Dr. Keanu Sai to Present on the Myth of Annexation at UH Windward Community College Tomorrow
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Category Archives: Education
Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics publishes Volume no. 5
From the Editor of the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics, Professor Kalawai‘a Moore:
Since the attempted coup of 1887, history written on Hawaiʻi has been a highly political endeavor of a specific nature. The insurgents from the time of 1887 through the time of the United States coup de main of 1893 and beyond began writing a defensive justification narrative for their illegal actions as historical narratives. One among many of the distortions of historical truth has included a re-describing of the role of American missionary advisors in the earlier part of the 19th century as the driving force and main actors behind the development and running of a constitutional government of a nation-state. The motivations for the crafting of a history against which enormous primary evidence exists to the contrary was the aim at winning public and material support from the United States, and elsewhere to secure and maintain control over Hawaiʻi. Losing control over Hawaiʻi for the insurgents could have led to prosecution for treason under the law an offense that was punishable by death. Exemplifying this false narrative, Lorrin Thurston, one of these insurgents, wrote:
Hawaiian Christianization, civilization, commerce, education, and development are the direct product of American effort. Hawaii is in every element and quality which enters into the composition of a modern civilized community, a child of America.
As Hawaiians began to enter the battle of historical narratives in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, certain facts of history put forward in American hegemonic writings were latently taken up as foundational truths in the writings and teachings by Hawaiians themselves. One example of a false truth from the insurgents that was carried forward in Hawaiian written work was the false fact of the annexation of Hawaiʻi as a fait acompli. As a fact, the “annexation” of Hawaiʻi has been proven wrong in newer scholarship of the past 25 years. The so called annexation of Hawaiʻi is no longer an accepted fact by most Hawaiian scholars. Another example of a historical fallacy that still circulates today and still has several Hawaiian proponents, is the idea above that the early missionaries were the driving force behind the development and running of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s constitutional government. Professor Jon Osorio provides an example of a Hawaiian indigenist thesis based on this idea. He wrote:
Accordingly, the very formation of a national entity in 1840 under the rudiments of Euro-American constitutions victimized the Native Hawaiians, consigning them to unfamiliar and inferior roles as wage laborers. Caucasian newcomers proceeded to transform the economic and social systems, marginalizing the Native both demographically and symbolically.
Hawaiian indigenist writings about missionary primacy were a part of many theses that argued that the nation-state, law, and governance were western impositions and detrimental to ethnic Hawaiians in line with a thinking that these Hawaiians acquired through theoretical learning with other indigenous peoples. More recent Hawaiian written histories have unearthed primary source materials that show another vantage point that posits missionary involvement came in the middle of an already ongoing process of Hawaiian governmental and nation-state development.
The newer findings show that Hawaiʻi became a unified, centralized state under Kamehameha I with its own organized state structure, adopting features of British styled government long before missionary arrival. Under Kaʻahumanu’s rule, a set of Christian modelled laws were adopted through a dialectical process with missionary advisors, but the Prime Minister was clearly in charge. At the request of King Kamehameha III, Kauikeaouli, the government adopted a secular character. Former missionaries were taken in as advisors and played different roles in the development of Hawaiian governance and were eventually replaced during the reigns of King Kamehameha IV, Alexander Liholiho, and King Kamehameha V, Lota Kapuaiwa, by “Hawaiian chiefs and nonmissionary westerners.” The missionaries were taken on as advisors under Kaʻahumanu and Kauikeaouli, but were not the decision makers, and Hawaiian government was fashioned in a hybrid manner. The Hawaiian Kingdom government was aboriginal Hawaiian controlled and fashioned in a dialectical process based on traditional Hawaiian customs and relationships.
The first set of missionaries while trying to carry out their mission, served at the will of the chiefs. Their ability to stay on the islands was dependent on chiefly permission. The chiefs found the missionaries useful as teachers of new technologies and information. Some of these missionaries like William Richards, and Gerrit Judd left the mission and served the high chiefs full time as advisors on foreign relations and government. This first generation of missionaries spoke of themselves and were spoken of by others as loyal servants to the chiefs and the Hawaiian Kingdom. Sai notes this distinction between this first generation of missionaries and their descendants in his article “Synergy Through Convergence: The Hawaiian State and Congregationalism,” quoting the famous author Nordhoff, who was working as a correspondent for the newspaper Hawaii Holomua,
They, the fathers, stood by the natives against all foreign aggression. The elder Judd, a very able man, gave time, ability and his own means to the restoration of Hawaiian independence when it was attacked by an English admiral; his degenerate son, the present chief justice [Albert F. Judd] was part of the conspiracy which upset the government he had sworn to support and, himself a native of Hawaii, is active in the movement to destroy the State which his father gave a long life to establish defend and maintained.
This fifth volume of the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics contains a number of articles that engage further the agency and independence of aboriginal Hawaiian chiefly rulers, and their abilities to both stay ahead of any political intrigue, and to employ missionary knowledge of literacy and teaching to their advantage. We also see further the distinction that can be made between the first generation of missionaries and their loyalty to the Crown and government, versus some of their descendants, who formed an ideological position of white cultural supremacy, undertaking a treasonous course of action. This later generation showed a completely different attitude and approach to the Hawaiian Crown. Sai’s work further shows how aboriginal Hawaiian leadership from the Hawaiian Patriotic League clearly saw this distinction between the generations referring in testimony to many of the insurgent second and third generationers as the “faithless sons of missionaries and local politicians angered by continous political defeat.”
In the first article by Dr. Susan Corley “Liholiho’s Kauaʻi Coup,” we get an opportunity to understand better the character of King Kamehameha II, Liholiho, as ruler. Corley details an attempt by Hiram Bingham, a missionary of the first mission, to strengthen his position in the islands by enlisting the aid of Kaumualiʻi, King of the Island of Kaua‘i, suggesting the chief fund a mission to Tahiti. Liholiho intercedes using the occassion to outmaneuver both Bingham and Kaumualiʻi, taking full personal control of the island of Kauaʻi, and making it clear to the missionaries that he “held power and control over their ability to continue” their mission. Corley describes Liholihoʻs maneuvering and leadership as a matter of “guile where his father would have used force.”
In “‘He Kaula Uila’: Hawaiian Educational Policy in the 19th Century ‘Ke Aʻo Palapala ma Nā Aloaliʻi a me Nā Kuaʻāina,’” Brandi Jean Nalani Balutski starts with a more well-known excerpt from a speech made by Kauikeaouli upon ascension to the throne “he aupuni palapala koʻu” (mine is a kingdom of learning). Balutski details the chiefly adoption of the technology of literacy and education as formal policy of the early Hawaiian Kingdom and an ethos that education be taken up by all class levels. Balutski details the life journeys and roles of five aboriginal Hawaiian men who returned to Hawai‘i with these first missionaries acting as intermediaries between them and the ruling chiefs. Balutski shows how Thomas Hopu became the personal teachers for the high chiefs and their children. Others like George Humehume, son of Kaumuali‘i, became advisors for his father and their inner circle of chiefs who saw possible advantages in adopting literacy as a political tool. Despite initial concerns about the missionaries from the United States, their value in teaching literacy and the chiefs understanding of the value of literacy as a technology in dealing with various outsiders, paved the way for the acceptance of the American missionaries because of the benefit that literacy could hold “to control the encounter with foreigners, to favor their interests and those of their lineages, to express their understanding of the world, and to shape that world to their ends.”
In “Synergy Through Convergence: The Hawaiian State and Congregationalism,” Dr. Keanu Sai details further the distinction between the role of early American missionaries in support of the Hawaiian Kingdom government, and the later generations of “faithless sons of missionaries.” He starts by examining the rhetoric in history and political writings that has built a “myth of missionary control,” and contrasts these fabrications through use of the writings by aboriginal Hawaiians and supporters from the late 19th century, including a direct response by Kauikeaouli himself refuting a question of missionary control, and affirming his use of missionaries as teachers of literacy and translators between the government and foreign representatives. Sai shows a link between the congregationalism of the American missionaries and the influence of governmental reform in the Hawaiian Kingdom calling it a synergy whereby the “forces of both coalesced and each saw the other as beneficial to their own goals.” Sai illustrates the benefits to both sides during this time period to show further the false narratives that have been put forth stating that the “continuation of Americanism [was] initiated by the missionaries since 1820.”
In “Apartheid Hawai’i: California Colony at Wahiawā,” Dr. Ronald Williams Jr. continues his work showing the rise of white supremacist thought and action in Hawaiʻi starting with the break in local protestantism from congregationalism to a philosophy of “minority, White rule over both church and state” in the 1860s and 70s. Proponents of this change fomented an outright opposition to King Kalākaua during his reign, and supported the complete seizure of the government through U.S. facilitation in 1893, and then the full establishment of white oligarchic rule into the Territorial era in the 1900’s. Williams documents the efforts to establish a California Colony of white families in Wahiawā starting in 1899. This effort was made possible through earlier legislation called the 1895 Land Act introduced by Sanford Dole utilizing the newly confiscated Crown Lands for the express purpose of promoting “the immigration of permanent settlers of a character suitable for the building up of our population.” Williams documents the push by the government of the illegal Republic to settle white families on 1,350 acres of land before the “annexation” of the islands was completed. He further details the ideological drive behind the Dole government’s push to establish and support this community, which unashamedly sought to build a community of social and educational institutions based on the idea of racial segregation expressed as an “American way” as exemplified by the American South. The Wahiawā colony ultimately fails because of the greed of some of its backers and the success of pineapple farms like the one run by James Dole, which priced other small farmers out of the market.
