
VIDEO of the Book Launch at the University of Hawai‘i of Oxford University Press’ publication of “Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age” with a Chapter on the American Occupation of Hawai‘i

Dr. Keanu Sai, a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools Kapālama campus in 1982 has been invited by Kamehameha Schools Ka‘iwakīloumoku Pacific Indigenous Institute, in partnership with Kanaeokāna, for a presentation on March 5, 2025, with questions and answers to follow about his recent chapter “Hawai‘iʻs Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire” published by Englandʻs Oxford University Pressʻ Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age in December of 2024. No registration is required for this free public in-person event and light refreshments to follow.
The public is encouraged to attend because Dr. Saiʻs presentation will get into the operational plan for transitioning the State of Hawai‘i into a military government of Hawai‘i and the impact it will have on the population of Hawai‘i, e.g. health care, land, taxes, cost of living. The session will be recorded and uploaded on Kanaeokana’s website.
The session will be recorded and uploaded on Kanaeokana’s YouTube channel.
Tomorrow will be the official book launch of Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age published by England’s Oxford University Press in December of 2024. Dr. Keanu Sai is a contributor of a chapter in the book titled “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire.” In his chapter Dr. Sai
In his chapter, Dr. Sai covers: the legal and political history of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the evolution of governance as a constitutional monarchy, the unlawful overthrow of the government by United States troops in 1893, the prolonged American occupation since 1893, the restoration of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1997 by a Council of Regency, and the recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a State, and the Council of Regency, as its provisional government, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands, in the 1999-2001 international arbitration case Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom. He concludes his chapter with:
Despite over a century of revisionist history, “the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign State is grounded in the very same principles that the United States and every other State have relied on for their own legal existence.” The Hawaiian Kingdom is a magnificent story of perseverance and continuity.
THE EVENT WILL BE LIVE STREAMED ON FACEBOOK STARTING AT 3:30pm HI TIME
On KITV Island Life Live yesterday, Dr. Keanu Sai talks about his recent chapter titled “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire” in a book Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age. The book was published by Oxford University Press in December of 2024. Be sure to download Dr. Sai’s chapter by clicking the link above.
On KITV Island Life Live yesterday, Dr. Keanu Sai explains the American invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom and its unlawful overthrow of the government on January 17, 1893. This began a prolonged occupation that is now at 132 years.
On January 4, 2025, Pascal Lottaz, a Professor for Neutrality Studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, (Waseda University), in Tokyo, posted a review of Dr. Keanu Sai’s chapter on Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire in Professor H.E. Chehabi and Professor David Motadel’s book Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age published by Oxford University Press.
Oxford University Press (OUP) has made it official that the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom is the longest occupation in modern history that began in 1893. It was previously thought that the longest occupation in modern history was the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that began in 1967.
The significance of OUP’s publication of Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age, with a chapter written by Dr. Keanu Sai titled “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire” is that Hawai‘i was never the 50th State of the American Union but rather an occupied State under international law with its rights and obligations intact despite the prolonged nature of the occupation. What was defeated or overthrown, albeit illegally, was the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, and not the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State, which is also referred to as the country.
Dr. Sai’s chapter reconnects the Hawaiian Kingdom to Great Britain, not the United States, when it became a British Protectorate in 1794 under the reign of King Kamehameha I. In 1843, Great Britain recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign and independent State, which ushered in the Hawaiian Kingdom into the Family of Nations. Dr. Sai then explains the connection to the United States by an invasion of U.S. Marines on January 16, 1893, which led to the unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian government and its unlawful seizure of the Hawaiian Islands during the Spanish-American War in 1898. To be conquered is for the Hawaiian Kingdom to have transferred its sovereignty and territory to the United States by a treaty of cession.
There is no such treaty that exists except for the unlawful imposition of American laws, which is the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. Dr. Sai explains under international law why the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as an occupied State under international law, which the Permanent Court of Arbitration acknowledged in 1999, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom. The PCA not only acknowledged the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continuity as a State, but also recognized the Council of Regency as its provisional government during the occupation.
Dr. Sai was one of 23 academic scholars from around the world that was invited to write a chapter on a non-European State that was not conquered under international law. If Dr. Sai’s chapter had no historical or legal basis, OUP would not have allowed the chapter to be published. This is a cornerstone of academic research where a scholar does not argue a position in their research, but rather provides historical and legal evidence that cannot be refuted. In this sense, the scholar is subject to a scientific approach where a scholar’s findings and conclusions are open for rebuttal by other scholars who serve as reviewers. This is called peer review in the academic world where opinions have no place. OUP states in the book, “Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.”
Only when the American occupation is recognized worldwide can the occupation come to an end by a treaty of peace. OUP is added leverage to bring compliance to the law of occupation or the criminal culpability that ensues if the State of Hawai‘i is not transformed into a Military Government to administer the laws of the occupied Hawaiian Kingdom.
Dr. Keanu Sai was invited to do a podcast interview by Professor Pascal Lottaz on the subject of the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a Neutral State. Professor Lottaz is an Assistant Professor for Neutrality Studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Tokyo. He is a also a researcher at Neutrality Studies, where its YouTube channel, which airs their podcasts, has 153,000 subscribers worldwide.
With Oxford University Press (OUP) upcoming release, on December 30, 2024, of Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age with a chapter by Dr. Keanu Sai on the Hawaiian Kingdom and its continued existence as a State despite having been under a prolonged American occupation since 1893, it will make it official that Hawai‘i is the longest occupation in modern history. Previously, it was thought that the longest occupation was Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that began in 1967.
The reach of OUP is worldwide. In all its publications it states “Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford, Auckland, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Hong Kong, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Nairobi, New Delhi, Shanghai, Taipei, and Toronto. With offices in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.”
Dr. Sai’s chapter has effectively pierced the false narrative that has plagued Hawai‘i’s population and the world that Hawai‘i is an American state, rather than an occupied State. The Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as an occupied State is not a legal argument but rather a legal fact with consequences under international law. Dr. Sai concludes his chapter with:
Despite over a century of revisionist history, “the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign State is grounded in the very same principles that the United States and every other State have relied on for their own legal existence.” The Hawaiian Kingdom is a magnificent story of perseverance and continuity.
With the world knowing about the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom it will assist in facilitating compliance by the Hawai‘i Army National Guard with the law of occupation so that the American occupation will eventually come to an end by a treaty of peace.
On December 30, 2024, Oxford University Press will be releasing a book titled Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age. The editors of the book, Professor H. E. Chehabi from Boston University and Professor David Motadel from the London School of Economics and Political Science, invited 23 scholars from around the world to contribute their scholarship. Dr. Keanu Sai is the author of chapter 21—Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire.
Here are the reviews:
“This is an ingenious collection, a book on international history in the 19th and 20th centuries that really does, for once, “fill a gap.” By countering our simple assumption that the West’s imperial and colonial drives swallowed up all of Africa and Asia in the post-1850 period, Chehabi and Motadel’s fine collection of case-studies of nations that managed to stay free—from Abyssinia to Siam, Japan to Persia—gives us a more rounded and complex view of the international Great-Power scene in those decades. This is really fine revisionist history.”—Paul Kennedy, Yale University
“This is an excellent collection of scholars writing on an important set of states, which deserve to be considered together.”—Kenneth Pomeranz, University of Chicago
“Carefully curated and with an excellent introduction that provides an analytical frame, this book offers a global history of “unconquered” countries in the imperial age that is original in its perspective and composition.”—Sebastian Conrad, Free University of Berlin
“The book offers an insightful comparative analysis of political forms and relationships in non-European countries from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. The “non-conquered states” of Asia and Africa are show as sometimes resisting and but often accommodating in innovative ways European political forms and military and diplomatic techniques. The particular appeal of the essays lies in their effort to bring to the surface and critically assess the indigenous histories and struggles that enabled these political formations, each in their own way, to respond to the challenges of modernization. This is global history at its kaleidoscopic best.”—Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki
Oxford University Press is the gold standard for academic publishing in the world and to have the untold story of the Hawaiian Kingdom and its continued existence under an American occupation is a monumental feat for the Council of Regency’s strategic plan under Phase II—exposure of Hawaiian Statehood. Dr. Sai is not only a Hawaiian scholar and political scientist, but he is also Chairman of the acting Council of Regency.
