To listen to the interview click here.

The Star Advertiser reports “Interior Department meetings draw testimony opposed to recognition of a future native nation“

The vast majority of people who testified before a federal panel Monday soundly rejected any attempt by the Obama administration to pursue federal recognition of a future Native Hawaiian governing body.

In often passionate, sometimes heated testimony, dozens of speakers said they opposed any effort by the Department of the Interior to start a rule-making proc­ess that could set the framework for re-establishing a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians.

At the first two of 15 public meetings scheduled over the next two weeks, most of those testifying said the department does not have the authority to re-establish that relationship and implored the agency to halt the proc­ess and not interfere in Hawaiians’ right to political self-determination.

“We don’t need you folks to come in and tell us what to do,” Hawaiian activist Dennis “Bumpy” Kana­hele told the panel Wednesday morning at the state Capitol auditorium.

He expanded on those remarks at an evening meeting in Wai­ma­nalo, where 154 people signed up to speak.

“You gotta realize that a crime has taken place,” Kana­hele said. “And the United States essentially came back to the crime scene. We need to decide how to govern ourselves. We don’t need the federal government.”

At the evening session he was followed by Brandon Maka­‘awa­‘awa of Wai­ma­nalo.

“In the past the Native Hawaiian people have suffered the manipulation of our rights to self-determination on numerous occasions,” he said. “Once again our inherent sovereignty and rights to self-determination are being undermined by these DOI meetings. It is our political right to govern ourselves. The Native Hawaiian people have already begun the proc­ess and should be allowed to finish it without the interference of the U.S. government.”

Many of the speakers said they are not interested in seeing Hawaiians attain a tribal status similar to American Indians, which was what backers of the so-called Akaka Bill in Congress unsuccessfully attempted to do for more than a decade.

They said Hawaii is an illegally occupied sovereign nation and that any government-to-government dealings should be between a kingdom government and the U.S. secretary of state, who deals with foreign nations on behalf of the United States, not the interior secretary.

DeMont R.D. Conner of Nana­kuli used the analogy of a car theft and the federal government’s 1993 apology for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy to question the department’s current actions: The thief apologizes to the owner but keeps the car.

“Go back and tell your boss, ‘Give ’em back the car!'” Conner told the panel.

More than 140 people signed up to testify at the Monday morning session, which was attended by an overflow crowd of more than 200 people and lasted more than three hours.

“It’s very simple: You don’t have jurisdiction here,” said testifier Remi Abellira, adding, “We don’t need recognition. We know who we are.”

Over the next two months, the department is taking public comments at the Hawaii sessions and at additional meetings in Native American communities on the mainland. It also is soliciting written comments.

The feedback is meant to help the Obama administration determine whether it should propose a federal rule that would facilitate the proc­ess for re-establishing a government-to-government relationship.

It also is soliciting comments to determine what form that proc­ess should take — if the administration decides to pursue that path — and whether the federal government should assist the Native Hawaiian community in reorganizing its government.

“Be clear. This is only a first step,” Rhea Suh, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, told those at the morning session.

Suh was one of six officials from that agency and the Justice Department to sit on the panel.

Sam Hirsch, a Justice Department attorney, told the crowd that the federal government does not have procedures in place to pursue administrative recognition of a Native Hawaiian government.

That’s why the meetings are needed should the Interior Department decide to pursue that path, Hirsch said.

But he emphasized that the sessions will not address what structure the yet-to-be-formed Hawaiian government should take.

“That’s a matter for the community” to decide, Hirsch said.

To the main questions asked by the panel, University of Hawaii law professor Williamson Chang offered these comments: “I want to say no, no, no. No to federal recognition, no to occupation, no to the United States.”

Walter Ritte of Molo­kai testified that the department’s timing couldn’t be worse, particularly as Hawaiians are engaged in a controversial nation-building effort.

“You’re bringing confusion,” he said.

Of the several dozen who testified at the morning session, only a few supported the department’s plan.

Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairwoman Collette Machado was among those, and her time at the microphone eventually turned into a shouting match with members of the audience.

Davianna Pomaikai McGregor, a UH ethnic studies professor, also offered supporting testimony, saying the proc­ess should not interfere with the re-establishment of the kingdom government.

“We should be supporting both efforts,” McGregor told the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser after she testified.

Other than occasional jeers from the audience and a few profanity-laced comments, most of the morning session was civil. Some participants came decked in traditional garb or carrying signs, such as “What Tribe Has a Palace.”

