 20th anniversary of the recall. "What set apart Johnson & Johnson's handling of the crisis from others? It placed consumers first by recalling 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules from store shelves and offering replacement product in the safer tablet form free of charge. ... The moves were costly. Johnson & Johnson spent more than $100 million for the 1982 recall and relaunch of Tylenol. ... Johnson & Johnson's shareholders were hurt only briefly. In 1982, the stock ... recovered to its highs only two months later. ... If you had invested $1,000 in Johnson & Johnson shares on September 28, 1982, just before the first Tylenol episode, you would have $22,062 today, after four stock splits. The company has paid out increasing dividends for 39 years."
Consider also the example of Toyota. More than 2 million Toyota vehicles were recalled by the company in January and February 2010 because of faulty gas pedals that had caused thousands of instances of dangerous unexpected acceleration resulting in hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths. At first, as the company became aware of the problem during 2009, it tried to deny the problem existed. But in 2010 Toyota responsed to lawsuits, inquiries by the media, government regulators, and bad publicity. The company launched a massive recall costing hundreds of millions of dollars, and tried to turn lemons into lemonade by publicizing the recall campaign as an effort to protect public safety and improve the quality of its products.
Let's hope a sincere, innocent, and apologetic Kim Hunter and his company One Voice Publications will order a recall of this book, and either give buyers their money back or else give them a revised second edition without the historical falsehoods and distortions. It should be easy to track down the bookstores and libraries who bought the book, to begin the recall. It might be harder to track down individuals who paid cash to buy the book. Perhaps the Friends of Iolani Palace has a list of names of the members and volunteers who were given copies of the book at a banquet in honor of volunteers. A notice should be placed on the book's webpage regarding the existence of historical falsehoods, and offering to refund the purchase price or replace the book with a second edition. Under no circumstances should the first edition of this book be allowed to be used in the public or private schools, except perhaps in a college course on journalism or history, where it could serve as an example of historical malpractice and the political use of history-twisting as a propaganda tool.
Perhaps the best example of a Hawaii publisher who refused to publish a correction of a falsehood even after proof of falsity was provided can be found on a webpage with the following title: "The Goebbels Award For Outstanding Use of Media for Propaganda Disguised As Fact -- Honolulu Star-Bulletin Wednesday April 23 2008, page 2 (The newspaper falsely stated that President Grover Cleveland signed a proclamation in 1894 that set April 30th as a day of prayer and remembrance for Queen Liliuokalani and the overthrown monarchy of Hawaii; and the newspaper refused to publish a correction despite being given proof of falsehood)."
http://bigfiles90.angelfire.com/GoebbelsAwardHonStarBull042308.html
If Kim Hunter is truly innocent of intentional history-twisting, he can take solace in the fact that U.S. Senators Dan Inouye and Byron Dorgan actually spoke some of the same falsehoods on the floor of the U.S. Senate on June 7, 2006 during a debate on cloture for the Akaka bill. See
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/AkakaInouyeDorganLies.htmlSenator
Inouye has repeatedly asserted another falsehood which is also included in this book, regarding the claim that the haoles ripped the Hawaiian flag into pieces and passed them out as souvenirs when the flag was lowered from the Palace at the 1898 annexation ceremonies. Senator Akaka has also repeatedly told that falsehood on the Senate floor. That's a scurrilous lie whose sole purpose is to stir up racial hatred; and a webpage debunking it will be cited in the list of quotes and rebuttals below.
In addition to sins of commission the book also has sins of omission. Actual falsehoods in the content of what is written are amplified by celebrating only the first 11 years of Palace history. The "Friends of Iolani Palace" has chosen to portray its history only during the Kingdom from 1882 to 1893, leading some Hawaiian sovereignty activists to regard it as the ongoing Capitol of their still-living Kingdom. The book perpetuates that myth by ignoring extremely important events that happened at the Palace for 75 years from 1894 to 1968 when it was the Capitol of the Republic, Territory, and State of Hawaii. The Palace is where the Constitutional Conventon of 1894 took place and the Republic of Hawaii was created. Sanford B. Dole ruled Hawaii as head of government from the building we know as Iolani Palace for a longer time than King Kalakaua -- Dole governed from the Palace as President of the Provisional Government, President of the Republic of Hawaii, and Governor of the Territory of Hawaii, for a total of nearly 11 years.
The Palace is where the ceremony of Annexation took place in 1898, where the Territorial Legislature had its meetings, where a petition with 120,000 signatures demanding "Statehood Now!" got a ceremonial Hawaiian sendoff in 1954, and where the transition to Statehood took place in 1959 amidst great celebration. It served as the legislative and executive Capitol of both the Territory and the State, with the U.S. flag flying proudly for 70 years until the new Capitol building was completed in 1968, when the Palace became a museum. Any book about Iolani Palace and its importance in the history of Hawaii should not leave out the Republic, Territory, and Statehood periods as though they were rubbish to be discarded. Hopefully the revised second edition of the book will celebrate the full history of the Palace and not merely the Kalakaua/Liliuokalani dynasty. Tens of thousands of Hawaiians and Asians lived in poverty while working on plantations that generated the wealth allowing Hawaii's royalty to travel the world and have lavish dinner parties and ballroom dances at the Palace. While Kings and Queens in Hawaii dined more elegantly than Marie Antoinette, one might wonder whether any of them gave a thought to the starving field hands and perhaps said "Let them eat poi."
