Lil‘uokalani. (1838–1917), last queen of
Hawai'i.She was born Lydia Kamaka‘eha to parents who were first cousins, following the Hawaiian custom requiring high‐ranking personages to marry closely in their lineage to increase the family mana, or spiritual power. Lil‘uokalani served as regent in 1880–1881 when her brother King Kalakaua made a world tour, and again in 1890 when he sought medical treatment in San Francisco. Well educated, well read, and fluent in Hawaiian and English, she accompanied her sister‐in‐law, Queen Kap‘iolani, to London in 1887 for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, where they were received as befit their royal status.
Lil‘uokalani became queen in 1891, upon the death of King Kalakaua. Her reign was cut short in January 1893 by a coup d’état led by Lorrin Thurston and other descendants of American missionaries, in collusion with the U.S. minister to Hawai'i, John L. Stevens. Stevens ordered troops from the USS
Boston ashore, ostensibly to support Thurston and what became known as the “Provisional Government.” Thurston and his associates sought greater profits for their sugar plantations through U.S. annexation, so Hawaiian sugar could be marketed in America without payment of the duties imposed on foreign sugar.
To prevent bloodshed, Queen Lil‘uokalani forbade her people to engage militarily with U.S. troops or American citizens, although armed Hawaiian volunteers outnumbered the American forces. Hawaiians, regarding their queen as a spiritual as well as political leader, unhesitatingly obeyed. The queen sent emissaries to Washington, D.C., to seek peaceful removal of American troops, but the American military chose the Pearl Harbor lagoon as headquarters for the Pacific fleet. The United States annexed Hawai'i in 1898, without allowing the Hawaiian people to vote on the matter. Because the queen ceded the country under military threat, the coup has been deemed illegal under
international law. In November 1993, President Bill
Clinton signed Public Law 103–150, acknowledging the illegality of the invasion and Hawaiians’ inherent right of sovereignty over their lands.
A gifted composer and beloved humanitarian, Lil‘uokalani died in Hawai'i in 1917, her dream of independence unfulfilled.
See also
Expansionism;
Spanish‐American War.
Bibliography
James Blount , Report to the United States Congress: Hawaiian Islands, 53d Cong., 2d sess., Doc. 47, 1893.
Lili‘uokalani , Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i’s Queen, 1898, reprint 1986.
Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa
