The Bayonet Constitution and The Overthrow to The Annexation

This paper is about the bayonet constitution and the overthrow to the annexation. These events have had a huge effect on the hawaiian people. From population of pure blooded hawaiians dropping drastically. To hawaiian getting kicked out of their homes and getting deadly disease and passing away. On July 6 1887 the King David Kalakaua signed a constitution for the Kingdom of Hawaii. Kalakaua was forced to sign the law at gunpoint or he would be killed, and the document is named the Bayonet Constitution.

The new constitution was written by a group of white businessmen and lawyers called the committee of safety. Who wanted the kingdom to be part of the United States another name for the group was the Hawaiian League. Was supported by an armed military called the Honolulu Rifles many members of the Hawaiian League. Were affiliated with Hawaii’s giant profitable sugar and pineapple plantations in the islands. The constitution reduced the power of the Hawaiian monarchy making most legal authority in the hands of the legislature. The constitution also changed voting rights in the Hawaiian kingdom. Only men of Hawaiian, American and European ancestry who met certain financial requirements could vote for the kingdom. Then King Kalakaua was the last reigning Hawaiian monarch the last to person to independent political power. The monarchy was completely overthrown in 1893 and the U.S. annexed the kingdom in 1898 and then Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state in 1959.On Jan. 17, 1893 Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to resign. The group led to the dimantilying of the Kingdom of Hawaii two years later. Its annexation as a U.S. territory and eventual admission as the 50th state in the union.

The King Kalakaua died in 1891 and was succeeded by his sister Liliuokalani who proposed a new constitution that would restore powers of the monarchy and extend voting rights for native Hawaiians. The queen’s actions made many of Hawaii’s white businessmen made so they formed a Committee of Safety with the goal of overthrowing the monarchy seeking annexation by the United States. In 1877 she was named Crown Princess Lili?u ascended to the throne in 1891. Because of the death of her brother King David Kalakaua. But Her ruling was short by the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government in 1893.

By a lot of US military troops and the Honolulu rifles. She wanted a peaceful resistance because she believed in God and trusting that the political process would return the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Ku’e Petitions also known as the Anti-Annexation Petitions is a collection of over 50% of Hawaiian men and women signatures who were against the Annexation of Hawaii to the United States of America. The signatures were collected island by island by the Hui Aloha Aina made up of women and men and the Hui Kalaiaina. These two groups went island by island holding huge town meetings about annexation and obtaining signatures from those who opposed annexation. When the Hawaiian island was annexed by the United States in 1898 the event that maker the end of a long internal struggle between Hawaiians and American businessmen to take control of the Hawaiian government.

In 1893 the last monarch of Hawaii Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown by party of businessmen called the committee of safety who then imposed a provisional government. Later President Benjamin Harrison submitted a treaty to annex the Hawaiian islands to the U.S. Senate for a contract. In 1897 the treaty effort was blocked when the newly-formed Hawaiian Patriotic League composed of native Hawaiians successfully petitioned the U.S. Congress in opposition of the treaty.