At Long Last: Hawaiian Overthrow Episode

I have to say, Chuck. Before we get started. We have to give a huge shout out huge to a dude. I don't know his name, but he's on Instagram as people Kanaka Kai. Okay, well maybe that's his name, so what maybe so? Or it could be Kai Kanaka who knows. He calls himself the Hawaiian Hillbilly, but he had is every time we post an episode, he goes on and

comments Hawaiian overthrow episode please. He's been doing it for like years, So Kanaka Kai, this one is for you man, and that long last and now he doesn't have to jump into the big woo right. So what I'm hoping though, is that he's not like super well versed in this is just going to be inevitably disappointed. Hopefully, it's just something he wants to know more about, so he's been asking for it for that one. Well, I'm glad he trolld us for years because this is a really interesting

and not at all surprising story. No it's not. And um, basically what we're talking about today is the overthrow of Hawaii. And it turns out that Hawaii one of the most beautiful states in the Union, probably the most beautiful state in the Union, the state where you me and I got married. In fact, sure, sure, if you're into tropical paradise, is there's not much better. Somebody for Montana might be like,

you can have it with these mountains. Although I could see Montana people going to Hawaiian being like, I've been wrong, so wrong all my life and these boots are really uncomfortable. Right. So, um, it is a beautiful state. But if you go back not too very far, you will find that, um, there's a lot of arguments you could make that it should not be a state in any way, shape or form. Yeah, and I'm curious about the about the current temperature of

native Hawaiian people and how they feel about that now. Yeah, yeah, Well we'll get to that eventually. Do you know, I don't know about the temperature of the Hawaiian people, but I know about some some proposals to help kind of reverse r undo some of the damage. I understood. That's

for the end. Well, I guess we should go back some many thousands of years and talk about the settling of the Hawaiian islands by the Polynesian people about you know, years ago, maybe a thousand years ago, somewhere in there.

And for many, many hundreds of years there were the control of of Hawaii was by chiefs and then sub chiefs, and these chiefs claimed that they were divine in origin, and they said, we have a set of very strict religious um rules that we should follow, called the cop Who, And that you know wasn't so popular over the years. Well it depends. I mean, like if you were born into that society and that was what you knew, that

was just what you knew. But I get the impression that over the centuries some chiefs and sub chiefs enforced the cop Who more than others. And um. One of the big bases of the cop Who laws, is that there was a strict separation of men and women, and men were divine and women were profane, and that they represented kind of like light and dark and you have to have you can't have one without the others, so they need each other. But also men were still definitely

favorite and respect. But then if you also go look through Hawaiian history, there are also plenty of female rulers as well, so it's a it's really interesting. Kapu could probably get its own episode, and I'm sure now we know what Kanaka Kai will be commenting on all on. But it was so they had their own like very strict social um stratification and religious laws for sure. Yeah. I think if Emily heard that, she would say, Chuck is not divine, but I am profane, So we're halfway there, right.

Non profane women rarely make history. So speaking of making history, this is where a man named James Cook enters the picture. In the late seventeen hundreds, the very famous British explorer. He was the most notable. Uh, some people say the first European to visit Hawaii. UM, definitely the most notable because there is some um. You could make an argument that the Spanish were there before him at some point. Yeah, they have maps that appear to be Hawaii from like

the sixteenth country. Yeah, so the Japanese as well. But um, Cook was the first person to go as an Englishman, which was a big deal as a colonizer and say, I'm charting this island or these islands, are going to name them the Sandwich Islands. Not a great name now, because well James Cook was well known for loving sandwiches, so sure he was so crazy actually that it was

named for the Earl of Sandwich, John Montague. It's the very same Earl of Sandwich though the sandwiches are named for, So that guy was really he was an influencer in Hawaii's known for their sandwiches. Yeah, poise sandwiches. So Cook visits, Uh, he visits a few times, um, and kind of did a lot of traveling while he was there. So he he makes one visit and then just starts sort of exploring the islands around Hawaii. Eventually comes back kind of

on that same trip and gets really aggressive at that point. Um, not a nice fellow, trying to do sort of the the colonizer thing here. Let me make a deal with you. Um, let me trade something that isn't very valuable for something that is very valuable, which is to say, your land, right, Um, and yeah, he was just basically doing the standard euro explorer thing, which trash explorer exploitation, trying to get everybody

into Kraftwick, that whole thing, right. So um, so cook, I guess he overstepped his bounds finally and he was actually killed in a major battle, um after some of his his men kidnapped um a Hawaiian chief. Well, he he did it personally from what I saw, was that right, okay said by his own hand. Not a good move, not a good not a good move, um. Because one thing about the Hawaiian islands, they were ruled by those

chiefs and sub chiefs, like you said. But I get the impression that, um, they were, they were united largely when it came to the kidnapping of any Hawaiian chief by a European outsider. Yeah. Like, you can fight with your brother, but if someone else picks on your brother, then you gotta you gotta join forces. Who would ever pick on Scott? Well? I was thinking of you and me, But sure, brother like real brothers too, write well and bloods I still have that scar on my palm. I

actually mine was a squib. I faked it. I thought that tasted like a high fruit toast corn. So yeah, you're like chuck his sweet blood so sweet like Scott. So yeah, Cook is uh kidnaps this guy. They they did not respond very kindly to that, so they sent a faction down there too attack him in his boats. They were on the beach and that's where he died,

faced down in in shallow water. He was bonked on the head by one chief I think, and then stabbed by that chiefs um kind of attendant, right right, So um, this is a This is a huge battle, a momentous

battle in the history of of Hawaii. It was very important, and not just because James Cook died, but because there was a one of the I guess low level warriors there or middle middle class warriors I guess by the name of Camea Maya fought quite bravely in that battle, and Camea Maya actually went on to become the first genuinely influential Hawaiian chief, maybe the most significant Hawaiian chief of all time, because while he was there fighting the Europeans,

He's like man, these guns, they they work really well. And you know, these Europeans are willing to sell him to you. And he figured out that if he could amass some European UM support and European weapons, he could get all of Hawaii basically under himself. And that's what he said about doing over the course of a couple of decades. Yeah, reading this stuff, this was the Grabster that helped us with this one. It seems I'm sorry, No,

it was James Mishner. Oh really, no, you remember James Mischner would write those thousand page epics about like I think he wrote went on Hawaii basically. But this this crabs. So James misterrs this author could write these exhaustive historical fictions, um, and one of them was why. But they would be like a thousand pages easily. And I was making a jokey comment on Grabster's research skills. Yeah, English major over

here flew right over my head. And by the way, a little quick side note that I wanted to mention, I am speaking of epic tones. I'm reading the Beatles biography from Bob Spitz that's like a thousand pages, and uh, one thing I wish we could have mentioned. I know you hate the Beatles, but one thing I wish we could have mentioned in the pirate radio thing was Radio Luxembourg.

There would have been no Beatles without them because independently, Paul, George and John we're all on their own listening to Radio Luxembourg and that's what turned them onto that's cool, turn me on Radio Luxembourg. And uh wow, I did not see the Beatles making an appeance in this episode. So where are we now? Oh? I know what I was gonna say, was um a thread through this I found is that back then, uh Hawaiians were largely under armed.

In most cases, that's a big thing. And then also, just like with all other um colonizations from outside European forces, disease basically paved the way for imperialism. Sure where even even if they were under armed and they didn't typically have standing militaries, um, I should say the Hawaiians didn't even if they had. There was like a plague that came around in eighteen oh three that killed off half

of the population. They think it was yellow fever. Um. There was another measles outbreak about fifty years later that killed off another quarter of the population. So when you're dying off in like numbers like this, how could you possibly defend yourself, especially against people who have these superior weapons like guns, germs, and steel. As Jared Diamond put it, Yeah, I mean it's the it's the same story as as

America and the native population here. You know, it's like, Hi, we're outsiders and we have guns, and here's some smallpox. But but God decreed that this this should be our land because he killed all of you off with these small pox right because you have no immunity. It's the same depressing story over and over again. It is. Um. So when Kameya was was ruling Hawaii, which was really he was firmly entrenched by the almost turn of the century,

late seventeen hundreds. Uh, he was pushing and you know, so much of this boils down to money and class, and he was really pushing for trade with Europe. Um. He wanted the elite landholders of Hawaii to kind of remain in that position. Um. He was traditionally religious with the Kapu and supported that. But he was very much you know, like let's let's enrich ourselves as sort of

the ruling class. For for sure, but he also and he was also very open to the idea of exploiting European influence for you know, to strengthen his his kingdom, his house, I guess, is what it's called. He actually had two advisors, Isaac Davis and John Young, uh englishman

and a Welshman um who were his closest advisors. And apparently I can't remember which one it was, but when one of them, whenever they would part company, Kamahomyo would just begin sobbing because he just knew one day that they he was going to leave, and he just loved him that much. Yeah, it is very interesting. It's one of those things where you know, we were raised as like Anglo Euro American boys in the eastern seaboard of

