September 2 – Happy Birthday, Lili'uokalani

nPostednon September 2, 2014

Shenwas the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

nShenwas also Hawaii’s only queen who ruled in her own right, rather thannbeing just the-wife-of-the-king.

nAndnshe lost her throne because of some pretty shady dealings by the U.S.!

nWhat’snin a name?

nThenfirst thing I noticed about Queen Liliuokalani (aside from the fact that she was born on this date in 1838) is her long name. Butnthen I read that her name was at birth was much longer: Lydia Lili’u Loloku WalanianWewehi Kamaka’eha! n

nWow!nThat’s a mouthful, even for a Hawaiian name!

nStill,nlike other Hawaiian names, it is lovely and flowing. Imagine mynsurprise when I realized that her name roughly translated ton“Lydia smarting tearful burning pain sore eyes”!!!

nThat’snbecause the Premier, Elizabeth Kina’u, developed an eye infectionnjust when Lili’u was born.

nWhennLili’u’s brother made her the Crown Princess, he also change hernname. (For some reason, he didn’t think that her birth name was regalnenough for a queen—LOL!) He changed it to Lili’uokalani, which means “thensmarting of the royal ones.” I think that is still a bit weird, butna whole lot better than that burning-pain sore-eyes stuff!

nShadynDealings by the U.S.

nThenKingdom of Hawaii lasted from 1795 until 1893. It originated when anwarrior chief conquered and subjugated the people of various islandsnusing the help of western weapons and British advisors. That warriornchief became King Kamehameha the Great (because history is written bynthe winners). Kamehameha’s children and grandchildren and greatngrandchildren ruled the unified kingdom—but with constantlyndiminishing strength. When Kamehameha had died in 1819, he’d left his sonnwith an army and navy of tens of thousands of men, weapons, and manynwarships. But the people of Hawaii began to catch diseases from thenincreasing number of European and American visitors, andnthe Hawaiian population began to plummet. The armed forces also decreased in number as soldiers and sailors caught diseases and died. The army and navy, which had putndown revolts in 1819 and 1824, were unable to stop a French invasionnin 1849, and Honolulu was sacked. Kamehameha III sought help fromnpowerful forces and made Hawaii into a protectorate of the UnitednStates.

nBynthe time Queen Lili’uokalani came to power, there was no Hawaiiannnavy, and the army was just a few hundred men. She did not have thenpower to stand against a group of Americans and Europeans who pretended to be concerned about the safety of American citizens in Hawaiin– but who really wanted to overthrow the monarchy and join the U.S. The Americansnand Europeans formed what they called the “Committee of Safety,”nand U.S. Government Minister John L. Stevens called up one company ofnU.S. Marines and two companies of U.S. Navy sailors. n

nSo,nyeah.

I don’t know why the U.S. would
even want Hawaii…do you?

nThenqueen was deposed, but she didn’t yield her authority to thenCommittee of Safety, and she didn’t yield her authority to thenprovisional government they set up. Instead, she formally protestednthe takeover and yielded her authority—under protest—only to thenU.S. government.

nShenwas counting on the U.S. government to do the right thing…

Okay, I DO know why the U.S. wanted
Hawaii: it is strategically located in the
middle of the vast Pacific Ocean!

nButnyou know how this turns out, right? The U.S. government hemmed andnhawed, passed around the responsibility of deciding what to do, andneventually found the conspirators who had overthrown the queen “notnguilty” of having caused the overthrow. A group tried to overthrow the new government and restore the queen to power, but the plan failed. Lili’uokalani was arrestednand ended up in house arrest. She was eventually given a full pardon,nand she traveled to the U.S. to protest against the annexation ofnHawaii by the U.S. She even sued the United States, seeking paymentnfor the land her family had owned in the past.

Basically, the U.S. just grabbed Hawaii with
the threat of force.

nNone of that worked, either.

nInn1993, about 100 years later, the U.S. Congress admitted wrongdoingnand issued an apology. Is that one of those “better late than never” things? Or is it more like “too little, too late”?

nPeacenand poetry…

nLili’uokalaninwas a peaceful woman who believed in principled stands and peacefulnresistance. We often celebrate people who use these ideas and winnagainst greater powers – people like Martin Luther King, Jr., andnMahatma Gandhi – but we can also honor peaceful people who lostnagainst greater force.

Onenway that Lili’uokalani expressed her feelings for her people and herncountry was in her writing, including in her writing of song lyrics and melodies.nThe queen played guitar, piano, organ, ‘ukulele, and zither. She sangnalto. She loved performing music written by others – in Hawaiiannand in English, sacred music and secular music – but she becamenknown for her own compositions.

nHernmost famous song, “Aloha Oe” (which translates ton“Farewell to Thee”), became a symbol for her sorrow over the lossnof her country. It became even more popular when Elvis Presleysang it in the movie Blue Hawaii.

nLearnnmore about Hawaii and Kamehameha from this earlier post.

nAlsonon this date: