Recentering Hawaiians

#20 in the Moʻolelo series

This is the beginning of several posts I will be writing as I review this book.

Noelani Arista’s book The Kingdom and the Republic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) is part of a now decades-long project of Hawaiian revisionist history. Some use this term as an epithet – as if “standard” histories (in the case of Hawaiʻi, that would be Kuykendall’s The Hawaiian Kingdom) are not, and will never be, in need of revision. Revision is itself neutral – it can be well- or poorly done. Arista’s is, I think itʻs safe to say, in the former category – the dissertation it is based on won the American Historical Association’s dissertation of the year award (AHA is the academic association in history in the US).

Arista locates herself in this intellectual genealogy, beginning with Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa’s Native Land and Foreign Desires, which she notes “illustrated the power of metaphors framed out of a deep literacy in Hawaiian language” (Arista, 2019, 6). She continues this genealogical framing with Noenoe Silva’s work on Hawaiian resistance to annexation and colonization, Puakea Nogelmeier’s illustration of the historical counter-narrative seen in Hawaiian language newspapers and Kamana Beamer’s reframing of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a functional nation-state. To these one might add David Chang’s The World and all the Things Upon It, and Kealani Cook’s Return to Kahiki as illustrations of Hawaiians as discoverers, rather than “the discovered.”

Even my own work on the māhele and Kuleana Act is part of this same project – of showing Hawaiian agency – I show in my dissertation that, rather than passively accepting Euroamerican land tenure, Hawaiians co-created a land tenure system along with non-Hawaiians like William Richards. And it is with Richards that Arista’s book begins.

Richards was involved with what is known as “the outrages” and accused a British ship Captain named Buckle of buying a Hawaiian woman. This led Buckle to charge Richards with libel. An ʻaha ʻōlelo was convened to address these charges, based as they were in the space between Hawaiian, British and American law. Of which country was Richards a subject? Richards made an eloquent speech in Hawaiian claiming that his fate lay in the hands of the chiefs, and he said it in a way that evoked the ʻōlelo noeau “I ka ʻOlelo nō ke ola, I ka ʻōlelo nō ka make” [in the word is life, in the word is death]. As he had done with his concept of “three paths to foreign mana,” Richards shows again here his capacity as a translator of cultural concepts in what Arista calls a “world of words.”

The British Consul to Hawaiʻi, Charlton held that Captain William Buckle:

purchased a female slave at the island of Maui for the sum of one hundred and sixty dollars [and] as the purchasing of a slave is by the laws of Great Britain declared to be piracy, Andy instructions regarding slaves are very explicit … that the offender be brought to justice.

Arista, 2019, 204.

David Malo was brought before the ʻaha ʻōlelo for his advice and he used a precedent from Kaʻahumanu’s own past, asking: in Hawaiian traditional law, was it the messenger that was punished or the offender? Kaʻahumanu responded that it was the offender – her lover Kanihonui in this case, who was put to death by Kamehameha – who was punished, not the one who told Kamehameha. Arista notes that this use of tradition to navigate new legal concepts such as “libel” shows Hawaiian agency in facing Western modernity.*

*Note that Maloʻs statement assumes that Buckle is indeed guilty, which is what Buckle was contesting. This shows that Western concepts like libel and slander were perhaps indeed complex ones for Hawaiians to negotiate.

The Best Films about Hawaiʻi

I show my students the 1966 film Hawaii, based on James Michener’s book, partly so that we can deconstruct it. Students can see that it demeans Hawaiian culture, but then I ask them if things are any better today. Hawaiʻi and Hawaiian culture continue to be misrepresented in mainstream media. Exhibit A: Aloha the film about how everyone in Hawaiʻi is white (except Bumpy). I reviewed The Descendents and Princess Kaʻiulani when they were released. There isnʻt exactly a deep reservoir of films to choose from for this list, but as Puhipau and Joan Lander are being honored this week in the ʻOiwi Film Festival, here are some gems of the Hawaiian silver screen:

A Mau a Mau: While some may dispute John Kaʻimikaua’s oral histories, it’s hard to deny the quality of the filmmaking. Nalani Minton’s film captures the Hawaiian sense of connection with the most subtle aspects of the natural world: the wind, the sea, the sea spray.

Hoʻokūʻikahi: To Unify as One – This telling of the events of Puʻukoholā heiau, both historically and today (beginning with the 1991 ceremony of rekindling the ties between Kaʻu and Kohala after 200 years of bitterness) is one of the films that shows Hawaiian culture as living and vibrant – not museum culture. John Keola Lake says in the film: “we don’t want to use [Puʻukoholā] as a memorial, let’s use it as a living place.”

