Skip to main content

tv   Hawaii and Queen Liliuokalani  CSPAN  April 1, 2017 6:45pm-8:01pm EDT

6:45 pm
you can preview upcoming programs and watch college lectures, museum tours, archival film, and more. "american history tv," at c-span.org/history. announcer 2: "american history tv," james haley, author of captain paradise, a history of hawaii, discusses the life of liliuokalani, the last queen of hawaii. he also sketches the story of modern hawaii from the arrival of captain james cook in 1778 through the u.s. marine back to overthrow and removal of the queen in 1893 and annexation of the island in 1898. the university of mary washington and fredericksburg -- in fredericksburg, virginia held this illustrated talk as part of the crawly great live lecture series. so thank you dr. crawley for
6:46 pm
that too kind introduction. i am happy to be back here. i thought i might not go home. i know when you do this kind of lecture, it is customary to warm the audience up with a few funny stories. if i had known 14 months ago i was coming back, i would not have told you all of my funny stories. [laughter] it is probably best that we move forward with our talk about liliuokalani. i am anglo. actually i am partly cherokee native, but i am in mainland writer, so the times i will have to speak in hawaiian, it is sick. we will talk about the hawaiian language. the first thing i need to do is make some disclaimer of utility, because captive paradise is intended to explain the
6:47 pm
essentials of how the united states, how we got our hands on the place. reviewsever gotten so -- such memorable reviews, i'm used to getting reviews, but what i got from wall street all the way to honolulu magazine were extraordinary, really wonderful reviews, which did not prepare me for the anger i saw in the native independence blogs. me justed it and hated another hally trying to make another bunch of money off of our history. they think people write history for money, which tells you something about their industry -- understanding of the publishing business. thesewas on one of hawaiian history and culture blogs a native scholar who said yeah, he is white, he should not have written it. but i was curious, so i read it. it is not bad. don't you think it would help us -- i mean, here is a mainstream
6:48 pm
american publisher and a somewhat well-known writer, who agrees with us. don't you think we should use it? she was shouted into silence in 20 minutes. people like me aren't supposed to poke their nose into their business. the first thing i need to say in their defense is that this is not anything like political correctness run amok, because it is not. actually there is combat over who gets to talk about the narrative is not new at all. in fact, the very first native-language history of theii, which was written by hawaiian -- [laughter] james haley: i practiced. in fact, when i made this research trip, i will tell you a bit about that -- oh, a lot of their research is latisse are privately owned, and if they don't like you, they don't have to help you.
6:49 pm
but the famous fish, the longest name in the world. uhumunukunukuhuapuaa. it impressed nobody. the reaction was furious. our story is sacred, this can only comment from the priests. you are just telling it to everybody. the country people and common people don't have a right to know our story. i there is a bit of that think still today. it is an active war zone. i come from doing texas history for about 40 years, and of the degree to which political correctness has seized texas history, and people who were heroes for 120 years are certainly now drunken lab granting -- land grabbing colonialists, because they took the country.
6:50 pm
i understand it. before i went over there, i was having lunch with a history professor friend of mine ostensibly on the topic of whether i wanted to come back to his university and finished my phd in history. ps3, how are you doing with the -- he asked me, how are you doing with the hawaii book? i am not doing anything to change my opinion, but the overthrow was a nasty piece of work. there was no saying it, it was awful. but i am becoming really troubled by the amount of oppression and violence against the common people by their own chiefs and kings before we ever showed up. i give the messiah examples, and this -- gave them some examples, and he said it is true. if you write your book that way, and you don't, his words, position the natives as victims of american racism, that will help you get back into grad school. [laughter] james haley: i marinated in
6:51 pm
this, then i said, that must mean what they say with academic freedom. [laughter] james haley: so i had the opportunity to go to research, and i discovered very quickly the local phenomenon known as sting guy. -- stink eye. this is the look you get from them researching their history or nosing into their culture. there was one lady, a docent at kilauea. my research assistant let it drop i was writing a book, and she gave me that look. she said, of course you realize you are not the person who should write it. if you insist on it, the first thing you should do is submit yourself to the kupuna, the elders, and if they improve, go to the bishop is he him, because they are the ones that know the story the best. won thisught, well, i
6:52 pm
award and that award, i don't submit myself to anybody, but thank you. the next day we had lunch with a neuroscience professor who said in hawaii, to be an anthropologist and be fired from the bishop museum is a badge of honor. after more zone -- active war zone. i thought, if there is a native research, and there are increasingly more and more native research is coming to the -- resources coming to the surface that need to be explored, and when someone approaches that, i will buy it, but i have had 120 years. my whole take in captive paradise was to explain to them mainland audience how these are not, how did we get our hands on the place. tonight we are going to look at the life of -- i can't really color the vehicle on a before .he was named -- liliuokalani
6:53 pm
she was not named to that. she was called lily, but we will talk about how her culture shift her, and our understanding of her in the country. i know that in a biography series, we need to spend more time on the biographer, but we have no help of -- hope of understanding liliuokalani without going into the culture, so we have to do some context in here, -- contexting here, or we are not prepared. this is longer than the powerpoint i did before, and i will have less than a minute on each of these slides. so dr. carly, where are you? and i start getting to 10 minutes, you need to give me a sign, because i have been accused of -- i will keep you here till next tuesday. it is entirely true. with a malei began male -- kamehameha i. he was a young alii.
