Ah, my opinion, although based on fact, isn’t as good as your opinion, although yours is based on your version of revisionist history. I see now what you mean by I “have it all wrong.”
We wouldn’t have to keep revising history if they had got it right in the first place.
KARMA! 26 million Mexicans now as illegal inmigrants count as an invasion to you???
Some day there will be more latinos in the bottom 5 states of the US and guess what?
they will have power… its just a matter of time…2020 or 2030…
United States Public Law 103-150, The “Apology Resolution” was passed by Congress and signed by President William J. Clinton on November 23, 1993, to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
http://www.hawaii-nation.org/publawsum.html
"Whereas, prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in 1778, the Native Hawaiian people lived in a highly organized, self-sufficient, subsistent social system based on communal land tenure with a
sophisticated language, culture, and religion;
Whereas, from 1826 until 1893, the United States recognized the independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii, extended full and complete diplomatic recognition to the Hawaiian Government, and entered
into treaties and conventions with the Hawaiian monarchs to govern commerce and navigation…
Whereas, on January 14, 1893… the United States Minister assigned to the sovereign and independent Kingdom of Hawaii conspired with a small group of non-Hawaiian residents of the Kingdom of Hawaii, including citizens of the United States, to overthrow the indigenous and lawful
Government of Hawaii;
Whereas, soon thereafter, when informed of the risk of bloodshed with resistance, Queen Liliuokalani issued the following statement yielding her authority to the United States Government rather than to the Provisional Government:
"I Liliuokalani, by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom,Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the Constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for this Kingdom.
"That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America whose Minister Plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed a Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government.
"Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands."
- Queen Liliuokalani, Jan 17, 1893
Whereas, without the active support and intervention by the United States diplomatic and military representatives, the insurrection against the Government of Queen Liliuokalani would have failed for
lack of popular support and insufficient arms."
Any more questions?
Back to the OP. The “liberation” of Texas from Mexico did not happen in a limbo. The Texans had considerable US support, some of whom likely had an eye upon future annexation of Texan into the Union. This does not mean that the entire Texas liberation was a plot by American Imperialists, however, or anything close to it.
But if we have to discuss Hawaii- look at a world map in 1890> WWI. Do you see many small independent states? Just about everything had been divvied up into colonies or protectorates. Hawaii was a protectorate of the USA- which wasn’t about to let it slip into German or British hands- both of whom had obvious designs upon it. From what I can remember, the Queen had designs upon getting rid of the de facto USA protectorate status- which would have sucked GB or Imperial Germany into the power vaccuum. So- we took them over to stop others from doing it. A true independent Hawaii in that period was a pipe dream- it just plain wasn’t going to happen. This does not fully excuse our actions, but it does show we just weren’t rabid Imperialists (look at that same map- the American “empire” was dinky compared to other great States- we really didn’t want a big empire).
No offense, but I believe Clinton would have signed off on just about anything if he thought it would gain him something.
I don’t know much about Hawaii’s history, only the “tours” I participated in on my last 2 trips. I’ve heard about the Queen, the policeman getting hurt, not wanting statehood, wanting statehood, the Dole legacy, etc. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the stories, but they were related to me by a variety of people.
I do know a little about Texas history. It wasn’t much good for Mexico to have the territory if they couldn’t capitalize on it. The population of old Mexico didn’t seem to have much interest in moving north to Texas. The people that did have an interest in moving there were not Mexican citizens. In the interest of making money (taxes, trade, etc), Mexico invited (allowed?) the 300 to settle here. This being seen as beneficial, Mexico allowed more to come. The settlers were to accept Mexican rule, which they did for a time. The problems arose when the settlers didn’t care for the changes in rules they were supposed to live under.
I’ll see if I can’t dig up some of the research my grandmother did on it. She was an avid amatuer historian and geneologist(sp?), completing her family tree back to the mid 1600’s.
Odd that someone who is so in favor of democracy would support the “divine right of royalty”.
Brings up 2 other questions. Let us say that a third option was added to the ballot; “independence”. Since something like 60% + of the citizens voted for statehood- how many do you think would have voted for independence? Do we really think that nearly all of those who wanted Statehood would have preferred Independence instead?
And then there is the talk about “native” Hawaiians. So- let’s say my name is Johansen, and I have blond hair & blue eyes. I was born on Hawaii. Am I a native? If not- why not? How about if my parents were born there? If not- how many “greats” do you have to go back to be a “native”?
Or is it based on race? If you are a pacific-islander by “race”, and were born in the Islands- are you a “native”? Even if your parents came from Tahiti instead? We have a word for this- it is “racist”.
Or maybe you think that no immigrants are ever “natives”. In that case- there are no “native Hawaiians”- everyone migrated there. Based on this, unless you are talking about somewhere near the Oldulvai gorge, everyone, everywhere is a non-native.
Oh, but you say- is it the first wave of immigrants who are “natives”. Well, but Hawaii wasn’t settled in just one wave- there were several waves, and they tended to take over from the previous. Thus, it is highly unlikely that any person who considers themself a “native” is descended from the first wave.
“No, no, you say- any wave of Pacific Islanders generated “natives”… it is just that no wave of non-pacific islander migrants are “native”. Just the dudes with brown skins.” Let’s go back to that definition of “racist” again.
No, I am afraid there is just one legitimate definition of “native”: one who was born there. Thus, “Johansen” above is just as much a “native” as any “haole”. Like TomnDeb said- Sanford Dole was as much a native as Queen Lilioukalani- or at least his kids were.
Dr. Deth, you are right on the money. Many of these same issues were recently addressed in the case Rice v. Cayetano. You can read about it here:
http://www.hawaiilawyer.com/articles/rice.htm
But your comment about a seeming contradiction between democracy and the divine right of royalty shows that you don’t really understand the situation at the time of the overthrow. The native Hawaiian population had been decimated due to disease and non-Hawaiians were taking over. Due to the changeover of the land tenure system (a process called the Great Mahele), many Hawaiians were dispossessed of land that they had lived on and farmed. In the old system, the King and the chiefs owned the land, but allowed people to live on the land and harvest the fruits of the land. In the new system, land was privately owned and the native Hawaiians were kicked off. In this situation, even though the queen was not democratically elected, she did represent her people, in some ways much better than our democratically elected “representatives” who actually represent the interests of the corporations who buy them.
A brief history of land acquisition in Hawaii:
http://www.teresatico.com/presentations/history-of-land-acquisition/