In “The Decline of Hawaiian Language Common Schools During the Hawaiian Kingdom From 1864 to 1893: A Statistical Analysis,” Dr. Larson Ng walks through a quantitative data study of Hawaiian Kingdom government records on Hawaiian language common schools, English language schools, and independent schools looking at funding, attendance, and population statistics. Ng walks us through a brief history of the school system in the Hawaiian Kingdom and some of the theories in circulation that have tried to link causation of the decrease in aborginal attendence at Hawaiian language common schools to ideologies of “settler colonialism.” Ng’s regression analysis shows that the most important statistical factor in the decline of Hawaiian language common school attendance was the decline in the aboriginal Hawaiian population. He noted that funding disparities were a matter of aboriginal Hawaiian governmental prioritization, rather than an ideological imposition by outsiders.
In my article I provide an analysis of Dr. Kehaulani Kauanui’s book Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism, in which I call Kauanui’s work a remonstrance against Hawaiians turning toward the Hawaiian Kingdom, and a lament over the waning of Hawaiian indigeneity. I provide a critical analysis that Kauanui lacks any “deep evidentiary work on the matters” she covers, “leaving key source perspectives and facts out in some arguments.” I provide critical comment on her continued misuse and mentoring of the term “colonization” and her focus on the “state” instead of “government” as showing a lack of political and legal disciplinary awareness, and when taken with her attempt to reinvent the term “indigenous” for use in the Hawaiian context shows a kind of paradigm paralysis. I provide additional comment that Kauanui adds no insight of value in her examination of the Mahele in her book. She simply represents old, debunked theories and facts, adding only a new form of rhetorical approach which in my words, states that, “Almost every page in this chapter by Kauanui is inaccurate, and all of her imported theories irrelevant.” On matters of gender and sexuality, Kauanui starts from that earlier mentioned perspective that the missionaries controlled and were in charge of the lives, government, and state creation of the chiefs in Hawai’i, which I disprove. I agree that there were changes that were made in laws on marriage, coverture, and sex that need to be examined and cautioned against. I add that Kauanui is really engaged in a fight over the gender and sexual politics of today seeking to head off losses or maintain rights through closing off the Hawaiian Kingdom as political possibility. Toward building her case, I show that Kauanui left out key information and misarranged key source quotes that would otherwise show subversion, and ambivalence toward conservative laws on gender and coverture. Kauanui does not reveal that coverture was fought, slowly dismantled, and then repealed. And does not reveal that her own sources show women as “jural subjects” and in one case did not show how her source stated that they could not agree that women’s status diminished with government reform. I also caution against obscuring source material to argue politics, and I point out that, “It can be said that there were heteropatriarchal forces at work in the Hawaiian Kingdom, but one cannot say that the Hawaiian Kingdom is a heteropatriarchal government, [society], nor state.”
The last two sections of this volume of the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics include two documents recently published by the Council of Regency as the Occupied Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. One entitled “Operational Plan for Transitioning the State of Hawai’i into a Military Government,” and the second, “Operational Plan for Transitioning the Military Government into the Hawaiian Kingdom Government.” Both documents were written by the acting Government, whose officers consist of Dr. David Keanu Sai, Kauʻi P. Sai-Dudoit, and Dexter Keʻeaumoku Kaʻiama, Esq.
In the “Operational Plan for Transitioning the State of Hawai’i into a Military Government,” the acting Government lays out in detail the historical and legal justifications for the actions needed to move from an illegal State of Hawaiʻi government to military government under international humanitarian law and the law of occupation.
A detailed history is provided from state recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1843 through the U.S. invasion and overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government, to the U.S. military occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Plan lays out “essential” and “implied” tasks including the setting up of a temporary administrator of the laws of the occupied state, the establishment of a military government, the proclamation of provisional laws, the disbanding of the State of Hawaiʻi Legislature and County Councils, setting up a temporary administrator of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates that belong to the occupied state, and tasks that protect the institutions of the occupied state.
In the “Operational Plan for Transitioning the Military Government into the Hawaiian Kingdom Government,” the acting Government lays out plans for the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces, dealing with the Hawaiian state territory, reparations, and the seizing of property. The plan lays out details on the transition from a military government to the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom; the creation and ratification of a Treaty of Peace, the conducting of a national census, the convening of a Legisltive Assembly, who will then, based on the Hawaiian Kingdom constitution, begin to put together the rest of the Hawaiian Kingdom government. These two plans are the only plans of action for the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom government. The historical importance of including these documents as part of the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics can not be understated and it was the work of the Council of Regency that was able to get the Permanent Court of Arbitration to acknowledge the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State that generated the impetus in the formation of the Hawaiian Society of Law and Politics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the establishment of the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics.
We close these Editor’s notes with a mahalo (gratitude) to the authors for their work examining topics of interest and importance, and we look forward to more academic work and discussion that persists toward that Kuleana of Scholarship we endeavor to uphold.
The Significance and the Importance of the Two Operational Plans of the Council of Regency
When dealing with a 130-year crisis of a prolonged and illegal American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, planning is a crucial component that informs where we are today and where we want to be tomorrow. An operational plan is informed by due diligence of the situation, which is a gathering of information relevant to the situation at hand and how it got to the current situation. In the military, this is colloquially known as gathering intel before you come up with a battle plan.
Due diligence is “depending on the relative facts of the special case.” It is the assessment of a situation before a decision should be made. When due diligence is done, the person doing it must be mindful of their own biases and assumptions. To gather information through one’s own bias is what is called “confirmation bias” where the gatherer of information only selects information that would confirm his/her own biases. This is also called cherry picking.
In the Hawaiian situation, there is an abundance of assumptions that are false such as the Hawaiian Islands were colonized by the United States in the nineteenth century, and, as a colonized people, Native Hawaiians are an Indigenous People by definition of the United Nations. United Nations defines Indigenous Peoples as tribal nations that exist with an independent State not of their own making. Arriving at this conclusion was done through confirmation bias.
The Council of Regency sought to gather information through the lens of both the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom and international law that includes international humanitarian law and the law of occupation. It was through this process that revealed that the Hawaiian Kingdom, which existed as an internationally recognized sovereign and independent State continued to exist since November 28, 1843, despite the illegal overthrow of its government by the United States on January 17, 1893. This continued existence stemmed from the international principle of inalienability of sovereignty of a State, and the only way a State can alienate its sovereignty is by its consent through a treaty of cession with the acquiring State. There exists no such treaty, therefore, the Hawaiian State continues to exist.
It was based on this premise that the government was restored as a Council of Regency in 1997 to provisionally represent the Hawaiian State both domestically and abroad. The actions to be taken by the Council of Regency would be in line with its strategic plan that entailed three phases. Phase I—verification of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State and a subject of international law. Phase II—exposure of Hawaiian Statehood within the framework of international law and the laws of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic levels. Phase III—restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State and a subject of international law. Phase III is when the American occupation comes to an end.
Phase I was achieved when the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), before establishing the arbitration tribunal in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom on June 9, 2000, acknowledged the continued existence of the Hawaiian State, and the Council of Regency as its government. Phase II, exposure of the Hawaiian State, was initiated during oral hearings on December 7, 8 and 11, 2000, at the PCA in The Hague. Phase II continued at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa when the Chairman of the Council of Regency, David Keanu Sai, entered the political science graduate program, where he received a master’s degree specializing in international relations and public law in 2004 and a Ph.D. degree in 2008 on the subject of the continuity of Hawaiian Statehood while under an American prolonged belligerent occupation since 1893.
The exposure through academic research also motivated historian Tom Coffman to change the title of his 1998 book from Nation Within: The Story of America’s Annexation of the Nation of Hawai‘i, to Nation Within—The History of the American Occupation of Hawai‘i. Coffman explained the change in his note on the second edition and took a quote from Dr. Sai’s law article A Slippery Path Towards Hawaiian Indigeneity. Coffman wrote:
I am compelled to add that the continued relevance of this book reflects a far-reaching political, moral and intellectual failure of the United States to recognize and deal with the takeover of Hawai‘i. In the book’s subtitle, the word Annexation has been replaced by the word Occupation, referring to America’s occupation of Hawai‘i. Where annexation connotes legality by mutual agreement, the act was not mutual and therefore not legal. Since by definition of international law there was no annexation, we are left then with the word occupation.
In making this change, I have embraced the logical conclusion of my research into the events of 1893 to 1898 in Honolulu and Washington, D.C. I am prompted to take this step by a growing body of historical work by a new generation of Native Hawaiian scholars. Dr. Keanu Sai writes, “The challenge for … the fields of political science, history, and law is to distinguish between the rule of law and the politics of power.” In the history of the Hawai‘i, the might of the United States does not make it right.
It took the Council of Regency just over 20 years to change the conversation from colonization and indigenous peoples rights to military occupation and the rights of Hawaiian subjects under the law of occupation. With the shifting of the historical lens, legal consequences began to emerge especially with the involvement of Professor Matthew Craven from the University of London, SOAS, School of Law, who authored a legal opinion on the Continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law; Professor William Schabas from Middlesex University London, School of Law, and a renowned expert in international criminal law, who authored a Legal Opinion on War Crimes related to the United States belligerent occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom; and Professor Federico Lenzerini from the University of Siena, Italy, Department of Political and International Science, who authored Legal Opinion on the authority of the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Both the Operational Plans for Transitioning the State of Hawai‘i into a Military Government and Transitioning the Military Government to the Hawaiian Kingdom Government, which will bring the prolonged American occupation to an end, is a culmination of years of research and exposure and is a subset of plans under phase II of the strategic plan. As such we are moving toward the end of phase II and preparing for phase III that will bring the 130-year crisis to an end.