This book will no doubt sell thousands of copies because it serves the propaganda needs of several wealthy institutions who might be suspected of underwriting its creation. The Friends of Iolani Palace are delighted with the book because it honors a long-time volunteer and also because the book focuses on the Kalakaua/Liliuokalani period while including numerous historical falsehoods often told by tour guides who use the Palace as a sovereignty propaganda vehicle. The Friends of Iolani Palace has already distributed numerous copies at a banquet honoring volunteers. Kamehameha Schools is no doubt delighted with the book because it is printed in both English and Hawaiian, in simple writing which makes it useful as a history book for schoolchildren; and of course Kamehameha also likes to brainwash children with the historical falsehoods. Kamehameha might use the book in its own elementary school, and will probably make sure it is distributed to the Hawaiian language immersion classrooms, and the regular public schools where Kamehameha contributes megabucks and controls the Hawaiian studies curriculum, and the Hawaiian-focus public charter schools. Perhaps OHA is also underwriting the book for the same reasons.
Considering all those factors, how likely is it that author Kim Hunter was innocent and ignorant of the history-twisting when he wrote the falsehoods into his book? The Tylenol and Toyota recalls were done because people were getting killed and injured in publicly visible ways, and lawsuits were filed for damages. But the poison in this book is slow-acting, kills only the invisible soul, and very few people seem to be complaining. The author/publisher has no incentive to recall the book, except whatever commitment to historical accuracy and whatever sense of moral integrity he might still have, if any.
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IMPORTANT HISTORICAL FALSEHOODS OR DISTORTIONS QUOTED AND DEBUNKED
These are listed in the order they appear in the book, not necessarily the order of historical importance or the order of nastiness for stimulating anger.
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Book p.11: "Lili'uokalani was heartbroken with the news of her brother's death. Despite her grief members of the government told her to meet with them immediately. They said she was to be sworn in as Queen at once and take an oath to support the Constitution she knew had led to her brother's death."
Comments:
The clear intent of that paragraph is to create the impression that Liliuokalani's (Caucasian) advisers took advantage of her grief to rush her into immediately taking an oath of loyalty to the (Bayonet) Constitution of 1887; and also to create the impression (that she knew) that the Constitution having been forced on Kalakaua was the cause of Kalakaua's death.
1. The facts show Liliuokalani might not have been heartbroken at all about Kalakaua's death. The Wilcox rebellion of 1889, only two years before Kalakaua's death, resulted in 7 men killed, many injured, and the roof of the Iolani Palace bungalow blown open by dynamite bombs. Behind the scenes of that event Liliuokalani was plotting a coup against Kalakaua, and Kalakaua was plotting a coup against the constitution of 1887. Crown Princess Liliuokalani held secret meetings in one of her houses to oust her brother King Kalakaua so that she could become Queen. Meanwhile Kalakaua was plotting a coup to abrogate the Constitution of 1887 which had reduced him to a powerless figurehead, and proclaim the reinstatement of the previous Constitution of 1864 (which itself had been a coup by Lot Kamehameha V against the earlier Constitution of 1852). Court testimony later indicated that Kalakaua had manipulated Liliuokalani's coup plot against him so that he would come out the winner whichever way it turned out. Indeed, evidence indicates that Kalakaua instigated or encouraged both Liliuokalani's coup plot and the Wilcox rebellion in order to strengthen his own power. Some details of both coup plots, and details about the activities of Wilcox, obtained from court testimony and other sources, were included in the Morgan Report testimony of W.D. Alexander on pages 643-646, and in the statement of Supreme Court Chief Justice A.F. Judd on page 800. That material has been assembled here: "Wilcox Rebellion 1889 and Dueling Palace Coup Plots"
http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Wilcox_Rebellion_1889_and_Dueling_Palace_Coup_Plots
2. King Kalakaua went to San Francisco in 1891, supposedly for his health, and he died there. There is no evidence that Kalakaua's death was caused by depression due to the revolution of 1887 that forced the "bayonet" Constitution on him. Kalakaua had led a debauched lifestyle and suffered various illnesses resulting from that, including cirrhosis of the liver. To see a medical report by the doctor who attended his death and did a partial autopsy in the course of embalming his body through aortic injection, go to Google and use the keywords: Kalakaua autopsy.
3. It is normal practice in all nations for a successor head of government to take the oath of office urgently, as soon as possible after the predecessor's end of term, resignation, or death. The purpose is to avoid confusion over who is in charge, and to reassure the public that the transition is orderly. Americans will recall that when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Vice President Johnson took the oath of office almost immediately, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." At 1:20 PM Johnson was in the hospital when he was informed Kennedy was dead, and at 2:35 PM the oath of office was administered hastily on the airplane waiting to take Johnson back to Washington D.C. before the plane took off from the Dallas airport.
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Book p. 12: "It was just four years before in 1887 that the Queen's brother was forced at risk of bodily harm to sign a new constitution. The coup d'etat by the sons and grandsons of missionaries happened while the new Queen was a Princess. ..."
Comment: It is a frequently-told falsehood that the revolution of 1887, which forced the Reform (Bayonet) Constitution on King Kalakaua, was done by the sons and grandsons of American missionaries. Wikipedia includes source references for the fact that in 1887 there was a mass meeting of about 3,000 local residents including the armed militia of the Honolulu Rifles and politicians who later formed the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1887_Constitution_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
Rebellion of 1887
By 1887 the missionaries had long since been released by their sponsoring denominations, and their sons and grandsons certainly did not number anywhere close to 3,000. In July 1893 J.W. Jones, secretary of the Annexation Club, submitted a report to President Cleveland's representative James Blount saying there were 5500 members including 1022 native Hawaiians, 1218 Americans, 251 Englishmen, 2261 Portuguese, 69 Norwegians, 351 Germans. These facts were cited on page 86 of Thurston Twigg-Smith's book "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?" which can be downloaded in its entirety from
http://bigfiles90.angelfire.com/HawnSovDoFactsMatterTTS.pdf
It's also important to note that the 1887 revolution was done entirely by local residents of Honolulu -- there were no U.S. forces present.
