On January 17, 1993, on the
hundredth anniversary of
the overthrow of the inde-
pendent Hawai’ian Kingdom, more
than 15,000 Kanaka Maoli-indige-
nous Hawai’ians-marched to the
site of the Kingdom’s authority,
Iolani Palace in Honolulu, demand-
ing the restoration of Kanaka Maoli
sovereignty.’ The march reflected a
renaissance in culture, language and
traditions among people of Kanaka
Maoli ancestry. This renaissance,
coupled with increased political
awareness and activism, has
strengthened the resolve of these
indigenous Hawai’ians to right the
wrongs of the past.
Later that year, the U.S. Congress
passed a joint resolution signed into
law by President Clinton apologiz-
ing for the 1893 U.S.-backed over-
throw of the independent govern-
ment of the Kanaka Maoli. 2 The
Apology Law acknowledged that
the Kanaka Maoli never willingly
relinquished their claims of sover-
eignty as a people or their claims to
their national lands-neither
through their monarchy, nor through
a plebiscite or referendum. Al-
though limited by a disclaimer that
the law is not intended to settle
claims against the United States, the
Apology Law is an admission of the
illegal acts committed against the
Kanaka Maoli. It thus validates
their claim for unrestricted self-
determination under international
law.
Today, Kanaka Maoli are orga-
nized into various initiatives for na-
tive sovereignty. Some, such as Ka
Lahui Hawai’i, seek the establish-
ment of a nation-within-a-nation.
Jose Luis Morin is an international human rights attorney and a Visiting Professor at the Center for Hawai’ian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He has previously testified before the UN Decolonization Committee on the ques- tion of Puerto Rico’s political status and served as one of the prosecutor/advo- cates in the 1993 Peoples International Tribunal in Hawai’i.
The year 1998 will mark one hundred years
since the United States forcibly seized control
over the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico
and Hawai’i. For the native people of Hawai’i,
who share with Puerto Ricans the common
experience of direct U.S. domination, the
right to freely determine their future political
status remains a pivotal issue.
Hawai’i
Stirrings in the Colony
BY Jost Luis MORIN
Other groups, such as Ka Pakaukau
as well as the Pro-Kanaka Maoli
Independence Working Group, pro-
mote complete independence for the
Kanaka Maoli people through a
process of peaceful decolonization
and full self-determination that
includes the option of indepen-
dence. Others demand the restora-
tion of the Hawai’ian Kingdom.
While sovereignty groups differ as
to their ultimate goal, most actively
continue to resist state and federal
government infringements on
Kanaka Maoli cultural rights,
including the desecration of their
sacred sites for the sake of military
and tourist development.
U.S. interests in Hawai’i were
advanced by Christian missionaries
who arrived from Boston in 1820.
After labeling the Kanaka Maoli as
“savages,” the missionaries em-
barked on a campaign of mass
Christian conversion and assimila-
tion. 3 By the 1840s, the missionar-
ies had acquired sufficient power
and influence within the native
government to begin restructuring
Hawai’ian society to their political
and economic advantage. Key to
this restructuring was the supplant-
ing of the system of communal land
tenure-central to Kanaka Maoli
culture and economy-with private
land ownership. U.S. missionaries
were eventually able to impose a
legal mechanism for native land
claims which left about 70% of the
native population landless. 4
After the mid- 1800s, the desire to
have Hawai’i annexed to the United
States intensified. As the white for-
eign minority aligned with U.S.
NAC1A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 10ESSAY/ HAWAI’I
interests assumed local power, U.S.
government officials schemed for
annexation. In 1873, U.S. Secretary
of State Hamilton Fish wrote to
U.S. Minister to Hawai’i Henry
Peirce that “[t]here seems to be a
strong desire on the part of many
persons in the islands, representing
large interests and great wealth, to
become annexed to the United
States…. There are also those of
influence and of wise foresight who
see a future that must extend the
jurisdiction and the limits of this
nation, and that will require a rest-
ing spot in the mid-ocean, between
the Pacific Coast and the vast
domains of Asia, which are now
opening to commerce and Christian
civilization.. Should occasion offer,
you will, without committing the
government to any line of policy,
not discourage the feeling which
may exist in favor of annexation to
the United States.” 5
In 1887, the “Bayonet Consti-
tution,” as it became known, was
forced upon King Kalakaua by for-
eigners intent on seizing political
power. By imposing property and
income requirements for political
office and granting foreign residents
the right to vote, this new constitu-
tion assured white foreigners con-
trol over the legislature and cabinet.
Moreover, it disenfranchised most
Kanaka Maoli by imposing land
and wealth requirements for voting.
