 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome and Aloha. 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 professor and the director of the Ulu Lehua Scholars Program. The Ulu Lehua Scholars Program provides an opportunity for students from diverse communities who have overcome adversity and demonstrated academic potential, leadership ability and commitment to social justice to obtain a legal education. Next week, we'll mark the 126th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. An event that is still the subject of discussion. Troy is not only a law professor, but he is a litigator. He is used to presenting photographic and documentary evidence to courts and finders of fact. In this case, he will present evidence of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii to us. Troy, welcome. Good to see you. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me. Walk us through. Walk us through what happened 126 years ago. Tell us about the evidence. Show us the documents. So, before I jump into actually what happened on those several days, I want to talk a little bit before, Hawaii became a kingdom under the rule of King Kamehameha I. It was an absolute monarchy. The king was sovereign and supreme. In the course of the years, in mid-1800s, Kamehameha's son, Kawee Kaoli, Kamehameha III, decided to create a constitutional monarchy and shifted the way in which government operated here in the kingdom. Throughout the years, there's been various iterations of that constitution, a constitution very much similar to that that is present in Britain. The first iteration that I wanted to talk about is the 1864 Constitution. It was created by Kamehameha V, Lat Kapuaiva, who was Kamehameha I's grandson. At the time, the power of the sovereign was sort of retracting, and Kamehameha V wanted to restore monarchical control. So, in 1864, he called for a constitutional convention when he ascended the throne, and wasn't satisfied with what the delegates of that convention did. So, what he did was unilaterally said, I'm going to create my own constitution. He created the constitution of 1864, which restored control to the monarchy and enfranchised a lot of the Hawaiian people. Fast forward several decades later, in 1887, you have another shift in the constitution, and that constitution is often called the Benet Constitution. At the time, Kalakaua is now the sovereign in the islands, and based upon a meeting he had with an individual, I'll talk about a little bit more, Sanford Dole. He is convinced, some say by violence, that he needs to enact this new constitution. So, he creates this constitution of 1887, and what that constitution does is it essentially pulls power away from the monarch. The monarch essentially becomes a figurehead in the kingdom government, and instead puts power into the legislature, the people, and power into the cabinet of the sovereign. The cabinet of whom is selected by the legislature, and no longer selected by the monarch. So, that's sort of leading up. In 1891, Kalakaua dies, and his body is shipped back to Hawaii to Honolulu Harbor. They see the black sails, they know something's wrong, they find out he's passed. Almost immediately, his heir, his sister, Liliuokalani, is whisked away and asked to take an oath to the 1887 constitution. And at the behest of her husband, who was then the governor of Oahu, John Dominus, he, she takes an oath on the 1887 constitution. And she did not like the 1887 constitution for the same reasons that her brother did, but she didn't feel sort of handcuffed like her brother did. So, she was ready to propose a new constitution. She did a circuit tour, so if there's the first image we can pull up, she went around and traveled the country, the kingdom. And she met with the people, and she asked the people, what do you guys want in Union Monarch? And overwhelmingly, the sentiment was, we need a new constitution. We need to restore control to the monarchy. So, this led all the way up to January 14th, 1893, which starts sort of this four-day saga in the overthrow. What happens on that day is it's the last day of the legislative session. Lili Uokalani leaves her home at Iolani Palace by horse-tron carriage. If we pull up the next image, we can see that she's carried over Kahili Bearers, Royal Guard, the Royal Hawaiian Band is playing. And she goes into the legislative hall, which is Iolani Halle, which is the current home of the Hawaii Supreme Court. And she prorogues the legislature, essentially saying, I close the legislature. Officially, we're going to close the legislature, which was sort of a normal occurrence at the end of, sort of like, sign a die for our legislators now. After that, she went back home across the street to Iolani Palace. And she had a plan. And her plan was to announce that she was going to promulgate amendments to the Constitution, the 1887 Bayonet Constitution. And those amendments essentially would restore monarchical power. It would take away the ability of the cabinet members to sort of veto what she was doing. And