Puʻukoholā heiau (photo: wikimedia commons)

O Hawaiʻi: Of Hawaiʻi from Settlement to Unification – an invaluable curriculum resource for teaching traditional Hawaiian society, Iʻm not sure whether the film was ever released on DVD. Tom Coffman’s film shows the renewal of the field of Hawaiian history itself  (with the help of archaeology and linguistics), from something static, relegated to “the mists of time” to a vibrant, dynamic era, full of change.

Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation – What is there to say about what is almost certainly the most watched film on Hawaiian history, it is also the only film Iʻm aware of that has a footnoted script!

Stolen Waters – While Puhipau and Joan Lander were clearly on the side of Windward farmers (as the title implies), they do a fine job of showing the arguments of the Leeward (Big 5) interests and their pawns. Another version, Kalo Paʻa o Waiahole, can be use alternately to emphasize the hearings or the more esoteric meaning of wai for Hawaiians.

Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawaiʻi – Keala Kelly attempted something very difficult with her film; to have a story without a narrator. The characters, interviewees and events themselves tell the story, and few films are more brutally powerful. While not as aesthetic as the first two films in this list, Noho Hewa is nevertheless a must see (leave the kids at home).

Means and Ends: Process and Results Orientation

With the Naʻi Aupuni convention under way, different styles of negotiating are being brought to light. Professor Williamson Chang wrote a public grievance against one participant who he saw as being obstructionist and belligerent. I heard that the group adopted, and insisted on, Robert’s Rules of Order (I happen know that Pokā Laenui, a participant, is a strong advocate). But the “debates” in the movement, and even more tellingly – their after effects, have often been focused on outcomes at the expense of process.

The very fact that Naʻi Aupuni is meeting at all is the outcome of a results orientation. The US Supreme Court (whose jurisdiction the organizers accept!) enjoined the election pending review. Following the letter of the law, rather than its spirit, Naʻi Aupuni organizers simply sidestepped the ruling and cancelled the election but continued with the convention.

Which mode Hawaiians should adopt and encourage comes down to one question: Do you believe in democracy? Even though the Hawaiian Kingdom was an emerging democracy, not all Hawaiians in either the independence or Fed Rec movement do. But many more claim to believe in democracy, while being unwilling to tolerate its slowness, and tendency to produce compromises-that is to say, compromised results. The current Republican style of “all out war” – against Obama, Democrats, and it seems, sanity – does not serve as an inspiring example.

But a simple question faces us: do we want our way, or an outcome that everyone involved can live with?

Stevenson in the Pacific

This is the continuation of the long-delayed “In Hawaiʻi” series, which includes posts on Mark Twain, Herman Melville and John Coltrane. I called this one Stevenson in the Pacific because Sāmoa features so centrally in his story.

When I was nine years old, I visited Sāmoa (then called Western Sāmoa) on the way to Tonga. My family was at the Tusitala Hotel, and in the lobby was a picture of Robert Louis Stevenson that has always stayed with me in memory. Tusitala was a Samoan name for Stevenson, meaning “teller of tales.” The hotel was in Apia, below his hillside home of Vailima – five waters. (We visited another great writer in Apia, Albert Wendt.)  Vailima was described by the great writer Henry Adams:

a two-story Irish shanty with steps outside to the upper floor and a galvanized iron roof … squalor like a railroad navvy’s board hut …

And so was Stevenson himself:

…a man so thin and emaciated that he looked like a bundle of sticks in a bag, with a head and eyes morbidly intelligent and restless…

Stevenson painted by John Singer Sargent

Stevenson sought a climate that would restore him to the health damaged from cold British winters, but I always wondered why he chose Sāmoa, as Pago Pago is, to this day, the most humid place I’ve ever been.

Thinking myself an adventurous nine-year old in 1981, I marveled at Stevenson adventuring to what was at the time an incredibly remote place. This was, in fact, what attracted him; he had considered living in Hawaiʻi:

Honolulu’s good – very good … but this seems more savage

I fancied myself following in his footsteps, moving to Tonga, but looking back, more likely, it was his stepson Lloyd’s footsteps I was following. I was familiar with his novels Kidnapped and Treasure Island, and of course Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and saw the difference between them and Sāmoa, a testament to his versatility. It was perhaps the insights in Jeckyll and Hyde, of “man’s” dual nature that gave him the ability to accept, then embrace Polynesian people and culture. The Biographer Rice said of his arrival in Sāmoa:

…at first … he is extremely nervous about their menacing appearance. ʻThere could be nothing more natural than these apprehensions’ he wrote for The Sun, ʻnor anything more groundless.’