the United States, right in the Midwest. So when you research history like this, it's just like Hawaiian chief did this, and then this Hawaiian chief came along. But when you start to look into him as we were older, it's it's just always so fascinating to me just how complex and complicated history really is, you know, and just how boiled down typically is presented as Yeah, totally, that's because I don't know, I think teachers do a good job as they can. But when we were in school, the

history we were taught was pretty, uh, pretty simplified. It is. I mean, there's also like a real um advantage to dehumanizing the people that you've done wrong to over the centuries, especially when they live in a state of yours. Still that's a good point. So, uh, under his rule, he

managed to sort of sort of unify the Kingdom of Hawaii. Um, it wasn't like everyone was completely on board with what was going on, especially with the kapu and human sacrifice and some of that stuff that happened, but they did live under his rule whether they liked it or not. He was a very strong king, yeah, because he had guns finally, and people didn't and so they couldn't rise

up against him. But after he died, as when things got really complicated, because then you had Hawaiian landowners, you had white people that owned land, and then you had this third group, this really large working class. Even though many were killed off, still a lot of people, and that really complicated the whole situation. And maybe we should

take a break there. We should all right, we'll take a break and we'll talk about what complicated that even more right after this, So, Chuck, we have this this kind of like a brief sketch of what's going on here. We have a native group, the native Hawaiians who live here, and they are autonomous and running their own show. But then the European explorers have showed up and they are trying to make headways in exploiting this area as best

they can commercially. Um for agriculture, at first it was sandal wood, and then it moved on to I think cattle, and then finally like sugarcane um. And then those European white landowners in Hawaii started bringing in tons and tons of migrant workers in basically like slave labor conditions. So you have these three groups kind of coming together in Hawaii,

only one of which was originally there. Yeah, And another thing came in, which was missionaries from Europe, Protestant missionaries for the most part, and they did what missionaries do, which was say, hey, you should be Christian and not

worship whatever, uh you know, Hawaiian God you worship. And this was a big deal because there were you know, Hawaii had a long, rich tradition, um, a very sacred tradition of religion and this was not that at all, but like they do, they um were pretty forceful in making sure Christianity took hold among some of the people, and it became a pretty big deal in Hawaii by like the sort of mid eighteen hundreds, Yeah, for sure.

So and just like with other places where the missionaries were kind of like the leading edge of the spear as far as imperialism goes. So they just were the first to kind of brave this and bring Christianity and a you know, air quote civilization to the area. So after they started to make headway and started to change the culture it made, it allowed greater entree for for more like commercial interest to have definitely to do with religion. They were just coming to to work the land kind

of thing. Yeah. And forty this is when Kamayama's grandson, Kamaama the third UM wrote the first real legit Hawaiian constitution. There would be many more to follow, don't worry, right, this is just the first one. And this one basically kind of kicked Kapu law to the side. Was a little more Christian, a little more western for lack of a better word, and basically said all right, um, you can now vote over here, and this is kind of

the first entree of what democracy would look like there. Yeah, I mean, it created a judicial branch, a legislature like it. It sounded awfully familiar really as far as constitutions go. And it was a huge watershed moment because, like you said, it replaced Kapu with like you said, Western style democracy basically or some version of at the beginnings of it,

I guess. Yeah. And it also would would establish this this framework, this foundation for people to point to and be like, oh no, no, we want to we want to go further and further towards the constitution, not back toward the old ways. So it was like a goal post that was set there that could be pointed to as we don't want the monarch anymore. Remember, we want this legislature in the judicial branch and all this this stuff that Americans and Europeans are accustomed to working within. Yeah.

And also money was a big complicating factor. Um. Like we said, anytime money is introduced and there's very valuable land, it's going to get pretty gravy. And that's what happened when the white Europeans and Americans said, Wow, this soil over here in the climate of here is great for

growing stuff and we're not there. You know, they don't have workers uh rights laws here, so we can really really get cheap cheap labor if not um, like you said, basically enslaved people essentially uh from Asia to work over here and not really paying much money, like bring them over under false pretense, say how great it is, how much money they're going to make, and then kind of

build them back. Is it's sort of like signing a record contract and build you back for all the expenses of getting over there and overcharging for their living quarters, which were terrible. But it's you know, it's exploitation that we've seen time and time again. Um yeah, if it's still going on today, you know, like that it's basically

human trafficking, is what they were doing. Yeah. So, um one thing about Kamehameha, the House of Kamehameha when the first Kamayo Maya, which is an awesomely fun word to say and also just reminds me of Magnum p I because that was the club that Rick managed, the King Kamayama Club. Wo remember that? Oh man? Uh So, anyway, I would just kill to like bee hanging out at

the bar, the beach bar in that club. But anyway, um Kamayama, despite their being like up people, basically every time it's successor died, UM he managed to establish a dynasty that lasted until the eighteen seventies, I believe, UM. And the problem was that there were no strong succession laws. So when the monarch died in a few instances, there were these periods called the interregnums, which is basically like, hey, you know, the government, it doesn't actually exist technically right now.