she went and approached the cabinet and said, are you folks going to countersign? Can someone please countersign this to make it an official act of the government? So she was telling them what she's up to. She told them, you know, here's the new constitution. I've heard my people. And the legislature, before that, tried to have a constitutional convention. It was voted down because you needed two-thirds, and they didn't have that yet in the legislature. So she was taking the tact of Kamehameha V and saying, I'm going to promulgate a new constitution. I do want my cabinet members to countersign. Little did she know that her cabinet members had that morning talked with some of the business interests in Hawaii at the time, who were very powerful and influential. And they had a lot of reservations, what it likely, about this move in promulgating a new constitution, specifically because they would restore power to the queen, but it would also affect their business interests. So she then, because the cabinet was not supportive, she went out to this crowd that had gathered and said, you know what folks, this is not the time. We will have a more appropriate time and we'll do it the right way and get the legislature involved to amend this constitution. But she knew the wind was not blowing in her direction at this point, from her cabinet, at least. Correct, correct. So what she ended up doing was retreating back and that night, that action of proposing a new constitution provided what's often called the committee of safety. They called themselves the committee of safety, who were pro-annexation to the United States and individuals, a lot of whom were descendants of missionaries that initially came to Hawaii. They met that night and they used this as a way to say, our plan is now to end the monarchy. So if you go to the next image, here is a closer view of Eolani Halle with the queen before she made her way back to Eolani Palace. The next image provides a visual of the gentleman of the committee of safety. They composed individuals who were citizens, subjects of the kingdom. You had Americans, you had British citizens, all Mel. And they were led by an individual named Harry Cooper, but sort of driving all of this was a man named Lauren Thurston. So if we go to the next slide, these three individuals that I have photos of here are sort of the main individuals in charge of the overthrow. So on the left is an individual named Lauren Thurston. Lauren Thurston was the leader of the group. He was born in Hawaii. He was a subject of the kingdom, missionary family, educated in law at Columbia. He was a legislator in the kingdom government. And after the 1887 Constitution, which he was heavily involved in drafting, he became the interior minister to Kalakaua. So he had significant power in the kingdom government. On the far right is a gentleman named William Owen Smith, W.O. Smith. He was born on Kauai to, again, a missionary family. He was also a member of the kingdom legislature and a partner in a law firm that he started with, Lauren Thurston. So they were closely related. And it's W.O. Smith's papers that were recently digitized and put out there to the public in 2017 that provides the basis for a lot of what I'm talking about today. So they were sort of never seen before and they shed new light on the overthrow. The last gentleman in the middle is Sanford B. Dole. And while he officially was not a member of the Committee of Safety, he was a fervent supporter of their work. And the reason he wasn't a member was because he was actually an associate justice of the kingdom Supreme Court at the time. He too was born on Kauai and was a legislature legislator in the kingdom government and very pro annexation and wanted to ensure that Hawaii could be used as a strategic point for the United States. So despite the fact they were all born in Hawaii, they were pretty much all in favor of having a relationship, a strong one with the United States. For sure. And the idea was they also wanted to reign in on the monarchies power and to put Liliu in her place, so to speak. And then have her sort of not challenge what the 1887 Constitution did. So this leads up to January 15th, the next day, where Lauren Thurston calls some of the cabinet members and says, hey, we have this plan. We've concocted this plan the night before. This Committee of Safety met with Dole. They also met with the US Minister, John L. Stevens. Figured out this plan to, in essence, overthrow the monarchy. And they said, what we want you to do, cabinet members, we want you to request from Minister Stevens that he land troops. They said, think about it, and they never did. Next day, January 16th. So if we go to the next image. The Queen issues a proclamation, sensing that there's tension within the community and rumors swirling of this overthrow. She issues this proclamation that she signs, her Minister signed, that essentially tries to, it tries to placate the community. To say, hey, the Queen has made a decision. She was going to adopt a constitution. She's no longer