Several expressed frustration that the federal government has solicited similar feedback about recognition over the years, yet nothing came of it.

“It’s the same old garbage,” one speaker said.

https://vimeo.com/99015206

Another series in The Sovereignty Conversations titled Na Maka Hosted by Lela Hubbard and Juanita Brown Kawamoto. In this Episode we have a re-cap with Juanita and Professor Williamson Chang of the University of Hawai‘i Richardson School of Law on the United States Department of the Interior’s Native Hawaiian Recognition hearings held at the Hawaii State Capitol on June 23, 2014.

https://vimeo.com/98727591

A conversation with Dr. Ron Williams, Jr. on the Claiming of Christianity in the Hawaiian Kingdom. A provocative look at the Christian Hawaiians and the churches during the times of the Provisional Government. Williams got his Ph.D. in History from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

https://vimeo.com/98826630

A conversation with Dr. Umi Perkins on privatizing land in Hawai‘i. Perkins has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

https://vimeo.com/98797509

A conversation with Donovan Preza on the genealogy of Hawaiian territoriality. The interweaving between contemporary issues of Hawaiian Sovereignty and Real property. Preza is a Ph.D. student in Geography at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

James Blount, who served by appointment of U.S. President Grover Cleveland as a Special Commissioner to investigate the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government on January 17, 1893, began his investigation in the Hawaiian Islands on April 1. For the next four months Special Commissioner Blount would submit periodic reports to U.S. Secretary of State Walter Gresham in Washington, D.C., which came to be known as the “Blount Reports.” On July 17, 1893, Blount submitted his final report. It was from these reports that Secretary of State Gresham would conclude the investigation and notify the President on October 18, 1893 that “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.” Here follows a portion of the final report of July 17, 1893 that centers on the insurgents calling themselves the “Committee of Safety” and at the end identifies their nationalities (citizenry).

**************************************************************

Special Commissioner James Blount reported:

Nearly all of the arms on the island of Oahu, in which Honolulu is situated, were in the possession of the Queen’s government. A military force, organized and drilled, occupied the station house, the barracks, and the palace—the only points of any strategic significance in the event of a conflict.

The great body of the people moved in their usual course. Women and children passed to and fro through the streets, seemingly unconscious of any impending danger, and yet there were secret conferences held by a small body of men, some of whom were Germans, some Americans, and some native-born subjects of foreign origin.

On Saturday evening, the 14th of January, they took up the subject of dethroning the Queen and proclaiming a new Government with a view of annexation to the United States.

The first and most momentous question with them was to devise some plan to have the United States troops landed. Mr. Thurston, who appears to have been the leading spirit, on Sunday sought two members of the Queen’s cabinet and urged them to head a movement against the Queen, and to ask Minister Stevens to land the troops, assuring them that in such an event Mr. Stevens would do so. Failing to enlist any of the Queen’s cabinet in the cause, it was necessary to devise some other mode to accomplish this purpose. A committee of safety, consisting of thirteen members, had been formed from a little body of men assembled in W. O. Smith’s office. A deputation of these, informing Mr. Stevens of their plans, arranged with him to land the troops if they would ask it “for the purpose of protecting life and property.” It was further agreed between him and them that in the event they should occupy the government building and proclaim a new government he would recognize it. The two leading members of the committee, Messrs. Thurston and Smith, growing uneasy as to the safety of their persons, went to him to know if he would protect them in the event of their arrest by the authorities, to which he gave his assent.

At the mass meeting, called by the committee of safety on the 16th of January, there was no communication to the crowd of any purpose to dethrone the Queen or to change the form of government, but only to authorize the committee to take steps to prevent a consummation of the Queen’s purposes and to have guarantees of public safety. The committee on public safety had kept their purposes from the public view at this mass meeting and at their small gatherings for fear of proceedings against them by the government of the Queen.

After the mass meeting had closed a call on the American minister for troops was made in the following terms, and signed indiscriminately by Germans, by Americans, and by Hawaiian subjects of foreign extraction:

Hawaiian Islands,
Honolulu, January 16, 1395.
To His Excellency John L. Stevens,
American Minister Resident:

SIR: We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Honolulu, respectfully represent that, in view of recent public events in this Kingdom, culminating in the revolutionary acts of Queen Liliuokalani on Saturday last, the public safety is menaced and lives and property are in peril, and we appeal to you and the United States forces at your command for assistance.