When the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was restored in 1997, as an acting Council of Regency under Hawaiian constitutional law and the legal doctrine of necessity, it approached the prolonged American occupation with a strategic plan that entailed three phases:
Phase I: Verification of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an Independent State and subject of international law where a reputable international body must verify the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State.
Phase II: Exposure of Hawaiian Statehood within the framework of international law and the law of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic levels. Phase II will focus on individual accountability and compliance to the law of occupation.
Phase III: Restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State and a subject of international law, which is when the occupation will come to an end by a treaty of peace.
On November 8, 1999, international arbitration proceedings were initiated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, Netherlands, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, PCA Case no. 1999-01. At its website, the PCA described the dispute as:
Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency (“Hawaiian Kingdom”) on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Before an arbitral tribunal could be established by the PCA, it had to determine that the dispute was international, which meant the Hawaiian Kingdom had to be an existing State under customary international law. Once the PCA recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State and the Council of Regency as its government, it then had to determine whether the Hawaiian Kingdom was a Contracting State or Non-Contracting State to the 1907 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (PCA Convention) that established the PCA.
The reasoning for this determination was that Contracting States, which includes the United States, did not pay for the use of the facilities because they contributed yearly dues to maintain the PCA. Non-Contracting States had to pay for the use of the facilities. The PCA recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as a Non-Contracting State under Article 47 of the PCA Convention. The PCA established the arbitral tribunal on June 9, 2000. To understand this case you can go to pages 24-27 of the ebook Royal Commission of Inquiry: Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom.
The PCA’s recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1999 satisfied Phase I. Since then, Phase II was initiated and continued when Dr. Sai entered the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2001 to acquire an M.A. degree and a Ph.D. degree in political science specializing in international relations and law. According to Dr. Sai:
The Council of Regency needed to institutionalize, and not politicize, the legal and political history of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law and its continued existence today. This would be done by academic research and publications that will normalize the fact of the American occupation. From this premise, we could move into compliance to the law of occupation where the occupation will eventually come to an end by a treaty of peace. This was the most viable approach to a revisionist history that has been perpetrated for over a century.
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.”
The Chinese finger trap, which is a woven cylinder, is when a person puts their index fingers in both ends of the cylinder and try to pull their fingers out, the weave of the cylinder tightens around the fingers. The trap is in the way in which the material is woven. And so we have the Hawaiian finger trap that State of Hawai‘i Attorney General Anne Lopez finds herself in when Senator Cross Makani Crabbe wrote a formal letter requesting for a legal opinion about the State of Hawai‘i and its lawful status within the Hawaiian Kingdom.
The weave of the Hawaiian finger trap is made of years of historical facts interwoven with international law since the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign and independent State on November 28, 1843, and, thereby, becoming a member of the Family of Nations. The United States followed by recognizing Hawaiian independence on July 6, 1844. By 1893, the Hawaiian Kingdom had twenty-seven treaties with other countries, four of these treaties is with the United States.
The Hawaiian Kingdom maintained diplomatic representatives and consulates accredited to other countries. Hawaiian Legations were established in Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Lima, Valparaiso, and Tokyo, while diplomatic representatives and consulates accredited to the Hawaiian Kingdom were from the United States, Portugal, Great Britain, France, and Japan. There were two Hawaiian consulates in Mexico; one in Guatemala; two in Peru; one in Chile; one in Uruguay; thirty-three in Great Britain and her colonies; five in France and her colonies; five in Germany; one in Austria; ten in Spain and her colonies; five in Portugal and her colonies; three in Italy; two in the Netherlands; four in Belgium; four in Sweden and Norway; one in Denmark; one in Japan; and eight in the United States. Foreign Consulates in the Hawaiian Kingdom were from the United States, Italy, Chile, Germany, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Peru, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and Hungary, Russia, Great Britain, Mexico, Japan, and China.
Unlike other non-European States, the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a recognized neutral State, enjoyed equal treaties with European powers, including the United States, and full independence of its laws over its territory. In his speech at the opening of the 1855 Hawaiian Legislature, King Kamehameha IV, reported, “It is gratifying to me, on commencing my reign, to be able to inform you, that my relations with all the great Powers, between whom and myself exist treaties of amity, are of the most satisfactory nature. I have received from all of them, assurances that leave no room to doubt that my rights and sovereignty will be respected.”
