 My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. My guest today is Troy Andrade. Troy is a graduate of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii where he is currently a law professor. He is also a litigator and a Hawaiian History Legal Scholar. Troy and I have previously discussed the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Today, we are going to continue that discussion by going back in time to 1843 and events which have shaped the future of present-day Hawaii. The title of our program is Umau Ke'ea Okaaina Ikapono. In 1843, a British Lord, Lord George Paulette came across the sea and seized control of the Kingdom of Hawaii in what is now known as the Paulette Fair. On July 31st, Hawaii celebrates Hawaiian Sovereignty Restoration Day, which commemorates the restoration of sovereignty to the Kingdom of Hawaii following the occupation of Hawaii by Great Britain. Troy, welcome. Good to see you again. Thanks for having me, Mark. Aloha. Aloha. I'd like you to start us off with a recap of what happened during the overthrow with Queen Liliuokalani. And then we can maybe go back in time and go forward in time. Sounds great. So in 1893, Liliuokalani is the Queen, the Sovereign, the Moe of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Prior to that, her brother, Kalakaua, was the King. And Liliuokalani inherited a situation in Hawaii that was quite tenuous. There was a lot of turmoil within the Hawaiian community, within the business community here in Hawaii, particularly against the rule of the monarch and the sovereign. And what happened in 1893 was Liliuokalani sought to propose a new constitution, a constitution that would, in essence, override the 1887 constitution that her brother was forced to sign that had stripped powers away from the sovereign and disenfranchised a lot of citizens of the kingdom. They called that the bayonet? Often called the bayonet constitution, correct. So in 1893, in January, she's ready to propose her new constitution, a constitution modeled after the previous constitution that would restore monarchical power, allow her to take control back from the business community in Hawaii at the time, and to really help her people. So in 1893, what she did was she prorogue the legislature at Liliuokalani Halle, essentially meaning she closed the legislative session, went back to her palace, and sought approval from her cabinet to approve of the new constitution. And unfortunately, none of her cabinet members were willing to do that, to counter-sign her request to have a new constitution, and by law she needed that in order to declare that new constitution. So she begrudgingly, I think, said that she's going to drop the idea of having a new constitution. What that did was it set up kind of the right time for a small group of individuals within the kingdom who were planning to overthrow the kingdom of Hawaii. A plan that they had for over a decade thought about doing and were waiting for the opportune time to do it, and they saw Liliu's action, one to try to restore monarchical power away from, quote, the people. And two, and I think very importantly, they saw a woman come in and really threaten the power that they had accumulated at that time. And they saw that as the time to enact what they ultimately did in overthrowing the kingdom. So with the assistance at the time of John L. Stevens, who was the minister to the kingdom of Hawaii from the United States, as well as the support of the marines from the United States, they successfully executed the overthrow of the kingdom of Hawaii. That's the condensed version. That's the condensed version. Yeah, we've done a longer version before. But the queen obviously knew what was going on. I mean, she had social events with these folks. I mean, she went to church with them, and they were her ministers, some of them, and why not fight back? I mean, why not resist? Why not do something? I mean, what do you think? I mean, obviously, you can't put yourself in her mind, but maybe you can think about what was on her mind. So it's interesting. You know, I will say that one of the lead conspirators for the overthrow was a guy named Sanford B. Dole. And Sanford Dole was actually an associate justice of the kingdom's Supreme Court. The day before the overthrow and the day of the overthrow, he was essentially the president of the provisional government. So the secret was a secret that I think the queen had heard rumors, but she didn't think people were going to act on it. And like I said, all of this was accomplished mainly because of the American support that was given to this small committee of safety. So she didn't believe it would happen, but then she didn't put one and one together, maybe, that there would be this military support. For sure. For sure. And you know, when the troops came into Honolulu, marched across in front of the palace, in front of Aliyolani Halle, she started to get on edge a little. And everybody from her ministers were going up to John L. Stevens and saying, what's happening? Why are your troops landing? You usually need our approval to get your troops to land on foreign soil. And his response was this is just to protect the interests of Americans in Honolulu. And it was, in fact, and through information that we've now seen from the Mission Houses Museum, there's documentation that says John L. Stevens was clearly involved in this plot to overthrow from the beginning and used his power as the ambassador to the kingdom and his