The Queen, with the aid of armed force and accompanied by threats of violence and bloodshed from those with whom she was acting, attempted to proclaim a new constitution; and while prevented for the time from accomplishing her object, declared publicly that she would only defer her action.

This conduct and action was upon an occasion and under circumstances which have created general alarm and terror.

We are unable to protect ourselves without aid, and, therefore, pray for the protection of the United States forces.

Henry B. Cooper,
P.W. McChesney,
W.C. Wilder,
C. Bolte,
A. Brown,
William O. Smith,
Henry Waterhouse,
Theo. F. Lansing,
Ed. Suhr,
L. A. Thurston,
John Emmeluth,
Wm. B. Castle,
J.A. McCandless,

Citizen’s Committee of Safety.

The response to that call does not appear in the files or on the records of the American legation. It, therefore, can not speak for itself. The request of the committee of safety was, however, consented to by the American minister. The troops were landed.

On that very night the committee assembled at the house of Henry Waterhouse, one of its members, living the next door to Mr. Stevens, and finally determined on the dethronement of the Queen; selected its officers, civil and military, and adjourned to meet the next morning.

Col. J. H. Soper, an American citizen, was selected to command the military forces. At this Waterhouse meeting it was assented to by all that Mr. Stevens had agreed with the committee of safety that in the event it occupied the Government building and proclaimed a Provisional Government he would recognize it as a de facto government.

When the troops were landed on Monday evening, January 16, about 5 o’clock, and began their march through the streets with their small arms, artillery, etc., a great surprise burst upon the community. To but few was it understood. Not much time elapsed before it was given out by members of the committee of safety that they were designed to support them. At the palace, with the cabinet, amongst the leaders of the Queen’s military forces, and the great body of the people who were loyal to the Queen, the apprehension came that it was a movement hostile to the existing Government. Protests were filed by the minister of foreign affairs and by the governor of the island against the landing of the troops.

Messrs. Parker and Peterson testify that on Tuesday at 1 o’clock they called on Mr. Stevens, and by him were informed that in the event the Queen’s forces assailed the insurrectionary forces he would intervene.

At 2:30 o’clock of the same day the members of the Provisional Government proceeded to the Government building in squads and read their proclamation. They had separated in their in march to the Government building for fear of observation and arrest. There was no sign of an insurrectionary soldier on the street. The committee of safety sent to the Government building a Mr. A. S. Wilcox to see who was there and on being informed that there were no Government forces on the grounds proceeded in the manner I have related and read; their proclamation. Just before concluding the reading of this instrument fifteen volunteer troops appeared. Within a half hour afterward some thirty or forty made their appearance.

A part of the Queen’s forces, numbering 224, were located at the station house, about one-third of a mile from the Government building. The Queen, with a body of 50 troops, was located at the palace, north of the Government building about 400 yards. A little northeast of the palace and some 200 yards from it, at the barracks, was another body of 272 troops. These forces had 14 pieces of artillery, 386 rifles, and 16 revolvers. West of the Government building and across a narrow street were posted Capt. Wiltse and his troops, these likewise having artillery and small-arms.

The Government building is in a quadrangular-shaped piece of ground surrounded by streets. The American troops were so posted as to be in front of any movement of troops which should approach the Government building on three sides, the fourth being occupied by themselves. Any attack on the Government building from the east side would expose the American troops to the direct fire of the attacking force. Any movement of troops from the palace toward the Government building in the event of a conflict between the military forces would have exposed them to the fire of the Queen’s troops. In fact, it would have been impossible for a struggle between the Queen’s forces and the forces of the committee of safety to have taken place without exposing them to the shots of the Queen’s forces. To use the language of Admiral Skerrett, the American troops were well located if designed to promote the movement for the Provisional Government and very improperly located if only intended to protect American citizens in person and property.

They were doubtless so located to suggest to the Queen and her counselors that they were in cooperation with the insurrectionary movement, and would when the emergency arose manifest it by active support.

It did doubtless suggest to the men who read the proclamation that they were having the support of the American minister and naval commander and were safe from personal harm.

Why had the American minister located the troops in such a situation and then assured the members of the committee of safety that on their occupation of the Government building he would recognize it as a government de facto, and as such give it support? Why was the Government building designated to them as the place which, when their proclamation was announced therefrom, would be followed by his recognition. It was not a point of any strategic consequence. It did not involve the employment of a single soldier.