6:54 pm
they were the pre-contact population, 100,000, about 400 chiefs. he was one. stopped onptain cook the west coast of the big island king, youngthe kamehameha was with him. he was looking at everyone trading, all the interesting things they have, he was checking out the cannons. understand, there was no iron in hawaii. a male was worth a big pay. he thought, if i had these weapons, i could conquer the whole place. loneliness of the the god. he was thinking about how he might do this. he asked the kahuna, the priest, how do i do this? heat they said, build a great temple to the war god. temple, which is
6:55 pm
100 feet wide, 225 feet long. the lava blocks were passed by hand from the valley 14 miles away. place where human sacrifices were performed. i hear gasps. a lot of us are unaware human sacrifice is a part of the kapu religion, but it was. when captain cook got there in 1779, it was at the end of the i season. they fight, they wore, then they have four months of celebration. that is matihiki. a lot of the polynesians thought he was the storm god. at the end of makihiki, they had a ceremony. the priests eat the eyeball of a tuna. when that was done, he ate the
6:56 pm
eyeball of a fresh human sacrifice. that is what life was back in those days. he built this huge temple to the war god, who is depicted here. the hawaiian language is a dialect of polynesian. k inat is t in tahiti is hawaii. inse would be taking -- tiki tahiti. except it is kiki. that is what they were worshiping. it took him 30 years to conquer the place. he was kind of a middling successful warrior, lots of mayhem, lots of butchery, tens of thousands of people died. some escaped including this fellow. when he got to new england, they could not pronounce his name, so they called him henry. he had seen his family butchered
6:57 pm
by the kamehameha soldiers. he went all over the world, settled in connecticut, went to jail -- yale, went to congregation is cemetery, and was imbued with the spirit of mission. todid not send missionaries hawaii. it took him years of yelling at them, if you people believe that jesus stuff, you would send missionaries to my country and end this horror. it took evan years, and they said, ok. -- seven years, and they said ok. it took, he set up a school and taught english. he went from hebrew to hawaiian. he said there are chromatic and structural similarities that made hebrew -- grammatical and structural similarities that made hebrew easy for him. he got sick and died. he never got to go back. everyone was sorry, so we put
6:58 pm
together a mission, it got there in 1820. while he was studying in translating the bible -- by the way, when i was at the hawaii historical society in honolulu, i found his workbook registered creating a hawaii-english dictionary. it was quite moving. while he is over here, the man they died -- kamehameha died. and his queen, the favorite of his 19 wives, she was not the greatest. she was the favorite recreational wife, very smart, very forceful. she got tired. she could see it did not work, because all the prohibitions of kapu were not working. women would be thrown off the cliff for eating a banana. so there is one punishment under kapu, that his death. she could see western people
6:59 pm
coming breaking the kapu left and right, the volcano would not blow up. so if it is not working, why are we keeping this religion? after he died, she would have gone to the back of the room. she had no intention of going to the back of the room. she ended kapu. she had temples burned, idols pulled down. there was a spiritual vacuum in that by the time we send and the first contingent -- everybody in america thinks we sent missionaries, they destroyed the local religion. they sailed into the vacuum. the hawaiians are a spiritual people, and they took very readily to christianity. there are stories i can tell you, but there is no time, and it is too polite and audience. found out how wide
7:00 pm
open the south pacific was, they were aghast. but the hawaiians took to it. built on a was spring that belonged to a high chief jtess. of 14,000posed l cut by blocks of coa hand at the bottom of honolulu harbor. kind of like the medieval peasants in europe. they were kind of used to this anyway. transition period of between humans x-rays, women getting -- human sacrifice, women getting overthrown, to
7:01 pm
american congregationalist boston ways of doing things. that is what lydia was born into. these are her grandparents. they actually had a bunch of children. that the americans got there and gave diseases to these people and they lost their fertility. in hawaiian culture the best thing you could do was mary your sister. they have been doing this for centuries. which might have some thing to do with fertility. she was not raised by them. among the hawaiians, you had a baby, and you raised it. it is called adoption. she grew up at her adoptive parents. they were very highborn. she loved this house. she wrote very finally of this house.