The two operational plans are clear as to where we are, where we need to get to, and the path to get there. The essential tasks and the implied tasks in each of the plans are measurable, and, most importantly, flexible when achieving the tasks. They allow flexibility to adjust to issues unforeseen such as time and allocation of resources. The Council of Regency established a 3-year window for the occupation to come to an end, but it doesn’t prevent unforeseen and extenuating circumstances to adjust the timeline. When the American occupation of Japan began in 1945, it was thought that it would last 3 years. But circumstances extended the occupation an additional 4 years. The same could happen in the Hawaiian situation, but the Council of Regency needed to set an initial timeline of 3 years.
Clarifying Army Regulations and Terms Regarding a Military Government of Hawai‘i
After securing Phase I of the of the Council of Regency’s strategic plan where in 1999 the Permanent Court of Arbitration “verified the Hawaiian Kingdom as independent State and subject of international law,” Phase II was initiated to expose “Hawaiian Statehood within the framework of international law and the laws of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic levels.” This exposure has brought out many aspects of international law and the law of occupation that many have heard only for the first time.
There are terms such as international humanitarian law, which the military refers to as the law of armed conflict. International law distinguishes between a State and its government. What occurred on January 17, 1893, was that United States troops and a diplomat overthrew the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Hawaiian State was not affected by the overthrow and remained a subject of international law with its rights and duties intact. This type of situation under international humanitarian law is called belligerent occupation where the Occupying State must administer the laws of the Occupied State until a treaty of peace comes into effect.
The only way the United States could have acquired the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, called the Hawaiian Islands, is by way of a treaty of peace that cedes Hawaiian territory to the United States. The United States was unable to acquire Hawaiian territory by a treaty of cession because it overthrew the government. A treaty requires the government of a State to cede its territory. Instead, the United States enacted a congressional joint resolution purporting to have annexed the Hawaiian Islands at the height of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Since 1898, the United States has been unlawfully imposing its laws over Hawaiian territory, which is the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation.
In the case of Hawai‘i, we are dealing with role of the Adjutant General of the Army and Air National Guard. Under federal and State law, the National Guard can serve two commanders in chief but not at the same time. According to Article II, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the President becomes the commander in chief of the National Guard “when called into the actual Service of the United States.” Until that time, the commander in chief of the National Guard is the Governor of the State.
Article V of the State of Hawai‘i Constitution provides that the Governor is the Chief Executive of the State of Hawai‘i. He is also the commander-in-chief of the Army and Air National Guard and appoints the Adjutant General who “shall be the executive head of the department of defense and commanding general of the militia of the State.” Section 121-9 of the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes states, “The adjutant general shall perform such duties as are prescribed by law and such other military duties consistent with the regulations and customs of the armed forces of the United States as required by the governor.” In other words, the Adjutant General operates under two regimes of law, that of the State of Hawai‘i and that of the United States Army.
When the National Guard is called into State active duty, not federal active duty, the Governor is the commander-in-chief and has command and control. Under him is the Adjutant General that has command and control of the forces that have been activated. This is what occurred when certain units of the Army and Air National Guard were activated in 1992 when Hurricane Iniki devastated the island of Kaua‘i. Governor John Waihe‘e was the commander-in-chief and Brigadier General Edward Richardson was the Adjutant General. When the Hawai‘i Army and Air National Guard were called to federal active duty for deployment to Iraq during Second Gulf War in 2005, the commander-in-chief changed from State of Hawai‘i Governor Linda Lingle to President George W. Bush.
These American laws, however, don’t apply in the Hawai‘i situation. Unlike the other 49 Governors of States in the Federal Union their authorities derive from American laws that include both Federal and State laws. Because the State of Hawai‘i is outside of the borders of the United States, and as such is foreign territory, the authority of the State of Hawai‘i to include its Governor is stripped. The reason for this is the authority of the Governor derives from the 1959 Statehood Act, which under international law is a war crime. What allows the State of Hawai‘i to exist, however, is international humanitarian law and the law of occupation. Under these laws, the State of Hawai‘i is a civilian armed force acting for the United States as an occupying State.
The decision to establish a military government in foreign territory is not with the U.S. President as commander-in-chief but rather with the most senior commander of the armed forces in foreign territory that has come under effective control. Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations states, “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.” The State of Hawai‘i, and not the Federal government, is in effective control of 94% of Hawaiian territory.
According to United States Army Field Manual 27-5—Civil Affairs Military Government, the theater commander over foreign territory to come under military occupation bears full responsibility for establishing a military government. That person is a general officer and designated as military governor and is authorized to delegate his authority and title, in whole or in part, to a subordinate commander.
Section 8 of FM 27-5 states, “In occupied territory the commander, by virtue of his position, has supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority, limited only by the laws and customs of war and by directives from higher authority.” Section 3 states that the reasons for establishing a military government “are either military necessity as a right, or as an obligation under international law.” And since military occupation “suspends the operation of the government of the occupied territory, the obligation arises under international law for the occupying force to exercise the functions of civil government looking toward the restoration of maintenance of public order.”
In this situation, it is the State of Hawai‘i Adjutant General that has the responsibility and duty to establish a military government for Hawai‘i under international law and begin to administer Hawaiian Kingdom laws and the provisional laws in accordance with 2014 Proclamation of Provisional Laws by the Council of Regency.
Why the State of Hawai‘i Adjutant General has the Authority and Duty to Establish a Military Government for Hawai‘i
After securing Phase I of the of the Council of Regency’s strategic plan where in 1999 the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, “verified the Hawaiian Kingdom as independent State and subject of international law,” Phase II was initiated in order to expose “Hawaiian Statehood within the framework of international law and the laws of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic levels.” This exposure has brought out many aspects of international law and the law of occupation that many have only heard for the first time.
There are terms such as international humanitarian law, which the military throughout the world refers to as the law of armed conflict. The rule that distinguishes between a State and its government. The difference between military occupation of a State and the colonization of territory that is not a State. Adding to this list of new terms and principles include Army doctrine and regulations that apply to military occupation of foreign territory.
In the case of Hawai‘i, we are dealing with role of the Adjutant General of the Army and Air National Guard. Under federal and State law, the National Guard can serve two commanders in chief but not at the same time. According to Article II, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the President becomes the commander in chief of the National Guard “when called into the actual Service of the United States.” Until that time, the commander in chief of the National Guard is the Governor of the State.
When the National Guard is called to State active duty, not federal active duty, the Governor is the commander and chief and has command and control. Under him is the Adjutant General that has command and control of the forces that have been activated. This is what occurred when certain units of the Army and Air National Guard were activated in 1992 when Hurricane Iniki devastated the island of Kaua‘i. Governor John Waihe‘e was the commander in chief and Brigadier General Edward Richardson was the Adjutant General.
When units of the Hawai‘i Army and Air National Guard were called to federal active duty for deployment to Iraq during Second Gulf War in 2003, the commander in chief changed from State of Hawai‘i Governor Linda Lingle to President George W. Bush.
As an occupied State, these American laws do not apply in the Hawai‘i situation. The unlawful imposition of these laws constitutes the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. Unlike the other 49 Governors of States in the federal Union, their authorities derive from these American laws that include both federal and State laws.
Because the State of Hawai‘i is outside of the borders of the United States, and as such is foreign territory, the authority of the State of Hawai‘i to include its Governor is stripped. What allows the State of Hawai‘i to exist, however, is international humanitarian law and the law of occupation. Under these laws, the State of Hawai‘i is a civilian armed force acting for the United States as an occupying State, which has effective control of 94% of the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The federal government only has effective control of less that 6% of the territory.
The decision to establish a military government in foreign territory is not with the U.S. President as commander in chief but rather with the most senior commander of the armed forces in foreign territory that has come under effective control by the occupying force. According to section 3 of FM 27-5, Civil Affairs Military Government, the theater commander over the territory to come under military occupation bears full responsibility for establishing a military government.
That person is a general officer and designated as military governor and is authorized to delegate his authority and title, in whole or in part, to a subordinate commander. “In occupied territory the commander, by virtue of his position, has supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority, limited only by the laws and customs of war and by directives from higher authority.” So under Army doctrine, it is never the President of the United States to establish a military government but rather the most senior military commander in the occupied territory.
Section 4 of FM 27-5 also states that the reasons for establishing a military government “are either military necessity as a right, or as an obligation under international law.” And since military occupation “suspends the operation of the government of the occupied territory, the obligation arises under international law for the occupying force to exercise the functions of civil government looking toward the restoration of maintenance of public order.”
In this situation, it is the State of Hawai‘i Adjutant General that has the responsibility and duty to establish a military government for Hawai‘i under international law. This is a command decision to be made by the Adjutant General who is the most senior Army commander in the occupied territory of Hawai‘i.
A Lesson for War Crimes Committed in Hawai‘i: Last Year a German Court has Convicted a 97-year-old Ex-Secretary at Nazi Camp
December 20, 2022
Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) — A German court on Tuesday convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II.
Irmgard Furchner was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp near Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk, function. The Itzehoe state court in northern Germany gave her a two-year suspended sentence for being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five cases.
The court said judges were convinced that Furchner “knew and, through her work as a stenographer in the commandant’s office of the Stutthof concentration camp from June 1, 1943, to April 1, 1945, deliberately supported the fact that 10,505 prisoners were cruelly killed by gassings, by hostile conditions in the camp,” by transportation to the Auschwitz death camp and by being sent on death marches at the end of the war.
“The promotion of these acts by the accused took place through the completion of paperwork” in the camp commander’s office, a court statement said. “This activity was necessary for the organization of the camp and the execution of the cruel, systematic acts of killing.”
The verdict and sentence were in line with prosecutors’ demands. Defense lawyers had asked for their client to be acquitted, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
In her closing statement, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been at Stutthof at the time.
Furchner appeared to follow the verdict attentively but didn’t show any obvious emotion. It wasn’t immediately clear whether she would appeal, though lawyer Wolf Molkentin said the defense team thinks the case presents “insurmountable doubts” as to her guilt.