gonna pursue that avenue. If we go to the next slide, this is the paper that was found. The same proclamation was found in W. O. Smith's papers that says, quote, too late. Yeah, who wrote that? So we don't know who wrote it. But it was in W. O. Smith's archives. So what happened is that on January 16th at 11 o'clock in the morning, the Queen issues this proclamation two o'clock p.m., there are two competing mass meetings that are going on. So on one end in Palace Square, which is right across Elani Palace, supporters of the Queen have rallied, and there are some estimates of around 3,000 people have rallied together to issue their own proclamation, their own declaration saying, we accept the Queen's statement that she is not going to propose new amendments. On the other end of town in the kingdom's armory, Thurston is rallying a group of people to make their pitch on why Liliu is not an effective leader. Not that they're gonna overthrow the kingdom, but why she wasn't an effective leader. The Committee of Safety, right after that, sends a letter to John L. Stevens, January 16th. They send a letter to John L. Stevens saying, we need your help. And they say this, quote, the public safety is menaced and lives and property are in peril. They requested military assistance in Honolulu. Wonder who came up with that language. So I don't know, but they've all sort of concocted this plan together on the night of the 14th. So it was all pretty calculated. Pretty clear that it was all a calculated, strategic maneuver by this Committee of Safety. Important and key to this entire process was the United States and their involvement. Key to that was their emissary, US Minister John L. Stevens, who we have an image of here. Stevens was born in Maine, and he was a minister, a US minister emissary to a bunch of different countries before arriving in Hawaii. He was a former businessman, owned a newspaper. His partner was James Blaine, who became the Secretary of State at the time that the overthrow happened. So they were great friends. They both had pro annexation as views about Hawaii and its strategic location militarily for America's expansion across the Pacific. If you look back at that image again, we can see that there's also a boat. And that boat, the USS Boston, was out in the harbor. And you can see there's guns on it. There were military personnel on it ready to assist in John L. Stevens' plan. Okay, we are gonna take a break right now, and then we're gonna come back and find out what happened the next day. All right. Sounds great. Thank you. Thanks. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Dave Stevens, the host of Cyber Underground. Every Friday here at 1 p.m. on ThinkTechHawaii.com. And then every episode is uploaded to the Cyber Underground. That library of shows that you can see of mine on YouTube.com. And I hope you'll join us here every Friday. We have some topical discussions about why security matters and what could scare the absolute bejesus out of you. If you just try to watch my show all the way through. Hope to see you next time on Cyber Underground. Stay safe. Aloha, I'm Wendy Lowe, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock, live from ThinkTechHawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're gonna be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Welcome back. I'm Mark Schlaufe with Troy Andrade. We are talking about events in January, 1893. And we're going day by day as talking about the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. Now Troy, we're at a point now where the US minister is involved, Stevens. Yes. What happens? So what happens, and this is January 16th in the afternoon at about four o'clock p.m. The Committee of Safety meets at W.O. Smith's law office and they start figuring out, okay, this is gonna happen. What are we gonna do? And they come to the conclusion that they're not yet ready for the military to land. They send a note off to John L. Stevens. John L. Stevens replies, at five o'clock we're landing, ready or not, here we come. So they land, and if you look at the picture here, in sort of the background, there's a L'Iolani Halle with the opera house, but you see the troops that were landed. There were 162 sailors and Marines. They each had 60 to 80 rounds of ammunition. They had a gatling gun with 14,000 rounds. They had a revolving cannon with 174 shells. What they did was they marched from the harbor up Fort Street, down Merchant Street, all the way, and these are the same streets that are here today, down King Street, passed through the palace, passed by the palace while the queen was on the balcony. They saluted the queen and set up shop right in front of between the palace and a L'Iolani Halle. So pretty obvious something's going on. Pretty obvious, right? And then traditionally, the American troops were allowed to land, but you had to get permission from the government and they clearly did not have that permission from the queen or her government. And they were armed pretty heavily. They were armed pretty heavily. And then