7:02 pm
she became the hanai sister of one of the last two kamehameha direct descendents. we will talk later about how they married about the same time, different people. is the founder of the patient museum -- the bishop theum that funded kamehameha schools. -- i should's explain. name, she was born -- i know i wrote this down -- this is what you get for giving me wind at your dinner. she was baptized as lydia, but in those days the high office in the kingdom, a condition of , was minister and co-rule
7:03 pm
the half-sister of the king. find the name. my hawaiian is too clumsy. she had an eye infection that was very painful. so she named the baby, painful, tearful sore eyes. by god, everyone is going to suffer. [laughter] she was baptized as lydia. [laughter] my heroes. one of the third was the last surviving son of the
7:04 pm
conqueror. he was born under imminent privilege. he had life and death power over everybody, but he was torn between two worlds. he tried to commit suicide when the missionaries prevented him from marrying his sister. to the native people, it would have been a brilliant match because their mother was the product of a half sister her had aand if and child, it would be next to the gods. they would not let her be out in the sunlight. she had to stay in the shade because she was so holy. the missionary was horrified and tried to kill himself. he settled for the high chief this of maui. a dedicated christian. his mother became an even more dedicated christian.
7:05 pm
and they dragged him kicking and screaming into the church. by the time he was broken, he gave his people a declaration of human rights, a constitution, a legislature, and surrendered half of his own land so that the common people could own land. he was a great, great king. to liliuokalani. he was aware of the lack of heirs. he executed lidia's grandfather for murder, which was unthinkable for a high chief. her grandfather wanted to get a divorce, and the missionaries would not let him get a divorce until he was single again, so he killed her. [laughter]
7:06 pm
well, he found out -- he signed the death warrant. there was a stark lesson in the new morality for young lidia and her siblings. he also realized, we are not having kids and the throne has to go somewhere, so he enlarged the circle of succession. she and her family were not born into the kamehameha royalty. they were dissented from kamehameha's first cousin. he accepted them into the group of people eligible for the throne. he founded the royal school to educate them in ways that the western world would expect of royalty. this is a later picture. do you see that crowd on the balcony? the attic was what they called the boston parlor. the missionaries contributed their very best furniture silver
7:07 pm
dishes so that they could learn polite society. we would learn in what good stead that put them. museum, i looked at some of the workbooks of the students at the royal school. one of the things that they did to learn english, there is an exercise on english words ending in -tion. this is all written out. sir, i perused your oration with much deliberation and with little consternation and after great infatuation after your week imagination to show veneration on such slight foundation, but after examination and serious contemplation i suppose your admiration was the fruit of
7:08 pm
recreation. [laughter] it went on and on. it was hysterical. but another exercise that floored me was that the students also learned and copied out to louisiana bill. had a -- what on earth they thought the hawaiian elite children whatever have to do with the louisiana bill, and they also learned black jupiter. it must have come from the common a solution that the polynesians were african. they discovered to their cost how they came to regard the united states. that is the only explanation i could come up with. here we have lydia at the royal school.
7:09 pm
she was immensely bright. she had three brothers. her two older brothers were there. she was especially gifted in .oetry the hawaiian culture produced an extraordinarily high chant. their old story was conveyed in chant. she mastered this. one thing that makes the claim language so difficult is that every word has about three meanings. ande is the exact meaning there is the beginning -- there is the hidden meaning. in public speaking i would be using it in classical allusions that only the hawaiians would get. somewhere down the line there is
7:10 pm
a somewhat irreverent sexual raspberry, because they are polynesians and make sex jokes out of everything. [laughter] was theay, it missionaries that gave them a written language. they went from virtually a stone age society. the missionaries made everything compact. within 10 years they had a literacy rate among the highest in the world. native language newspapers -- it was amazing. these two were very bright, ready for learning. lidia mastered this. she had an extra very musical talent. she became a near concert quality pianist. she composed between 150-160 songs, one of which during you heard in the interim. for many years in
7:11 pm
preparing this lecture, a modern --aftersaying poor she is toppled from the throne and so wistful about what she is lost, she writes this song "farewell to thee." no. inually she wrote this song 1978 in a horseback riding expedition to the law. if you have not been to hawaii, there are tradewinds that blow. the northeast side of the island is jungle. the western slope is like mediterranean. it looks kind of like arizona on a good day. she sawon this trip and one of their companions -- he gave an affectionate farewell, probably to her younger sister. she began humming this popular
7:12 pm
tune called "the lone rock by the sea." she composed a song about this parting between two lovers. she was an amazing student. she was, unlike her brothers, sincere in her profession of christian faith. she was a persuaded churchgoer. when she got bigger, she played the organ. she led the choir. even at school she was constantly exposed to these reminders of the old days. the headmaster was constantly in thether in what to do with 16 royal progeny. he was a chief from birth.