But presiding Judge Dominik Gross said it was “simply beyond all imagination” that Furchner didn’t notice the killings at Stutthof, German news agency dpa reported. He said she could see from her office the collection point where new prisoners had to wait after arrival, and the crematorium was in constant use in the fall of 1944, with smoke spreading across the camp.
Furchner was tried in juvenile court because she was 18 and 19 at the time of the alleged crimes and the court couldn’t establish beyond a doubt her “maturity of mind” at the time of the alleged offenses. Gross nonetheless noted Tuesday that she could have resigned from her position at any time.
Furchner failed to appear for the start of her trial in September 2021, but police later picked her up and she was placed in detention for several days.
Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that “today’s verdict is the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court.”
“In view of Furchner’s recent statement to the court that she ‘regretted everything,’ we were concerned that the court might accept her defense attorney’s plea for an acquittal,” Zuroff said in a statement. “Yet given her claim that she had no knowledge of the murders being committed in the camp, her regret was far from convincing.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said of the verdict that “it shows that it’s never too late to ensure that there was some accountability for crimes committed of such horrific nature.”
Prosecutors in Itzehoe said during the proceedings that Furchner’s trial may be the last of its kind. However, a special federal prosecutors’ office in Ludwigsburg tasked with investigating Nazi-era war crimes says prosecutors in various parts of Germany have five more cases pending, dpa reported.
Charges of murder and accessory to murder aren’t subject to a statute of limitations.
Initially a collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from Danzig, Stutthof was later used as a so-called “work education camp” where forced laborers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens, were sent to serve sentences and often died.
From mid-1944, tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos in the Baltics and from Auschwitz filled the camp, along with thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal Nazi suppression of the Warsaw uprising.
Others incarcerated there included political prisoners, accused criminals, people suspected of homosexual activity and Jehovah’s Witnesses. More than 60,000 people were killed at the camp.
United States’ Export of White Supremacy After Seizing Control of the Hawaiian Islands in 1898
To mention white supremacy in the Hawaiian Islands for some is a bit strange because it does not appear that white people are in control. Their control, however, was cemented after the United States illegally overthrew the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893. This control lasted until 1959, where former laborers in the sugar and pineapple plantations, after returning from the Second World War, seized political control and pushed for the Hawaiian Islands to be the 50th State of the American Union where the governor would now be an elected position.
The leadership of the insurgency, calling themselves the provisional government, were white, which included Sanford Dole, William O. Smith and Lorrin Thurston. These insurgents, while white by ethnicity, were Hawaiian subjects by nationality and not American citizens. From 1900 to 1959, the leadership of the so-called Territory of Hawai‘i was appointed by the President of the United States. There were only white governors during this period. As a State of Hawai‘i, the former plantation workers would control the voting bloc under American law.
As a minority of the population, the insurgents of 1893 aligned themselves with Americans to entice the United States to annex the Hawaiian Islands after the government was overthrown. By aligning themselves with American politics, they also aligned themselves with American culture—white supremacy. According to Tom Coffman in his book Nation Within—The History of the American Occupation of the Hawai‘i, the insurgents attended higher education in the United States and it is there that they learned what was not experienced in the Hawaiian Kingdom, which is the so-called supremacy of the white race.
Despite the insurgents’ propaganda of lies, their rhetoric, however, was fueled, at the time, by American politics of race relations and the superiority of the Aryan (Teutonic) race over all others. Coffman addresses this by asking what “had Lorrin Thurston learned at Columbia, and what had Sanford Dole learned from his journey up the Kennebec River?” He answered, “the missionary descendants—already so prepared to believe in the superiority of their knowledge and position—were being influenced by American culture and American public life to take over direct control of Hawai‘i.” Between 1840 and 1887, Coffman explains “a systemic theory of white supremacy had been developed that came to be described in the intellectual history of America as Social Darwinism. The keystone of Social Darwinism was the teaching of white supremacy.”
While their physical strength was miniscule in the Hawaiian Kingdom, their arrogance could not be underestimated. The officers of the Hawaiian Patriotic League, in a memorial to President Grover Cleveland dated December 27, 1893, succinctly explained:
Last January, a political crime was committed, not only against the legitimate Sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but also against the whole Hawaiian nation, a nation who, for the past sixty years, had enjoyed free and happy constitutional self-government. This was done by a coup de main of U.S. Minister Stevens, in collusion with a cabal of conspirators, mainly faithless sons of missionaries and local politicians angered by continuous political defeat, who, as a revenge for being a hopeless minority in the country, resolved to “rule or ruin” through foreign help.
After Cleveland failed to restore Queen Lili‘uokalani under an executive agreement of December 18, 1893, the insurgents became emboldened. Prior to changing the name of the insurgency from the provisional government to the Republic of Hawai‘i in 1894, this minority of people needed to stay in control until a new president entered office after President Cleveland. That President was William McKinley who was open to annexing the Hawaiian Islands.
Professor John Burgess, a political scientist at Columbia University in 1893, was an academic who openly subscribed to white superiority through “Teutonic supremacy in the art of government.” According to Burgess, Teutonic governance was exemplified by “northern Europe and the United States,” but the Hawaiian Kingdom government, led by aboriginal Hawaiians, was not included in this theory because the Polynesian race was not Teutonic. The insurgents, although being Hawaiian subjects and resident aliens, were representative of the so-called Teutonic race. According to Castle, Burgess firmly believed that the “exercise of political right was contingent upon innate political intelligence, and of this intelligence the Teutons were the only qualified judges.”
To the Hawaiian, Burgess’ belief of Teutonic political intelligence would be absurd because Hawai‘i’s constitutional monarchy predated that of Teutonic Prussia. As German political scientist Marquardt pointed out in 2009, “Hawai‘i as early as 1839, preceding even Prussia, transferred European constitutionalism, in the pattern of the constitutional monarchy, into the Austronesian-speaking world of Oceania.” Nevertheless, as facts were not the driving force, the situation was being driven by American racist rhetoric.
Knowing of Burgess’ agenda of promoting white, in particular, Teutonic—Aryan superiority in governance, Dole was in communication with Burgess a year after the overthrow of the Hawaiian government. He wanted to draft a constitution for the insurgency that would change its name from the provisional government to the so-called Republic of Hawai‘i on July 3, 1894. Concerned of the political power wielded by the aboriginal Hawaiian, which was the majority of the Hawaiian national population, the insurgents entertained Jim Crow laws from the American State of Mississippi. In a letter sent from Washington, D.C., on November 4, 1893, by W.D. Alexander, former Surveyor-General of the Hawaiian Kingdom, to Sanford Dole, he wrote, “I enclose extracts from the present Constitution of Mississippi, which is said to have the effect of disfranchising a majority of the negroes of that state.” The Republic of Hawai‘i was in name only. It was not, by definition, a true Republic where the affairs of government were open and transparent.
In his first letter, Dole was merely asking for clarity on a section of Burgess’ book Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law. Before Burgess responded, Dole was able to send a follow up letter that reveals his intent. In his second letter, Dole requests information from Burgess on his constitutional plan whereby “government can be kept out of the control of the irresponsible element.” He stated that there “are many natives and Portuguese who had had the vote hitherto, who are comparatively ignorant of the principles of government, and whose vote from its numerical strength as well as from the ignorance referred to will be a menace to good government.” Burgess, in his response to Dole, was aware that the so-called Teutonic population in Hawai‘i was a very small minority at 5,000, which he said comprised of “Americans, English, Germans and Scandinavians” out of “a population of nearly 100,000.” After offering suggestions in the organizing of government, he ends his letter by recommending that “only Teutons [be appointed] to military office.”
When Coffman mentions the Dole-Burgess letters, he implies that the Hawaiian Kingdom did not have the same race relations as the United States. According to Dominguez, there was “very little overlap with Anglo-American” race relations. She found that there were no “institutional practices [that] promoted social, reproductive, or civic exclusivity on anything resembling racial terms before the American period.” In comparing the two countries she stated that unlike “the extensive differentiating and disempowering laws put in place throughout the nineteenth century in numerous parts of the U.S. mainland, no parallels—customary or legislated—seem to have existed in the [Hawaiian Kingdom].” Dominguez admits that with “all the recent, welcomed publishing flurry on the social construction of whiteness and blackness and the sociohistorical shaping of racial categories…, there are usually at best only hints of the possible—but very real—unthinkability of ‘race.’”
That very real “unthinkability of race” was the Hawaiian Kingdom. Kauai explains that the “multi-ethnic dimensions of the Hawaiian citizenry coupled by the strong voice and participation of the aboriginal population in government played a prominent role in constraining racial hierarchy and the emergence of a legal system that promoted white supremacy.”
After unilaterally annexing the Hawaiian Islands by enacting an American law in the Congress called a joint resolution in 1898, and not by a treaty of cession, the denationalization through Americanization was firmly planted in the educational system throughout the Hawaiian Islands. To do this, the educational system established by the Hawaiian Kingdom would be weaponized. Thus began the brainwashing of the school children that obliterated the national consciousness of their country, the Hawaiian Kingdom, and imposed the English language over the Hawaiian language.
In 1919, the Allied Powers of the First World War concluded that “attempts to denationalize the inhabitants of occupied territory” is a war crime. In their report, the Allied Powers charged that Bulgaria imposed their national characteristics on the Serbian population; banned the Serbian language; people were beaten for saying “Good morning” in Serbian; and the Serbian population forced to be present at Bulgarian national ceremonies.