power over the military, the American Marines that were stationed here to execute on that plan. Okay. All right. So she knew it was going to happen. She saw the troops come in. Why didn't she do something then? Why didn't she fight then? Why didn't she call her own troops, our own people even? So I think that's great. And everything was on the table. She had her cabinet members were there. Again, they were opposed to signing on to this new constitution. But they're very much in support of protecting the kingdom from its demise. And they were throwing out ideas on what to do. One of the options was to fight back militarily. And all of the records indicate that the queen had enough troops. She had enough ammunition to essentially squash any particular rebellion that would happen from this particular USS Boston and the amount of troops there. The downside was had she done that, had she engaged with the American military, there would absolutely be more American military ships coming into Honolulu Harbor and potentially causing a lot of destruction and devastation for the Hawaiian kingdom, which frankly the kingdom would not stand a chance against the might of the American military. So that was option one, which was definitely on the table, which was advocated by Charles Wilson, who was the marshal of the kingdom at the time. He could gather enough troops and they had all of the ammunition ready to go. Of course, that would also mean a lot of loss of lives, a lot of loss of property, all of which the queen would be responsible for, and she would feel responsible for had she allowed this to happen. The other option on the table, which doesn't really get discussed often, is that she could have turned it over to another, she could have turned her sovereignty over to another country, not the United States, but to Britain or to France. The last option was of course to appeal to the higher powers in the United States to try to make amends for what one of their citizens that was given some authority had done in overstepping their authority. That is definitely the option that they took, and it's an option that's based off of action that happened 50 years before then. What's that about? Now King Kamehameha III faced a similar type of a situation. What's that about? In 1843, Kamehameha III, Kawee Kaoli was the ruler, and he had faced aggression from a lot of different countries at that time. In 1840, he passed a new constitution. This was the first constitution. This was really three years into this new experiment by the Kingdom of Hawaii, this constitutional monarchy. France is very much being aggressive with the Kingdom of Hawaii and wants their way. Because of that, Kamehameha III sends two individuals off to America and to Europe to seek recognition of the sovereignty of the kingdom and independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii. At the same time, Britain starts to get a little more aggressive. One of their ambassador to the kingdom, Richard Charlton, comes in and he was apparently given some land from Kalani Moku, who was sort of the prime minister for Kamehameha I, Kamehameha II, and a little bit into Kamehameha III's reign. He was a very powerful man that apparently gave Charlton a 299-year lease to a piece of property in Honolulu. Charlton then executes on that and starts to kick tenants off of the property. Kamehameha III finds out about this and puts a stop to it and says that Kalani Moku had no authority to give you a lease of 299 years on that property, and therefore you cannot be kicking off the native tenants. Charlton is very upset by this and there are a couple other instances where Charlton and other British subjects felt like the Kingdom of Hawaii was in essence discriminating against them. So Charlton took it upon himself to try to resolve this problem. So he made his way across the Pacific and ended up telling a bunch of different captains. One of them was a guy named George Paulette. Lord George Paulette. Paulette was a naval captain for the HMS Carries Fort and he made his way to Hawaii with orders to keep the piece and make sure that British subjects were not being subjected to or were essentially being treated the same as other foreigners in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Paulette lands in Honolulu Harbor and requests a meeting with King Kamehameha III. And we have a photo of Paulette in his formal tire. So Paulette arrives in Honolulu, wants to meet with Kamehameha III. Kamehameha III is in Lahaina at the time on Maui. It is going to take too long for Paulette to have to meet with Kamehameha III. Kamehameha III sends in Dr. Jared Judd to try to negotiate with Paulette. Paulette is not having it. He is offended and he unilaterally seizes control of the Kingdom of Hawaii. With his military might at hand, he creates a provisional government in essence that consists of himself, the British consul to Hawaii now, Alexander Simpson, as well as Kamehameha III. This is a photo of Jared Judd in the middle here. He was an American missionary. And part of the offensive nature, I guess, that Paulette saw with this whole incident was that Kamehameha III sent an American to negotiate as opposed to himself coming to negotiate. And for several months, Paulette runs the Kingdom of Hawaii. So you basically have a land dispute started out as a land dispute by a British subject who complained to Paulette. And Paulette comes in that he had no authority to take over the Kingdom. He had absolutely no authority