Six years later, in 1893, with the
assistance of U.S. Minister to
Hawai’i John L. Stevens and U.S.
Marines of the U.S.S. Boston,
annexationist businessmen over-
threw the independent and sover-
eign Hawai’ian government, nam-
ing Sanford B. Dole, a descendant
of missionaries, president of the
provisional government. On July 4,
1894, the provisional government
proclaimed itself the Republic of
Hawai’i, and following a native up-
rising in 1895, Queen Lili’uokalani,
the queen of the Hawai’ian King-
dom, was imprisoned. In 1898, the
United States, by Joint Resolution
of Congress, annexed Hawai’i. In
the process, the Dole Republic of
Hawai’i ceded illegally seized
Kanaka Maoli government and
Crown lands to the U.S. govern-
ment.
A fate similar to that of Hawai’i
was in store for the people of Puerto
Rico, and some comparisons are
worth recounting. Each of the two
nations was coveted by the United
Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEc 1997ESSAY/ HAWAI’I
States as integral to the consolida-
tion of its global economic and mil-
itary power. Hawai’i was significant
for the opening of Asian markets to
U.S. goods as well as for its military
bases, while Puerto Rico was seen
as a stronghold for U.S. economic
interests in Latin America as well
as a strategic military outpost in the
region. The United States took pos-
session of both Hawai’i and Puerto
Rico with the use of armed force.
The Treaty of Paris, which brought
an end to the Spanish-American
War, granted the U.S. Congress the
power to determine the civil rights
and political status of the people of
Puerto Rico. As with the Kanaka
Maoli, the people of Puerto Rico
were never consulted about annexa-
tion or about whether the United
States should grant itself such
absolute powers over the future of
their nation.
With annexation, the United
States forged ahead with a policy of
political domination, coercive cul-
tural assimilation, military occupa-
tion and economic exploitation of
people deemed to be of inferior
races in both Puerto Rico and
Hawai’i. Foreigners controlled and
governed the islands well into the
twentieth century, imposing U.S.
citizenship on Puerto Ricans and
the Kanaka Maoli. As in Hawai’i,
U.S. educational policies in Puerto
Rico focused on assimilation. The
use of the Hawai’ian language in
schools was officially banned in
1896. In Puerto Rico, English was
the official language in schools
from 1898 to 1948, and teachers
from the United States-many
without any knowledge of Spa-
nish-were recruited to carry out
the U.S. English-only policy on the
Island. 6
Economically, both Puerto Rico
and Hawai’i were exploited for
sugar and labor. Annexation meant
a permanent lifting of U.S. tariffs
for Hawai’ian sugar producers. For
both countries, the accumulation of
lands by U.S. business enterprises
translated into the loss of economic
self-sufficiency. While 1.75 million
acres of land belonging to the
Hawai’ian Kingdom were illegally
ceded to the United States upon
annexation, Puerto Rico’s lands
increasingly fell into the hands of
absentee plantation owners and the
U.S. military. By the 1930s, U.S.
capital controlled 60% of sugar
production, 80% of the tobacco
production, 60% of public services
and banks and 100% of maritime
lines in Puerto Rico. 7 The U.S. mil-
itary amassed land holdings that, as
of 1939, were sufficient to establish
the largest naval complex in the
world in an effort to build a second
Pearl Harbor in the Caribbean. 8
In 1946, following the establish-
ment of the United Nations, Puerto
Rico and Hawai’i were both recog-
nized by the world community as
colonized territories which had
been denied the right to full self-
government by the United States.
As a result, they were declared
Non-Self-Governing Territories by
the United Nations along with
Alaska, Guam, the Virgin Islands,
the Panama Canal Zone and numer-
ous other countries controlled by
other colonial powers. 9 As provided
for under the UN Charter and sub-
sequent UN resolutions, these
Territories were then to undergo a
process of decolonization in which
the right to self-determination
could be exercised in a free and fair
manner.
In a maneuver which parallels
Puerto Rico’s experience, the
United States engineered the
plebiscite vote in Hawai’i in 1959
through Congressional legislation.
The ballot offered a choice between
becoming a U.S. state or remaining
a territory-a U.S. colonial posses-
sion. Other options, such as inde-
pendence, required under interna-
tional law, were not presented as
choices on the ballot. Furthermore,
non-Kanaka Maoli-who by 1959
outnumbered the indigenous peo-
ple-were allowed to vote. Not sur-
prisingly, many white settlers and
their descendants voted for state-
hood. The Kanaka Maoli, were
again denied the right to decide the
future status of their homeland.