The United Nations War Crimes Commission established after the Second World War to prosecute war criminals stated:
Attempts of this nature were recognized as a war crime in view of the German policy in territories annexed by Germany in 1914”
At that time, as during the war of 1939-1945, inhabitants of an occupied territory were subjected to measures intended to deprive them of their national characteristics and to make the land and population affected a German province
Since 1898, the United States did exactly what Bulgaria and Germany did during the First and Second World Wars. Where the military occupations of the First and Second World Wars would only last 4 to 6 years, the policy of denationalization through Americanizatoin would last over a century unfettered. Within three generations, the national consciousness of the Hawaiian Kingdom was obliterated.
Under the ownership of the infamous insurgent Lorrin Thurston, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser newspaper served as the insurgents’ propaganda machine. In 1904, Walter G. Smith, an American from San Francisco, became its editor in chief. In the September 8, 1905, edition, he summed up the effect and purpose of weaponizing the educational system under the heading “The American Way.”
It would have been proper yesterday in the Advertiser’s discussion of schools to admit the success which the High School has had in making itself acceptable to white parents. By gradually raising the standard of knowledge of English the High School has so far changed its color that, during the past year seventy-three per cent. were Caucasians. It is not so many years ago that more than seventy-three per cent. were non-Caucasians. At the present rate of progress it will not be long before the High School will have its student body as thoroughly Americanized in blood as it long has been in instruction.
The idea of having mixed schools were the mixture is of various social and political conditions is wholly American; but not so mixed schools where the American youth is submerged by the youth of alien races. On the mainland the Polacks, the Russian Jews, the Huns and the negroes are, as far as practicable, kept in schools of their own, with the teaching in English; and only where the alien breeds are few, as in the country, are they permitted to mingle with white pupils. In the South, where Americans of the purest descent live, there are no mixed schools for whites and negroes; and wherever color or race is an issue of moment, the American way is defined through segregation. Only a few fanatics or vote-hunters care to lower the standard of the white child for the sake of raising that of the black or yellow child.
One great and potent duty of our higher schools, public and private, is to conserve the domination here of Anglo-Saxon ideas and institutions; and this means control by white men. We have no faith in any attempt to make Americans of Asiatics. There are too many obstacles of temperament and even of patriotism in the way. The main thing is to see that our white children when they grow up, are not to be differentiated from the typical Americans of the mainland, having the same standards, the same ideals and the same objects, none of them tempered by the creeds or customs of decaying or undeveloped or pagan races.
From a country, whose literacy rate was second to Scotland and New England, aboriginal Hawaiian school children were forced to enter the labor force after receiving an eighth grade education. If you were white, you were allowed to attend High School. In an article published by New York’s Harper’s Weekly magazine in 1907, the reporter, William Inglis, visited three schools that were established during the Kingdom – Ka‘iulani and Ka‘ahumanu public schools that went to the eighth grade, and Honolulu High School. At Kai‘iulani, he reported:
Out upon the lawn marched the children, two by two, just as precise and orderly as you can find them at home. With the ease that comes of long practice the classes marched and counter -marched until all were drawn up in a compact array facing a large American flag that was dancing in the northeast trade-wind forty feet above their heads. Surely this was the most curious, most diverse regiment ever drawn up under that banner – tiny Hawaiians, Americans, Britons, Germans, Portuguese, Scandinavians, Japanese, Chinese, Porto-Ricans, and Heaven knows what else.
“Attention!” Mrs. Fraser commanded.
The little regiment stood fast, arms at sides, shoulders back, chests out, heads up, and every eye fixed upon the red, white, and blue emblem that waved protectingly over them.
“Salute!” was the principal’s next command.
Every right hand was raised, forefinger extended, and the six hundred and fourteen fresh, childish voices chanted as one voice:
“We give our head and our hearts to God and our Country! One Country! One Language! One Flag!”
At Honolulu High School, before the name was changed to President William McKinley High School in 1907 after the story was published, the reporter stated:
Professor M.M. Scott, the principal of the high school, was kind enough to call all the pupils, who were not taking examinations, out on the front steps of the building, where the visitor could inspect them in the sunshine. The change in the color scheme from that of the schools below was astounding. Below were all the hues of the human spectrum, with brown and yellow predominating; here the tone was clearly white.
The American Experience with Unilateral Annexation of Another State’s Territory: The Story of Texas Without the Rhetoric Just International Law
Like many who are unaware of the legal and political history of the Hawaiian Kingdom, many are unaware of the legal and political history of the State of Texas. While there are parallels to the Crimean and the Hawaiian situation, there are also important distinctions. Under international law, annexation is a unilateral act by an independent State, and a treaty of cession is a bilateral act between independent States. As a unilateral act, annexation is illegal under international law.
The Republic of Texas was established during the Mexican Revolution but it doesn’t mean the revolution was successful and that the Republic became an independent State. The revolution began on October 2, 1835, that included other provinces rebelling against the regime of President Antonio López de Santa Anna. The Republic of Texas was comprised of United States citizens and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) who declared their independence on March 2, 1836. Four days later was the famed Battle of the Alamo. Although the Republic of Texas declared their independence their act was treasonous under Mexican law. It was still a part of Mexican territory, and the Republic was fighting Mexican troops through the 1840s. There was no treaty of peace whereby Mexico acknowledged the Republic of Texas as an independent State, and, therefore the revolution continued.
This was a different situation for the United States and when the thirteen colonies declared their independence on July 4, 1776. This act was a treasonous act under British law that triggered the American revolution. It did not transform the thirteen colonies into thirteen independent States. Like the Mexican revolution, battles were fought for seven years until there was a treaty of peace entered into between representatives of King George III and the representatives of the thirteen colonies calling themselves the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The treaty of peace was called the Treaty of Paris and it was signed on September 3, 1783. The treaty specifically acknowledged the former thirteen British colonies as independent States and Article 2 provided the boundaries of the new independent States. Article 1 stated:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for himself his Heirs & Successors, relinquishes all claims to the Government, Propriety, and Territorial Rights of the same and every Part thereof.
Article 2 of the Treaty of Paris regarding the boundaries states:
And that all Disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the Boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared, that the following are and shall be their Boundaries, viz.; from the Northwest Angle of Nova Scotia, viz., that Angle which is formed by a Line drawn due North from the Source of St. Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide those Rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost Head of Connecticut River; Thence down along the middle of that River to the forty-fifth Degree of North Latitude; From thence by a Line due West on said Latitude until it strikes the River Iroquois or Cataraquy; Thence along the middle of said River into Lake Ontario; through the Middle of said Lake until it strikes the Communication by Water between that Lake & Lake Erie; Thence along the middle of said Communication into Lake Erie, through the middle of said Lake until it arrives at the Water Communication between that lake & Lake Huron; Thence along the middle of said Water Communication into the Lake Huron, thence through the middle of said Lake to the Water Communication between that Lake and Lake Superior; thence through Lake Superior Northward of the Isles Royal & Phelipeaux to the Long Lake; Thence through the middle of said Long Lake and the Water Communication between it & the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; Thence through the said Lake to the most Northwestern Point thereof, and from thence on a due West Course to the river Mississippi; Thence by a Line to be drawn along the Middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the Northernmost Part of the thirty-first Degree of North Latitude, South, by a Line to be drawn due East from the Determination of the Line last mentioned in the Latitude of thirty-one Degrees of the Equator to the middle of the River Apalachicola or Catahouche; Thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint River; Thence straight to the Head of Saint Mary’s River, and thence down along the middle of Saint Mary’s River to the Atlantic Ocean. East, by a Line to be drawn along the Middle of the river Saint Croix, from its Mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its Source, and from its Source directly North to the aforesaid Highlands, which divide the Rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river Saint Lawrence; comprehending all Islands within twenty Leagues of any Part of the Shores of the United States, and lying between Lines to be drawn due East from the Points where the aforesaid Boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one Part and East Florida on the other shall, respectively, touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such Islands as now are or heretofore have been within the limits of the said Province of Nova Scotia.
Instead of a treaty whereby Mexico explicitly recognized the Republic of Texas as an independent State by a successful revolution and provided the boundaries of the new State, the Republic sought recognition from foreign States to include the United States in an attempt to circumvent the sovereign rights of Mexico and its territorial integrity. In March of 1837, the United States recognized the Republic of Texas but failed to annex the Republic by a treaty of cession. In 1840, Great Britain entered into a treaty with the Republic for trade purposes but did not recognize it as an independent State because it was still Mexican territory.
On March 1, 1845, the United States Congress enacted a Joint Resolution for annexing Texas to the United States. It stated that “Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas may be erected into a new State, to be called the State of Texas, with a republican form of government, to be adopted by the people of said Republic, by deputies in convention assembled, with the consent of the existing government, in order that the same may be admitted as of the States of this Union.”
At issue, and was always the issue, were the boundaries of the Republic of Texas. A treaty of peace would have settled the boundaries, like the 1783 Treaty of Paris, but without a treaty the Republic of Texas had no formal boundaries. This was acknowledged in the joint resolution that stated “Said State to be formed, subject to the adjustment by this Government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other Governments.” That other government was Mexico.
This unilateral act, under international law, was the United States intervention in the internal affairs of Mexico, which is violation of international law, and triggered the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. In the 1848 Peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, the new border between the United States and Mexico began from the Gulf of Mexico along the Rio Grande river, which is the southern border of the State of Texas, then by a surveyed boundary line that runs along the southern borders of what are now States of New Mexico, Arizona and California. Article V of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo states:
The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, otherwise called Rio Bravo del Norte, or Opposite the mouth of its deepest branch, if it should have more than one branch emptying directly into the sea; from thence up the middle of that river, following the deepest channel, where it has more than one, to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico; thence, westwardly, along the whole southern boundary of New Mexico (which runs north of the town called Paso) to its western termination; thence, northward, along the western line of New Mexico, until it intersects the first branch of the river Gila; (or if it should not intersect any branch of that river, then to the point on the said line nearest to such branch, and thence in a direct line to the same); thence down the middle of the said branch and of the said river, until it empties into the Rio Colorado; thence across the Rio Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower California, to the Pacific Ocean.
