Queen Liliuokalani stitched the above quilt in 1895 while
imprisoned in her own palace. Her crime? Allegedly attempting to restore
herself to the throne after she had been overthrown. Not unlike the imprisonment
of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in Paris after the start of the French
Revolution – except that Liliuokalani wasn’t overthrown by her own people
She was
overthrown by American businessmen.
Many
Americans operate under what I think is a misguided assumption that the country
might be in better hands if the government were to be run by businessmen. Not
pointing any fingers or naming any names. This is the story of a group of
businessmen who made a mess of someone else’s country, and the woman who tried
to stand up to them.
Liliuokalani probably never expected to be the chief
executive of Hawaii. She was born the daughter of Hawaiian chiefs – essentially
Hawaiian nobility – but was not directly in line for the throne until 1877,
when she was 39 years old.
In 1872,
the relatively young kingdom of Hawaii had a major succession crisis when King
Kamehameha IV died without issue. “Dying without issue” – that worst fear of
all kings – was a common problem for the Hawaiian monarchs, partly due to the
tradition of incestuous marriages among Hawaiian chiefs, and partly due to
devastating diseases, such as smallpox, that afflicted the islands after
foreigners started visiting in the late 18th century.
Since there
was no obvious heir to Kamehameha IV, the nobility of Hawaii devised an
election to choose the next king. The candidates were all cousins and descendants
in one way or another of the great unifier of the archipelago, and the
progenitor of the kingdom of Hawaii: Kamehameha I. In 1872, the two main
candidates were Lunalilo, and Kalakaua. Being that Lunalilio was more popular,
and more closely related to the late king, he easily won.
But, he died without issue two years
later in 1874 and another election had to be held.
Kalakaua
ran for king again, and this time his main rival was Kamehameha IV’s widow,
Queen Emma. (Hawaiian history has no shortage of babes.) Emma, a personal
friend of Queen Victoria’s, was staunchly pro-British and anti-American in her
foreign policy. Why does that matter?
Let’s
explore it, shall we?
Earlier in
the 19th century American missionaries had settled in Hawaii brining
New England puritanism with them. The Hawaiians and missionaries were mutually
appalled by each other’s customs at first, but did form (for a few decades
anyway) a moderately syncretic relationship. (For instance, Hawaiian did not
have a written language until Americans and Hawaiians collaborated to form a
Latin based alphabet for it, after which there was a flourishing of literature
and print in Hawaiian language.)
The real
problems started when those first missionaries’ children grew up and – as children
are wont to do – rejected their parents’ wishes, deciding to become businessmen
and lawyers instead of priests. Ultimately, Hawaii became a place of interest
to the U.S. for two reasons: one, it was a most convenient fueling station in
the Pacific. Two: sugar. The U.S. could use Hawaii’s ports and access Hawaiian
sugar without needing to interfere with Hawaiian politics or annex the islands.
The eventual American take over had much more to do with the desires of the
American businessmen who operated out of Hawaii – but I’m getting ahead of
myself.
Kalakaua –
now on his second run for king – was leaning in the direction of a closer
relation to, and ergo greater dependence on, the United States. Queen Emma viewed
this as a dangerous policy: she wanted greater independence from the U.S. and
wanted to expand the rights of Native Hawaiians to give them more influence in
their own government than the powerful White minority. (You can guess who the
powerful White minority liked better.)
Emma was a
popular candidate, and so when she lost, the Emmaites rioted in Honolulu, but
she conceded her defeat and recognized Kalakaua as king. (It’s a good policy,
recognizing the legitimacy of elections and conceding defeat. Not pointing any
fingers or naming any names…)
What does
any of this have to do with Liliuokalani? Simple: she was King Kalakua’s
sister. Kalakua, like his predecessors, had no children, but he had the
advantage of having a younger brother – until that younger brother died in 1877
and so the status of heir apparent passed to Liliuokalani.
Tune in
next week to find out how Liliuokalani ended up trapped in her palace by sugar
barons, mournfully stitching together a quilt and planning her appeal to the
government of the United States.
Sources:
Unfamiliar Fishes, by Sarah Vowell –
I highly recommend this book. It formed the basis of my research for this blog.
I inserted a video clip in the beginning of the blog of Vowell reading the
opening of the book.
Excerpts
from Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen – as the title suggests, written by
Liliuokalani
A timeline of
Liliuokalani’s life, from PBS