The 1959 plebiscite, nonetheless,
produced the particular outcome for
which it was designed-the incor-
poration of Hawai’i into the United
States as a state. As it had done with
Puerto Rico in 1953, the United
States used the 1959 plebiscite to
declare to the United Nations that
the people of Hawai’i had attained
full self-government through the
exercise of self-determination.
Based on this misrepresentation,
and without further investigation or
monitoring of the election, Hawai’i
-together with Alaska-was re-
moved from the UN list of
Non-Self-Governing Territories.
Thereafter, the Kanaka Maoli have
been hindered in their ability to use
international law in the struggle for
their rights.
The 1996 Native Hawai’ian Vote
represents the latest example of an
attempt to undermine the Kanaka
Maoli people’s right to self-
determination. Originally called a
“plebiscite,” the State of Hawai’i
sponsored the Native Hawai’ian
Vote of July-August 1996 posing
the following question: “Shall the
Hawai’ian people elect delegates to
propose a Native Hawai’ian gov-
ernment?” Only 37% of the people
who were mailed ballots actually
returned them. Only a small minor-
ity of registered voters (27% or
22,294 voters) voted in favor of the
election of delegates.10 All told,
60% did not participate, while 10%
voted against the measure. These
figures are due in large part to the
success of a boycott against the
plebiscite organized by Stop the
State-Sponsored Plebiscite-a co-
alition of Kanaka Maoli organiza-
tions that refused to legitimate the
vote with their participation. The
coalition brought Kanaka Maoli
sovereignty groups and supporters
together in a campaign to expose
the deceptive nature of the vote.
As with the 1959 statehood
plebiscite in Hawai’i, the outcome
of the Native Hawai’ian Vote was
orchestrated through various leg-
islative maneuvers and fraudulent
electoral practices. The entire enter-
prise was created and financed by
the state legislature-a body not
representative of the Kanaka Maoli
people. The state legislature dic-
tated the time, manner, process and
ballot question. It also granted itself
the power to accept or reject the
results of the vote as well as the
outcome of the “Hawai’ian Consti-
tutional Convention” that would
allegedly follow the vote, by mak-
ing explicit that no legal changes
were possible without state appro-
val. Similar language appeared in
the bill proposed in the state legisla-
Approximately 95% of
all lands presently
controlled by the state
of Hawai’i were
illegally ceded to the
United States by the
Stanford B. Dole
Republic of Hawai’i
upon annexation.
ture earlier this year in support of a
Hawai’ian constitutional conven-
tion.
In accordance with electoral state
law, the process was handled by a
state agency, the Hawai’ian Sover-
eignty Elections Council (HSEC),
whose 20 members were appointed
by the governor. The state deter-
mined the one and only question on
the ballot, thus violating a long-
established principle of interna-
tional law that provides for the
“[fJreedom of choosing on the basis
of the right of self-determination of
peoples between several possibili-
ties, including independence.””
Furthermore, an eleventh-hour
change in the law eliminated lan-
guage referring to the plebiscite as a
process to “restore a nation”-lan-
guage which embodied the primary
goal of the pro-sovereignty move-
ment. Instead, the law inserted the
term “self-governance,” a term fre-
quently used by the U.S. govern-
ment to refer to Native American
tribes as “domestic dependent
nations” under U.S. law.
The State of Hawai’i’s primary
interest is to maintain and legitimate
its control over illegally acquired
Kanaka Maoli lands. Marion Kelly,
an expert on land tenure at the
University of Hawai’i, concludes
that approximately 95% of all lands
presently controlled by the State of
Hawai’i were illegally ceded to the
United States upon annexation by
the Stanford B. Dole Republic of
Hawai’i.1 2 With statehood, the
United States transferred most of
these ceded lands to the State of
Hawai’i to administer in trust for
native Hawai’ians and the general
public. In view of the increasingly
vocal and visible pro-sovereignty
movement calling for the return of
the “ceded” lands to the Kanaka
Maoli people, the State of Hawai’i
has seized upon the use of the elec-
toral process in an effort to maintain
its control over these lands.
By engineering an election
through which the State of Hawai’i
can install a Native Hawai’ian gov-
ernment-a scheme similar to that
which led to the dependent com-
monwealth government in Puerto
Rico-the State of Hawai’i can
insure its control over illegally
ceded lands and establish the
bureaucratic mechanisms to rule the
Kanaka Maoli people in the future.