In its 2001 arbitral award in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, the Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (“PCA”) acknowledged this when it stated, “in the nineteenth century the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as an independent State recognized as such by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and various other States, including by exchanges of diplomatic or consular representatives and the conclusion of treaties.”
Independent States are protected by international law, which is why States are the benefactors of international law. Unlike laws within countries like the United States where the source of law is a legislature, on the international plane there is no legislative body that enacts international law. Instead, the sources of international law are customary law, treaties, principles of law, judicial decisions, and scholarly articles written by experts in international law. A common misunderstanding is that the United Nations General Assembly creates international laws. It does not. It only enacts resolutions or position statements that may include international law.
Under international law, there is a presumption that the State continues to exist even though its government was militarily overthrown. Because there is a presumption, not an assumption, that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist under international law despite the United States overthrow of the Hawaiian government, the Attorney General would have to provide rebuttable evidence that there is no application of the principle of presumption because the Hawaiian Kingdom was extinguished under international law by a treaty of cession where the Hawaiian Kingdom ceded its sovereignty and territory to the United States. There is no such treaty except for American laws being imposed in the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Because the Hawaiian Kingdom exists, the State of Hawai‘i cannot lawfully exist within Hawaiian territory. The Hawaiian finger trap.
So the question the Attorney General has to answer is in light of the two legal opinions that conclude the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist under international law, is the State of Hawai‘i within the territory of the United States or is it within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Like the presumption of innocence, the accused does not have to prove their innocence, rather the prosecution must prove with evidence beyond all reasonable doubt that the person is not innocent. What also sets the foundation is that because Professor Craven and Professor Lenzerini are scholars in international law, their legal opinions that Senator Crabbe included in his letter to the Attorney General are a part of international law.
The premise is that the State of Hawai‘i exists within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom until she can provide evidence beyond all reasonable doubt, a treaty, that the State of Hawai‘i is within the United States. Her silence answers the question that the State of Hawai‘i is in the Hawaiian Kingdom. Her legal opinion will say the same thing.
Her silence actually works against the State of Hawai‘i because under international law there is the principle of acquiescence. According to Professor Antunes, acquiescence “concerns a consent tacitly conveyed by a State, unilaterally, through silence or inaction, in circumstances such that a response expressing disagreement or objection in relation to the conduct of another State would be called for.” Silence conveys consent. Qui tacet consentire videtur si loqui debuisset ac potuisset.
Under Hawaiian Kingdom law, the term for Native Hawaiians today is aboriginal Hawaiian, irrespective of blood quantum. American law created a blood quantum for aboriginal Hawaiians in order to have access to a 99-year lease of land from the Hawaiian Homes Commission. Hawaiian law has no blood quantum to exercise their vested rights under the law.
Aboriginal is defined as a people who first arrived in a particular region through migration. Aboriginal Hawaiians were the first people to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands from central Polynesia. In her 1884 will that established the Kamehameha Schools, Bernice Pauahi Bishop wrote:
I direct my trustees to invest the remainder of my estate in such manner as they may think best…to devote a portion of each years income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood.
Hawaiian is the short term for the nationality called Hawaiian subjects. Just as British is the short term for British subjects, which is the nationality of Great Britain. According to the 1890 census, the total population of the Hawaiian citizenry was at 48,107, with 40,622 being aboriginal Hawaiians and 7,495 being non-aboriginal.
Aboriginal Hawaiians are now beginning to see the devastating effects of the American occupation on their vested legal rights. The cause of the denial of these legal rights, under Hawaiian Kingdom law, is the unlawful imposition of American laws over the entire territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Since 1919, usurpation of sovereignty, which is the imposition of the laws of the Occupying State over the territory of the Occupied State, is a war crime. One of the legal rights of aboriginal Hawaiians is their right to free health care at Queen’s Hospital.