(Rice, 1974, 109)

He was a vocal critic of Victorian hypocrisy, and “was not afraid to live as he wished,” marrying a woman ten years older than he who was probably part African American.

Stevenson took four trips with his family to the Pacific, and two to Hawaiʻi at auspicious moments; one before (1889) and one immediately after the overthrow of the monarchy (September 1893). And unlike other Europeans, Stevenson was a royalist and his sympathy was with the Queen. Upon landing in Honolulu he went directly to her and expressed his sympathies. He had already written at length about colonial activities in Sāmoa, criticizing Western powers right at the moment that Germany and the US were dividing Sāmoa in two.

On his first trip, Stevenson became friends with Kalākaua and Princess Liliʻuokalani. He also met another famous writer of his age who had visited Hawaiʻi, Mark Twain. He wrote to Twain from Sāmoa as it descended into civil war:

I wish you could see my ʻsimple and sunny haven’ now; war has broken out…

But his closest association was with his fellow Scot Archibald Cleghorn and, famously, his daughter Princess Kaʻiulani. He wrote to a friend, “how I love the Polynesian!” and seemed particularly fascinated that one of them, heir presumptive to the throne, was an Edinburgh Scot, like himself, on her “worse half.” The poem he wrote her before she left for an English education is fairly well-known:

Forth from her land to mine she goes,

The island maid, the island rose,

Light of heart and bright of face:

The daughter of a double race.

Her islands here in Souther sun,

Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone,

And I, in her dear banyan shade,

Look vainly for my little maid.

But our Scots islands far away

Shall glitter with unwonted day,

And cast for once their tempests by

To smile in Kaiulani’s eye.

End of Federal Recognition as Indian Tribe is beginning for “Real” Hawaiian Sovereignty – Williamson B.C. Chang

I took my UH Manoa students to Professor Williamson Chang’s class last week. I was surprised and honored to have Prof. Chang write a guest blog on a topic that couldn’t be more relevant right now – the seeming failure of Fed-Rec.

The Five Most Pervasive Myths about Hawaiian History

In this post, I start with the five most egregious misconceptions about Hawaiian history (some are admittedly debatable) – Iʻll be expanding it to ten in the next couple of days.

5. Kalākaua was powerless after the 1887 Bayonet Constitution.

Historian Ronald Williams Jr. has uncovered strenuous debates between Kalākaua and the legislature in which he pushes hard for returning power to the throne – quite a different King from the one commonly portrayed as a broken man.

King David Kalākaua (1874-1891)

4. The 1893 overthrow was “US-backed”

Louis “Buzzy” Agard has found evidence that the US planned the overthrow ahead of time. Agard found an encoded message (and then found the key!) from the State Department telling the USS Boston to attack ports in Hawaiʻi, ending in Honolulu. That makes it a straight-up US overthrow.

3. Kamehameha V was a despot

According to A. Grove Day in History Makers of Hawaii:

[Lot Kapuaiwa] believed that the example of his grandfather, KAMEHAMEHA I, gave him the right to lead the people personally, and favored a stronger form of monarchy that verged on despotism.

This description comes partly from the period, when in 1864 “it appeared that a new constitution could not be agreed on, he declared that the Constitution of 1852 should be replaced by one he wrote himself” (Day, 1984, 70). But the power to do that was in the old constitution, and if one looks at the new Constitution, that power is absent. In other words, Lot had reduced his own power rather than increasing it. Members of the legislature thanked him afterward.

2. Pauahi was the last of the high-born Kamehamehas

The last of the high-born Kamehamehas was Albert Kūnuiakea, son of Kamehameha III. Albert seemed to be a persona non grata since he was “illegitimate” as the son of Kauikeaouli and Jane Lahilahi Young. This made him Queen Emma’s cousin, and the black sheep of that family. He was literally “the man would be be king,” that is, if the missionaries hadnʻt brought the notion of illegitimacy with them.

Albert Kūnuiakea (1852 – 1901)

Think about it: he could have been Kamehameha IV, rather than Alexander Liholiho, and Albert lived into the twentieth century. So the son of Kamehameha III could have been king for 40 years by the time of the overthrow, making such an event much less likely. He is buried at Mauna Ala, recognition that he was a royal in the 20th century.