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Book p. 13: "The United States wanted Pearl Harbor for U.S. trade and warships before they would extend the Reciprocity Treaty. King Kalakaua worked hard to get the treaty in 1876 so plantation owners in Hawai'i could sell sugar in the U.S. with no tax. The plantation owners were getting rich and they wanted the wealth to continue."
Comment: Kalakaua became King in 1874 after a hard-fought, bitter election victory against dowager Queen Emma. Emma had strong ties to England; Kalakaua countered with strong ties to the U.S. Kalakaua's government was heavily dependent on revenues from the sugar plantations to support the Kingdom government and his lavish lifestyle, and the plantations needed the Reciprocity Treaty to protect their ability to sell sugar in the U.S. market and generate the revenues needed by the King. The Reciprocity Treaty was actually signed and ratified early in 1875, to take effect in September 1876.
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Book p. 14: "When the King refused to give Pearl Harbor to the U.S. the "missionary boys" sprang into action. The constitution they wrote stripped the monarch of many powers. Under the new constitution, most Hawaiian
people would lose the right to vote and could not run for high office. The King understood he must sign this "Bayonet Constitution" or he would be assassinated."
Comments: The language used on page 14 is disrespectful and intentionally inflammatory, including the label "missionary boys" and the word "assassinated." There was never any attempt to assassinate Kalakaua, although Liliuokalani did try to take the crown away from him in 1889 as noted above in part 1 of the comments to page 11. An armed militia of local men, most of whom were not American, whose guns included bayonets, did indeed force Kalakaua to sign a new Constitution in 1887; but the threat of force was only to remove him from office, not to kill him.
1. The Reciprocity Treaty had nothing to do with "giving" Pearl Harbor to the U.S. The agreement was that the U.S. would be the only foreign nation allowed to use Pearl Harbor, but only for the limited period of time specified in the treaty. When that time expired, a second treaty extending the time was negotiated in 1884, ratified by the U.S. Senate in January 1887, and ratified by Kalakaua in October 1887. The Bayonet Constitution had nothing to do with the Reciprocity Treaty.
2. This sentence on page 14 needs extensive analysis to prove why it is grossly twisted out of all proportion to the facts: "Under the new constitution, most Hawaiian people would lose the right to vote and could not run for high office."
One of the biggest falsehoods told about the Constitution of 1887 is the claim that it took away voting rights from native Hawaiians by imposing requirements for property ownership or employment income to be eligible to vote.
In actuality the previous Constitution of 1864 had imposed a requirement for property ownership of $500 value or employment income of $250 per year in order to be eligible to BECOME A MEMBER of the House of Representatives. It also imposed a property/income requirement to be ELIGIBLE TO VOTE for Representative: Property ownership with net value after encumbrances of $150, or leasehold property with annual rent of $25, or annual income of $75; plus the ability to read and write.
That Constitution of 1864 was unilaterally proclaimed in a coup by King Lot Kamehameha V after the Legislature had refused to agree to it. That property/income requirement did indeed have the result that many natives (and also Caucasian vagrants) were unable to vote or run for the Legislature. That was its purpose -- to take away political rights from the lower-class riff-raff. But that Constitution was written and proclaimed by a 100% full-blooded native King at a time when there was no Honolulu Rifles militia pressuring him to do anything, and no interference from the U.S. military had yet taken place. The denial of political rights was done by natives to other natives.
The new Constitution of 1887 totally removed that property/income requirement for voters for the House of Representatives. Yes indeed, it was a democratic reform! There was still the same property/income requirement for eligibility to serve as a Representative, but now there was neither a property nor income requirement to be able to vote for Representative. Thus even the most impoverished, landless, unemployed native was now eligible to vote for Representative because of the new Constitution of 1887.
In addition, the previous 1864 Constitution had made the upper legislative House of Nobles entirely appointed by the King, whereas the new Constitution of 1887 made the Nobles elected. And the number of Nobles was doubled, from 20 to 40. The property/income requirements to become a member of the House of Nobles were quite high: property valued at $3000 or income of $600. The property/income requirement to be eligible to vote for Noble was the same as the requirement to be elected as a Noble.
So, in conclusion, let's review why the following sentence on page 14 is a severe twisting and distortion of the facts, deliberately intended to provoke anger for no good reason at all: "Under the new constitution [of 1887], most Hawaiian people would lose the right to vote and could not run for high office."
The short answer is that any native or Caucasian who previously could vote or run for office could continue to do so, and every native or Caucasian who had previously been prohibited from voting for Representative due to low property ownership or income could now vote. In addition some wealthy natives and Caucasians could now run for and vote for the House of Nobles which previously had been by royal appointment only.
The Constitution of 1887 allowed all natives to vote for Representatives regardless of property or income, unlike the previous Constitution of 1864 which might have screened out about 1/3 of them due to property or income requirements. The Constitution of 1887 made no change from the previous Constitution of 1864 in the property/income requirement to become a member of the House of Representatives. The Constitution of 1887 changed the House of Nobles from being appointed by the King to being elected by the people, although the high property/income requirement might have kept perhaps 2/3 of natives ineligible to run for or vote for Nobles.
It is very clear that the Constitution of 1887 was a democratic reform that opened up participation in voting to natives who had previously been prevented from voting due to property/income requirements, and also opened up candidacy to run for the House of Nobles to upper class natives who previously could have become Nobles only by appointment at the whim of the King.
The only losers in the Constitution of 1887 were the King (who lost most of his powers) and the Asians who were subjects of the Kingdom. The 1887 Constitution specifically prohibited Asians from voting. Most native-born or naturalized Asians would have been ineligible to vote anyway, due to the property/income requirements of the 1864 Constitution; so very few if any Asians actually lost voting rights due to the anti-Asian language in the 1887 Constitution. The only Asians who would have been affected were wealthy businessmen.
