The Hawaiian sovereignty movement () is a grassroots political and cultural campaign to reestablish an autonomous or independent nation or kingdom of Hawaii out of a desire for sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance.
Some groups also advocate some form of redress from the United States for its 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, and for what is described as a prolonged military occupation beginning with the 1898 annexation. The movement generally views both the overthrow and annexation as illegal."The Rape of Paradise: The Second Century Hawai'ians Grope Toward Sovereignty As The U.S. President Apologizes" , Perceptions Magazine, March/April 1996, p. 18–25
Palmyra Atoll was annexed by the Kingdom in the 1860s, and the movement regards it as under illegal occupation along with the Hawaiian Islands. The Apology Resolution the United States Congress passed in 1993 acknowledged that the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was an illegal act.
Sovereignty advocates have attributed problems plaguing native communities, including homelessness, poverty, economic marginalization, and the erosion of native traditions to lack of native governance and political self-determination. The forced depopulation of Kaho'olawe and its subsequent bombing, the construction of the Mauna Kea Observatories, and the Red Hill water crisis caused by the US Navy's mismanagement are some of the contemporary matters relevant to the sovereignty movement. It has pursued its agenda through educational initiatives and legislative actions. Along with protests throughout the islands, at the capital (Honolulu) itself and other locations sacred to Hawaiian culture, sovereignty activists have challenged U.S. forces and law.
History Coinciding with other 1960s and 1970s indigenous activist movements, the Hawaiian sovereignty movement was spearheaded by Native Hawaiian activist organizations and individuals who were critical of issues affecting modern Hawaii, including the islands' urbanization and commercial development, corruption in the Hawaiian Homelands program, and appropriation of native burial grounds and other sacred spaces.Parker, Linda S. "Alaska, Hawaii, and Agreements." Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, and Sovereignty, edited by Donald L. Fixico, vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, 2008, pp. 195–208. Gale Virtual Reference Library In the 1980s, the movement gained cultural and political traction and native resistance grew in response to urbanization and native disenfranchisement. Local and federal legislation provided some protection for native communities but did little to quell expanding commercial development.
In 1993, a joint congressional resolution apologized for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, and said that the overthrow was illegal. In 2000, the Akaka Bill was proposed, which provided a process for federal recognition of Native Hawaiians, and gave ethnic Hawaiians some control over land and natural resource negotiations. But sovereignty groups opposed the bill because of its provisions that legitimized illegal land transfers, and it was criticized by a 2006 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report (which was later reversed in 2018) for the effect it would have on non-ethnic Hawaiian populations.Beary, Brian. "Hawaiians (United States)." Separatist Movements: A Global Reference, CQ Press, 2011, pp. 96–99. A 2005 Grassroot Institute poll found that most Hawaiian residents opposed the Akaka Bill.
Background
Native Hawaiians' ancestors may have arrived in the Hawaiian Islands around 350CE, from other areas of Polynesia. By the time Captain Cook arrived, Hawaii had a well-established culture, with a population estimated between 400,000 and 900,000. Starting in 1795 and completed by 1810, Kamehameha I conquered the entire archipelago and formed the unified Kingdom of Hawaii. In the first 100 years of contact with Western civilization, due to disease and war, the Hawaiian population dropped by 90%, to only 53,900 in 1876. American missionaries arrived in 1820 and assumed great power and influence. Despite formal recognition of the Kingdom of Hawaii by the United States and other world powers, the kingdom was overthrown beginning January 17, 1893, with a coup d'état orchestrated mostly by Americans within the kingdom's legislature, supported by armed sailors landed by the USS Boston.
The Blount Report is the popular name given to the part of the 1893 United States House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee Report about the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. U.S. Commissioner James H. Blount, appointed by President Grover Cleveland to investigate the events surrounding the January 1893 coup, conducted the report. It provides the first evidence that officially identifies U.S. complicity in the overthrow of the government of the Kingdom of Hawaii.Ball, Milner S. "Symposium: Native American Law," Georgia Law Review 28 (1979): 303 Blount concluded that U.S. Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens had carried out unauthorized partisan activities, including the landing of U.S. Marines under a false or exaggerated pretext to support anti-royalist conspirators; the report also found that these actions were instrumental to the revolution's success and that the revolution was carried out against the wishes of a majority of the population of the Hawaiian Kingdom and/or its royalty.Tate, Merze. (1965). The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom: A Political History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 235. On December 14, 1893, Albert Willis arrived unannounced in Honolulu aboard the USRC Corwin, bringing with him an anticipation of an American invasion in order to restore the monarchy, which became known as the Black Week. Willis was Blount's successor as United States Minister to Hawaii. With the hysteria of a military assault, he staged a mock invasion with the USS Adams and USS Philadelphia, directing their guns toward the capital. He also ordered Rear Admiral John Irwin to organize a landing operation using troops on the two American ships, which were joined by the Japanese Naniwa and the British HMS Champion. On January 11, 1894, Willis revealed the invasion to be a hoax.Report Committee Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Accompanying Testimony, Executive Documents transmitted Congress January 1, 1893, March 10, 1891, p 2144History of later years of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the revolution of 1893 By William De Witt Alexander, p 103 After the arrival of the Corwin, the provisional government and citizens of Hawaii were ready to rush to arms if necessary, but it was widely believed that Willis's threat of force was a bluff.