A building was chosen where there were no troops stationed, where there was no struggle to be made to obtain access, with an American force immediately contiguous, with the mass of the population impressed with its unfriendly attitude. Aye, more than this—before any demand for surrender had even been made on the Queen or on the commander or any officer of any of her military forces at any of the points where her troops were located, the American minister had recognized the Provisional Government and was ready to give it the support of the United States troops!

Mr. Damon, the vice-president of the Provisional Government and a member of the advisory council, first went to the station house, which was in command of Marshal Wilson. The cabinet was there located. The vice-president importuned the cabinet and the military commander to yield up the military forces on the ground that the American minister had recognized the Provisional Government and that there ought to be no blood shed.

After considerable conference between Mr. Damon and the ministers he and they went to the government building.

The cabinet then and there was prevailed upon to go with the vice-president and some other friends to the Queen and urge her to acquiesce in the situation. It was pressed upon her by the ministers and other persons at that conference that it was useless for her to make any contest, because it was one with the United States; that she could file her protest against what had taken place and would be entitled to a hearing in the city of Washington. After consideration of more than an hour she finally concluded, under the advice of her cabinet and friends, to order the delivery up of her military forces to the Provisional Government under protest. That paper is in the following form:

I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this Kingdom.

That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said 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 representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

Done at Honolulu this 17th day of January, A. D. 1893.

Liliuokalani R.
Samuel Parker,
Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Wm H. Cornwell,
Minister of finance.
Jno. F. Colburn,
Minister of the Interior.
A.P. Peterson,
Attorney- General.

All this was accomplished without the firing of a gun, without a demand for surrender on the part of the insurrectionary forces until they had been converted into a de facto government by the recognition of the American minister with American troops, then ready to interfere in the event of an attack.

In pursuance of a prearranged plan, the Government thus established hastened off commissioners to Washington to make a treaty for the purpose of annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.

During the progress of the movement the committee of safety, alarmed at the fact that the insurrectionists had no troops and no organization, dispatched to Mr. Stevens three persons, to wit, Messrs. L. A. Thurston, W. C. Wilder, and H. F. Glade, “to inform him of the situation and ascertain from him what if any protection or assistance could be afforded by the United States forces for the protection of life and property, the unanimous sentiment and feeling being that life and property were in danger.” Mr. Thurston is a native-born subject; Mr. Wilder is of American origin, but has absolved his allegiance to the United States and is a naturalized subject; Mr. Glade is a German subject.

The declaration as to the purposes of the Queen contained in the formal request for the appointment of a committee of safety in view of the facts which have been recited, to wit, the action of the Queen and her cabinet, the action of the Royalist mass meeting, and the peaceful movement of her followers, indicating assurances of their abandonment, seem strained in so far as any situation then requiring the landing of troops might exact.

The request was made, too, by men avowedly intending to overthrow the existing government and substitute a provisional government therefor, and who, with such purpose in progress of being effected, could not proceed therewith, but fearing arrest and imprisonment and without any thought of abandoning that purpose, sought the aid of the American troops in this situation to prevent any harm to their persons and property. To consent to an application for such a purpose without any suggestion dissuading the applicants from it on the part of the American minister, with naval forces under his command, could not otherwise be construed than as complicity with their plans.

The committee, to use their own language, say: “We are unable to protect ourselves without aid, and, therefore, pray for the protection of the United States forces.”

In less than thirty hours the petitioners have overturned the throne, established a new government, and obtained the recognition of foreign powers.

Let us see whether any of these petitioners are American citizens, and if so whether they were entitled to protection, and if entitled to protection at this point whether or not subsequently thereto their conduct was such as could be sanctioned as proper on the part of American citizens in a foreign country.

Mr. Henry E. Cooper is an American citizen; was a member of the committee of safety; was a participant from the beginning in their schemes to overthrow the Queen, establish a Provisional Government, and visited Capt. Wiltse’s vessel, with a view of securing the aid of American troops, and made an encouraging report thereon. He, an American citizen, read the proclamation dethroning the Queen and establishing the Provisional Government.

Mr. F. W. McChesney is an American citizen; was cooperating in the revolutionary movement, and had been a member of the advisory council from its inception.

Mr. W. C. Wilder is a naturalized citizen of the Hawaiian Islands, owing no allegiance to any other country. He was one of the original members of the advisory council, and one of the orators in the mass meeting on the morning of January 16.