However, even for the few wealthy Asians, the racial restriction in the 1887 Constitution made no change in their right to vote, because that right had been stripped from Asians by a Constitutional amendment in 1874 (the same year Kalakaua was elected). See Ernest Andrade, Jr., "Unconquerable Rebel: Robert W. Wilcox and Hawaiian Politics, 1880-1903 (University Press of Colorado, 1996), p. 6. From this little-known historical tidbit we see that ethnic Hawaiians were the ones who first used race to prohibit Asians from voting (even if they were native-born or naturalized subjects of the Kingdom), long before the (Bayonet) Constitution of 1887 (which is often described as having been imposed by the whites).
References:
Constitution of 1864: See Articles 57, 58, 61 and 62 at
http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Hawaii_Constitution_of_1864
Constitution of 1887: See Articles 56, 59, 61 and 62 at
http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Hawaii_Constitution_of_1887
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Book p. 15: "Queen Lili'uokalani signed the oath to the Bayonet Constitution as she awaited the return of her brother's body. Over the next several months the Hawaiian people cried for justice. Petitions for a new constitution were signed by two-thirds of the voters and presented to the Queen."
Comment: Liliuokalani did indeed sign the oath to the Constitution as noted in part 3 of the comment to page 11. But it's clear that she signed it with her fingers crossed behind her back. We know she had no intention of abiding by it and planned to overturn it, because that was her motive in her attempted coup against Kalakaua in 1889 (see part 1 of the comment to page 11). When she returned from Queen Victoria's golden jubilee in London, she was shocked to discover that Kalakaua had signed the Bayonet Constitution, so she decided to get rid of her brother and his Constitution.
It is quite a dramatic exaggeration when the book says "the Hawaiian people cried for justice." The Hawaiian people were busy with subsistence farming and fishing, or working on the plantations. They did not have time or energy for the political activism indicated by the dramatic phrase "cried for justice." Furthermore, as proved in part 2 of the comments to page 14, the Constitution of 1887 did not make any change that could be imagined to be unjust to the native voters. The requirements to run for or vote for Representative remained exactly the same as in the previous Constitution of 1864; and the new Constitution also made it possible for the first time for some Hawaiians to run for and vote for the House of Nobles.
Did 2/3 of the voters sign petitions crying out for justice that were presented to the Queen? Who says so, and where are those petitions? What seems likely is that the Queen did some "community organizing", sending her lackeys out to get signatures on a petition to take power away from the people and give it to the Queen. Why would ordinary people sign such a petition, except under duress or social pressure? The politics might have been similar to what happens today when Mayor Hannemann runs for Governor and sends his department heads and patronage employees out to collect campaign contributions from government contractors and citizens wanting favors.
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Book p. 16: "On January 14, 1893 the Queen called her Cabinet to the Blue Room to sign a new constitution restoring the powers of the monarch and the rights of the Hawaiian people. Foreign Ministers waited in the Throne Room for the celebration. Thousands of people gathered on the grounds of 'Iolani Palace awaiting the news. The Cabinet members refused to sign."
Comment: According to the existing Constitution which Liliuokalani had sworn to uphold, the approval of the Cabinet ministers was required. She knew that. The Queen should not have summoned the Foreign Ministers and the "thousands of people" to the Palace until she knew the Cabinet would approve. She was clearly trying to intimidate them. They bravely refused to knuckle under, even though the Queen had personally appointed all four of them to be Cabinet ministers less than a week previously, and even though at least one of them, Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was a Hawaiian with 3/4 native blood (to verify, put his name and job title into Google).
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Book p. 18: "On January 17th, 1893, 162 U.S. marines landed on Hawaiian soil at the request of the U.S. Minister. With guns and cannons pointed at 'Iolani Palace the group of American businessmen proclaimed a new government and ordered the Queen to resign. Fearing bloodshed on both sides, the Queen surrendered to the U.S. and not to the provisional government."
Comment: Actually the date when the 162 peacekeepers came ashore was January 16. Most of them were ordinary sailors who picked up rifles, not Marines.
1. They came ashore because there had been dueling mass meetings of Royalists at the Palace and revolutionaries at the Armory; everyone knew there was going to be a revolution; and ordinary residents expected violence and feared for their lives and property. There were credible threats of arson to be used as a political weapon against people of European and American ancestry, and their homes and businesses. The U.S. ship was the only one in Honolulu that had armed men aboard with military training, and the local representatives of several European nations pleaded with U.S. Minister Stevens to send the peacekeepers ashore.
2. The U.S. peacekeepers came ashore, marched past the Palace on their way to an expected bivouac at Wai'alae; and as they passed the Palace they dipped the U.S. flag in salute and respect to the Queen. At no time that day or any other day were U.S. weapons pointed at the Palace.
3. The entire revolution was done on January 17 by armed local men, 1500 of whom had met on January 16 at the Armory to make their plans. The U.S. troops never took over any buildings, never gave any food or ammunition or weapons to the revolutionaries, and never patrolled the streets.
Reference: All the facts in comments 1,2,3 can be found in 808 pages of testimony under oath in open session with cross examination, during January and February 1894, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. See the Morgan Report (especially the outline of topics and the testimony summaries) at
http://morganreport.org
For example, to read about credible threats of arson, use the internal search window and the keyword: incendiarism.