If Texas was annexed in 1845, then the boundary would not have begun from the Gulf of Mexico, but rather from the surveyed boundary line that would have begun from the mid-southern border of what is now the State of New Mexico, which is adjacent to the city of El Paso, Texas. From El Paso, the Rio Grande river goes north into the State of New Mexico. Texas had no territorial boundaries until Mexico ceded its territory north of the Rio Grande in 1848 and not in 1845.
The United States tends to view things retroactively. As an example, although the United States achieved its recognition from Great Britain in 1783, its history books say it achieved independence in 1776 when it declared it. Likewise, instead of the history books stating that Texas territory was acquired in 1848, it says Texas was annexed in 1845. Texas was never annexed in 1845 but rather acquired from Mexico in 1848.
In 1988, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) published a legal opinion regarding the annexation of Hawai‘i. The OLC’s memorandum opinion was written for the Legal Advisor for the Department of State regarding legal issues raised by the proposed Presidential proclamation to extend the territorial sea from a three-mile limit to twelve miles. The OLC concluded that only the President and not the Congress possesses “the constitutional authority to assert either sovereignty over an extended territorial sea or jurisdiction over it under international law on behalf of the United States.” As Justice Marshall stated, “[t]he President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations,” and not the Congress.
The OLC also stated, “we doubt that Congress has constitutional authority to assert either sovereignty over an extended territorial sea or jurisdiction over it under international law on behalf of the United States.” The OLC then concluded that it is “unclear which constitutional power Congress exercised when it acquired Hawaii by joint resolution. Accordingly, it is doubtful that the acquisition of Hawaii can serve as an appropriate precedent for a congressional assertion of sovereignty over an extended territorial sea.”
That territorial sea referred to by the OLC was to be extended from three to twelve miles under the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention. In other words, the Congress could not extend the territorial sea an additional nine miles by statute because its authority was limited up to the three-mile limit. Furthermore, the United States Supreme Court, in The Apollon, concluded that the “laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territories.”
Arriving at this conclusion, the OLC cited constitutional scholar Professor Willoughby, “The constitutionality of the annexation of Hawaii, by a simple legislative act, was strenuously contested at the time both in Congress and by the press. The right to annex by treaty was not denied, but it was denied that this might be done by a simple legislative act. …Only by means of treaties, it was asserted, can the relations between States be governed, for a legislative act is necessarily without extraterritorial force—confined in its operation to the territory of the State by whose legislature enacted it.” Professor Willoughby also stated, “The incorporation of one sovereign State, such as was Hawaii prior to annexation, in the territory of another, is…essentially a matter falling within the domain of international relations, and, therefore, beyond the reach of legislative acts.”
Like Crimea there is no treaty of cession whereby Ukraine ceded Crimea to Russia with its boundaries, and like Hawai‘i there is no treaty of cession whereby the Hawaiian Kingdom ceded the Hawaiian Islands to the United States with its boundaries. The question is who is the independent State with its rights under international law, and not an entity that has yet to achieve independence under international law.
What is Annexation under International Law?
By definition the word annexation is to add to one’s own territory by appropriation. Under international law, it is a unilateral act by one State as to territory of another State, which is why it is unlawful. According to The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts:
The international law of belligerent occupation must therefore be understood as meaning that the occupying power is not sovereign, but exercises provisional and temporary control over foreign territory. The legal situation of the territory can be altered only through a peace treaty or deballatio. International law does not permit annexation of territory of another State.
What is lawful under international law is cession whereby the ceding State transfers its territory to the acquiring State by a treaty. According to Professor Oppenheim:
Cession of State territory is the transfer of sovereignty over State territory by the owner-State to another State and the only form in which a cession can be effected is an agreement embodied in a treaty between the ceding and the acquiring State.
American examples of ceded lands are the 1807 Louisiana Purchase where France ceded its territory west of the Mississippi river to the United States and 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo where Mexico transferred its territory north of the Rio Grande river to the United States as part of a peace treaty.
The latest example of an unlawful annexation is when Russia annexed Crimea after its invasion in 2014. Ukraine, which Crimea is a part of its territory, did not cede its territory to Russia by a treaty. Under international law, the annexation of Crimea is unlawful. There is no reason to say unlawful about the Russian annexation because it is inherently unlawful under international law.
Chinese Foreign Ministry in its Report of February 20, 2023, Acknowledges the Illegal Annexation of Hawai‘i
In a blistering report by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on American imperialism, China acknowledges the United States unlawful annexation of Hawai‘i in 1898. The Foreign Ministry reported:
Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawai‘i.
After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United State included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to page the way for expansionist objectives.
In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined.
The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
The Foreign Ministry also cited a Tufts University report that found the United States carried out almost 400 military interventions from 1776 to 2019.
When the attempt to acquire the Hawaiian Islands by a treaty of cession failed in 1898 because of protests by Queen Lili‘uokalani, Head of State of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and Hawaiian subjects and supporters, the breakout of the Spanish-American War prompted the United States to unilaterally annex Hawai‘i by enacting a congressional statute called a joint resolution of annexation. On May 31, 1898, the U.S. Senate went into secret session on the subject of unilaterally annexing the Hawaiian Islands as a military necessity. The senators knew that a joint resolution, as American municipal law, has no effect beyond the borders of the United States, but the President could exercise his war powers by signing the joint resolution into law. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge stated:
If I had been permitted to continue I could have been permitted to continue I could have finished in ten minutes. I have really made the argument which I desire to make. If it had not been that it would have precipitated a protracted debate, I should have argued then what has been argued ably since we came into secret legislative session, that at this moment the Administration was compelled to violate the neutrality of those [Hawaiian] islands, that protests from foreign representatives had already been received, and complications with other powers were threatened, that the annexation or some action in regard to those islands had become a military necessity.
The word “necessity” was used 21 times in the secret session, but no one would know what was discussed because secrecy prevented the public from seeing it until 1969.
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Saturday, February 1, 1969 reported:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Now it can be told—what happened during the longest of three Senate sessions during the Spanish-American War, a debate over whether to take over Hawaii.
The debate of nearly three hours on that day—May 31, 1898—and in two secret sessions the previous month had remained locked up until last week. Then at the request of a historian who noted gaps in the Congressional Record, the Senate passed a resolution authorizing the National Archives to take the wraps off the debate transcript.
The government’s only explanation for the long suppression of the debate records is that they had been long forgotten.
THE SECRECY WAS clamped on during a debate over whether to seize the Hawaiian Islands—called the Sandwich Islands then—or merely developing leased areas of Pearl Harbor to reinforce the U.S. fleet at Manila Bay.
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, grandfather and namesake of the current chief U.S. peace negotiator in Paris, had the floor. He was pleading for all war measures and particularly for the dispatch of reinforcements to Adm. George Dewey who already had destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.
But before Lodge could press his case for the need of Hawaii as a rear base, Sen. David Turpie of Indiana demanded and got the Senate chamber cleared. Even the official reporter of debate was expelled for five minutes.
Study of the transcripts is unlikely to add more than a minor footnote to history, for as Lodge contended during the debate:
“I do not know anything that would give them (the enemy) any information,” because “there is nothing, nothing not already in the newspapers.”
LODGE COMPLAINED BITTERLY at the time about the secrecy, but his peers went along with Turpie and Sen. Georg Gray of Delaware, who questioned the “propriety” of public utterances “addressed to the ears of the enemy.”
Going further, Sen. Eugene Hale of Maine declared that the Senate is “the last place in which to discuss what shall be done about war,” for its word “goes on the wing of the lightning to every part of the globe.”
Lodge said Dewey’s need for reinforcement was urgent because “great and powerful interests in Europe (Paris bankers holding Spanish loan bonds) are directly interested in having Manila wrested from him and his fleet destroyed.”
Sen. William Stewart of Nevada saw “no possible secrets involved in the discussion of the annexation of the Sandwich Islands.” He contended the Navy required a coaling station for its ships and a “residing place” for the men enroute to the Philippines.
PEARL HARBOR, ALREADY UNDER LEASE, Stewart argued, wouldn’t be much use until costly dredging operations opened the entrance channel. “Either we must have the Sandwich Islands,” he declared, “or the administration must recall Dewey.”
The senate was unimpressed by the argument of Sen. Richard F. Pettigrew of South Dakota that the great circle route to Manila, skirting the Aleutian Islands, was 500 miles shorter than the route through Honolulu.
He argued that many warships and fortifications could be built with $10 million proposed to be “thrown away in the interest of a few sugar planters and adventures in Hawaii,” and asked: “Why embarrass that feeble republic, or monarchy, or oligarchy or whatever it is, with our presence?”
Sen. John T. Morgan of Alabama was concerned about the bubonic plague, cholera, yellow fever, small pox and “all the horrible diseases to which humanity is incident” prevailing in the Philippines. Therefore, “we cannot refuse to men going there a stopping place on the salubrious islands of Hawaii.”
Sen. Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina had the last word about the islands, saying “is not Hawaii lying there praying to the United States: ‘Please come and swallow me and pay the $4 million you promised.’”
THE UNITED STATES ANNEXED the Hawaiian Islands five weeks after the debate. But before the Senate reopened its doors that day, Morgan steered the discussion back to Cuba, the original cause of the war with Spain.
The first secret session, April 25, 1898, involved technical and emotional debate over wording of the declaration of war and why it or some accompanying resolution did not formally recognize the independence of Cuba or at least declare the Cubans to have the rights of belligerents in the conflict.