Mr. C. Bolte is of German origin, but a regularly naturalized citizen of the Hawaiian Islands.

Mr. A. Brown is a Scotchman and has never been naturalized.

Mr. W. O. Smith is a native of foreign origin and a subject of the Islands.

Mr. Henry Waterhouse, originally from Tasmania, is a naturalized citizen of the islands.

Mr. Theo. F. Lansing is a citizen of the United States, owing and claiming allegiance thereto. He has never been naturalized in this country.

Mr. Ed. Suhr is a German subject.

Mr. L. A. Thurston is a native-born subject of the Hawaiian Islands, of foreign origin.

Mr. John Emmeluth is an American citizen.

Mr. W. it Castle is a Hawaiian of foreign parentage.

Mr. J. A. McCandless is a citizen of the United States—never having been naturalized here.

Six are Hawaiians subjects; five are American citizens; one English, and one German. A majority are foreign subjects.

It will be observed that they sign as “Citizens’ committee of safety.”

This is the first time American troops were ever landed on these islands at the instance of a committee of safety without notice to the existing government.

It is to be observed that they claim to be a citizens’ committee of safety and that they are not simply applicants for the protection of the property and lives of American citizens.

The chief actors in this movement were Messrs. L. A. Thurston and W.O. Smith.

The Hawaiian sovereignty movement appears to have grown out of a social movement in the islands in the mid-20th century. According to one scholar, Professor Lawrence Fuchs’ Hawai‘i Pono: A Social History (1961), p. 68, “the essential purpose of the haole [foreigner] elite for four decades after annexation was to control Hawai‘i; the major aim for the lesser haoles was to promote and maintain their privileged position…Most Hawaiians were motivated by a dominant and inclusive purpose—to recapture the past.”

Native Hawaiians were experiencing a sense of revival of Hawaiian culture, language, arts and music—euphoria of native Hawaiian pride. Momi Kamahele in her article, Ilio‘ulaokalani: Defending Native Hawaiian Culture, Amerasia Journal (2000), p. 40, states that “the ancient form of hula experienced a strong revival as the Native national dance for our own cultural purposes and enjoyment rather than as a service commodity for the tourist industry.” The sovereignty movement also resulted in the revitalization of “the Hawaiian language through immersion education.” John Dominis Holt, author of the 1964 book On Being Hawaiian (1995), p. 7, is credited for igniting the resurgence of native Hawaiian consciousness.

“I am a part-Hawaiian who has for years felt troubled concern over the loss of Hawaiianness or ethnic consciousness among people like ourselves. So much that came down to us was garbled or deliberately distorted. It was difficult to separate truth from untruth; to clarify even such simple matters for many among us as the maiden name of a Hawaiian grandmother, let alone know anything at all of the Hawaiian past.”

Tom Coffman, Nation Within (1999), p. xii, explained that when he “arrived in Hawai‘i in 1965, the effective definition of history had been reduced to a few years. December 7, 1941, was practically the beginning of time, and anything that might have happened before that was prehistory.” Coffman admits that when he wrote his first book in 1970 he used Statehood in 1959 as an important benchmark in Hawaiian history. The first sentence in chapter one of this book reads, the “year 1970 was only the eleventh year of statehood, so that as a state Hawai‘i was still young, still enthralled by the right to self-government, still feeling out its role as America’s newest state.” He recollected in a another book, Catch a Wave: A Case Study of Hawai‘i’s New Politics (1973), p. 1:

“Many years passed before I realized that for Native Hawaiians to survive as a people, they needed a definition of time that spanned something more than eleven years. The demand for a changed understanding of time was always implicit in what became known as the Hawaiian movement or the Hawaiian Renaissance because Hawaiians so systematically turned to the past whenever the subject of Hawaiian life was glimpsed.”

The native Hawaiian community had been the subject of extreme prejudice and political exclusion since the United States imposed its authority in the Hawaiian Islands in 1898, and the history books that followed routinely portrayed the native Hawaiian as passive and inept. Holt explained, p. 7, that after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom the self respect of native Hawaiians had been “undermined by carping criticism of ‘Hawaiian beliefs’ and stereotypes concerning our being lazy, laughing, lovable children who needed to be looked after by more ‘realistic’ adult-oriented caretakers came to be the new accepted view of Hawaiians.” This stereotyping became institutionalized, and is evidenced in the writings by Professor Gavan Daws, an American historian, who wrote in 1974, Shoal of Time, p. 291:

The Hawaiians had lost much of their reason for living long ago, when the kapus were abolished; since then a good many of them had lost their lives through disease; the survivors lost their land; they lost their leaders, because many of the chiefs withdrew from politics in favor of nostalgic self-indulgence; and now at last they lost their independence. Their resistance to all this was feeble. It was almost as if they believed what the white man said about them, that they had only half learned the lessons of civilization.