to take over the Kingdom. At the time, there was no formal British policy with the Kingdom of Hawaii. And so his goal, his orders to go to Hawaii was just to keep an eye out, take notes, make sure you see what's happening so that we can then report all of that to then Queen Victoria at the time. Well, word gets out about all of this. And word reaches a guy named Admiral Richard Darden Thomas. Okay. Now, did Dr. Judd, he was involved too? He was helping out, getting the word out? Is that basically what happened? So Jared Judd was, he was a translator for the King. I see. And he was sort of the middle person between the King and Paulette. And Jared Judd played a really unique role because at the time, in 1843, the King's sole advisor or one of his advisors was a man named William Richards. And William Richards helped to create the Constitution, taught the Ali, the chiefs about constitutional democracy, about politics in the world. And William Richards, the King's sort of right hand person, was sent off to try to negotiate a treaty with Europe and America to ensure the sovereignty of the kingdom. So with that, come on to the third, brought in Dr. Judd to help. To help, I see. So look, we're going to take a break right now. And then I want to come back and find out how Dr. Judd helped and how Admiral Thomas got involved. Okay, so we'll take a short break and be right back. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Jane Sugimura, a host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thank you so much. Aloha. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, a host here at ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Aloha. Welcome back, Mark Schlauves, with Troy Andrade. And we are talking about 1843, right, Troy? And all right. We have Paulette, Lord Paulette, come in and take over the kingdom. I guess, theoretically, on behalf of the British, what happened? What happened? What did Admiral Thomas do? So Admiral Thomas, who is out in the Pacific, is superior to Paulette, finds out what Paulette has done and makes his way to Hawaii. And when he arrives in Hawaii, he is met by a party and Thomas goes and requests a meeting directly with the king. And the king immediately grants Thomas's audience. And they meet and discuss. And by the next day, Thomas famously restores the kingdom of Hawaii and says what we did was wrong and that we have a British policy now in favor of friendship with the kingdom of Hawaii and recognizing the kingdom as an independent nation and the actions of Paulette were wrong and therefore restoring the kingdom to Kamehameha III. Okay. Now, Admiral Thomas came across the Pacific, across the sea. And what role did Queen Victoria, if any, play in all of this? Was she aware of what was going on? Because she was the monarch at the time. So she wasn't directly aware of what was going on. But I had mentioned earlier that Kamehameha III had sent his emissaries out there before this Paulette affair occurred. And by the time they had reached Europe, everything was coming to a boiling point in Hawaii. And they got not formally signed until later in November of that year, but they got the recognition and a policy from Britain. That policy then came back to Thomas. And Thomas went over back to Hawaii and said, this is inconsistent with British policy towards other nations. Hawaii is an independent nation. And therefore I am restoring the sovereignty of Hawaii back to Kamehameha III. I like all those concepts, friendship and restoration, and doing the right thing. And so what does that have to do with the Hawaii model? And what was the reaction of the king to that? So immediately there are celebrations across the kingdom. Kamehameha III creates July 31st as an official national holiday celebrated as La Hoi Hoi Ea Restoration Day. Every year during his reign it is celebrated as that national holiday. Interestingly, it is stopped after he passes during the reigns of Kamehameha IV, 5th Lunalila and Kalakawa, and is reinstated in 1891 after Liliu becomes queen. So maybe that's telling us where her mind was, huh? So Liliu was very much familiar with what happened with the Paulette affair. She'd only been a young child at the time. She had only been a young child, but still the lessons that were learned were passed on, I believe, from monarch to monarch, from advisor to advisor. And back to the overthrow, that was the precedent that she was working off of, that a superior authority would come in and make right for the wrongs that their citizens had caused. So Kamehameha III created this national holiday. He also, in honor of Admiral Thomas, created the first public park in the kingdom and in Hawaii, and it was a piece of land where Thomas had actually restored sovereignty, and it is now Thomas Square. Today there is a beautiful statue of Kamehameha III in Thomas Square. For a long time Thomas Square, the sidewalks were shaped like the Union Jack in honor of Britain and Admiral Thomas' restoration of the kingdom. It was also during this event that Kawee Kawee Kamehameha III said his famous words, which has been translated, which is now our state motto, and also has been translated to mean the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. A lot of Kanaka Maui scholars have gone in and said there's way more to just the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness, specifically with the word ea, which ea is life. But it also, particularly for Kamehameha III, meant sovereignty. In a speech he did, he