7:13 pm
they were powerful even as toddlers. up, he wasder showed three years old. he shows up at school with 30 servants. one guy too. hisumbrella, -- to carry umbrella, another to carry his spit box. if you are higher up, you had somebody to carry spit in. cook said, this cannot do. i cannot educate these students with 30 servants each. the king granted him absolute control over their kids. meanwhile, his wife julia cook was trying their tears. the young ones were weeping and screaming from homesickness. the polynesian culture in these she was kept busy trying to keep them apart.
7:14 pm
pregnantabigail became by who became kamehameha the fifth, who was 12. he was given a beating. she was forced to marry her mother's gardener and exiled and told to behave herself. there were no more kamehameha descendents. that is not true. abigail's child had progeny. there are direct descendents of kamehameha on kouachi today. they were never considered royal. remember the queen of maui -- she made things even worse because she'd showed up one day for a party in a musical concert
7:15 pm
moses andince thought, wow, he is kind of cute. the queen initiated an affair with her husband's nephew, which caused all kinds of ruckus. it is common in contemporary scholarship to really disparage the royal school. these american missionaries get there, and they break up the traditional culture, they ruined this paradoxical life of theirs. of theirs.cal life he had been raised as a babysitter to kamehameha the second. he was so persuaded of the values of western life and education that at one point, i guess it was lydia's oldest brother -- her grandmother held
7:16 pm
the kid back from school. she said, i am told you have the kids watering plants and calling an exercise. that is beneath our dignity. they had a big fight. l'i pulled his kid. she would have been killed on the spot. he asked the promised her, who has power from the king. the times are changing, and that is just the way it is. after a couple of aborted hawaii by the british and french, kamehameha the third decided to send a delegation around the world to win recognition for hawaiian independence. here is his foreign minister. he had several different posts. the foreigners that had emissions in honolulu began calling him the minister of
7:17 pm
everything. his other nephew, the guy that got with princess abigail, became kamehameha the fifth. they were welcomed into the imperial court of france. they were vetted by queen victoria and prince albert. they came to america and were thrown off the train for being black. in their ninehy, years of peace as king, their foreign-policy took a decidedly anglo centric turn? they saw through our sham of equality and all this. i look at alexander's diary. found the page after this conductor tried to throw them off the train. his handwriting changed -- it became slashes. --was so mad at this fool
7:18 pm
these americans need to question themselves about freedom talk when they treat people like dogs. ,here is an interesting memoir a very keen social observer. alexander grew up. he became kamehameha the fourth. lydia had been mentioned as is possible with. -- possible wife.she was the highest born unmarried woman in the kingdom. she would have been queen consort at the time. he wasn't that keen on her. he fell deeply in love with a high chief does of the big island. of the bigeftess island. there is a bit of racism involved because she was one quarter english. she was the daughter of one of kamehameha's captive english --
7:19 pm
i should explain. no, that would be taken entirely wrong. i won't explain. [laughter] lydia got over it. correctness and thing something about a famous museum -- i don't want to deal with that. emma's lady queen in waiting. she performed a function sort of like the minor royal in a court today. she was like rinses alexandra or duchess of kent. she had lots to do, but not really a lot of the spotlight. her sister bernise married an american banker. that was one of the good marriages. there is a chapter in my book called "useful marriages>" at the time the sugar industry is beginning there were all kinds of american businessman
7:20 pm
coming to hawaii and finding available chieftesses that had available land. they were willing to marry them because they had buckets of money. bernise married bishop and they were very happy. ofia married a man schenectady, new york. lydia wrote a famous memoir called "hawaii's story by hawaii's queen." you have to read this with caution because she soft peddled a bunch of stuff. in hawaiian culture it is extremely rude to dispute somebody. you just praise something else. he wrote, i had hopes, but wanted to socialize elsewhere. it was actually the marriage from hell. he was the son of a widow of a ship owner who built a mansion
7:21 pm
called washington place. four many years it was hawaii's governor's mansion. dumped her onia, his mother-in-law, who was one of the most errant racists. they lived together to scratch each other's eyeballs out while he went out dating other women. by the way, in the spirit of aloha -- you can turn that back like a mirror on somebody, she adopted his pastor -- his b asyard. i hope that was not a 10 minute thing. speed it along? okay. [laughter] well, she raised funds for the queens hospital. ae helped bernise established society for the benefit of the silk and elderly. she composed a new national anthem for kamehameha the fifth