It's kind of a free for all while we figure out what comes intact. We gotta we gotta get this together and decide how to move forward. And in this case, they would have the legislature vote for the ruler and UM, this wasn't super popular. It led to rioting. UM. Hawaiians were like, no, we we need uh we kind of didn't mind the monarchy and we need these succession laws

to be kind of ingrained. I think that that's a real um, a real telling, revealing tell about how the Hawaiians felt that They were like, no, we don't forget the legislature, we just need better law is to say who succeeds who as far as the monarchs are concerned, because I think that's what they were used to and

that's what they wanted, you know. Yeah, but what this ended up doing was kind of there was a real divide here when um, eighteen seventy four, I think was when uh kala ka oh, calliko call ka I practiced a million times Kaleika kalika ua. I mean, I love these words are so much fun to say, um, even though we're probably butchering them. But no, I'm pretty sure

it's kaleika Ua alright. Kalaika Ua was the new king voted on in eighteen seventy four, and this was the first real wedge because he had this faction that supported Queen Emma and a real like opposition party was in place. Like people were very, very divided at this point. Yeah. Queen Emma was the wife of Comma the fourth, so she had a pretty alid claimer on the throne. But the legislature said, no, kalika who is definitely our guy. He's now your your king and your monarch. And he

was an interesting cat too. He was known as the Merry Monarch. He was a bit of a bomb avant um hula had been banned by the big buzz killed missionaries for decades, I mean hula dancing. Yeah, So so kalika Ua said, hey, it's my birthday, let's bring hula back.

So he was kind of beloved for that. He played the ukulele, but he was also very corrupt, like he took a hundred and thirty thousand dollar bribe from some Chinese businessmen who wanted an opium license, and very importantly his whole jam was little by little, the power of the monarch has been eroded to well, now it's finally my turn, and I'm basically is a figurehead here. I want the power back, so I'm going to do that.

And instead, there was some white interests that had formed a group known as the Hawaiian League, and they were basically made up of landowners, businessmen, people who had but who were all like white European and American people who said, we actually don't like that idea, and in fact, we're going to make you form sign a new constitution into law, um and where you're gonna do it basically at the at the at gun point, and it's going to be

called the Bayonet Constitution. Historically speaking, yes, the Hawaiian League. They were. They had a bunch of different names. Initially they were the um the Missionary not in the Missionary League, the Missionary what the Missionary Party. The Missionary thought that was too sexy, right, So Missionary Party became the Hawaiian League, eventually became the Reform Party because who doesn't like reform? And they eventually became because as we'll see, they pushed

more and more towards annexation. Uh. And I don't know if it was were they officially called the Annexation Party? Was that sort of like a I I I honestly don't know the way that they were introduced. I think I don't know. Well either way, what they did was they said, all right, we um know that not many people we were an under armed society, so if we're gonna do this, we're gonna get um the guns on

our side. And that was where they got the support of the Hawaiian Rifles, which was a volunteer military unit um all white people. And like you said in in July seven is when those Hawaiian Rifles got involved and said signed this new constitution. They did, and so it basically said, you know how you thought you were a figurehead before. Now you are a genuine, bona fide figurehead. Your power is completely at the um pleasure of the legislature, which by the way, is no longer appointed by you,

but elected. And also further, by the way, um we Europeans and Americans now have voting rights because you have to be a landowner in literate to vote. So not only do we have voting rights now to elect the legislature to basically do whatever we want, but we've also just excluded all of those migrant Asian labors that we just brought over because they don't own any land and probably a lot of them can't read. So it's so facto. You go play some ukulele for a while, kalika uha,

and thank you very much for Hawaii. Yeah, I mean I got the impression that it was under the guise of, hey, democracy is great and voting is how things should go, but like, but we're going to be the ones voting, by the way, exactly. Yeah, And I mean it definitely was presented like that, like they were trying to liberalize the island. But yeah, ultimately it was for their own interests. When you when you really got down to brass tacks, which is Cockney rhyming slang for facts as we went.

