#226 in the Moʻolelo series, this vignette consists of some facts – and I think they are solid enough to call facts, though some may be debatable – which are little-known about some historical figures right around the time of the overthrow, like Robert Wilcox, John F. Colburn and Liliʻu herself.
It is, in my view, little-known that:
1. Robert Wilcox was first the confidante of the Queen and then later on her opponent as head of the Liberal Party, which was openly anti-monarchy (though not pro-annexation).
2. Wilcox hated Marshall Wilson because of the latter’s influence over the Queen – it was rumored that they were lovers (no solid evidence exists for this however).
3. John Francis Colburn was a close friend of Lorrin Thurston. I had always assumed that Colburn was on the side of the queen, but this was not the case. In fact the queen at one point was forced into naming a cabinet entirely comprised of reform party members, just as her brother had after 1887.
4. While it is well known that the queen wrote a new constitution in 1893, it is not as well-known that she had a ceremony for its promulgation. And it was at the ceremony that her ministers advised her against taking such an act. And they all protested that they had not yet read the new constitution! This, Despite the fact that one of them, Petersen, and had the document for an entire month!
He had apparently (or at least it was Liliʻu’s understanding) shown the draft Constitution to lawyers around Honolulu and found no objections, and here he was saying he hadnʻt read it!
the umiverse 
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1893-02-09/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1893&sort=date&rows=20&words=Colburn+Gans&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=0&state=&date2=1894&proxtext=Colburn+gans&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
Thoughts?
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Yes – maybe my original instinct was right, but I actually donʻt doubt the source that says he was a friend of Thurston,Iʻm finding people were pretty complex back then in their motives
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