7:22 pm
after he became king. he was called the last of the great juice. -- of the great chiefs. he used his power responsibly. by the way, the next king is very interesting. he was brilliant. he had excellent liberal sensibilities. he had been betrothed by birth. he was as highborn as they were. born, he knew how he higher, disappears. the voters knew that if he and victoria had children, they prevented her from marrying them. ydia, andcourting l the brothers broke that up to make sure that he ended up as a lonely broken bachelor. and he did. having died without heirs, there
7:23 pm
is an election for a monarch. waslegitimate claimant queen,, the wife of kamehameha the fourth. she was immensely popular. people adored her. she had the bloodline. she was the great-granddaughter of the conqueror's brother, the good chief. he had been in the legislature and knew about american politics. making promises to people that he could not keep. eh won the election and became king. taffymily nickname was for his love of suites. -- love of sweets. his brother became the crown prince. 1877.18 summary seven, --
7:24 pm
she was finally given her established name. among her duties as crown , she visitedawaii and convinced a landlord to give them land for branch hospitals. he traveled entirely around the world. welcomed into the imperial court of china and japan, austria, germany, france, england. he was the guest of the first state dinner at the white house. lydia becomesone, regent. there is an outbreak of smallpox and she closes the port.
7:25 pm
got outraged the american business community, because they are importing. they marked her from that moment. luau.e have a in the back row is robert louis stevenson the novelist. you can see what kind of a spread they have. this was not in the palace. this was the boathouse. as crown princess, she earned a her name with the american business community. -- a hard name with the american business community. 1887 -- by the way that diamond butterfly is on display in the palace today. british had long been friends of the hawaiian monarchy. this is where the value of the boston parlor criticism came in.
7:26 pm
she did not realize that she was the highest lady in the room and no one could sit down. a german grand duchess asked, why does her majesty not sit so we can sit down? liliuokalani would have known in an instant. she did not know that. wearing --she is every crown had in europe is at victoria's jubilee. twolifeguards escorted carriages. when was victoria's, and one was theirs. they thanked her profusely. least i said, it is the can do when you have come so far. you have to read liliu's memoirs with caution. the imperial crown prince of
7:27 pm
saxony and the king of refused to be seated with them because they were black. queen victoria was not amused. she was not amused. she found the prince of wales, pull him out of what he was doing, and found the duke of edinburgh and had them attend the hawaiian ladies in their stead. queen victoria does not get enough credit. you can imagine every queen in europe is there with these events emerald's and sapphires. -- immense emeralds and sapphires. that diamond butterfly is the best that they did. her dress is draped in peacock feathers, which is just as pretty. when i was visiting the palace, the docent showed us a jackson kennedy pillbox hat.
7:28 pm
more like the fashion you would be seen worn in russia. it was all peacock feathers. hat that this is the she wore to victoria's jubilee -- would you like to see the dress? i said, i have a picture of it right here in my computer. we parted friends, i think. disaster strikes. the american community is getting angrier at her. they waited until she was out of the country. a also built what is great tourist attraction in honolulu. it cost of the entire annual budget of the kingdom. in european standards, it is a music box. but he was enamored with technology. hadad a telephone, electricity and running water before the white house did. really of $300,000, and
7:29 pm
irritated the american businessman. here is a hula performance. iniu was interested reserving hawaiian culture. originally, hula was something different. in praise ofhula genitals, which was pretty explicit. the missionaries were not entirely out of line in thinking that they had to reform this. hula is the preservation of the hawaiian culture. it is preserved in song and dance. their whole story was oral. they did not have handwriting before the missionaries. they outlawed hula.
7:30 pm
it struck at the heart of their culture. which is one reason why there are hula schools now. all of this westernization was not by commenters -- was not by common consent. 6'2", 140 pounds. never became a christian. preserved the old way. she was the governor of the big island for 20 years. so jealous of her heritage that he stripped away her governorship, which was extremely stupid because she wound up inheriting all of his land, 10% of income. she was also the mother of the crown prince. if he had just treated her with respect, he would have inherited a vast fortune.