THE SENATE ENDED UP BY ACCEPTING the House passed version reading that “war and the same is hereby declared to exist and that war has existed since the 21st of April”—four days earlier.
Dropped from the final declaration was a Senate proposed tagline requiring the administration to “prosecute said war to a successful conclusion.”
Sen. Stephen White of California joined the unanimous vote for war “even with that mild prevarication” about when the war started.
Symposium on War Crimes Committed in the Hawaiian Islands by the United States
Watch the Hawaiian Society of Law & Politics‘ Symposium showcasing the “Royal Commission of Inquiry – Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom” held at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa on February 11, 2023. This half-day symposium, in collaboration with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the National Lawyers Guild, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Native Hawaiian Student Services, and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Education, featured experts in the fields of international law, international relations, international criminal law and war crimes, and Hawaiian Kingdom law on the topic of the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom since January 17, 1893. Part 2 of the presentation ends with a celebration of Aloha ʻĀina (Hawaiian patriotism) through mele (song) by well known Hawaiian entertainers and musicians.
The presentations stem from the three presenters’ articles published in the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics: Professor William Schabas, “Legal Opinion on War Crimes Related to the United States Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom since 17 January 1893;” Professor Federico Lenzerini, “Legal Opinion on the Authority of the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom;” and Dr. David Keanu Sai, “The Royal Commission of Inquiry.”
Secretary of State Gresham’s Report to President Cleveland Regarding the Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government on January 17, 1893
To ensure clarity as to what actually happened on January 17, 1893, below is the report by Secretary of State Walter Gresham to President Grover Cleveland dated October 18, 1893. The report stems from the periodic reports to the Secretary of State from James Blount as Special Commissioner. From April 1, 1893, when he began the investigation, to his final report dated July 17, 1893. Gresham’s report led to President Cleveland’s message to the Congress on December 18, 1893, concluding that the “military demonstration on the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war,” and that “the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States.”
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Washington, October 18, 1893
THE PRESIDENT:
The full and impartial reports submitted by the Hon. James H. Blount, your special commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands, established the following facts:
Queen Liliuokalani announced her intention on Saturday, January 14, 1893, to proclaim a new constitution, but the opposition of her ministers and others induced her to speedily changer her purpose and make a public announcement of that fact.
At a meeting in Honolulu, late on the afternoon of that day, a so-called committee of public safety, consisting of thirteen men, being all or nearly all who were present, was appointed “to consider the situation and devise ways and means for the maintenance of the public peace and the protection of life and property,” and at a meeting of this committee on the 15th, or the forenoon of the 16th of January, it was resolved amongst other things that a provisional government be created “to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon.” At a mass meeting which assembled at 2 p.m. on the last-named day, the Queen and her supporters were condemned and denounced, and the committee was continued and all its acts approved.
Later the same afternoon the committee addressed a letter to John L. Stevens, the American minister at Honolulu, stating that the lives and property of the people were in peril and appealing to him and the United States forces at his command for assistance. This communication concluded “we are unable to protect ourselves without aid, and therefore hope for the protection of the United States forces.” On receipt of this letter Mr. Stevens requested Capt. Wiltse, commander of the U.S.S. Boston, to land a force “for the protection of the United States legation, United States consulate, and to secure the safety of American life and property.” The well armed troops, accompanied by two gatling guns, were promptly landed and marched through the quiet streets of Honolulu to a public hall, previously secured by Mr. Stevens for their accommodation. This hall was just across the street from the Government building, and in plain view of the Queen’s palace. The reason for thus locating the military will presently appear. The governor of the Island immediately addressed to Mr. Stevens a communication protesting against the act as an unwarranted invasion of Hawaiian soil and reminding him that the proper authorities had never denied permission to the naval forces of the United States to land for drill or any other proper purpose.
About the same time the Queen’s minister of foreign affairs sent a note to Mr. Stevens asking why the troops had been landed and informing him that the proper authorities were able and willing to afford full protection to the American legation and all American interests in Honolulu. Only evasive replies were sent to these communications.
While there were no manifestations of excitement or alarm in the city, and the people were ignorant of the contemplated movement, the committee entered the Government building, after first ascertaining that it was unguarded, and read a proclamation declaring that the existing Government was overthrown and a Provisional Government established in its place, “to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon.” No audience was present when the proclamation was read, but during the reading 40 or 50 men, some of them indifferently armed, entered the room. The executive and advisory councils mentioned in the proclamation at once addressed a communication to Mr. Stevens, informing him that the monarchy had been abrogated and a provisional government established. This communication concluded:
Such Provisional Government has been proclaimed, is now in possession of the Governmental departmental buildings, the archives, and the treasury, and is in control of the city. We hereby request that you will, on behalf of the United States, recognize it as the existing de facto Government of the Hawaiian Islands and afford to it the moral support of your Government, and, if necessary, the support of American troops to assist in preserving the public peace.
On receipt of this communication, Mr. Stevens immediately recognized the new Government, and, in a letter addressed to Sanford B. Dole, its President, informed him that he had done so. Mr. Dole replied:
GOVERNMENT BUILDING
Honolulu, January 17, 1893SIR: I acknowledge receipt of your valued communication of this day, recognizing the Hawaiian Provisional Government, and express deep appreciation of the same.
We have conferred with the ministers of the late Government, and have made demand upon the marshal to surrender the station house. We are not actually yet in possession of the station house, but as night is approaching and our forces may be insufficient to maintain order, we request the immediate support of the United States forces, and would request that the commander of the United States forces take command of our military forces, so that they may act together for the protection of the city.
Respectfully, yours,
SANFORD B. DOLE
Chairman Executive Council.His Excellency JOHN L. STEVENS,
United States Minister Resident.Note of Mr. Stevens at the end of the above communication.
The above request not complied with.
STEVENS.
The station house was occupied by a well-armed force, under the command of a resolute capable, officer. The same afternoon the Queen, her ministers, representatives of the Provisional Government, and others held a conference at the palace. Refusing to recognize the new authority or surrender to it, she was informed that the Provisional Government had the support of the American minister, and, if necessary, would be maintained by the military force of the United States present; that any demonstration on her part would precipitate a conflict with that force; that she could not, with hope of success, engage in war with the United States, and that resistance would result in a useless sacrifice of life. Mr. Damon, one of the chief leaders of the movement, and afterwards vice-president of the Provisional Government, informed the Queen that she could surrender under protest and her case would be considered later at Washington. Believing that, under the circumstances, submission was a duty, and that her case would be fairly considered by the President of the United States, the Queen finally yielded and sent to the Provisional Government the paper, which reads:
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 lauded at 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, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representative and reinstate me and the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
When this paper was prepared at the conclusion of the conference, and signed by the Queen and her ministers, a number of persons, including one or more representatives of the Provisional Government, who were still present and understood its contents, by their silence, at least, acquiesced in its statements, and, when it was carried to President Dole, he indorsed upon it, “Received from the hands of the late cabinet this 17th day of January, 1893,” without challenging the truth of any of its assertions. Indeed, it was not claimed on the 17th day of January, or for some time thereafter, by any of the designated officers of the Provisional Government or any annexationist that the Queen surrendered otherwise than as stated in her protest.
In his dispatch to Mr. Foster of January 18, describing the so-called revolution, Mr. Stevens says:
The committee of public safety forthwith took possession of the Government building, archives, and treasury, and installed the Provisional Government at the head of the respective departments. This being an accomplished fact, I promptly recognized the Provisional Government as the de facto government of the Hawaiian Islands.
In Secretary Foster’s communication of February 15 to the President, laying before him the treaty of annexation, with the view to obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate thereto, he says:
At the time the Provisional Government took possession of the Government building no troops or officers of the United States were present or took any part whatever in the proceedings. No public recognition was accorded to the Provisional Government by the United States minister until after the Queen’s abdication, and when they were in effective possession of the Government building, the archives, the treasury, the barracks, the police station, and all the potential machinery of the Government.
Similar language is found in an official letter addressed to Secretary Foster on February 3 by the special commissioners sent to Washington by the Provisional Government to negotiate a treaty of annexation.
These statements are utterly at variance with the evidence, documentary and oral, contained in Mr. Blount’s reports. They are contradicted by declarations and letters of President Dole and other annexationists and by Mr. Stevens’s own verbal admissions to Mr. Blount. The Provisional Government was recognized when it had little other than a paper existence, and when the legitimate government was in full possession and control of the palace, the barracks, and the police station. Mr. Stevens’s well-known hostility and the threatening presence of the force landed from the Boston was all that could then have excited serious apprehension in the minds of the Queen, her officers, and loyal supporters.
It is fair to say that Secretary Foster’s statements were based upon information which he had received from Mr. Stevens and the special commissioners, but I am unable to see that they were deceived. The troops were landed, not to protect American life and property, but to aid in overthrowing the existing government. Their very presence implied coercive measures against it.
In a statement given to Mr. Blount, by Admiral Skerrett, the ranking naval officer at Honolulu, he says:
If the troops were landed simply to protect American citizens and interests, they were badly stationed in Arion Hall, but if the intention was to aid the Provisional Government they were wisely stationed.
This hall was so situated that the troops in it easily commanded the Government building, and the proclamation was read under the protection of American guns. At an early stage of the movement, if not at the beginning, Mr. Stevens promised the annexationists that as soon as they obtained possession of the Government building and there read a proclamation of the character above referred to, ho would at once recognize them as a de facto government, and support them by landing a force from our war ship then in the harbor, and he kept that promise. This assurance was the inspiration of the movement, and without it the annexationists would not have exposed themselves to the consequences of failure. They relied upon no military force of their own, for they had none worthy of the name. The Provisional Government was established by the action of the American minister and the presence of the troops landed from the Boston, and its continued existence is due to the belief of the Hawaiians that if they made an effort to overthrow it, they would encounter the armed forces of the United States.