So I didn't think that was gonna show up either. So in one that is when he died the aforementioned Kalakaua, right Cali Kaleikaa, and he was succeeded by someone Keito's his sister. How are you gonna make me queen Lily Uoh Kalani? Yeah, man, all right, I think that's right. Yeah, so yeah, and so she if if Kaleika had a problem with being a figurehead, Lily Oh Koalani was definitely um opposed to the idea of just being like Queen Elizabeth, you know, we're just showing up for um state functions

and that kind of thing. Like she was. She considered herself the ruler of Hawaii. She was the monarch who who was meant to succeed um kaleika Ua fair and square,

and had a real problem with this. And but by the problem was that within the four years that Kaleika who assigned the Bayonet Constitution, the doors have been thrown so far open for Western intra business interests in Hawaii that she basically faced an insurmountable challenge and undoing just the changes that had come in in the last four years.

It had been slowly creeping up over the decades, but from that Bay and that constitution forward over those four years between then and when she took over, the changes were insurmountable. Basically, Yeah, married to an American too. Incidentally, Well that that that shows you, like just how how intermarried American politics in European politics were with Hawaiian politics. Literally. Yeah, and I don't think we mentioned like this whole time.

There are both American and British warships in Honolulu Harbor. Yeah, so like they've been there the whole time there the military, and I didn't get the idea that they were active at that point. They were just there kind of parked there. Yeah, I think just more to send a signal, but also

to keep other interlopers out. I think the British and the Americans basically considered Hawaii There's right, unofficially, but moving toward officially, because when you said the door was thrown wide open and change was afoot, it was the Hawaiian League that was really um you know, they had flirted with annexation a little bit, but by this point they were really uh, and this is where they took on

the name the Annexation Club. Like I mentioned earlier, they were really really headed towards annexation, which is where we have to kind of go back over to America and talk about the Terriff Act of eighteen ninety or the

McKinley Tariff, which was basically a very protectionist thing. Um, Hey, we need US goods to be an industry here to be ramped up, so we're gonna charge huge tariffs on goods imported into the US, and that meant Hawaiian goods and um, landowners in Hawaii said this is not good for us because this is gonna make us raise prices. Sales are gonna go down, our profits are gonna go down. And um, while they were you know, the annexation was making hay about democracy being a good thing, it really

kind of came down to money. Yeah, that's exactly right with that. That in that McKinley tariff like really kind of forced everyone's hand. Um, because like you said, I mean, Hawaii was a sovereign nation and so there were tariffs on the import. Didn't matter that they were American companies and stuff was being produced in Hawaii, so when it came into America, there was a huge tax slapped on it.

So they started saying, Okay, we need to figure this out, like we need to we need to get Hawaii and next and the so I get the impression that the um the Hawaiian League kind of went from There were some people in there that have been saying the whole time, annexation, annexation, it's definitely the way to go to. Where that was like the point of the Hawaiian League from that moment forward was getting annexed um fortunately for them. Uh lially Huo Kalani, whose name just flits in and out of

my capability to pronounce she um. She said, Hey, you know what, I don't like all this. I don't like where this is going. I'm going to rewrite the constitution. I'm going to restore the power of the monarchy. And you know, your legislature, your legislature can go sit on it because I'm passing this by royal fiat, just by me decreeing that it's true. It's true. And when that came out, that news came out that she was planning

on doing that, the Hawaiian League said it's go time. Yeah, And as far as the US goes, you know, they um, they didn't outright say they wanted to annex. It was kind of a tricky situation for them. They didn't want anyone else to get in there in front of them, of course, but they also didn't and they didn't want to.

I feel like they didn't want to be too aggressive with it, like well, hey, if you're open to it, we'll talk about it, but we're not gonna ask you to dance, right, But it wasn't out of any respect or deference necessarily to Hawaiian. It was because they didn't want to tick off the British. So um so yeah.

So when Lilio man So, when Lily Uo Kalani said, um that she was going to to rewrite the constitution and this came out, the opposition was really strong, and she actually backed down and she announced, Okay, I'm definitely not going to do it by royal fiat, but I'm gonna do it through normal channels and and really kind of took the any hostility out of the move. But it was it was too little, too late as far

as the Hawaiian League was concerned. And like I said they decided it was go time, and Chuck, I say, it's go time for us to go to commercial. Let's do it, alright, So it's go to time in Hawaii. Uh, Queen Lily Okolani has drawn a line in the sand. H White men in Hawaii were super worried all of a sudden, and so that annexation club that has now changed names four times, changed their names again and said