There are also many other descendants of Kamehameha – see the book Kamehameha’s Children Today.

1. Annexation

That it happened. Without a treaty. Legally or illegally. This isnʻt as widespread these days as the others, but whatʻs at stake is obviously much, much greater than with the others. Those who say there was an “illegal annexation” neglect the fact that annexation is precisely the legal aspect of a conquest, thus it’s an oxymoron. Those who point to Supreme Court decisions neglect the fact (as I said in my debate with Ian Lind) that there were two countries involved, and one country’s court, no matter how supreme, simply does not have a say in the legality of their action – it is an international issue. Those who say international law does not exist fail to consider what other countries think when its understandings are violated (as with Iraq in 2003): could we be next? Whatʻs to stop the US or China from taking us over if there are no rules? That’s why these international norms are in place. China, in fact, seems to be on to the US occupation – in 2011, they said “we could claim Hawaiʻi,” to which then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton responded “weʻll prove we own it,” showing that she understood it was a challenge to the US occupation, not a threat to simply invade.

While some misconceptions have more impact than others, the cumulative effect of these, and many other myths (when combined with a plain and complete ignorance of Hawaiian history on the part of many) is to distort courses of action and decision-making processes. This is true even, and perhaps especially, among Hawaiians themselves.

Defense Mechanisms

In her book Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, Anna Freud (daughter of Sigmund Freud) detailed multiple defense mechanisms used to avoid facing reality. By using these mechanisms, along with the overwhelming inertia of the State and Federal presence, and the vast ignorance of Hawaiian history, many people in Hawaiʻi are able to conveniently avoid facing the disturbing reality that they live on contested ground.

1. Denial – against all evidence, many will deny self-evident facts. Case in point: while reporting on the first Hawaiian college football star and scholar John Wise, KITV news put the Hawaiian Kingdom in quotes, as if it is debatable that it ever existed.

 This mechanism is closely related to cognitive dissonance, which Frantz Fanon described:

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesnʻt fit with the core belief.

2. Projection – One prominent environmentalist said that “Hawaiians are not environmentalists.” While it may be true that some Hawaiians litter, etc., this statement may in fact be projecting non-Hawaiian guilt over trashing the islands, which are actually becoming unrecognizable in terms of native species (there are none) and invasive species.

3. Sublimation – Pushing down feelings of horror is easy to do in Hawaiʻi, which seems to retain its beauty. But as noted above, this beauty is almost a cover for underlying environmental crises and mass extinction.

4. Regression – evading responsibility by adopting an infantile sense of our own power, is often seen in Hawaiʻi with its overwhelming military presence. An infantile argument from power, that the US “will never let it happen,” is substituted for reasoned argument.

5. Rationalization – We often see excuses that cleverly lead to the conclusion desired, such as the argument that Tahitians colonized Hawaiʻi’s original inhabitants.

6. Intellectualization – getting mired in the details of law can actually distract from the main, moral issue. Some sovereignty opponents do this, but not usually in a technical sense. One guilty of this, in my view, is Patrick Dumberry, who wrote an article on the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom case for the Chinese Journal of Internal Law. Dumberry states simply that the Hawaiian Kingdom does not exist, but offers no evidence, despite an extended legal analysis of the case. At the end of the article, he concedes that the Acting Hawaiian Kingdom has helped its cause, leaving some ambiguity in his opinion.

7. Displacement – Hawaiians are easy target for this mechanism, in which a substitution is made for a reality that is too difficult to accept. “Sovereignty” is therefore substituted with “going back into the loʻi,” ” giving up all technology” (as if only the US has technology), and “giving up all military defense” (when in fact saying that is itself the defense (mechanism).

Anna Freud held that most of us use at least five defense mechanisms every day! So the chances Iʻm right are quite high, just due to the prevalence of these mechanisms.

The Overthrow: a blow-by-blow

On the day of the overthrow the Hawaiian newspaper Ka Leo o ka Lahui ran on its front page “Ka Moolelo o Hiʻiakaikapoliopele,” the story of Hiʻiaka and Pele. It was as if Hawaiians, knowing that change was coming, looked to their own mythology to retain their identity.

