US Expansion
Acquisition of Empire
The Need For Bird $ħ!τ!
In the State of the Union Address of 1850
President Millard Fillmore addressed the need
for guano.
Bird droppings are rich in chemicals for
fertilizer, used by farmers to increase crop
yields.
The United States failed to acquire a treaty with Peru for
buying guano, but the Guano Act of 1856 by the U.S.
Congress authorized annexation of any small island in the
Pacific that was not claimed by another government
Guano Act Acquisitions
Baker Island
1857
Howland
Island 1857
Jarvis Island
1857
Johnston Atoll
1858
Midway
Islands
1867
Early Japanese Contact
In 1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry was dispatched by President
Fillmore to Japan. Supporters of the mission wanted to see Japan
opened to trade but this mission was to serve a wider purpose – an
extension of US naval power into and across the Pacific.
To project naval power the US Navy needed coaling stations and
Perry investigated potential stations on the islands of Okinawa and
Chichi Jima, part of the Bonin Islands.
The Department of the Navy along with the US Congress opposed
“imperialist” acquisitions and Japan seized control of both islands
in the 1860s.
US Interventions – 1858 to 1868
Fiji
1858
Shanghai
1859
Newchwang
1866
Japan
1868
Somoa
1878
The US and Hawaii
The U.S. economy was benefiting from a decline in
transport costs, an expansion of trade and a rising
standard of living.
By the 1870s Hawaii's sugar exports were more than
thirteen times what they had been in 1860, with
steamships providing faster transport between
Honolulu and San Francisco.
The Hawaiians were Christianized, and missionary
families were well established and still citizens of
the United States, with foreigners having the right
to own land, to vote and to serve in government.
The US and Hawaii
In 1875 the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii signed a
"treaty of reciprocity" - free trade.
Southern congressmen complained about injury to the rice and
sugar producers in their districts: cheap Asian rice could be
imported by way of the Hawaiian Island duty-free.
Also, by 1880, Hawaiians were unhappy, not about US imports
but about the accumulation by missionaries and other
foreigners of both power and influence.
Native Hawaiians became increasingly hostile to “arrogant and
uncharitable opportunists” as they described white business
owners.
Hawaiians called for a purely native legislature and complained
that foreigners held most of the land.
"Hawaii for Hawaiians" had became a slogan.
The US and Hawaii
Claus Spreckles
Spreckles, a German-born financier from California, all but
monopolized the sugarcane procurement.
King Kalakaua granted Spreckles political favors because
the two played poker together and Spreckles arraigned
personal loans for the king.
Rumor had it that Spreckles was the power behind the
throne when in 1886, he returned to California.
Kalakaua
The US and Hawaii
Well-established U.S. citizens felt they had been in Hawaii long enough to be
considered Hawaiian.
They:
 Felt they deserved the influence they could exercise
 were disturbed by what they thought was hostility from non-whites
 were concerned about bad government by King Kalakaua.
Common among whites during these times was the belief that non-whites were
incapable of good government.
Whatever the beliefs of influential whites in Hawaii, among them were at least a few
who believed that the king had too much power.
A few formed a secret society called the Hawaiian League, led by Lorrin Thurston.
Thurston wanted a new constitution that gave more power to the legislature and
voting restrictions that protected men like himself from the opinions of hostile nonwhites.
The US and Hawaii
The conspirators confronted King Kalakaua and took power
the old fashioned way, with weapons.
Without an adequate guard or military counterforce, King
Kalakaua responded by signing the “Bayonet Constitution”
which Thurston and his fellow conspirators had devised.
The king, according to his sister Liliuokalani, signed the
constitution "under absolute compulsion."
The US and Hawaii
When King Kalakaua died of kidney disease in 1891 Liliuokalani took the
oath as reigning monarch, swearing to uphold the new constitution that she
despised.
With the support of Hawaii's citizens she drafted a constitution to replace the
Bayonet Constitution and in January 1893, the former conspirators, now in
power, defended their power by resorting to yet another coup.
They formed a Committee of Safety and enlisted a militia that took over
government buildings and offices.
U.S. President Benjamin Harrison encouraged the move favored annexation.
The coup was supported by the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Boston
which landed marines and sailors to keep order in Honolulu.
The Queen's guards surrendered their arms at the palace barracks and Queen
Liliuokalani was retired to her private residence.
Wanting no bloodshed she urged people not to riot
A new Democratic administration would be coming into power the following
March and she believed that the decency of the American people would set
things aright: she planned to write an appeal to President Cleveland.
The US and Hawaii
Unfortunately for the Hawaiians, on February 1, the Harrison
administration recognized the government of the “Hawaiian League”
and Hawaii was proclaimed a U.S. protectorate.
A treaty of annexation was sent to the Senate, but after learning that
most Hawaiians opposed annexation, Democrats opposed it and the
treaty of annexation failed to pass.
Grover Cleveland spoke of the dishonorable conduct toward
Hawaiians and in March after his inauguration he sent a new U.S.
minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to power.
Liliuokalani also had the support of the sugar magnate, Claus
Spreckles, but his power was not what it had been rumored to be.
The government in Honolulu refused to step down, and there was not
the will by the new administration, or the U.S. public, to use force
against their fellow citizens in Hawaii.
The US and Hawaii
On 04 March 1897 Republicans returned to the
presidency, and in June 1898, during the Spanish
American War, annexation of the Hawaiian Islands
was once again debated in Congress.
“We must have Hawaii to help us get our share of
China.”
In July, President William McKinley signed the
annexation of the Hawaiian Islands into law and by
1900 the islands were made a territory, with the
leader of the coup against Liliuokalani, Sanford B.
Dole, the territory's first governor.
From Kingdom to Territory
12 August 1898