When the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was restored, through an acting Council of Regency in 1997, it knew it had to raise awareness of the circumstances of the American occupation and its devastating effects since the unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian government by United States troops on January 17, 1893. After the Permanent Court of Arbitration recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law, despite the unlawful overthrow of its government, and the Council of Regency as the restored government, its primary focus in exposing Hawaiian Statehood was to restore the national consciousness of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the minds of its people. This was the Hawaiian citizenry.
As part of restoring Hawaiian national consciousness, education, research, classroom instruction, and community outreach was the key to piercing through the veil of over a century of lies. As Dresden James wrote, “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
On July 31, 1901, an article was published in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser in Honolulu. It is a window into a time of colliding legal systems and the Queen’s Hospital would soon become the first Hawaiian health institution to fall victim to the unlawful imposition of American laws. The Advertiser reported:
The Queen’s Hospital was founded in 1859 by their Majesties Kamehameha IV and his consort Emma Kaleleonalani. The hospital is organized as a corporation and by the terms of its charter the board of trustees is composed of ten members elected by the society and ten members nominated by the Government, of which the President of the Republic (now Governor of the Territory) shall be the presiding officer. The charter also provides for the “establishing and putting in operation a permanent hospital in Honolulu, with a dispensary and all necessary furniture and appurtenances for the reception, accommodation and treatment of indigent sick and disabled Hawaiians, as well as such foreigners and other who may choose to avail themselves of the same.”
Under this construction all native Hawaiians have been cared for without charge, while for others a charge has been made of from $1 to $3 per day. The bill making the appropriation for the hospital by the Government provides that no distinction shall be made as to race; and the Queen’s Hospital trustees are evidently up against a serious proposition.
Queen’s Hospital was established as the national hospital for the Hawaiian Kingdom and that health care services for Hawaiian subjects of aboriginal blood was at no charge. The Hawaiian Head of State would serve as the ex officio President of the Board together with twenty trustees, ten of whom were from the Hawaiian government.
Since the hospital’s establishment in 1859, the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom subsidized the hospital along with monies from the Queen Emma Trust. With the unlawful imposition of the 1900 Organic Act that formed the Territory of Hawai‘i, American law did not allow public monies to be used for the benefit of a particular race. 1909 was the last year Queen’s Hospital received public funding and it was also the same year that the charter was unlawfully amended to replace the Hawaiian Head of State with an elected president from the private sector and reduced the number of trustees from twenty to seven, which did not include government officers.
These changes to a Hawaiian quasi-public institution is a direct violation of the laws of occupation, whereby the United States was and continues to be obligated to administer the laws of the occupied State—the Hawaiian Kingdom. This requirement comes under Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, and Article 64 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Article 55 of the 1907 Hague Regulations provides, “[t]he occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the [occupied] State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.” The term “usufruct” is to administer the property or institution of another without impairing or damaging it.
Despite these unlawful changes, aboriginal Hawaiian subjects, whether pure or part, are to receive health care at Queen’s Hospital free of charge. This did not change, but through denationalization there was a destruction of Hawaiian national consciousness that fostered the web of lies that Hawai‘i was a part of the United States, that aboriginal Hawaiians were American citizens, and there was never free healthcare at Queen’s Hospital.
Aboriginal Hawaiian subjects are protected persons as defined under international law, and as such, the prevention of health care by Queen’s Hospital constitutes war crimes. Furthermore, there is a direct nexus of deaths of aboriginal Hawaiians as “the single racial group with the highest health risk in the State of Hawai‘i [that] stems from…late or lack of access to health care” to the crime of genocide.
Once the State of Hawai‘i is transformed into a military government, according to the international law of occupation, it must immediately begin to administer the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The vested right of aboriginal Hawaiians to free healthcare is a law of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Included with Hawaiian Kingdom laws, as they were before the American occupation began, are the provisional laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
In 2014, the Council of Regency proclaimed these provisional laws to be all Federal, State of Hawai‘i, and County Ordinances that “do not run contrary to the express, reason and spirit of the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” In order to determine which laws are consistent with Hawaiian Kingdom law, Dr. Keanu Sai, as acting Minister of the Interior drafted a memorandum that was made public on August 1, 2023. A particular Federal law that is inconsistent with Hawaiian Kingdom law is the IRS tax code.