On December 16, the British Minister to Hawaii was given permission to land marines from HMS Champion for the protection of British interests; the ship's captain predicted that the U.S. military would restore the Queen and Sovereign ruler (Lili'uokalani). In a November 1893 meeting with Willis, Lili'uokalani said she wanted the revolutionaries punished and their property confiscated, despite Willis's desire for her to grant them amnesty. In a December 19, 1893, meeting with the leaders of the provisional government, Willis presented a letter by Liliuokalani in which she agreed to grant the revolutionaries amnesty if she were restored as queen. During the conference, Willis told the provisional government to surrender to Liliuokalani and allow Hawaii to return to its previous condition, but the leader of the provisional government, President Sanford Dole, refused, claiming that he was not subject to the authority of the United States.
The Blount Report was followed in 1894 by the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's report by concluding that all participants except for Queen Lili'uokalani were "not guilty". On January 10, 1894, U.S. Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham announced that the settlement of the situation in Hawaii would be up to Congress, following Willis's unsatisfactory progress. Cleveland said that Willis had carried out the letter of his directions rather than their spirit. Domestic response to Willis's and Cleveland's efforts was largely negative. The New York Herald wrote, "If Minister Willis has not already been ordered to quit meddling in Hawaiian affairs and mind his own business, no time should be lost in giving him emphatic instructions to that effect." The New York World wrote: "Is it not high time to stop the business of interference with the domestic affairs of foreign nations? Hawaii is 2000 miles from our nearest coast. Let it alone." The New York Sun said: "Mr. Cleveland lacks ... the first essential qualification of a referee or arbitrator." The New York Tribune called Willis's trip a "forlorn and humiliating failure to carry out Mr. Cleveland's outrageous project." The New York Recorder wrote, "The idea of sending out a minister accredited to the President of a new republic, having him present his credentials to that President and address him as 'Great and Good Friend,' and then deliberately set to work to organize a conspiracy to overthrow his Government and re-establish the authority of the deposed Queen, is repugnant to every man who holds American honor and justice in any sort of respect." The New York Times was one of the few New York newspapers to defend Cleveland's decisions, writing, "Mr. Willis discharged his duty as he understood it."
After the overthrow, the Provisional Government of Hawaii became the Republic of Hawaii in 1894, and in 1898 the U.S. annexed the Republic of Hawaii in the Newlands Resolution, making it the Territory of Hawaii. The territory was then given a territorial government in an Organic Act in 1900. While there was much opposition to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and many attempts to restore it, Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898 without any input from Native Hawaiians. It became a U.S. state on March 18, 1959, following a referendum in which at least 93% of voters approved of statehood. By then, most voters were not Native Hawaiian. The 1959 referendum did not have an option for independence from the United States. After Hawaii's admission as a state, the United Nations removed Hawaii from its list of non-self-governing territories (a list of territories subject to the decolonization process).
The U.S. constitution recognizes Native American tribes as domestic, dependent nations with inherent rights of self-determination through the U.S. government as a trust responsibility, which was extended to include Eskimos, Aleuts and Native Alaskans with the passing of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Through enactment of 183 federal laws over 90 years, the U.S. has entered into an implicit—rather than explicit—trust relationship that does not formally recognize a sovereign people with the right of self-determination. Without an explicit law, Native Hawaiians may not be eligible for entitlements, funds and benefits afforded to other U.S. indigenous peoples. Native Hawaiians are recognized by the U.S. government through legislation with a unique status. Proposals have been made to treat Native Hawaiians as a tribe similar to Native Americans; opponents to the tribal approach argue that it is not a legitimate path to nationhood.
Historical groups
Royal Order of Kamehameha I