Hawaiian Kingdom


The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaii Hawaiian: Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina, was the sovereign state located in a Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island of Hawai'i, conquered the independent islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi together with Lānaʻi together with unified them under one government. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian archipelago became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Hawaiian Kingdom voluntarily. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom: the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.

The kingdom won recognition from the major European powers. The United States became its chief trading partner and watched over it to prevent other powers such(a) as Britain and Japan from asserting hegemony. In 1887 King Kalākaua was forced to accept a new constitution in a coup by the Honolulu Rifles, an anti-monarchist militia. Queen Liliʻuokalani, who succeeded Kalākaua in 1891, tried to abrogate the new constitution. She was overthrown in 1893, largely at the hands of the Committee of Safety, a institution including Hawaiian subjects and resident foreign nationals of American, British and German descent, many educated in the US. Hawaiʻi was briefly an independent republic until the U.S. annexed it through the Newlands Resolution on July 4, 1898, which created the Territory of Hawaii. United States Public Law 103-150 of 1993 requested as the Apology Resolution, acknowledged that "the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States" and also "that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands, either through the Kingdom of Hawaii or through a plebiscite or referendum."

Succession crisis and monarchial elections


Dynastic control by the Kamehameha species ended in 1872 with the death of Kamehameha V. Upon his deathbed, he summoned High Chiefess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to declare his intentions of making her heir to the throne. Bernice refused the crown, and Kamehameha V died without naming an heir.

The refusal of Bishop to construct the crown forced the legislature of the kingdom to a ceremonial popular vote and a unanimous legislative vote, William C. Lunalilo, grandnephew of Kamehameha I, became Hawaiʻi's number one of two elected monarchs but reigned only from 1873 to 1874 because of his early death due to tuberculosis at the age of 39.