Although the Hawaiian Renaissance movement originally had no clear political objectives, it did foster a genuine sense of inquiry and thirst for an alternative Hawaiian history that was otherwise absent in contemporary history books. Professor Noenoe Silva’s Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonization (2004), p. 3, a political scientist, states, “When the stories can be validated, as happens when scholars read the literature in Hawaiian and make the findings available to the community, people begin to recover from the wounds caused by that disjuncture in their consciousness.”

As a result, Native Hawaiians began to draw meaning and political activism from a history that appeared to parallel other native peoples of the world who had been colonized, but the interpretive context of Hawaiian history was, at the time, primarily historical and not legal. State sovereignty and international laws were perceived not as a benefit for native peoples, but were seen as tools of the colonizer. According to Professor James Anaya’s Indigenous Peoples in International Law (2000), p. 22, who specializes in the rights of indigenous peoples, “international law was thus able to govern the patterns of colonization and ultimately to legitimate the colonial order.”

Following the course Congress set in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, under which “the United States returned 40 million acres of land to the Alaskan natives and paid $1 billion cash for land titles they did not return,” it became common practice for Native Hawaiians to associate themselves with the plight of Native Americans and other ethnic minorities throughout the world who had been colonized and dominated by Europe or the United States.

The Hawaiian Renaissance gradually branched out to include a political wing often referred to as the “sovereignty movement,” which evolved into political resistance against U.S. sovereignty. As native Hawaiians began to organize, their political movement “paralleled the activism surrounding the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, student uprisings and the anti-Vietnam War movement,” explained Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (1999), p. 113.

In 1972, an organization called A.L.O.H.A. (Aboriginal Lands of Hawaiian Ancestry) was founded to seek reparations from the United States for its involvement in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government in 1893. Frustrated with inaction by the United States it joined another group called Hui Ala Loa (Long Road Organization) and formed Protect Kaho’olawe ‘Ohana (P.K.O.) in 1975. P.K.O. was organized to stop the U.S. Navy from utilizing the island of Kaho’olawe, off the southern coast of Maui, as a target range by openly occupying the island in defiance of the U.S. military. The U.S. Navy had been using the entire island as a target range for naval gunfire since World War II, and as a result of P.K.O.’s activism, the Navy terminated its use of the island in 1994. Another organization called ‘Ohana O Hawai‘i (Family of Hawai‘i), formed in 1974, even went to the extreme measure of proclaiming a declaration of war against the United States of America.

The political movements also served as the impetus for native Hawaiians to participate in the State of Hawai‘i’s Constitutional Convention in 1978, which resulted in the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (O.H.A.). O.H.A. recognizes two definitions of aboriginal Hawaiian: the term “native Hawaiian” with a lower case “n,” and “Native Hawaiian” with an upper case “N,” both of which were established by the U.S. Congress. The former is defined by the 1921 Hawaiian Homestead Commission Act as “any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778,” while the latter is defined by the 1993 Apology Resolution as “any individual who is a descendent of the aboriginal people who, prior to 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the area that now constitutes the State of Hawai‘i.” The intent of the Apology resolution was to offer an apology to all Native Hawaiians, without regard to blood quantum, while the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act’s definition was intended to limit those receiving homestead lots to be “not less than one-half” of native Hawaiian descent by blood. O.H.A. states that it serves both definitions of Hawaiian. As a governmental agency, O.H.A.’s mission is to:

“…malama (protect) Hawai‘i’s people and environmental resources and OHA’s assets, toward ensuring the perpetuation of the culture, the enhancement of lifestyle and the protection of entitlements of Native Hawaiians, while enabling the building of a strong and healthy Hawaiian people and nation, recognized nationally and internationally.”