all right, now we're the Committee of Safety. And by Committee of safety, I mean we're going to lead a military coup, right, which are typically very safe. Yeah. So, um, there was a a move basically to collect um arms, specifically to depose Liliu o'collani. Like that was the point that that this this um, this this group had I guess it was pretty if it wasn't like overt Basically everyone knew about it so much so that uh loyalists

to um Liliuokolani. His name was Charles B. Wilson. Yeah, he was a loyalist, which we should say, so his name sounds pretty um America, and that's for good reason, because he was American. And if you go back a couple of monarchs, um, you will start to see like Germans and Americans and British people in their cabinets like as like foreign minister or Secretary of Finance, like just just like it's just you know, some normal thing. Um,

that's how intrenched everything was. So. Charles B. Wilson was to Liliuokalani um the Marshal of Hawaii, which, as ed put, is kind of like the head of the FBI and the head of the Department Offense all rolled into one. But he was in charge of the national police basically, and he found out about this plot and he wanted

the plotters arrested for treason. Yeah, he called it out and said arrested the committee or whatever they're calling themselves today, And the American members of the cabinet said, no, we're not gonna do that because this could break out in violence, so let's all chill out. Um. That all changed on January seventeenth, when there was a shooting. A Native Hawaiian policeman was shot trying to prevent a delivery of some

weapons to the Annexation Club. Um, he didn't die, but he was shot, and there wasn't like a lot of I mean, James Cook obviously died pretty in a grizzly way, but there wasn't a lot of like actual violence and bloodshed that was riding and stuff over the years. But I get the feeling that this shooting was kind of a big, big thing at the time. It was. I mean, it was the only shooting in the entire overthrow of Hawaii,

in this entire coup, which makes it significant. But I get the same impression that you had that Hawaiian society was generally rather peaceful, and so to shoot somebody was a very very big deal. Um. So much so that the cop got two hundred dollars for his his wounds collected by the local community. Pretty nice, pretty good scratch back then. Yeah, I don't I didn't look it up on West Egg. We should have. Uh. So the Committee of Safety goes to you know, mentioned the warships in

the harbor. Uh They go to our the the USS Boston that's parked there, and go to Captain Wilts and say, hey, you know what, um, they're American citizens on the island there. Now, you guys are having a good time, just kind of hanging out and playing cards, but there's property that's in danger. There's American citizens that are in danger and there are armed troops. UM like, we need you guys in your guns to come on the island. And he went, well,

all right, uh, come on, guys, let's go. And they all put down their cards and a hundred and sixty two soldiers went ashore. And that was sort of the real turning point as far as an actual American military presence in their supposedly defending property and American citizens from danger. But it really ratcheted things up as far as conflict goes. Well, yeah,

and particularly for Liliuokalani. To her, she saw American troops coming ashore, um establishing a full were like a couple of hundred yards away from the Imperial Palace and and

basically creating a presence on native sovereign Hawaiian land. And this was at the same time that the UM the Committee for Safety, had run up on the steps of the Capitol building read a proclamation that the queen had been overthrown, that the monarchy didn't exist any longer, and that she had been deposed and that UM they were now in charge. And combine that, from her point of view with the presence of American troops, She's like, okay, I guess the Americans just overthrew me. She didn't know

who was working with who. She just knew there were armed troops. She didn't really have any kind of standing army or anything like that. So she made a very wise and in my opinion, very noble decision to say, you know what, I will. I will surrender for the moment because I don't want to. I want to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed, Like anybody who fights for me is going to get wasted by these American marines, and I

don't want to see that happen. So I will surrender, but I'm not surrendering my position to the provisional government.

All surrender to the United States of America temporarily until they can restore my position, because this is b S. Yeah, And in in her statement, we won't read the whole thing, but at the end she essentially says I'm doing this for now, until which time I will be reinstated as the authority, at which point everyone just kind of patted her on the head and said, that's that's adorable that

you think that's actually gonna happen. She said, ps B S. And I don't think we mentioned this new provisional government said, all right, we have a president now, and his name is Sanford Dole. Uh if that name sounds familiar, um. Sandford's brother James founded the Dole Fruit Company in Hawaiian So really no surprise how how that worked out, right,