4. In July 1893 J.W. Jones, secretary of the Annexation Club, submitted a report to President Cleveland's representative James Blount saying there were 5500 members of the Annexation Club including 1022 native Hawaiians, 1218 Americans, 251 Englishmen, 2261 Portuguese, 69 Norwegians, 351 Germans (cited on page 86 of Thurston Twigg-Smith's book "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?" Notice that there were nearly twice as many Portuguese as Americans, and almost as many native Hawaiians as Americans. The Revolution was multiracial, and only 22% were Americans.
Furthermore, the 13-member Committee of Safety which led the revolution and served as the initial executive body of the Provisional Government had only 5 Americans along with 3 Hawaiian nationals, 3 Germans, 1 English, and 1 Scottish. All favored annexation to the United States, and all were longtime residents of Honolulu with full voting rights. See the Morgan Report pp. 1101-1102.
5. The final sentence on page 18 says " ... the Queen surrendered to the U.S. and not to the provisional government." She could claim to be surrendering to the man in the moon, but the simple fact is that her letter of protest and surrender was hand-delivered to President Dole at the offices of the Provisional Government where it was time-stamped. The Queen clearly knew enough to send her letter to the headquarters of the forces that had defeated her and might be planning to attack, rather than to U.S. Minister Stevens or his peacekeepers who had never threatened her in any way. Losers often try to surrender to someone they think will treat them better than others. In Germany in 1945, as Russian forces approached Berlin from the East while American, French, and British forces approached from the West, nearly all the German soldiers ran toward the West to surrender because they knew the Russians were likely to kill them due to the atrocities done by German troops against Russian civilians.
In the American Revolution of 1776, the British had the good sense to surrender to the Americans who had actually defeated them, rather than to the French who had helped finance the revolution, trained the American troops, and supplied thousands of soldiers and dozens of battleships of their own. Imagine if the British had chosen instead to surrender to the superior power of the French, until such time as the French would undo the revolution? As a matter of fact, the American revolutionary war took more than five years to win. The war was won only after the French greatly increased their support for the Americans. At the end, the French navy blockaded Chesapeake Bay to prevent the British from bringing in supplies or troops for the final battle of Yorktown; and during October 1781 thousands of French troops fought side by side with the American rebels. On October 19, 1781, at surrender field near Yorktown, a country lane was turned into a surrender gauntlet. French troops lined up along one side and American rebels lined up on the other side. The entire British military slow-marched through this gauntlet, their fifes playing "The World Turned Upside Down." General Cornwallis was ill, and sent his second-in-command General Ohara. Ohara offered his surrender sword to the French! But the French knew better than to accept it. This day belonged to the American rebels. After the French refused to accept the surrender sword, it was then presented to the American, General George Washington.
Thus, in the American revolution the British monarchy tried to surrender to the French, whose massive military forces had been absolutely essential in making the revolution succeed. But the French had the good sense to refuse the surrender and to make the British surrender to the American rebels. In the Hawaiian revolution, the Americans had played a very small role, sending in only 162 troops off a single ship, not to fight but merely to prevent rioting. Too bad the Americans made the mistake of passing along to Washington DC the Queen's protest letter that was delivered to Sanford Dole. The Americans should have done in Honolulu as the French had done at Yorktown, and should have required that the monarch surrender to the local rebels who had actually defeated her.
-----------------
Book p. 23: "President Cleveland immediately withdrew the plan for annexation and sent a representative to investigate. After speaking with people from both sides, Mr. Blount said in a 2,000 page report that what had happened was immoral and wrong. He said the U.S. Minister's action to land U.S. marines on Hawaiian soil in support of the white businessmen was wrong. He said, put the Queen back in power!"
Comment: "U.S. marines on Hawaiian soil in support of the white businessmen" -- that never happened. The sailors came ashore as peacekeepers to protect civilians, many of whom were not Americans and not white and not businessmen. (See especially point #4 in response to page 18). They remained neutral, and did not give any support to either side.
As the book itself describes on page 22, President Cleveland was a personal friend of Liliuokalani. So as soon as Cleveland took power, he immediately sent Blount to Hawaii as a hatchet man, under orders to destabilize the Provisional Government, put Liliuokalani back on the throne, and to write a report blaming the revolution on the U.S. and calling for the Queen's restoration. In Hawaii Blount stayed at the royalist hotel next to the Palace (now the state art museum) where almost all of the people he interviewed were royalists. His famous report was highly biased, and he intentionally lied about what some of the revolutionaries had told him (as they later testified to a U.S. Senate committee). Read a lengthy, detailed essay "How the Morgan Report repudiates the Blount Report" at
http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=How_the_Morgan_Report_repudiates_the_Blount_Report
Here are the section headings for that essay:
1 Overview of the evidence
2 Blount's ulterior motives
3 Cleveland's failed counter-coup(s)
3.1 Counter-coup #2
4 Weighing credibility
5 Apology Resolution without review
6 Detailed evidence
6.1 President Grover Cleveland and his special, secret, emergency envoy James Blount probably conspired to destabilize the Provisional Government, to restore Liliuokalani to the throne, and to produce an intentionally one-sided report for use as a propaganda tool
6.2 The Blount Report's major conclusions and interpretations of events were wrong
6.2.1 Testimony of Peter Cushman Jones, p. 592
6.2.2 Testimony of Lucien Young, p. 706
6.2.3 The testimony of Professor W.D. Alexander
6.2.4 Statement of Lorrin A. Thurston, Hawaiian Minister to the United States for the Provisional Government
6.3 Blount failed to seek or accept evidence contrary to his predetermined conclusions, strongly implicating him as a political hatchet-man
6.3.1 Testimony of Peter Cushman Jones, page 561
6.3.2 Testimony of William De Witt Alexander, p. 642
6.3.3 Affidavit of John Emmeluth, p 814
6.3.4 Affidavit of William R. Castle, p. 947-948
6.3.5 Affidavit of Edward D. Tenney , pp. 949-950
6.3.6 Testimony of Charles L. MacArthur, excerpt from page 1055
6.4 Blount's report actually twisted, distorted, or lied about what some people told him, as confirmed by their later testimony to the Morgan committee describing specific falsehoods Blount told in his report about what they had allegedly said to him.
6.4.1 Affidavit of J.H. Soper, pp. 810-811
6.4.2 Affidavit of C. Bolte, p. 812
6.4.3 Testimony of Minister Stevens, pp. 915-920
6.4.4 Ex-Queen Liliuokalani negotiates with President Dole for an annuity of $25,000 in return for her abdication
-------------------
Book p. 24: "President Cleveland ordered the American businessmen to restore the Queen to power. The PGs refused and put guns up to get ready to fight. The U.S. President didn't want to use force against the Americans and gave the matter to the U.S. Congress to consider. Queen Lili'uokalani was still confident her power would be restored."
Comment: The book keeps repeating the falsehood that the revolutionaries were American businessmen. Previous comments have decisively refuted that claim. In December 1893 U.S. President Grover Cleveland did indeed have his representative in Honolulu deliver a letter to Hawaii President Sanford B. Dole "ordering" Dole to step down and restore the Queen. Dole wrote a blistering 17-page reply saying that while Hawaii would like to be annexed to the U.S., Hawaii still remained an independent nation and therefore Cleveland had no right to order Dole or the Provisional Government to do anything. At that point Cleveland made public the Blount Report and referred the matter to Congress, hoping Congress would authorize the use of force. But after two months of public hearings with testimony under oath and cross examination, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs produced the Morgan Report which concluded that the U.S. had done nothing wrong. As a result of the Morgan Report the Senate passed a resolution telling President Cleveland to keep hands off and stop interfering in Hawaii's internal affairs.
Reference: A webpage entitled "The Rest of The Rest of The Story" describes in detail what President Cleveland tried to do to Hawaii throughout 1893, and why he changed his mind in 1894. It includes links to important documents including the order to President Dole to resign, Dole's letter of refusal, Cleveland's message referring the matter to Congress, the Senate resolution ordering Cleveland to back off, Cleveland's recognition of the Republic of Hawaii, etc. See
http://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Rest_of_The_Rest_of_The_Story
----------------
Book p. 25: "The Queen discouraged the people from rising up against the PGs. She did not want bloodshed on either side. In 1895, supporters of the monarchy planned to take the government back. Hundreds of people were
arrested after the revolt. The Sheriff also went to Washington Place and arrested Queen Lili'uokalani. The PGs said she knew about the plan."
Comment: From the time the permanent Republic government was established in July 1894, the royalists began plotting a counterrevolution against it. Liliuokalani was definitely a conspirator in the plan for a violent counterrevolution. Guns and grenades were smuggled in by boat from California, probably with knowledge of the U.S. Navy. In January 1895 a royalist army led by Liliuokalani's henchman Robert Wilcox attempted a counterrevolution which was defeated by the Republic. Acting on a tip, Republic forces found a large cache of rifles and bombs buried in the flower bed at Liliuokalani's private home Washington Place -- there is no way she could not have known about them. Historian Gavan Daws describes it this way (Gavan Daws, "Shoal of Time" Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1974, pp. 282-283): "The grounds of her home at Washington Place were searched, and in the garden the searchers found what they were looking for -- a regular ammunition dump; twenty-one bombs, some of them made with coconut shells; more than thirty rifles; thirty-eight cartridge belts and about a thousand rounds of ammunition; and some pistols and swords."
A search warrant was issued for the inside of Washington Place, where letters of appointment were found that Liliuokalani had already signed naming her cabinet ministers and department heads of the new government she expected to establish in the next few days. Liliuokalani was put on trial for misprision of treason (knowing about the plot and failing to report it).
To show the seriousness of the Wilcox attempted counter-revolution of 1895, and the strength of the Provisional Government in defeating it and imprisoning the ex-queen and maintaining order on its own with zero help from the U.S. under a hostile U.S. President Grover Cleveland, and the fact that there were many Caucasians and Americans among the royalists who were members of Wilcox's army, here is a quote from Helena G. Allen, "The Betrayal of Liliuokalani"(Glendale California, Arthur H. Clark Co., 1982. Chapter 8 "A Queen Imprisoned", p. 341.
"Liliuokalani, after her conviction of misprision, returned to her prison ... Sanford Ballard Dole, after a two-week review period, commuted her sentence from the $5,000 fine and five years "imprisonment at hard labor" to mere imprisonment. In fact all the death sentences were remitted and many of the fines. By March 19, 1895, martial law was ended, and the military commission adjourned sine die. Of the 190 prisoners (37 for "treason and open rebellion"; 141, "treason"; and 12, "misprision"), twenty-two had been exiled to the United States, three were deported to Canada, five received suspended sentences, five were acquitted, among them Sam Nowlein, and the remainder served short sentences usually without either fines or hard labor. By January 1, 1896, all were "freed", except Liliuokalani. She remained nearly eight months in her Iolani Palace prison (January 16 to September 6, 1895); five months more under "house arrest" at Washington Place (September 6, 1895 to February 6, 1896 -- a little over a month after all the others had been released); then island-restricted from February 6, 1896, to October 6, 1896 -- nearly 21 months total."
---------------
Book p. 27: "It was during her trial and imprisonment that Queen Lili'uokalani gave up her throne under threat of death. The PGs told her six of her people would be shot if she refused. She signed a paper stating the monarchy was
no more. The Queen was found guilty and imprisoned for eight months before being paroled to her home at Washington Place."
