U.S. Taking of Hawaii
The overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani started when she proposed the 1893 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii. This constitution would give the Monarchy more power, and would also make it so European and American residents could not vote. She proposed the constitution to her ministers, but none of them signed it. Some of the ministers thought that the Queen would create mob violence if they didn't sign the constitution, so they told the political rivals of the queen her plans. This would begin the overthrow of the queen. The exact opposite of what the ministers thought would happen happened. The Queen told the crowd outside to peacefully go home and that the constitution would have to wait, after she gave up.
The conspirators called themselves the Committee of Safety and had three goals; remove the queen, overthrow the monarchy, and join the United States. On January 16, Charles B. Wilson found out about the conspirator’s plans and tried to arrest them, but the Queen’s cabinet thought that if they arrested them the situation would escalate. These events made Charles B. Wilson come up with 496 men to help protect the Queen. The next day a policeman was shot and wounded when he tried to stop a wagon carrying weapons for the Honolulu Rifles, which was the military for the Committee of Safety, this event started the overthrow.
The Honolulu Rifles went to the palace, and waited to see what the queen would do. The Committee of Safety were scared that the American residents wouldn't be safe, so they asked the U.S. government to send their military to Hawaii to make sure that the U.S. citizens would be safe. The queen didn't want anyone to get killed so she surrendered. A provisional Government was put in place until July 7, 1898 when Hawaii Annexed to the United States.
I think this is very interesting especially since I always thought that the U.S. military took over Hawaii, instead the American, European, and native citizens of Hawaii making a conspiracy against the queen.
Sources-
"Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 07 Oct. 2013.
"1893 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 07 Oct. 2013.
Comments
Well done but I wish you would have talked a bit about the importance of the American sugarcane owners in Hawaii.