delivered after Paulette had taken over the kingdom. He referenced ea as our sovereignty has been taken from us, but it will be restored as long as we go down a path that is pono, that is right, that it's just, all of which really hearkens to this Hawaiian concept of imi haku, which is this notion of gaining and keeping mana, this life force that runs through all living beings. And if you continue down a path that's pono, you will be rewarded with more mana. So again, as I mentioned earlier, this was a real experiment for Kamehameha III, this experiment in shared power with not just one sovereign. And so he was looking for a sign that things were good, things were pono. And Admiral Thomas coming over and making things all right was validation, was reaffirmation for Kamehameha III that what he had done in creating a constitutional monarchy and getting advice from not just his chiefs, but from foreigners, from American missionaries, all of that reaffirmed his path of pono, this path of gaining more mana. Doing the right thing. Doing the right thing. And it came back to him is what I hear you saying. Exactly. You know, if you do it, it'll come back. Exactly. And that's what he experienced in his mind. That's what he thought was going on and when Admiral Thomas and that's why he made a park for him. Absolutely. I assume. I'm going to reward you also. And the Queen was thinking maybe the same thing. You know, it's not clear, but I think that's definitely, you know, this Hawaiian mentality was very much a part of who she was as an individual and as a leader. And I think this concept was right there with her. And this affair, this Paulette affair was right there in the back of her minds and the back of the minds of her advisers. And they frankly thought if they had gone to Washington, D.C., that Congress and the President would see the bad things that John L. Stevens had done in authorizing the Marines to land and they would make amends for it. And, you know, 126 years later, Native Hawaiian people are still looking for that. Still waiting for Pono to happen. Correct. Now, do they still have this feeling? I mean, this Hawaiian concept, is it still there or is it gone? So, absolutely. I think this idea of finding the path to making things better is still there. There's been a lot of efforts to try to reconcile with the United States, with the state of Hawaii for everything that has happened to, since the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, to make the lives better for all of the citizens of the Kingdom, but particularly for the Native Hawaiian subjects of the Kingdom who were disproportionately dying off, who to this day have statistics that are, you know, some of the worst statistics and some of the highest statistics for things like incarceration and mortality rates. So, all of that I think is what's driving Native Hawaiians to try to reconcile. It was definitely the push for the sovereignty movement early on, because what happened after the overthrow was this process of Americanization that really in public schools led to this history not being taught and led to people actually forgetting and misremembering what had happened in the past. And that sort of came to to light in the 60s and 70s. That's interesting. Okay. I see. Come back and let's do Pono. Let's do the right thing. And we weren't taught that. The history didn't teach us that. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. So in the 60s and 70s, I think as the elders are dying off, really the ones that were there at the time, the ones that interacted with the Queen, they were dying off and they had their stories to tell. And they started to tell their stories to their children. And those children got older and in the 60s and 70s, that all came to a head, which with what is commonly called the Hawaiian Renaissance, this political, cultural, spiritual revival. And you had some key events that happened in the 70s, like the bombing of Kaho'olavi that really catalyzed the movement for Hawaiian recognition, Hawaiian, the restoration of some form of Hawaiian sovereignty. And there has been some good coming back from doing good things too in the current day. Absolutely. Absolutely. So Native Hawaiians tried. And in 1978 at the Constitutional Convention, there are a lot of changes that happened for Native Hawaiians. There frankly, no one was expecting to happen at the 78 Con Con. Going in, everybody thought the only issues related to Hawaiian affairs that would be addressed were related to the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. Post-78 Constitutional Convention, you get constitutional requirements for making Hawaiian language the official language of the state, the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the reaffirmation of traditional and customary Native Hawaiian practices and cultural, religious practices. Education and history is now mandated to be taught in Hawaiian language, in public schools. So all of this porno stuff comes out of this Constitutional Convention despite everything that was thrown in the face of Native Hawaiians. And so maybe in Kamehameha, the third and Queen Naliyo Kalani were right and did the right thing and are waiting for it to come back. And hopefully, it will. Troy, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. And we'll continue this discussion, I hope. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you very much. That's a wrap. I'm Mark Shklav. We're closing a lot across the sea. Aloha.