So so let's just recap real quick. Okay, So there was a group of American in Europe in white business interests, landowners, businessmen who overthrew like during this, during this, a little melee after a cop was shot, ran up onto the capital steps read a proclamation that they were in charge. John John Stevens, who hadn't mentioned he was the American Minister to Hawaii. He was very much in on this

and in league with the Hawaiian League UM. And he said, I, as official representative the United States officially recognized you, the provisional Government, as the true government of Hawaii. I no longer recognized the monarch. And that was it. All of a sudden, this island kingdom of Hawaii that had been around for a thousand or more years and had been organized since for a couple of hundred years or a

hundred or more years, UM, just didn't exist anymore. Poof because an American minister recognized a group of other Americans. We just said, we claim this place basically as our own. Yeah, and they said, you know, we're voting for this now. Dole is president, like I said, but the Royalists are boycotting the elections. So the Annexation Party, which eventually became the American Union Party, they just were winning the elections because it was no contest basically, Yeah, which is I mean,

it's a problem. You're in such a pickle with that, you know, like you're like, I reject that these elections are even valid on their face. Um, but but then if they just keep pulling these elections and other people keep recognizing them as valid, then you're you're s o l you know it. It was a really sticky, terrible situation for the Native Hawaiians and their their monarch. Yeah. So Dole and and the gang are firmly entrenched at this point, and this is when they can really really

start to go after annexation. Um. So over in America, you have Grover Cleveland in office and he's like, wait a minute, this this all sounds very kinky and illegal, So I'm gonna send an envoy. James Blunt to Hawaii. You put together a report and and report back to me and let me know what's going on. Blunt went over put together as report and he said, yeah, it

was super illegal what happened. And so Cleveland said, all right, queen, um, if you want, will send troops in there to over overthrow the republic and UM put you back in in in a position of queen. But what you have to do is is you got to offer amnesty to that Committee of Safety that overthrew you kind of using our soldiers to begin with. And she probably had whip flash at this point, but she was like, uh, no, I'm not going to do that, and actually those guys should

be beheaded, um, if I'm really being completely honest. And so Cleveland kind of slunk down and said, all right, well, I guess we uh we're not going to do that. Then, yeah, he said, beheadings are gonna it's gonna be tough to get past Congress. So I guess we don't have anything to say here, but you have to kind of hand it to Lily uh Kolani that um, I mean, she stuck to her principles and she could she could have been restored as monarch maybe even back to like the

pre figurehead version of the monarchy. And she said, nope, I'm cutting their heads off if if you put me back as as queen. Yeah. At the same time, the US Congress gets involved. They said, you know what, we're the ones who investigate people. So listen to over our guy, John Tyler Morgan. And Morgan went over and his report said, you know what, this was not some illegal coup. This was just Hawaii being Hawaii. This is their politics, this is how they do things. We didn't really do anything wrong.

No blood on our hands. It's Hawaii. This is what they do. No big deal. So the Congress is like good enough for us. UM. By this time, also, UM, Cleveland had been replaced by who is Cleveland's successor? Mley? Okay, so the McKinley tariff came before all this, huh there came after all this. No. I got the idea that maybe it was as a senator or something. Okay, I'm completely wrong though, No, but that would make way more sense.

But the point is is that McKinley UM was much more in favor of annexation, uh than Cleveland was, and so the the United States officially annexed Hawaii as a territory in and this was exactly exactly what all of those American and European landowners wanted, because, especially in America, no longer were they subject to these high tariffs for

the imported goods because Hawaii was an annexed territory. But Chuck, they also were in a state, which means that they weren't subject to US laws like immigration, which meant that they could continue up their their human trafficking, which meant that as an annexed territory, their profit margins were as

wide as they've ever been. Basically, yeah, I mean those were uh, I mean, they were terror doble in reality, but those were the golden years if you're a plantation owner in Hawaii, because you're you're basically just making money hand over fist with no oversight. Right. And by the way, I just looked at real quick. McKinley was a House representative when that terrifact came out. Not thank you. That was a really great in show correction. We usually don't

do this. Uh So, when does statehood come on the scene, Because Hawa I didn't become a state until nineteen fifty nine, which was not that long ago. No, it was, and it was a full sixty plus years after it was annexed. And because they were just fat cats and they were loving it. That's that's exactly right. The powerful interests who basically ran the legislature said, hey, you know, we we were really like Chuck said, we're making money hand over

fist and somebody said, who's Chuck. They said, just give it a couple of decades, you'll see it's gonna knock your socks off. But they had no, no desire to be a state, because then that meant that they're immigration laws would be imposed and they'd have to follow a lot more um, social and cultural more's that America had established, um, and it was going to be a bad jam for them. The other thing was here at home, and it was

just straight up like racist xenophobia. Yeah, um, you know, I think I don't know if we said to put a pin in it, but we were talking about all these migrant workers who you know, had kids and stuff, and those kids were born there eventually became a non white majority in Hawaii, and they were like, you know what if we make this place of state, he said, they're gonna actually these microworkers are gonna gain real voting power and they have a non white majority, and we

really don't want those people in our congress. In Congress, that was basically the reason that kept Hawaii from being a state until nine. People didn't want people of Asian or Native Hawaiian descent in in d C. And Congress, I guess. And that nuts. Yeah, So it took until March eighteenth nine to find become a state, and then it took until for Congress to pass an apology bill.