By the time of Liliʻuokalani’s ascension to the throne in January 1891, the stage was beginning to be set for a takeover; the British ambassador Wodehouse, who had been critical of American ambitions, was replaced by a more conciliatory one in the early 1890s, for example. But the real stage-setter was the “Bayonet” Constitution – the constitution of 1887, virtually signed at gunpoint. Willie Kauai has argued that this constitution, with its restrictions on voting rights, was the beginning of racial demarcations, rather than those of citizenship. It gave voting rights by race, whereas previously there had been universal male suffrage for Hawaiian subjects.

There may never have been an overthrow if it werenʻt for US Minister [essentially the ambassador] John L. Stevens and a small group of men from Maine. Stevens was a close friend of James Blaine, US Secretary of State, part of the group that College of William and Mary Professor William Crapol has called the “Maine mafia.” In what the Cleveland administration called “reprehensible” behavior, Stevens was coaching the insurgents on how to conduct the overthrow.

In 1892, Lorrin Thurston had travelled to Washington to get a green light for the overthrow. He communicated that “it may be necessary to secure the government through a coup dʻetat.” B.F. Tracy, Secretary of the Navy responded that “the President does not think he should see you, but if you feel compelled to act as you have indicated, you will find an exceedingly sympathetic administration here.” Crapol has said that this arms length kept between President Harrison and Thurston, and the statement that they would be “sympathetic,” without mentioning the coup directly, strongly suggests the knowledge that the US was possibly in breach of international law. It was B.F. Tracy who later sent the order to US Marines on the USS Boston (a state of the art battleship) the following year to head to Honolulu and await orders.

Louis “Buzzy” Agard has found encoded documents (and the code book!) in the US archives that show a US plan to attack the major ports in Hawaiʻi ending in Honolulu. This changes the story from a US-backed overthrow to a US overthrow, and sheds light on Stevens’s actions – they were secretly condoned and encouraged by the Harrison administration.

The Queen planned to promulgate a new constitution, but the cabinet backed down – likely aware of the plans that were being fomented by the conspirators. The Queen counseled patience.

COMMITTEE OF SAFETY

The so-called “Committee of Safety” – a name based on the pretense that American lives and property were in danger was comprised of 9 foreigners and 4 haole citizens of the Kingdom.

Marshall Charles Wilson closed saloons early – 9:00pm rather than 11:00pm – to prevent any pretext for foreign troops to land (as they had done during the riots after Kalākaua’s election). He sent agents to do surveillance on the conspirators. Wilson proposed to arrest the conspirators and put the island under martial law, but the cabinet advised against it and refused to give Wilson permission to make arests. Wilson felt that Hawaiian forces could successfully oppose the Marines. They had over 200 men, whereas there were 152 men in the Marine battalion, and 11 officers.

Stevens wrote: “in view of the existing critical circumstances in Honolulu, I request you to land US Marines and sailors under your command to secure American life and property.” G. Wiltse, commander of the USS Boston responded to Stevens’s request and marched his men past the palace. At 4:25 Wiltse landed the Marines to “assist in preserving public order.”

Samuel Parker

The cabinet had not requested the landing of the troops – cabinet member Samuel Parker requested the “authority upon which this action is taken.” The marines stationed themselves on Mililani Street, but ended up staying at a hotel that, ironically, had been Liliʻuokalani’s childhood home. [I heard this recently, but have not verified it].  The Queen asked why the troops had landed when everything was at peace. Attorney General Paul Neumann said that the charged that lives and property were in danger was “spurious and false … lives and property were as safe here as in Kennebec, Maine.” This was a reference to the curious link to three towns in Maine that seemed to be the origin of annexationist sentiment – Augusta, Hollowell, and Kennebec.

The conspirators continued to recruit at a lodging house, and Marshall Wilson suggested proclaiming martial law and arresting the conspirators. The Queen asked why the troops had not stationed themselves in front of American properties instead of “with guns aimed at us?”

January 17, 1893: by 11:00am Dole had been named as President of the Provisional Government. He had considered the matter overnight, as a Supreme Court judge undoubtedly knowing that his actions constituted treason.

On the street, a policeman named Leialoha was shot trying to intercept a wagon of arms.

Dole and a small group of men walked to the entrance of the Government building, the present-day Judiciary building. Henry Cooper, a denizen read the proclamation: “the monarchical government is hereby abrogated and a Provisional Governement established.” Those who signed the proclamation included McCandless, Wilhelm, Thurston, Smith, Jones, Emmeluth, Ashley, Cooper, Frear, Bolte, Browne, and Waterhouse.*

Committee of Public Safety

The Palace and barracks and police were still under the control of the Queen and could make an attempt to resist. But Minster Stevens recognized the Provisional Government immediately: “I recognize said Provisional Government as the de facto government of the Hawaiian islands.”