The Office of Hawai’ian Affairs
(OHA), the state agency fashioned
after the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is
the favored choice of the State of
Hawai’i as the government for the
Kanaka Maoli. A Native Hawai’ian
government beholden to the State of
Hawai’i for its creation and legiti-
macy could cooperate in negotiat-
ing away rights to Kanaka Maoli
land claims in the same fashion that
the pro-commonwealth Popular
Democratic Party (PPD) in Puerto
Rico has transacted the leasing of
lands to the U.S. Navy for one dol-
lar a year.
The U.S. government,
while liberally using the
terms “self-determina-
tion” and “sovereignty,”
continues to maintain its
relationship with indige-
nous peoples as one
between a guardian and
ward. As early as 1831,
the U.S. Supreme Court
declared that Indian
tribes under the U.S.
Constitution were “dom-
estic dependent nations”
that lived “in a state of
pupilage.” The relation- Demonstra
ship between the tribes rate the 1
and the United States, Kingdom.
ruled the Court, “resembles that of
a ward to his guardian. They look to
the U.S. government for protection;
rely upon its kindness and its
power; appeal to it for relief to their
wants, and address the president as
their great father.” 1 3 The U.S. At-
torney General’s Office as recently
as last year reiterated that wardship
and Congress’ plenary powers over
Indian tribes remain the basis of
U.S. policy toward Native Am-
erican peoples today.
The repercussions of this debate
for the Kanaka Maoli may be harsh.
If subsumed under a U.S. definition
of indigenous peoples that does not
recognize the right to self-determi-
nation as defined by international
tors bow their heads on January 17, 1983 to ’00th anniversary of the overthrow of the
law, Kanaka Maoli aspirations to
choose among the complete range
of political-status options may be
thwarted. The decolonization
process under current international
legal procedures might thus
become unavailable. The promo-
tion of indigenous peoples’ rights
through The Native Hawai’ian Vote
could possibly result in domestic
dependent nation status under the
plenary power of the U.S.
Congress. That power would
enable Congress to relocate Kanaka
Maoli from their traditional lands
and mine for minerals, store
nuclear materials or conduct
nuclear tests on their lands, as the
federal government has done on
Native American lands.
For Hawai’i, as with
Puerto Rico, the basic
elements of U.S. colo-
nial policy since
annexation have not
changed. These ele-
ments include U.S.
economic exploitation
of land, labor and
resources; the promo-
tion of economic de-
pendency and wardship
status among the peo-
ple indigenous to the
islands; vast military
commemo- occupation and degra- Hawai’ian dation of land and nat-
ural resources; and U.S.
cultural domination and forced
assimilation. Under such condi-
tions, it is inconceivable that any
people could make a “free choice”
regarding their future political sta-
tus, much less decide their eco-
nomic, social and cultural develop-
ment. Thus, one hundred years after
annexation, the ability to exercise
the right to self-determination
remains crucial to the Kanaka
Maoli and Puerto Rican quest to
break free from colonialism. 0
Notes
1. Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994),
p. 100.
2. Pub. L. No. 103-150, 107 Stat. 1510 (1993).
3. Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, “The Role of the Missionaries in the 1893
Overthrow of the Hawai’ian Government: Historical Events,
1820-1893,” in Ulla Hasager and Jonathan Freidman, eds.,
Hawai’i: Return to Nationhood (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 1994), pp.
108-112.
4. Marion Kelly, “The Impact of Missionaries and Other Foreigners
on Hawai’ians and their Culture,” in Ulla Hasager and Jonathan
Freidman, eds., Hawai’i: Return to Nationhood, p. 104.
5. Rich Budnick, Stolen Kingdom: An American Conspiracy
(Honolulu: Aloha Press, 1992), p. 30.
6. Regarding English language policies in Hawai’i, see Albert
Schultz, The Voices of Eden (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i,
1994), pp. 339-382; For Puerto Rico, see The Language Policy
Task Force, “English and Colonialism in Puerto Rico,” in James
Crawford, ed. Language Loyalties, A Source Book on the Official
English Controversy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992), pp.
63-71.
7. Manuel Maldonado-Denis, Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic
Interpretation (New York: Vintage, 1972), p. 74.
8. Ronald Fernandez, Prisoners of Colonialism: The Struggle for
Justice in Puerto Rico (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994),
p. 119.
9. G.A. Res. 66, U.N. GAOR, 1st Sess., at 24 (1947).
10. Hawai’ian Sovereignty Elections Council, Final Report, December
1996, p. 28.
11. G.A. Res. 742, U.N. GAOR, 8th Sess., Supp. No.17, at 22, U.N.
Doc.A/2630 (1953).
12. Interview with Prof. Marion Kelly, Department of Ethnic Studies,
University of Hawai’i in Honolulu, Hawai’i (June 12, 1996).
13. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 17 (1831).
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