OBJECTIVES:
This lesson plan covers the fraught history of the annexation of Hawai’i and its Queen who tried to protect her people to the bitter end.
On January 16, 1893, United States troops backing American plantation owners and businessmen illegally invaded the Kingdom of Hawai’i. This led to a conditional surrender by the Kingdom’s first queen and last monarch, Her Majesty Queen Lili‘uokalani. For the next 5 years, there was an interim government that charged the Queen with treason and put her and her supporters under house arrest in her palace after the failed Wilcox Rebellion 1895. Hawai‘i was officially annexed by the United States in 1898, and did not become a state until 1956. In 1993, the United States Congress formally apologized for its role in overthrowing the Hawaiian government and limiting the rights of the Hawaiian people with SJ Res 19.
What were the reasons why the United States became interested in gaining control of Hawai’i and what were the actions it took to do so?