Comment: No government (including the Republic of Hawaii) can allow an ousted monarch or former head of government to proclaim herself the rightful head of government and stir up hundreds of supporters to take up arms and put her back in power. During the French revolution thousands of royals and their supporters were executed in public by guillotine. After the Russian revolution of 1917 the new Communist government put the Tsar and his wife and all their children in a small room and shot them all. Liliuokalani was treated very gently by her longtime friend President Sanford Dole. She did what many criminals do today -- she made a plea bargain with the government. She had the advice of her (former) cabinet ministers and her personal attorney, who were present during negotiations and at the signing of the agreement. The fact that she signed it while imprisoned does not mean it was under duress and not valid, any more than the plea agreements reached by imprisoned criminals today. Ex-queen Liliuokalani’s 5-page letter of abdication and 1-page oath of loyalty to the Republic, both dated January 24, 1895, with her signature, and the signatures of her attorney and cabinet ministers and witnesses, are in the State of Hawaii Archives. The original documents were photographed and placed on the internet, and can be seen here:
https://historymystery.kenconklin.org/2008/04/04/liliuokalanis-abdication-and-loyalty-oath/
---------------
Book p. 29: "Nearly all Hawaiian people signed petitions opposing annexation."
Comment: This is one of the most frequently asserted falsehoods. The truth is that there were 21,269 signatures on a petition in 1897 opposing annexation.
There was an official census of Hawaii done by the Republic in 1896, showing a total population of 109,020, and another official census done by the U.S. in 1900, showing a total population of 154,001 (yes, there was rapid immigration from Japan and the U.S.), so the interpolated figure for the total population in 1897 would be 120,265. Thus, the 21,269 signatures represents only about 18% of the population of Hawaii.
To be charitable toward the book's author: perhaps his phrase "Hawaiian people" refers to the people who had at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. The same straight-line interpolation of the 1896 and 1900 censuses shows that in 1897 there were about 39,542 people who had at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. Thus, even if all the signatures on the petition were ethnic Hawaiian, only about 54% of them signed it. That's why, when today's ethnic Hawaiians eagerly search the list of petition signatures to look for their ethnic Hawaiian grandparents or great-grandparents, they only find half of them signed it, on average. Looking at individual towns whose populations were known, it's easy to see that some residents signed and others in the same town did not. Thus it's clear that difficulties in traveling to remote areas are not the reason why about half the residents did not sign the petition. Given that there was strong social pressure to sign ("Support your Queen! Your ali'i wants you to sign") it is clear that many of the non-signers were actually refusing to sign.
The fact is that everyone who wanted to sign the petition could do so, regardless of race or nationality. And some non-natives apparently did sign it. So the correct figure to use is the total population, which brings us back to the figure of 18%, or about one out of five.
But there's more to the story. In addition to the anti-annexation petition with 21,269 signatures, there was allegedly another petition containing over 17,000 signatures collected by a different organization. The trouble is, that second petition has never been found. And it had a different purpose -- it called for Lili'uokalani to be restored to the throne! Hawaiian sovereignty activists like to add the numbers on the two petitions, for a total of around 38,000 to 39,000 signatures, which would represent virtually every native and part-native man, woman, and baby. But of course that's silly. The two petitions are on different topics. And probably everyone who signed the smaller petition (restore the queen) would have also signed the larger petition (stop annexation). Indeed, the gap of 4,000 signatures could be interpreted to mean that there were 4,000 natives who opposed annexation but also opposed restoring the monarchy and wanted the Republic of Hawai'i to continue as an independent nation under the coalition of white and Hawaiian oligarchs! Even if we allow the total of 39,000 combined signatures as representing anti-annexation views of 39,000 different people, that would still be only about 32% of the whole population.
One of the leaders of the pro annexation movement, Lorrin A. Thurston, filed a protest to the anti-annexation petition in which he identified numerous duplicate signatures (same name and signature on different pages), forgeries (different names in the same handwriting), and other irregularities. In his protest Thurston, who had served in the Kingdom legislature, also reported that Hawaiian legislators would often gather pages of signatures on petitions whose subjects had not yet been written, so the legislator could stockpile a box full of signed petitions and later fill in the purpose of the petition unbeknownst to those who had signed it.
History twister Noenoe Silva "discovered" the petition with 21,269 signatures in the National Archives just in time for the 1998 centennial of annexation. How convenient! She and her fellow history twisters claim that the existence of the petition was nearly unknown because it had been suppressed by evil Caucasians. But one of the main reasons its existence was unknown is that Liliuokalani herself never mentioned it in any of her diaries, and there was no reference to it in either the Hawaiian language or English language newspapers of the time, which were filled with news and comments about political activism for and against annexation. So if knowledge of the petition was suppressed, the ethnic Hawaiians and their leaders were co-conspirators in suppressing it.
Reference: The sources of all these data, and further analysis, are found in a lengthy footnote #3 in a book review of "Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism" by Noenoe Silva, at
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/noenoealohabetrayed.html
See full text of Thurston's detailed challenge to the validity of the signatures at
http://www.krischel.org/wp-content/Anti-Annexation%20Petition%20Fraud.pdf
-----------------
Book p. 31: "On August 12, 1898 Hawai'i was annexed to the United States. Most Hawaiian people stayed home behind closed windows and did not join the small crowd celebrating. The Hawaiian flag was lowered from above the former Palace and cut into small strips to be given away as souvenirs to the people who had gathered."
Comment: Here is the sentence on page 31 that repeats one of the most frequently told falsehoods -- a falsehood that is outrageously scurrilous because its sole purpose is to stir up bitterness, anger, and racial hatred: "The Hawaiian flag was lowered from above the former Palace and cut into small strips to be given away as souvenirs to the people who had gathered."