Liliʻuokalani yielded not to the Provisional Government, but to the “superior force of the United States:”

I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for this Kingdom. That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said Provisional Government.

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest and impelled by said forces, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo (?) the action of its representative and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

Done at Honolulu, this 17th day of January, A. D. 1893.

(Signed) Liliuokalani R.

(Signed) Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
(Signed) Wm. H. Cornwell, Minister of Finance.
(Signed) John F. Colburn, Minister of Interior.
(Signed) A. P. Peterson, Attorney-General.

At 7:15pm Wilson disarmed the police and others who had taken up arms.

Hui Aloha ʻAina noted the irony that after only eight days, the Provisional Government requested to be a protectorate of the US.

Stevens soon preached of the opportunity Hawaiʻi’s overthrow presented to the burgeoning American empire: “the Hawaiian pear is now ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.” But the overthrow was a kind of non-event and was always really about America’s reaction to it. The lame duck President Harrison rushed a treaty of annexation to the Senate in February. But in March, 1893, Grover Cleveland was inaugurated, and withdrew the annexation treaty from the Senate on March 9th, 1893 (executive documents, p. 1190).

On March 29th, 1893 former Senator James Blount arrived in Honolulu and ordered the troops back to their ships and the lowering of the American flag. Blount asked what the result would be if there were to be a vote on the question of annexation. One respondent noted that “it would be overwhelmingly defeated.” Later, Congress ensured that the matter would not be put to a vote.

The Womenʻs Hui Aloha Aina issued a statement:

We resent the presumption of being traded like a flock of sheep or bartered like a horde of savages, and we could not believe that the US could tolerate such an annexation by force, against the wishes of the majority of the population – such an annexation would be an eternal dishonor.

Abigail Kuaihelani Campbell, President of the Women’s Hui Aloha ‘Åina

Harperʻs weekly noted the irregularity of the event:

the Hawaiian islands have been stolen and offered to the United States by the thieves. What is the duty of the US, accept the stolen goods?

As late as December, 1893, Lili’uokalani noted in the book Hawaii’s Story by Hawai’i’s Queen, that President Cleveland still considered her the head of state.

On December 18th, 1893, Grover Cleveland addressed Congress, informed by the Blount report:

By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair. The provisional government has not assumed a republican or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive council or oligarchy, set up without the assent of the people. It has not sought to find a permanent basis of popular support and has given no evidence of an intention to do so. Indeed, the representatives of that government assert that the people of Hawaii are unfit for popular government and frankly avow that they can be best ruled by arbitrary or despotic power.

The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of a civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. The considerations that international law is without a court for its enforcement, and that obedience to its commands practically depends upon good faith, instead of upon the mandate of a superior tribunal, only give additional sanction to the law itself and brand any deliberate infraction of it not merely as a wrong but as a disgrace. A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities; and the United States in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened of nations would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

In a seemingly scitzophrenic move, the Provisional Government refuses to relinquish control, saying that the US is intervening in the affairs of a sovereign country, then proceeding to call themselves the Republic of Hawaiʻi, with an independence day of July 4th. At their 1894 Constitutional convention, 3000 voted, and 14,000 refused to vote.

In January 1985, Robert Wilcox attempted an insurrection. The plot was discovered and he and 200 others, including Prince Kūhiō, were arrested for treason, and tried before a military tribunal.

“Battle of Manoa”

The queen was imprisoned in the palace for eight months. She was pardoned in October 1896, and she travelled to Washington, D.C. in December to lobby against annexation and protest to the State Department.

There was debate over the extent of the American empire, whether it would be hemispheric or global. Itʻs not hard to see the irony of Cleveland’s position, as one newspaper pointed out: “never before has an American executive [attempted to] stamp out Republicanism and restore monarchy.”

Even with the 1898 breakout of the Spanish-American war, there was not enough support for a treaty, and annexation was purported to be achieved via joint resolution. As one newspaper put it: “if Congress should strictly obey the constitution, annexation could not take place” [Harpers Weekly]

By the end of the century the US had also taken Guam , Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

One commentator noted: “Annexation is not a change, it is a consummation.”