And this is hysterical and it's so believable, but it points out that they were, uh, it was disputed because they were literally arguing about either the Blunt Report or the Morgan Report being more accurate, like a hundred years later. Yeah, can you do Clinton apologizing? Oh what do I have to apologize for? That was great. So so that bill actually said that Hawaii or the Native Hawaiians quote, never directly relinquished to the US their claims to their inherent sovereignty.

The US said, in in some in in so many words, like the United States stole Hawaii. Hawaii is the state because we took it basically back in eighteen ninety. That or the eighteen eighties. Pretty great story. It is so that you were asking about the pulse of Hawaii today.

There's a bill that was introduced in two thousand by Senator Daniel k Akaca, and he's since retired, I believe, but the Acaca Bill is still around, and it basically would extend sovereignty to Native Hawaiians and virtually the same way that um Native American tribes in the continental US have their own tribal nations. They have their own governments that make decisions for them, and they have their own laws and all that um and there's it's just never

been passed. There's I don't think there's quite enough support for it or what the hold up is, but it's still languishing right now. I haven't been. I gotta go at some point. Oh dude, I would like to live there one day. Yeah. That's good. A place where you you and you meet to retire. It's a it's amazing. So uh and maybe I'll meet up with Kanaka Kai,

the Hawaiian hillbilly while we're there. I think with your magnum obsession, you were destined to just while away with a coconut with a straw on it in your hand. Who do I have to kill the cu to refill his coconut? I used to be somebody. How do you think I got this rainbow helicopter? That's right, oh man, I've been to the Magnum house before you metok me, does not surprise me, it's neat Um. Well have you

got anything else about the overthrow of Hawaii? Well, if you wanted more about the overthrow Hawaii, there's a lot more out there. It's pretty interesting story in Hawaiian culture is pretty interesting too, now that we dug into it. And since I said that it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this anvils. And by the way, this

um this is from Nolan. Nolan did not point this out, but we heard from many people who said that the Smithy was not the Blacksmith, but the place, uh their workshop is called the Smithy and I can't know that smithy, Like that's the Blacksmith. Yeah, that's what I thought. I think they're the smith Okay, not the Smith's. That's Morrissee and Johnny morn Company. That's right. Hey, guys, love the episode on Blacksmith thing. I've been to Blacksmith since I

was nineteen when I bought my first anvil. I started listening stuff you should Know during grad school and my anvil was sadly packed away. I had no time to use it, but thankfully it isn't on the shelf any longer, and I found myself sitting next to it while listening to your episode. Uh. Seems silly, but these things have a real personality to them. They're like old friends. I met mine close to a decade ago, and it's a one dash, zero dash, sixteen and twenty eight pound Peter Wright.

That means something to Smithy's. I was impressed by the Peter right. Yeah, he's He's a legendary anvil list Smithie. So Uh. One thing on the show I thought I mentioned is about anvil's Josh said, you want to attach the anvil to a stump to disperse the hammer strike to the earth, which is partially which is partially correct, but missed one beautiful thing about a good anvil, which is it's rebound. Uh. An anvil's quality can be measured by the rebound. This is how much force pushes back

at you when you strike. Because this is a good anvil. I'm sorry because of this, a good anvil hits back when you strike it, and a good blacksmith uses this to effectively forge both sides of a workpiece at the same time. I also one thing I also saw somebody else right in to say that that helps you um and swinging a ten pound hammer like like working the

rebound to your advantage to totally. He said, you can tell if you have a good anvil by the rebound by dropping a ball bearing on it or lightly dropping a hammerhead and seeing how high it bounces. A dead anvil will have no bounce and only gives a soft thud. A good anvil bounces back a lot and leaves a ringing in the air. And this is actually where the phrase has a nice ring to it comes from. Oh really about that? I love that stuff. It was a

blacksmith in phrase. So great job, guys, as always keep it up. I always love tuning into these shows. Can't wait hear more. And that is Nolan. Thanks Toland, you really quenched our thirst for etymology big time. Appreciate Nolan, Appreciate everybody, all of the smiths who wrote in to let us know all the stuff we got wrong, but also say, hey, you generally got it right. So in Farriors we heard from farriers. Yeah, tons of farriers out there, So we appreciate all of you and we're fascinated by

the work you do. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email. Send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.