The earnest appeals to the American minister for military protection by the officers of that Government, after it had been recognized, show the utter absurdity of the claim that it was established by a successful revolution of the people of the Islands. Those appeals were a confession by the men who made them of their weakness and timidity. Courageous men, conscious of their strength and the justice of their cause, do not thus act. It is not now claimed that a majority of the people, having the right to vote under the constitution of 1887, ever favored the existing authority or annexation to this or any other country. They earnestly desire that the government of their choice shall be restored and its independence respected.
Mr. Blount states that while at Honolulu he did not meet a single annexationist who expressed willingness to submit the question to a vote of the people, nor did he talk with one on that subject who did not insist that if the Islands were annexed suffrage should be so restricted as to give complete control to foreigners or whites. Representative annexationists have repeatedly made similar statements to the undersigned.
The Government of Hawaii surrendered its authority under a threat of war, until such time only as the Government of the United States, upon the facts being presented to it, should reinstate the constitutional sovereign, and the Provisional Government was created “to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon.” A careful consideration of the facts will, I think, convince you that the treaty which was withdrawn from the Senate for further consideration should not be resubmitted for its action thereon.
Should not the great wrong done to a feeble but independent State by an abuse of the authority of the United States be undone by restoring the legitimate government? Anything short of that will not, I respectfully submit, satisfy the demands of justice.
Can the United States consistently insist that other nations shall respect the independence of Hawaii while not respecting it themselves? Our Government was the first to recognize the independence of the Islands and it should be the last to acquire sovereignty over them by force and fraud.
Respectfully submitted.
W.Q. GRESHAM.
Feb. 11, 2023 Symposium – The Royal Commission of Inquiry Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom
The Hawaiian Society of Law & Politics (HSLP), in collaboration with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the National Lawyers Guild, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa College of Education, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Native Hawaiian Student Services, and the Kamehameha Schools Kanaeokana, invites you to its February 11, 2023 Symposium showcasing the Royal Commission of Inquiry – Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom. The event is at no cost but you’ll need to register to ensure you can get a seat. The auditorium is air conditioned and sits 300. The symposium will also be live streamed on Facebook via NHSS UH Mānoa for those who are unable to attend.
The half-day symposium will feature experts in the fields of international law, international relations, international criminal law and war crimes, and Hawaiian Kingdom law on the topic of the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom since January 17, 1893.
Dr. Kamana‘opono Crabbe will open the symposium with a Hawaiian chant and then followed by a special appearance by Hawaiian actor Jason Scott Lee who acted in films such as Dragon – the Bruce Lee Story, the Jungle Book, Rapanui, Mulan, and The Wind and the Reckoning.
Presenters to follow include Professor William Schabas, renowned expert in international criminal law and war crimes from Middlesex University London, author of “Legal Opinion on War Crimes Related to the United States Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom since 17 January 1893;” Professor Federico Lenzerini, professor of international law from the University of Siena, Italy, and Deputy Head of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, author of “Legal Opinion on the Authority of the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom;” and Dr. Keanu Sai, a Lecturer in Political Science and Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i, and Head of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, author of “The Royal Commission of Inquiry.” The presenters will discuss the subject matter of their respective articles which have been published by the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics. Following their presentations, the presenters will sit together on a panel to answer questions from the audience.
The symposium will also have as a finale a presentation celebrating Aloha ‘Āina (Hawaiian Patriotism) through mele (song) by well known Hawaiian entertainers and musicians featuring Mele Apana, Lina Girl, Davey D, Amy Gilliom, Mailani Makainai, Ku‘uipo Kumukahi, Sean Pimental, Glenn Maeda, Danny Kennedy, Na Wai Ho‘olu‘u o ke Ānuenue, and Heuaʻolu Sai-Dudoit.
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE: The symposium will begin at 11:00am and end at 4:30pm at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Art Building auditorium across from Varney Circle where the water fountain is. Here is a link to a map of UH Mānoa. Light lunch and drinks included at no cost.
Registration is now open for all UH Mānoa students, faculty and staff, as well as community members. Click here to register for the event.
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: February 10, 2023
For any questions or concerns, please contact nhss@hawaii.edu.
Click here to visit HSLP’s Symposium’s website
National Holiday – Independence Day (November 28)
November 28th is the most important national holiday in the Hawaiian Kingdom. It is the day Great Britain and France formally recognized the Hawaiian Islands as an “independent state” in 1843, and has since been celebrated as “Independence Day,” which in the Hawaiian language is “La Ku‘oko‘a.” Here follows the story of this momentous event from the Hawaiian Kingdom Board of Education history textbook titled “A Brief History of the Hawaiian People” published in 1891.
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The First Embassy to Foreign Powers—In February, 1842, Sir George Simpson and Dr. McLaughlin, governors in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, arrived at Honolulu on business, and became interested in the native people and their government. After a candid examination of the controversies existing between their own countrymen and the Hawaiian Government, they became convinced that the latter had been unjustly accused. Sir George offered to loan the government ten thousand pounds in cash, and advised the king to send commissioners to the United States and Europe with full power to negotiate new treaties, and to obtain a guarantee of the independence of the kingdom.
Accordingly Sir George Simpson, Haalilio, the king’s secretary, and Mr. Richards were appointed joint ministers-plenipotentiary to the three powers on the 8th of April, 1842.
Mr. Richards also received full power of attorney for the king. Sir George left for Alaska, whence he traveled through Siberia, arriving in England in November. Messrs. Richards and Haalilio sailed July 8th, 1842, in a chartered schooner for Mazatlan, on their way to the United States*
*Their business was kept a profound secret at the time.
Proceedings of the British Consul—As soon as these facts became known, Mr. Charlton followed the embassy in order to defeat its object. He left suddenly on September 26th, 1842, for London via Mexico, sending back a threatening letter to the king, in which he informed him that he had appointed Mr. Alexander Simpson as acting-consul of Great Britain. As this individual, who was a relative of Sir George, was an avowed advocate of the annexation of the islands to Great Britain, and had insulted and threatened the governor of Oahu, the king declined to recognize him as British consul. Meanwhile Mr. Charlton laid his grievances before Lord George Paulet commanding the British frigate “Carysfort,” at Mazatlan, Mexico. Mr. Simpson also sent dispatches to the coast in November, representing that the property and persons of his countrymen were in danger, which introduced Rear-Admiral Thomas to order the “Carysfort” to Honolulu to inquire into the matter.
Recognition by the United States—Messres. Richards and Haalilio arrived in Washington early in December, and had several interviews with Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State, from whom they received an official letter December 19th, 1842, which recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and declared, “as the sense of the government of the United States, that the government of the Sandwich Islands ought to be respected; that no power ought to take possession of the islands, either as a conquest or for the purpose of the colonization; and that no power ought to seek for any undue control over the existing government, or any exclusive privileges or preferences in matters of commerce.” *
*The same sentiments were expressed in President Tyler’s message to Congress of December 30th, and in the Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, written by John Quincy Adams.
Success of the Embassy in Europe—The king’s envoys proceeded to London, where they had been preceded by the Sir George Simpson, and had an interview with the Earl of Aberdeen, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on the 22d of February, 1843.
Lord Aberdeen at first declined to receive them as ministers from an independent state, or to negotiate a treaty, alleging that the king did not govern, but that he was “exclusively under the influence of Americans to the detriment of British interests,” and would not admit that the government of the United States had yet fully recognized the independence of the islands.
Sir George and Mr. Richards did not, however, lose heart, but went on to Brussels March 8th, by a previous arrangement made with Mr. Brinsmade. While there, they had an interview with Leopold I., king of the Belgians, who received them with great courtesy, and promised to use his influence to obtain the recognition of Hawaiian independence. This influence was great, both from his eminent personal qualities and from his close relationship to the royal families of England and France.
Encouraged by this pledge, the envoys proceeded to Paris, where, on the 17th, M. Guizot, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, received them in the kindest manner, and at once engaged, in behalf of France, to recognize the independence of the islands. He made the same statement to Lord Cowley, the British ambassador, on the 19th, and thus cleared the way for the embassy in England.
They immediately returned to London, where Sir George had a long interview with Lord Aberdeen on the 25th, in which he explained the actual state of affairs at the islands, and received an assurance that Mr. Charlton would be removed. On the 1st of April, 1843, the Earl of Aberdeen formally replied to the king’s commissioners, declaring that “Her Majesty’s Government are willing and have determined to recognize the independence of the Sandwich Islands under their present sovereign,” but insisting on the perfect equality of all foreigners in the islands before the law, and adding that grave complaints had been received from British subjects of undue rigor exercised toward them, and improper partiality toward others in the administration of justice. Sir George Simpson left for Canada April 3d, 1843.
Recognition of the Independence of the Islands—Lord Aberdeen, on the 13th of June, assured the Hawaiian envoys that “Her Majesty’s government had no intention to retain possession of the Sandwich Islands,” and a similar declaration was made to the governments of France and the United States.
At length, on the 28th of November, 1843, the two governments of France and England united in a joint declaration to the effect that “Her Majesty, the queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty, the king of the French, taking into consideration the existence in the Sandwich Islands of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations have thought it right to engage reciprocally to consider the Sandwich Islands as an independent state, and never to take possession, either directly or under the title of a protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed…”
This was the final act by which the Hawaiian Kingdom was admitted within the pale of civilized nations. Finding that nothing more could be accomplished for the present in Paris, Messrs. Richards and Haalilio returned to the United States in the spring of 1844. On the 6th of July they received a dispatch from Mr. J.C. Calhoun, the Secretary of State, informing them that the President regarded the statement of Mr. Webster and the appointment of a commissioner “as a full recognition on the part of the United States of the independence of the Hawaiian Government.”