On August 12, 1898, 12 noon, the annexation ceremony took place. Surrounded by US Military troops, Dole exchanged a treaty for a Joint Resolution, and proclaimed:

I now yield up to you representative of the US, the sovereignty and public property of the Hawaiian islands.

As Iʻve noted elsewhere, the purpose of the overthrow was always annexation. In The Secret Session, I published the entire transcript of the closed-door session of the Senate in which the Joint Resolution was discussed.

* Some members of the Committee of Safety are described in another post, Who Was the Committee of Safety? The Inner Circle of Overthrow

Reflective Practice #4 – Hawaiian Education

This is part of my Reflective Practice series, which is part of my performance review at Kamehameha:

Some alarming statistics on Hawaiian education were brought to my attention recently:

1) Only 25% of Hawaiians graduating from Hawaiʻi schools are what the DOE considers “college and career ready” (that is, taking and passing the tests they need to enter college, the military or other fields, not having to take remedial courses if they enter Community Colleges), even worse, however, was:

2) Among Hawaiian graduates of public schools, 9% are completing college.

What is to be done about this? Or perhaps more importantly, how should we interpret these numbers? The standard response is to create programs that target the “weak” areas – for example, something is definitely happening in high school, because readiness numbers around middle school are comparatively good. So counselors may be deployed to intervene, which is exactly what Kamehameha Schools has done with its Kamehameha Scholars program, a “supplementary educational enrichment program with a focus on college and career guidance. Students will discover and assess their skills, interests, and values and explore matching post-high institutions and career options to develop plans for their future.”

But perhaps more important is questioning how and why we find ourselves in this predicament. It canʻt be that weʻre adapting to a new environment, as would be the case with immigrant groups; we’ve been here longest. Something not yet entirely measured is behind these gaps, perhaps a kind of existential terror of the brutally competitive system we have to navigate. Some research is supporting this seemingly far-fetched explanation.

Terror Management Theory holds that as we all have a deep-seated fear of death, the best way of coming to terms with it is to identify with cultural constructs that are larger than ourselves – if we are mortal, at least these cultural symbols (language, art, history) live on, and we are a part of that.

Hūlili journal, vol 3

In one of the most insightful recent articles on Hawaiian well-being, A. Kuʻulei Serna notes (in Hūlili journal, 2006, 133) that because “Hawaiians’ trauma [is] caused [by] disruption of culture,” we have few symbols through which to deflect this existential terror.

There are, of course other reasons. The emerging Native Hawaiian educational network, consisting of Kamehameha (7000 students), Hawaiian-focused Charter Schools (4000 students) and immersion schools (about 1500-2000 students), only touches a small fraction of the 150,000 Hawaiians learners today. Another 7000 Hawaiians are educated in other private schools. All of this adds up to something like W.E.B. DuBois’s “talented tenth,” who are supposedly tasked with bringing up the rest. And this group has done a lot, but not nearly  enough. While public schools “honor” Hawaiian history by requiring it in middle and high school, there is no system in place to ensure that teachers are prepared to deliver such a complex history. I’ve written (not flatteringly) about the state of Hawaiian history at the university level, and won’t repeat that here, except to say that in this case, it is a top-down process that’s not working well.

While we need more and better institutions of Hawaiian education, we also need to take a hard look at what the economic, political (read: military) systems do to us at a deep level.

Occupation redux

In the (proposed) 1899 Hague Regulations, the basic premise of the law of occupation was stated:

The country invaded submits to the law of the invader; that is a fact; that is might; but we should not legalize the exercise of this power in advance, and admit that might makes right (Beernaert in Benvenisti, 2012, 90).

In the fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) (which was crafted to with the “aim of imposing on occupants ʻa heavy burden”) (Benvenisti, 2012, 97), the norm was codified that the occupant (occupier) must take three considerations into account: “itʻs own security interests, the interests of the ousted government, and those of the local population, which may be different from the interest of their legitimate government” (Benvenisti, 2012, 69).

First Geneva Convention, 1864

The norms of GCIV were formed in the context of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, which created an expectation that during occupation the occupying military and the civilian population could be kept at a distance from each other and even co-exist relatively harmoniously (Benvenisti, 2012, 70). As for changes to law, they were to be kept at an absolute minimum, but were allowable for the purpose of making occupation practicable and functional on the ground. Benvenisti (2012, 90) notes that the rule that changes to law are only when “absolutely necessary … has no meaning” because the occupant is never absolutely prevented from complying to local law.