7:31 pm
he could have told the american businessman to put a sock in it and rule by decree. he just insulted her and slighted her. she called someone and said, i will build a nicer place than that. ,hich she paid for in cash because it was a minor expense to her, just to show him that he was no big deal. to remained quite close bernise as well. there is a great story in hawaii. mauna loa corrupted and there was a lava flow coming down. lili'u was hiring engineers, maybe we can take a ditch. nothing worked. people said governor, please save us. you never bought into this new
7:32 pm
religion. and throughed a pig some berries into the lava, and it stopped. [laughter] sme faces launch 1000 hips, some stop a volcano. volcano, i would not cross her. [laughter] the bayoneter they were in when london, the businessman struck what they called the bayonet constitution strapping them of royal powers. another four years later, he was ruined, depressed. he went to see a doctor in california and died. she became queen. the fix was in for her.
7:33 pm
wasof the things she did preside over the opening of the bishop museum. she was a christian, but like her brother she had the native superstitions. she was under the influence of a friend of hers, who became a fortuneteller. hererent lobbies would use fortuneteller to get to her. one night she told her, wait, i see a vision, a man will come tomorrow with $100,000, you must take it. it was someone from the lottery lobby, which did her no political help. there is an american journalist that said she had struck a striking presence he would not -- she had such a striking presence you would not recognize her from a photo, she looked different from every angle. thurston, a really nasty piece
7:34 pm
of work, a grandson of two missionary families. hearf this stuff that we about american missionaries going to hawaii, destroying the culture, and taking over the country -- no. those missionaries taught and doctored and worked themselves to the bone. the home church in new england disciplined them and eventually kept them off for staying involved in helping the hawaiian people. you should preach and move on -- you should just preach, and if they don't believe it, forget them. if they hadn't done it, christianity would never have taken root the way that it did in hawaii. like all these other missionary grandsons, came back to hawaii imbued with 19th century american racism. leaguermed this hawaiian
7:35 pm
, which became the committee of safety. time warships in honolulu harbor. the japanese had a big presence in hawaii. years he realized that hawaii was too small and too weak as an independent country. it must one day belonged to the united states or japan. we have the japanese cruiser n w niwa, and the uss boston next to it. you can see the u.s. cruiser has sailing masts. naniwa had 10 inch guns. if they had gotten into a fight, i don't think there is any question who would have won. is committee of safety dealing with the benjamin harrison administration in
7:36 pm
washington. if we have a revolution, can you take us in? basically yes. this is january of 1893. lili'u has finally prolonged the legislature. they met for 173 days. the mckinley tariff was ruining the economy. she wanted to keep things paid for. she was supporting and opium tax so that these chinese laborers could smoke opium, then the american lottery. they met for 173 days. under the bayonet constitution, the only way she could control politics was by governments rising and falling. herong as she could pick ministers and have legislators vote no-confidence, it is a hell
7:37 pm
of a way to run a government. she finally dismissed the legislature. she had secretly been working on a new constitution that would restore her royal powers. position shethis went back to the palace and announced her new constitution. that was the beginning of the overthrow. that set the inning section league. -- annexation league. they rose up. not by coincidence, the hawaiian minister to honolulu had worked out with the captain of the uss boston that when this happened, marines would come ashore and end any possibility of activists since. -- of active resistance. she was toppled. she would not advocate. she ceded her government not to the coup plotters, but the united states.
7:38 pm
this 50and france did years ago and gave them the country back. mckinley is replaced by grover cleveland. he met lili'u on their way to britain in 1887. he is horrified by the whole business and withdraws the treaty and leaves his bunch in the lurch. he sends a factfinder to honolulu to find what is really going on. withcial minister went paramount power. people: paramount blunt. thurston and his crowd thought they could rely on him in proving that dark people cannot run their own country, because he's a confederate colonel from georgia -- he will understand. everybody tried to buy him off. annexation league rented in a
7:39 pm
huge mansion. lili'u sent him a personal carriage. he said, no thank you. he managed to ear thing everybody. -- to irritate everybody. the navy involved in the coup offered to send his messages home in code. he did not send his messages home through the navy because he expected that would go back to the rebel government. he said no thank you. his report savaged the whole revolution. cleveland disapproved of it. he tried to get lili'u back on her throne. these americans saying no, we will not give her her throne back. they are not into pineapples yet. that is a cousin of his. he had been a justice on the supreme court, charged with
7:40 pm
coming up with the constitution. if you are doubting all this racism stuff, he decided, how can we put together a constitution that will sound very democratic but will keep power in our hands? another justice put it more simply when he said that the question is how to draw up a document that will look democratic -- how to preserve an oligarchy with the reforms of republican democracy. i am not going to editorialize about that. when she prolonged the legislature, there was an american lieutenant that had been sent over to find what was going on. i want to read you what he wrote about her ceremony in dismissing the legislature. first came the chamberlain supporting a large portfolio containing the queen's message. uniform, stiff
7:41 pm
and pretentious and exhibiting the air of fully realizing the importance of their exalted decision. after worthy emblems of royal officials where roman had lectures in front of them. bearers supporting the emblems of savage royalty. this was followed by the queen dressed in a light colored silk, which added to her negro-like features, exhibiting a look of savage termination. ladies dressedy in the loud colors admired by all dark-colored races. whole load of american thinking about the hawaiian government. how much time do i have left?