The sovereignty movement created a multitude of diverse groups, each having an agenda as well as varying interpretations of Hawaiian history. Operating within an ethnic or tribal optic stemming from the Native-American movement in the United States, the sovereignty movement in Hawai‘i eventually expanded itself to become a part of the global movement of indigenous peoples who, according to Ivison, Patton & Sanders’ Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2000), p. 89, reject colonial “arrangements in exchange for indigenous modes of self-determination that sharply curtail the legitimacy and jurisdiction of the State while bolstering indigenous jurisdiction over land, identity and political voice.”

In her article Settlers of Color and “Immigrant” Hegemony: “Locals” in Hawai‘i, Amerasia (2000), p. 17, Professor Haunani-Kay Trask, an indigenous peoples’ rights advocate, argues that “documents like the Draft Declaration [of Indigenous Human Rights] are used to transform and clarify public discussion and agitation.” Specifically, Trask states that, “legal terms of reference, indigenous human rights concepts in international usage, and the political linkage of the non-self-governing status of the Hawaiian nation with other non-self-governing indigenous nations move Hawaiians into a world arena where Native peoples are primary and dominant states are secondary to the discussion.”

This political wing of the renaissance is not in any way connected to the legal position that the Hawaiian Kingdom continued to exist as a sovereign State under international law, but rather focuses on the history of European and American colonialism and the prospect of decolonization. As a result, sovereignty is not viewed as a legal reality, but a political aspiration.

According to Professor Noel Kent’s Hawai‘i: Islands under the Influence (1993), p. 198, the “Hawaiian sovereignty movement is now clearly the most potent catalyst for change,” and “during the late 1980s and early 1990s sovereignty was transformed from an outlandish idea propagated by marginal groups into a legitimate political position supported by a majority of native Hawaiians.” The political activism relied on the normative framework of the developing rights of indigenous peoples within the United States and at the United Nations. At both these levels, indigenous peoples were viewed not as sovereign States, but rather non-State nations. According to Corntassel & Primeau’s article Indigenous “Sovereignty” and International Law: Revised Strategies for Pursuing “Self-Determination, Human Rights Quarterly (1995), p. 347, “indigenous peoples were viewed not as sovereign states, but rather ‘any stateless group’ residing within the territorial dominions of existing sovereign states.”

When the General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) passed a resolution “Recognizing the Rights of Native Hawaiians to Self-Governance and Self-determination” in 1991, it was heralded as the beginning of a reconciliatory process between native and non-native Hawaiians for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government. This resolution prompted the President of the UCC, in 1993, to issue a formal apology and committed the church to redress the wrongs done to native Hawaiians. In Professor Andrew H. Walsh’s Historical Memorandum on the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893 for the UCC’s Sovereignty Project (1992), p. 24, who was commissioned by the UCC’s Sovereignty Project to assist UCC officials in preparing a statement of apology in 1993, found that certain members of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association were complicit in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government:

“The Christian church founded by American missionaries in Hawai‘i played no direct role in the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893. The Hawaiian Evangelical Association was, however, clearly under the control of white leaders who backed the revolution and attempted—at some cost—to influence indigenous Hawaiians to accept its outcome. The church’s leaders endorsed the revolution in their correspondence with Congregational officials in the United States and vigorously attempted to enlist American Protestant support for annexation. In addition, several individual ministers of the HEA played active roles as advocates of the revolution to the American public.”

The UCC’s Redress Plan included multi-million dollar reparations and the transference of six parcels of land on five islands to Native Hawaiian churches, the Association of Hawaiian Evangelical Churches, and the Pu‘a Foundation. Professor Eric Yamamoto, a legal expert in reconciliation, in his book Interracial Justice: Conflict & Reconciliation in Post-Civil Rights America (1999), p. 215, views these reconciliatory efforts by the UCC within the framework of post-colonial theory in post-civil rights America, and focuses on interracial justice for Native Hawaiians within the United States legal system—an approach similar to the “United States’ 1988 apology to and monetary reparations for Japanese Americans wrongfully interned during World War II.” Yamamoto and other contemporary scholars, view the U.S. takeover of the Hawaiian Islands as fait accompli—a history and consequence no different than other colonial takeovers throughout the world of indigenous people and their lands by western powers.

The UCC apology also prompted the Congress to pass a joint resolution in 1993 apologizing only to the Native Hawaiian people, rather than to the entire citizenry of the Hawaiian Kingdom, for the United States’ role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government. This resolution maintained an indigenous and historically inaccurate focus that implied that only ethnic Hawaiians constituted the kingdom, and fertilized the incipient ethnocentrism of the sovereignty movement. The Resolution provided:

“Congress…apologizes to the Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i on January 17, 1893 with the participation of agents and citizens of the United States, and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination.”