Article 43 of the GCIV was a mandate to “restore and ensure public order and civil life” – this came to be seen as an “incomplete instruction to the occupant” because of the conflicts of interest between occupant and the ousted government (Benvenisti, 2012, 71).

Changes to the law of occupation also continued as human rights became more of a concern to the international community. As this occurred, actual occupants began to seek to avoid the responsibilities of occupation by “purport[ing] to annex or establish[ing] puppet states or governments, rely[ing] on ʻinvitations’ from indigenous governments [the Soviet/Russian formula]” and other means (Benvenisti, 2012, 72).

But as is often pointed out, these means are not legitimate as GCIV states “the benefits [or applicability] of the [Geneva] Convention shall not be affected … by any annexation … of the whole or part of the occupied territory.” In short, the occupant retained the duty to fulfill its obligations under the law of occupation (GCIV in Benvenisti, 2012, 73).

As with all legal documents and doctrines, however, it is “impossible to read the drafting history of the GCIV without paying close attention to the diverse concerns of the different state representatives” (Benvenisti, 2012, 98). That is to say, it is contingent on the conditions of the time and context in which it was crafted.

HUMAN RIGHTS

As it developed in the twentieth century, the human rights regime came to decenter the law of occupation’s emphasis on the agency of states as the only actors. People came to play a role in international law, under which previously only states were subjects. In the occupation of Iraq, for example, Amnesty International pushed for changes in Iraqi law – normally in contravention of the law of occupation – for the purpose of the protection of human rights. Occupation was in this case seen as an opportunity to improve conditions for the citizens of the occupied state (a rare, but quite possible scenario). Sharia law was in this case seen as “incompatible” with GCIV rights (Benvenisti, 2012, 103).

NECESSITY

Keanu Sai has used the “doctrine of necessity” as a justification for forming the Acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom; the necessity of an “organ” to speak on behalf of the occupied state, in other words, necessitated the creation of a “government” whose legitimacy would otherwise be highly questionable. Benvenisti notes this doctrine as a “recognized justification for legislation by the occupant,” but noted that it does not apply to the civil and criminal laws of the occupied state: “the penal laws of the occupied territory shall remain in force,” (Benvenisti, 2012, 96) ostensibly to prevent draconian trials and execution of resisters against the occupation. However, it is also recognized that the occupant would be “prevented from respecting the laws in force” in the rare case that they “conflicted with its obligations under international law, especially [the GCIV] (brackets original)” (Benvenisti, 2012, 102).

DEBELLATIO

Sai also notes that Debellatio, or conquest, while seen as a legitimate form for the transfer of sovereignty, was essentially outlawed in the Americas – by the United States and some of the recognized sovereigns in South America – because they feared their former colonial overlords would re-conquer them. This, in his view, was the purpose of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. As Jay Sexton notes in his book  The Monroe Doctrine, “American statesmen exploited fears of foreign intervention in order to mobilize political support” (Sexton, 2011, 12). Sexton also notes how the Tyler Doctrine (actually proclaimed in 1842 by secretary of state Daniel Webster) “effectively extended the 1823 message  [the Monroe Doctrine] to Hawaiʻi” (Sexton, 2011, 112). As a result, the United States does not recognize debellatio – conquest – as a legitimate form of transferring sovereignty. This quells any argument that even though there was no conquest of the Hawaiian Kingdom, “there would be.”

MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

The occupant is allowed to collect taxes, “as far as is possible, in accordance with the rules of assessment and incidence in force … to defray the expenses of the administration of the occupied territory” (Benvenisti, 2012, 81). In other words, the occupant should not, as was seen in the film The Last Emperor, make the occupied “pay for its own occupation” as the Japanese ambassador says to the Emperor of Manchuria (Manchukuo). The occupant is also bound by the general rules regarding property of usufruct – the use of land without destroying it (Benvenisti, 2012, 77). This is relevant to the U.S. presence in Hawaiʻi as evidenced by the more than one hundred Superfund sites at Pearl Harbor alone.

NATIONALS OF THE OCCUPYING POWER

My own understanding of the law of occupation is that it strictly prohibits the “overwhelming” of the nationals of the occupied state with settlers from the occupying state, as was done by Russia to Estonia and other Baltic states. Benvenisti treads very lightly here, noting only that settlement need only avoid “impinging on the rights” of the citizens of the occupied state. It is possible (though I donʻt mean to hastily accuse him) that his status as an Israeli influences this light treatment of settlers, and he does mention Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in the very short section on this topic (Benvenisti, 2012, 106-107).