what happened was the cabinet sent messages to Stevens and said, Stevens, what are you doing? Is your purpose to annex Hawaii, the kingdom to the United States? And his reply initially was, no, next day. January 17th, 1893. Again, in the morning, still sensing this tension, the cabinet sends an individual to Stevens' residence to ask Stevens what his position was. And at this time, he's no longer saying, no, we're not there to overthrow. He provides no answer. And he's very sort of elusive in what it is that the landing of the troops was going to accomplish. Nevertheless, if we pull up the next document, what we have is a letter from the United States legation, which is John L. Stevens to Sanford v. Dole. And the letter says, quote, I would advise not to make known of my recognition of the de facto provisional government until said government is in possession of the police station. So this is January 17th. This is recognition that the United States minister, John L. Stevens, and thereby the United States, had authorized this invasion of the kingdom of Hawaii. And this is a document that was only available in 2017. But it sort of casts a new story. I mean, I think people have recognized that Stevens was involved. There were sort of anecdotes, but this is his own writing to Sanford v. Dole. And it shows a pretty deep involvement. Definitely. And knowledge of what's going on. Definitely. So what happens that afternoon is, despite Stevens' letter that says, hold off, wait until you get the police station before saying that I recognize you, at about 220. And the times are really specific, because this is well-documented in W. O. Smith's paper. At 220, Dole and his crew proceed from W. O. Smith's law office to elite Iolani Halle to proclaim the government. Having not taken control of any buildings yet, they were going to make their move. So they proceed, and interestingly, they proceed in different groups. They don't want to be seen together as one in fear of retaliation by the queen. And there were talks about quelching the usurpers. But ultimately, the queen was convinced not to use violence to stop these gentlemen who were, in essence, the subjects were committing treason against the kingdom. So they split up. They ended up on the back steps of elite Iolani Halle, so the backside of the building. And they stand there and they read this proclamation. So if we look at the next slide, they read this proclamation that essentially says, we are the new provisional government. We are abrogating the monarchy. Everything's going to stay the same, except you no longer have a queen. You no longer have a cabinet. And instead, you have an executive council of four members, which Sanford B. Dole was now the head of the president of this council. So they did this with very little fanfare. Barely anybody was there, but they proclaimed themselves the government. They marched into the building, and they took control of the building. Well, but they had the troops. They did have the American troops. They did have. Looks like supporting them. For sure, for sure. So you get back and forth, shuttle diplomacy, between the queen, who's at Iolani Palace and right across the street with the provisional government, who is now stationed in Iolani Halle. And they go back and forth. And the person, interesting fact, the person that's doing that shuttle diplomacy is John Richardson, who is the queen's legal representative. But he is also the grandfather of Chief Justice William Richardson, who's the founder of our law school. So that night, after the shuttle diplomacy sort of fails at 530, the queen issues her letter. And the letter, in essence, says, I'm yielding to the superior forces of the United States, not the provisional government. It's the United States for the United States to hear my plea, hear my case, and restore my power. A letter that I don't think that had been transcribed before, but the actual letter was contained in the W. O. Smith papers, which didn't come to light until 2017. So she issues this proclamation. And after that, she then says, OK, turn over the police station. Turn over the barracks. Do we have a photo of that? Of her letter? We do, yeah. So here's a photo of the letter with an image of the queen in the background. Wow. So officially ending the monarchy from the queen's perspective, right? I mean, she's not officially ending it, but she's, in essence, turning it over to the United States. She realizes the strength of arms is great, I suppose. Right. So in reality, she could have taken out. She had the power. She had 600 men ready to go with two gatling guns with her own cannons that arguably could have taken out the American ships. But that would have provided impetus for the United States to actually have legitimate reasons to come in and invade. So she was thinking ahead a little bit, too. So she was. And this was all sort of premised on the precedent that was established from 1843, I believe, when the British came in and took over the kingdom for a few months, and the kingdom was ultimately restored. So