Historical Issues Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty -- Revolution (Overthrow of monarchy), Annexation, Statehood, Indigenous Status, Hawaiian Language Ban, Ceded Lands, Etc.
There are about 950 webpages in the website "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Thinking Carefully About It." Each of those webpages has anywhere from just a few printed pages to perhaps as many as 300 printed pages. It can be hard to find things! That's why an internal search engine is provided.
This particular "Historical Issues" webpage is a compilation of links to the items in this website that are especially focused on history. A list of history books that can be found in libraries is available at
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/references.html
But the purpose of this webpage is to provide links to other internet webpages, not to books available only offline in libraries.
Here are the main sections in the order listed below.
Internal search engine
Major items featured: Books by Ken Conklin (2007, text partly online) and Thurston Twigg-Smith (1998, text and photos entirely online); Morgan Report (Official U.S. Senate report,1894, text and summaries entirely online); Native Hawaiians Study Commission official Congressional report, 1983, text entirely online).
Revolution of 1893 (overthrow), Republic of Hawaii, and Annexation of 1898
Statehood (1959) and today's secessionist challenges to it
Broader historical topics such as: The role of religion in Hawaiian history and sovereignty; alleged indigenous status of ethnic Hawaiians; alleged banning of Hawaiian language; ownership of the ceded lands, whether Hawaii citizens of Asian ancestry have a duty to subordinate themselves to ethnic Hawaiians and help throw off the yoke of American colonialism.
Other compilations of webpages: Introductory topics of interest to novices; Reparations (Does the U.S. Owe Anything to Ethnic Hawaiians?); Land Issues; Federal recognition (Akaka bill); Legal issues; Impact of Hawaiian sovereignty on businesses and communities; Conklin's candidacy for OHA trustee in Fall 2000.
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Here is an internal search engine allowing you to find all pages on this website which discuss the topic you're interested in.
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Major items featured: Books by Ken Conklin (2007, text partly online) and Thurston Twigg-Smith (1998, text and photos entirely online); Morgan Report (Official U.S. Senate report,1894, text and summaries entirely online); Native Hawaiians Study Commission official Congressional report, 1983, text entirely online); Hawaii Statehood -- straightening out the history-twisters.
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D. "HAWAIIAN APARTHEID -- RACIAL SEPARATISM AND ETHNIC NATIONALISM IN THE ALOHA STATE" (paperback, 302 pages, March 2007). This book is not available in bookstores. It is available direct from the publisher's internet bookstore or from other internet bookstores such as Amazon, or Barnes and Noble. It is print-on-demand: when you order a book, they print one and mail it to you. This book includes a discussion of the history of racial separatism in Hawai'i, beginning in the Kalakaua/Lili'uokalani regime, continuing with the Home Rule Party during the Territorial period, and then the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, Alu Like, the founding of OHA in 1978, the Akaka bill, etc. See COVER, DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS, AND ENTIRE CHAPTER 1, FREE OF CHARGE, plus information on how to order the book; at
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/BookPromo.html
Thurston Twigg-Smith, "HAWAIIAN SOVEREIGNTY: DO THE FACTS MATTER?" (Honolulu, HI: Goodale Publishing, 1998). This book focuses on the revolution of 1893 that overthrew the monarchy, and the annexation of Hawai'i to the United States (1898). But other topics are also covered, including the role of the missionaries. Mr Twigg-Smith is grandson of Lorrin A. Thurston, a leader of the revolution; and his great-great grandparents were Asa and Lucy Thurston who were in the first company of missionaries to arrive in Hawai'i in 1820. Mr. Twigg-Smith's entire book, including historical photos, can be downloaded free of charge in pdf format by clicking the following link (might take about 7 minutes with a 56 K modem):
http://bigfiles90.angelfire.com/HawnSovDoFactsMatterTTS.pdf
THE MORGAN REPORT -- OFFICIAL U.S. SENATE REPORT OF 1894 REGARDING THE 1893 REVOLUTION THAT OVERTHREW THE HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 808 PAGES of historical documents and testimony under oath in open hearings under cross-examination. BLOWS A BIG HOLE IN THE TWISTED HISTORY IN THE APOLOGY RESOLUTION OF 1993 AND THE AKAKA BILL. Morgan Report website released to the public on January 17, 2006 in honor of the 113th anniversary of the Hawaiian revolution. The website includes all 808 pages of the official report; plus a detailed outline of topics; both short and long summaries of major testimonies; plus commentaries and highlighted portions of testimony on topics of special interest to historians. Morgan report includes the full text of a treaty of annexation offered by Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III; lengthy descriptions of the geography and economy of Hawaii including the school system and the sugar plantations, etc. Please visit
http://morganreport.org
The Native Hawaiians Study Commission was created by the Congress of the United States on December 22, 1980 (Title III of Public Law 96-565). The purpose of the Commission was to "conduct a study of the culture, needs and concerns of the Native Hawaiians." The report includes lengthy sections written by scholars about the history of Hawaii. The Commission published and released to the public a Draft Report of Findings on September 23, 1982. Following a 120-day period of public comment, a final report was written and submitted on June 23, 1983 to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.