The Congressional apology rallied many Native Hawaiians, who were not fully aware of the legal status of the Hawaiian Islands as a sovereign State, in the belief that their situation had similar qualities to Native-American tribes in the nineteenth century. The resolution reinforced the belief of a native Hawaiian nation grounded in Hawaiian indigeneity and culture, rather than an occupied State under prolonged occupation.

Consistent with the Apology Resolution, Senator Akaka attempted five times since 2000 to have the Senate pass a bill that would provide for federal recognition of tribal status for Native Hawaiians. On February 4, 2009, he reintroduced Senate Bill 381 for the sixth time, known as the Akaka Bill, to the 111th Congress. According to Akaka, the bill’s purpose is to provide “a process within the framework of Federal law for the Native Hawaiian people to exercise their inherent rights as a distinct aboriginal, indigenous, native community to reorganize a Native Hawaiian government for the purpose of giving expression to their rights as native people to self-determination and self-governance.”

According to Professor Rupert Emerson, an international law scholar, in his article Self-Determination, American Journal of International Law (1971), p. 463, there are two major periods when the international community accepted self-determination as an operative right or principle. President Woodrow Wilson and others first applied the principle to nations directly affected by the “defeat or collapse of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish land empires” after the First World War. The second period took place after the Second World War and the United Nations’ focus on disintegrating overseas empires of its member states, “which had remained effectively untouched in the round of Wilsonian self-determination.”

These territories have come to be known as Mandate, Trust, and Article 73(e) territories under the United Nations Charter. Because Native Hawaiians were erroneously categorized as a stateless people, the principle of self-determination would underlie the development of legislation such as the Akaka bill.

In 2011, the State of Hawai‘i enacted their version of the Akaka Bill that established a Native Hawaiian Roll Commission called Act 195, which provided “Native Hawaiians as the only indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population of Hawai‘i.” Act 195 also committed the State of Hawai‘i “to support the continuing development of a reorganized Native Hawaiian governing entity and, ultimately, the federal recognition of Native Hawaiians.” The Roll Commission will “determine eligible individuals that with to participate in the process of reorganizing a Native Hawaiian government for the purposes of Native-Hawaiian self-governance recognized by the State of Hawai‘i. Act 195 also expresses the State’s desire to support federal government recognition of a Native Hawaiian government.” Act 195 also provides that OHA will house the Commission and is responsible for it’s funding. The text of Act 195 is replete with inaccuracies and admissions to violations of the law of occupation.

The identification of Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with a right to self-determination relies upon the U.S. National Security Council’s position on indigenous peoples. On January 18, 2001, the Council made known its position to its delegations assigned to the “U.N. Commission on Human Rights,” the “Commission’s Working Group on the United Nations (UN) Draft Declaration on Indigenous Rights,” and to the “Organization of American States (OAS) Working Group to Prepare the Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Populations.” The Council directed these delegates to “read a prepared statement that expresses the U.S. understanding of the term internal ‘self-determination’ and indicates that it does not include a right of independence or permanent sovereignty over natural resources.”

The Council also directed these delegates to support the use of the term internal self-determination in both the U.N. and O.A.S. declarations on indigenous rights, and definedIndigenous Peoples as having “a right of internal self-determination.” By virtue of that right, “they may negotiate their political status within the framework of the existing nation-state and are free to pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. This resolution sought to constrain the growing political movement of indigenous peoples “who aspire to rule their territorial homeland, or who claim the right to independent statehood under the doctrine of self-determination of peoples.”

The sovereignty movement and Kana‘iolowalu falsely maintains that aboriginal Hawaiians have a right to self-determination, which implies that aboriginal Hawaiians were never nationals of a sovereign and independent State. Self-determination also implies that aboriginal Hawaiians are an ethnic group residing within the United States of America. Hawaiian history cannot support this position. Aboriginal Hawaiians are the majority of the population of Hawaiian subjects who have been subjected to Americanization and indoctrination. As an occupied State under an illegal and prolonged occupation, the proper framework to understand Hawai‘i’s unique situation is through international law and the laws of occupation and not through the laws of the United States, and, by extension, the laws of the State of Hawai‘i. In this way, Hawai‘i’s vibrant political and legal history is not only embraced, but is honored and respected.