7:42 pm
none? damn. [laughter] it very quickly, when the united states is going to annex hawaii, there is a treaty. she gets an effort to defeat it with positions. -- with petitions. these petitions were gotten up in less than three weeks. 21,000 native hawaiians signed it. more then half the population. for the next state it would have been the equivalent of 37.5 million people. this is after she serves term in prison in the palace for a counter coup that failed. are hwhores, but this one is my favorite. [laughter] he was a republican from massachusetts, anti-imperialist. the hawaiians were trying to get
7:43 pm
support. they needed 60 votes. need to more the senators. -- two more senators. they regarded the revolution from the beginning. he started crying. he said, you give me your petitions in the senate tomorrow and watch. by the time that 58 senators had become 46. treaty, then hawaiians celebrate, and then the maine blows up in the hawaiian harbor. mckinley is worried about the japanese because they have ships like this that we don't. the fuji was built in britain. 7000 mile cruising range. they had just kicked's china's butt in the sino-japanese war.
7:44 pm
if they had seized hawaii as a coal station, those chips could have gone to california and bombarded 1000 miles and still had enough fuel to get to hawaii. mckinley said, i can't let those islands go to japan. failed,e treaty mckinley was old enough to remember how we got texas. they annexed it by resolution. a simple majority would do. they annexed hawaii. there is the flag coming down. there were a couple of native bands. the native musicians could not take it. they dropped their instruments and left. it was only the american dance that played the star-spangled banner. lili'u closed herself into washington place. they had a mourning during
7:45 pm
annexation day. here she is retired at washington place. she lived another 20 years. she was kind of a prickly personality. man in london road, i shook her hand, but i could tell in her eyes that she wanted to kill us. there are pictures of her with different territorial governors. during world war i she raised an american flag over washington 5ace when she learned that hawaiian sailors were killed in a sinking. at least they gave her a state funeral in the state house. by peoplel is pulled
7:46 pm
pulling 200 feet ropes. she was buried with her relatives. there we have it. i hope i did not go too long. that is my take on why they feel the way that they do. lili'u is regarded as a symbol of their independence, which many of them would really like to have back. [applause] >> i will remind you to come back and join us on tuesday. we will talk about mark twain. questions for our speaker? i had a question about for thed's support
7:47 pm
restoration of the queen to the throne. who was the person that suggested that idea to them? she wrote a letter to him after the revolution asking for his support. i also know that his secretary of state also supported the idea of restoring her to the throne. where did that idea come from? james: they were already acquainted. he was thoroughly against the takeover to begin with. there was not a lot of bickering to do for him to do it. one thing she got in trouble with -- he wanted amnesty for the coup plotters. they were dual citizens. there was a story that she had threatened to behead them. she was not going to give them amnesty. that was not really true. that whole beheading thing was colorful press. eventually she did relent. she said, i will give them
7:48 pm
amnesty. she wrote that letter on the very day cleveland gave up on her and sent the whole business to congress. there was very little convincing to do because cleveland fought the whole thing stank. >> does the royal family in hawaii still exist? james: yes. they are all collateral descendent. among the independence movements, there are about six claimants. so some things never change. each one says, obviously i would be the best queen working. i am not sure how much there are at this moment. there would be plenty that are happy to step in and monarch today. >> you said an american
7:49 pm
businessman came to hawaii and took over the land and brought in chinese? why did they not get hawaiians to do the work? james: they tried that and realize that hawaiians, like most politicians, don't recognized -- polynesians, don't recognize much need to work. they were terrible laborers. the hawaiian population has been dramatically reduced. what had been 400,000 natives became 40,000. they imported chinese. the imported koreans. the japanese not so much. they warned that crazy about the whole idea. they imported portuguese. labor was at the honolulu historical society, i was reading the letters written home to lili'u while she was princess regent.