http://wiki.grassrootinstitute.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Native_Hawaiians_Study_Commission_Report
Hawaii Statehood -- straightening out the history-twisters. A historical narrative defending the legitimacy of the revolution of 1893, the annexation of 1898, and the statehood vote of 1959.
http://www.angelfire.com/big09a/StatehoodHistUntwisted.html
The politics of digitizing Hawaiian language newspapers (from 1834-1948). A project to digitize Hawaiian language newspapers from the 19th Century appears superficially to be for scholarly research and revitalization of the language, but is actually being done primarily for political purposes in service to the sovereignty independence movement. The project is likely to engage in history-twisting by selecting royalist newspapers while ignoring Hawaiian language newspapers that were anti-monarchy or pro-annexation, thereby creating the impression that native Hawaiians were entirely pro-monarchy. The project might also twist history by allowing insertions or deletions of individual words or paragraphs, in the absence of providing photos of the scanned pages that would enable neutral scholars to verify the accuracy of transcription. An army of sovereignty activists are being recruited to do the transcribing by manually retyping thousands of pages from looking at photos of them, rather than using an optical character reader; thereby using the project to foster solidarity among the activists and to recruit new ones. The beginning and ending dates of this project were intentionally selected to be the dates of the two Hawaiian kingdom holidays of greatest political significance: Ka La Ku'oko'a (November 28, Independence Day) and Ka La Ho'iho'i Ea (July 31, Sovereignty Restoration Day). The organizers of the project are independence activists; and the sponsoring institutions and financial supporters are OHA, Bishop Estate, etc.
http://www.angelfire.com/big09/HawLangNewspapersPoliticsDigitize.html
What Does the United States Owe to Native Hawaiians? Two reports commissioned by Congress (Morgan 1894 and NHSC 1983) contain the answers, which are directly applicable to the Akaka bill.
http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/USOwesNatHawns.html
OHA published a 67-page document suddenly on November 13, 2007 which tried to smear the Hawaii Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights just two days before a scheduled public meeting. The document also tried to twist history to support the Akaka bill and tried to discredit earlier testimony opposing the bill. Civil rights activists rushed to produce a rebuttal to the OHA document one day later. The rebuttal explains that conflicting historical narratives battle to influence public opinion on issues in the political arena, and cites the Morgan Report and Native Hawaiians Study Commission report to straighten out OHA's twisted history.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/AkakaOHAcivrtscomshisttwistrebut111307.html
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Revolution of 1893 (overthrow), Republic of Hawaii, and Annexation of 1898
The Republic of Hawaii was created on July 4, 1894, with the publication of its Constitution. At least five native Hawaiians were delegates to the Constitutional Convention; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic was native Hawaiian John Kaulukou. The full text of the Constitution, and information about the Constitutional Convention that produced it, are available at:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/RepubHawConst1894.html
New York Times article of July 22, 1894 repeats a news report that arrived in San Francisco by ship from Honolulu; about the creation of the Republic of Hawaii on July 4, the huge multiracial crowd celebrating it, and the immediate informal recognition given to the Republic by U.S. Minister Willis and various local consuls from other nations. This pdf file was downloaded from the New York Times website at
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C05E1DF143EEF33A25751C2A9619C94659ED7CF
http://www.angelfire.com/big09a/RepublicNYT1894July22.pdf
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAWAII -- Emperors, Kings, Queens, Princes, and Presidents of at least 19 foreign nations personally signed formal letters of diplomatic recognition de jure, received by the Republic of Hawaii between July 1894 and January 1895. Those letters are available in the state Archives. Photographs of them have been placed on a webpage at
http://tinyurl.com/4wtwdz
Historical significance and implications for statehood, Akaka bill, and ceded lands; are explained at
http://tinyurl.com/2pxqgz
along with a detailed example of the Hawaiian sovereignty lie that such letters do not exist.