The falsehood about the shredded Hawaiian flag apparently got started in the 1950s when a local Honolulu writer included the lie in one of her many short-story mixtures of fact and fiction. James Michener included it in his fiction novel "Hawaii" published in 1959. The story was included in the Public Broadcast System's video about the overthrow and annexation nationally televised in 1997. The video was accompanied by lesson plans for teachers, including one that focused on teaching this lie to children throughout America as though it were a fact. (exactly like the book being reviewed here is doing!)In summer 2000, as Senator Inouye was starting his propaganda campaign to pass the Native Hawaiian Recognition bill, he was reported to be personally spreading the lie. This lie can now be found on many internet websites.
Senator Dan Akaka told the falsehood on the floor of the U.S. Senate on July 31, 1990 to commemorate "Hawaiian Flag Day." (July 31 was a national holiday of the Kingdom of Hawai'i, "Ka La Ho'iho'i Ea" [sovereignty restoration day], commemorating the return of sovereignty from Britain to Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III after a rogue British naval captain had seized control for several months)
How do we know it's a falsehood?
John "Butch" Kekahu was well-known in the community for leading two "Aloha March on Washington" events in 1998 and 2000. Butch was an advocate of Hawaiian independence. The August 2, 1998 Sunday Advertiser had a front-page photo whose caption states, "Allen Hoof, left, and John 'Butch' Kekahu examine the Hawaiian flag that was replaced at Iolani Palace 100 years ago by the U.S. flag." In the accompanying article, on page A-3, it says, "John 'Butch' Kekahu, a Hawaiian rights activist from Kauai who happened to be in the archives, instead [instead of looking at the preserved U.S. flag which had been hoisted on annexation day] focused on the Hawaiian flag that came down from the palace at 11:46 a.m. in 1898. It was so tattered Hoof didn't want to unfold it any more from the acid-free roll it hangs on [ in the archives ] ..."
And so, although he may not have intended to do so, Butch Kekahu put to rest that scurrilous historical lie about the Hawaiian flag being ripped to shreds at the 1898 annexation and pieces being passed out as souvenirs to the 1893 revolutionaries.
Senator Dan Inouye has repeated the falsehood about the shredded flag many times. He told it on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1993 to try to get sympathy and votes for the apology bill. He told it again in 2000 to get sympathy and support for the newly introduced Akaka bill. Honolulu Star-Bulletin editor Burl Burlingame on August 14, 2000 publicly excoriated Inouye for repeating the lie. "According to Inouye and certain sovereigntists, the palace's Hawaiian flag was enthusiastically cut up for souvenirs by the Americans and ceased to exist. It should have been preserved for a museum, Inouye complained to the Star-Bulletin's Bud Smyser last month. It was, sort of. At least it was never cut up. It rests today in the vault of the Hawaii State Archives. It's complete and in one piece. Archivist Luella Kurkjian says it's too fragile to be taken out but the flag was certainly preserved for history. It's not on display anywhere because Hawaii has no Hawaiian history museums. Maybe Inouye can pork-barrel us one, hey?"
This falsehood has been repeated so often, and is so outrageous, that a webpage was created in 2004 totally debunking it and describing where the lie originated and providing proof that it is false. See
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles2/HawnFlagCutUpSouv1898.html
=============
OTHER ESSAY-LENGTH REVIEWS OF BOOKS FOCUSING ON HAWAIIAN HISTORY, IN ORDER OF RELEVANCE TO THIS BOOK
Book Review of: Noenoe Silva, "Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism."
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/noenoealohabetrayed.html
Book review of: Aran Alton Ardaiz, "Hawaii -- The Fake State (A Manifesto and Expose of a Nation in Captivity)." Hawaiian Islands, Truth Of God Ministry, 2008.
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/FakeStateBookReview.html
"Unconquerable Rebel: Robert W. Wilcox and Hawaiian Politics, 1880-1903" by Ernest Andrade, Jr. -- notes taken by Ken Conklin on topics of importance regarding current Hawaiian sovereignty issues. Also photos of Wilcox statue in Fort Street Mall, the words on four panels on the statue pedestal, and photos of Wilcox grave in a Catholic cemetery in downtown Honolulu.
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/wilcoxandrade.html
"Who Owns The Crown Lands of Hawaii?" -- Book by Professor Jon Van Dyke, book review by attorney Paul M. Sullivan, and links to some related materials available on the internet.
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/SullivanReviewVanDykeCrownLands.html
Haole Collective Guilt for Hawaiian Grievances and Pain -- A book review of "Then There Were None" by Martha H. Noyes (based on Elizabeth Lindsey Buyers TV docudrama)
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/lindseynoyesthennone.html
Essay-length analysis of a short news report "Forced assimilation may hurt Hawaiians" -- Debunking a typical combination of junk history and junk science fueling the Hawaiian grievance industry, and protesting the use of so-called news reports as vehicles for propaganda
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/ForcedAssimHurtsHawnHealth.html
Book review of: Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura, editors "Asian Settler Colonialism"
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/AsianSettlerColonialism.html
Book review of: Robert H. Stauffer, "Kahana: How the Land Was Lost"
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/staufferkahana.html
Book review of: Ben Finney, "Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging"
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/polynesianvoyaging.html
Book review of: Manulani Aluli Meyer, "Native Hawaiian epistemology" (and other related essays) -- Analysis of a claim that anyone with a drop of Hawaiian native blood has genetically and culturally encoded unique ways of knowing and learning; and therefore ethnic Hawaiian children (and other ethnic minorities to a lesser degree) have special needs for uniquely tailored curriculum and instructional methods
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles2/HawaiianEpistemology.html
Book review of: Gerald Horne: "The White Pacific -- U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War." Analysis of the Hawaii-focused portions of this book.
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/WhitePacific.html
==============
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