she was sort of using that as a precedent to say, OK, this is what happened with commandment of the Third. Let's move on. OK. So what happened next? So the next day, January 18, which is the day after the overthrow, if you pull up this image, what we have is a picture of the passport papers. In these passport papers, and you can go to the next slide as well, Sanford B. Dole, who serves as the de facto president of the provisional government, authorizes Lauren Thurston and two other individuals to travel to the United States to convince the president of the United States to annex Hawaii. Interesting, Sanford B. Dole doesn't grant Liliu and her emissaries permission to go until January 31. So there's sort of a delay. Thurston and crew get to the capital. They convince Benjamin Harrison to sign a treaty of annexation with the United States. He signs it, and he sends it to the United States Senate for ratification. To ratify, as you know, you need two thirds of the Senate. At that time, the Senate wasn't ready to hear the treaty, and it died when the session was over. You had a new president come in, Grover Cleveland. This was now his second term. Grover Cleveland came in. Within a week of his assuming office, he withdrew the treaty of annexation and was very favorable to the queen and her plight. So what he did, Grover Cleveland did. And if we go to the next slide, we'll see. He authorized an individual name, James Blanc, to go out to Hawaii, come out to Hawaii, and investigate what actually happened. Blanc took testimony from a lot of different people and affidavits, and he compiled a large report for the president. He said communications frequently, essentially saying that America was wrongfully involved in this overthrow. Cleveland would go on to call the overthrow an act of war committed against the United, committed against the kingdom of Hawaii. That's pretty strong. It was. But the caveat was that he said, and what I as the president want to leave it to Congress to decide what to do. Interesting. Interesting, right? And Congress takes him up on that. Congress has their own investigation. So the United States Senate performs its own investigation. They have hearings only in Washington, DC. So you can imagine the stories that are being told in Washington, DC. Fervent annexationists' mentality is going on across the country at the time. And the United States Senate issues a report. So the next slide shows images of James Blanc on the top and on the bottom is John Tyler Morgan, who issued the Morgan Report. The United States Senate's report that essentially said United States is absolved of any liability. And they were not involved in the overthrow. And it was an internal matter. But ultimately, they say, we're not ready for talks of annexation yet. New president comes in, William McKinley. William McKinley comes in and says, I want to annex Hawaii. He submits a treaty of annexation. The native Hawaiian people rally up. So if you go to the next image, through Hawaiian language newspapers, they get out the word about this thing happening. If you go to the next image, you have petitions that are signed by native Hawaiians across the kingdom by groups called the hui aloha aina, both the men and women's group, hui kalai aina. And what they do is they compile this large list of individuals of native Hawaiian ancestry who are opposed to annexation. And they are successful in defeating the treaty of annexation. OK, so we know that ultimately, things went differently. Ultimately, things went differently. In the minute we have left, is there anything we can learn from all of this? Is there anything applicable to today? So a lot of the issues that face the native Hawaiian community stems from a lot of the injustices that have happened to the people, this being probably one of the foremost injustices that had happened to the Hawaiian community in their loss of sovereignty, in their loss of determining for themselves what they want to do politically. And we see reverberations of that in a lot of the contemporary legal debates that are going on now with Hawaiian issues. I think it's a story about civic engagement. I mean, despite not ultimately succeeding in the end, the native Hawaiian people were very, very much involved in staying abreast of what was going on, not only here in Hawaii, but in Washington DC. The newspapers were publishing hundreds and hundreds of pages of materials regarding the constitutional debates that were going on, the constitutional analyses of whether this could actually happen to the kingdom of Hawaii. So I think that lesson of civic engagement is a lesson that carries forward to today. Troy, I appreciate you coming in and talking to us. Actually, I got more questions for you. And all of this is interesting, and it gives us a lot to think about on how we should act going forward in our own culture, in our own society, within our own government. Troy, thank you very much. Aloha, nice to have you on. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, everybody. Aloha, see you next time.