Thurston Twigg-Smith, "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?" (Honolulu, HI: Goodale Publishing, 1998). Mr. Twigg-Smith's entire book, including historical photos, can be downloaded free of charge at:
http://bigfiles90.angelfire.com/HawnSovDoFactsMatterTTS.pdf
What Does the United States Owe to Native Hawaiians? Two reports commissioned by Congress (Morgan 1894 and NHSC 1983) contain the answers, which are directly applicable to the Akaka bill.
http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/USOwesNatHawns.html
STATEHOOD VOTE OF 1959: There were 132,773 votes "yes" and 7971 votes "no" for an astonishing 94.3% "yes" vote. For those who like to say ethnic Hawaiians were opposed to Statehood: Do the math. If 20% of the voters were ethnic Hawaiians, that would mean there were 28,149 votes cast by ethnic Hawaiians = 20% out of the total 140,744. Supposing ALL the 7971 "no" votes had been cast by ethnic Hawaiians; then there were still 20,178 "yes" votes from ethnic Hawaiians, representing 72% of the 28,149 ethnic Hawaiian votes. The vote count was also broken down by individual representative district. The district with the highest percentage of ethnic Hawaiians -- sparsely-populated Moloka'i -- had 1904 "yes" and 75 "no" for a 96.2% "yes" vote -- the highest percentage among all the 17 districts. A 3-page pdf file (unfortunately 5.4 Megabytes!) shows the statistics as certified by Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Dwayne Yoshina in his letter dated January 7, 2000:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/HawaiiStateHoodVote.pdf
Dialog: Was there widespread, significant, organized opposition to Hawaii statehood by ethnic Hawaiians during the 1950s?
During August 2009 the Honolulu Advertiser published a series of articles by staff reporter Michael Tsai regarding the 50th anniversary of Hawaii statehood. One of those articles, on August 9, 2009, described Native Hawaiian opposition to statehood during the 1950s, including the question whether opposition was widespread, significant, or organized. This article reinforced the attitudes of the Hawaiian sovereignty activists who like to call Hawaii a "fake state." They like to say that in the 1950s there was strong opposition to statehood among ethnic Hawaiians, despite oppression which caused all of them except the powerful or affluent (like Alice Campbell) to remain silent.
In response, blogger Andrew Walden, editor of Hawaii Free Press, published a rebuttal on August 21, 2009 showing that the Advertiser article had misunderstood or actually twisted the facts about the testimony of Alice Campbell and other so-called opposition by Native Hawaiians.
Both articles are copied here:
http://www.angelfire.com/big09/DialogHawnOpposStatehood1950s.html
Celebration of Statehood Day 2006 in Hawai'i turned ugly. The 47th anniversary celebration of Hawai'i statehood, at the Capitol of the former Territory, was disrupted by Hawaiian sovereignty activists using a sound-system, bullhorns, and direct in-your-face yelling as the celebration was about to get underway. First to be targeted by the terrorists were the high school students who are members of the band invited to perform -- as they sat seated with their instruments, ready to play patriotic songs, numerous protesters walked right up to them, shouting and cursing, while the bullhorn warned there would be trouble and they should leave. Needless to say, their parent-chaperones escorted them to the bus. Then the goon-squad turned attention to the legitimate participants in the celebration, standing nose-to-nose while yelling loudly and continuously; cursing, spitting, coming between celebrants, and surrounding individuals while telling them to leave and to take their American flags with them because this is not America. For details, see:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/statehoodday2006.html
Broader historical topics such as: alleged indigenous status of ethnic Hawaiians; the growth of citizenship and voting rights in Hawaii; full partnership for Caucasians and Asians; Kingdom holidays then and now; alleged banning of Hawaiian language; ownership of the ceded lands; whether Hawaii citizens of Asian ancestry have a duty to subordinate themselves to ethnic Hawaiians and help throw off the yoke of American colonialism; History of the political and legal battle between Rice v. Cayetano and the Akaka bill during the period from 1996 to 2010.
Other compilations of webpages: Introductory topics of interest to novices; Reparations (Does the U.S. Owe Anything to Ethnic Hawaiians?); Land Issues; Federal recognition (Akaka bill); Legal issues; Impact of Hawaiian sovereignty on businesses and communities; Conklin's candidacy for OHA trustee in Fall 2000.