7:50 pm
read one of these letters from china, and he was trying to work out a treaty to limit chinese integration. he was working behind the sugar boy's backs. i asked the archivist to read it. i said, people don't know this. she said, we know. i was going to put this in my book. i think that we parted friends. this was simply about trying to get more labor. >> can you talk more about the cohesiveness of the islands at that time? seems they may have not been quite so cohesive because of the distances between them and that there were two ships that take people from one weight to another. james: they were very distinct entities before the conqueror. on of the places i visited
7:51 pm
when kamehameha invaded with his army, the local army opposed him. they kept losing and went further up to the valley until they got to the top. the 400 or so soldiers that survived were pushed over. their skeletons were still there when mark twain visited several years later. they cut their heads off and put them into sacrifice. kaua'i. succeeded with 'i thatere people on kaua chuckled at his pretensions for some time. it was only after the establishment after a unified kingdom, and it took some years before they did feel like a unified kingdom.
7:52 pm
that is quite true. >> essentially the descendents of those missionaries in possession of this land who have a tremendous response ability toward environmental protection and taking care of the people, especially as the sugarcane industry dies out in hawaii, do you have any thoughts on how to proceed? james: not really. [laughter] when i wrote this book, once i realized what i got into, captive paradise needs to be twice is what it is. story ofhis is not the hawaii as a whole. this is how we got our hands on the place. what the descendents and andionaries feel about it, how they feel about all the damage they caused to the society, i can't speak to that.
7:53 pm
i know that several months after finishing the book, i got a pound of state coffee from a couple of missionary descendents who were so shocked to read a history of hawaii and that somebody told the truth, that they had to do something for me. the political correctness of the way that history is approached now, you are not to talk about some things. i should be more up-to-date with the politics now, but i don't have the heart. it is too sad. he hawaiians are waiting on some kind of justice. and they have not gotten it yet. until this year the native hawaiians were in less of a position than native americans on the continent. they had less pull with the government than that. they are still waiting on justice and we owe it to them to do it. >> thanks.
7:54 pm
james: thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> we will be signing books in the back. thank you. >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, www.c-span.org/history. you can view our tv schedule, and watch college lectures, museum tors, archival films, and more. american history to be at www.c-span.org/history. i --nday night on "q and >> it was everywhere in decline. nationalists were rising up. the big strategic question that
7:55 pm
the u.s. faced was, should support of britain against the nationalists, or breed a new order? >> a hudson institute fellow on gamble" about's the 1956 suez crisis and its aftermath. >> he is presenting the soviet union aligning with the nationalists and taking control of the oil of the middle east. it was 100% of european oil that came from the middle east. we wanted to make sure that we had friendly arab regimes that if not would align with the united states, at least keep the soviet union out. >> sunday night at apricot eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> this weekend, on "the presidency" an assessment on the effectiveness and legacies of 20 century prisons -- 20th century
7:56 pm
presidents. here is a preview. >> one of my good friend book ones published a shirley temple. was shirley temple and fdr that got the country through the depression, those .miling faces someone said about fdr that he must have been psycho analyzed by god. he seems so fearless and interviewed the country -- and imbued the country with that kind of confidence.
7:57 pm
he once told a story that when andrew jackson was dying, somebody asked, will he go to heaven? the answer was, he will if he wants to. [laughter] if i am asked, will this country get through the great depression , my answer is, it will if it wants to. it was that sense of freedom viewfear, the ability to others with fearlessness. given the terrible circumstances with which he took office in march 1933, that is a very important part, as your question suggests, of his contribution to this country. >> watch the entire program
7:58 pm
tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. "afterwards,"t on rhode island senator sheldon whitehouse examines how the government is affected by special interest groups. new yorkerviewed by times investigative reporter eric lipton. >> when you have one corporate front group spending $700 million plus in the last election and threatening, planning to spend $400 million in the next election in the midterms, that is a huge footprint. there is a lot more going on behind it. the second piece of that has been bringing home the long-term effort of the republican party to put so-called business friendly judges in the courts,
7:59 pm
so that the courts have become increasingly hostile to regular folks and increasingly interested in protecting corporations. "afterwards" sunday night at not a copy of eastern on c-span2's book tv. c-span, where history unfolds daily. created byspan was america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. on lectures in history, university of chicago professor jonathan levy teaches a class on 2007-2009.ecession, he traces the origins of the crisis to the late 1990's
8:00 pm
stockmarket boom and bust, and looks at how the housing market of the 2000's mimic the same patterns. he also talks about the exotic financial instruments developed during the time. the practice of banks using overnight short-term credit markets to stay afloat and the actions taken by the federal reserve to rescue the economy after the collapse. his classes about one hour. professor levy: ok. in our lecture on the great depression, i talked about the origins of any financial crisis, it is always important to look at the resolution to the last crisis. when we think about the great recession, we have two moments of origin. the 1970's, the crisis of industrial capitalism and thinking about whether or not the american economy has gotten out of that crisis. we have been talking about

489 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on