The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was not justified because a man by the name of John Stevens acted without the consent of the United States government, the Committee of Public Safety had actually been plotting against the queen, and Hawaii’s independence as a nation and its land was taken away.
The Hawaiian Kingdom emerged from the arrival of Polynesians from other Pacific islands and later the unification of the islands by Kamehameha the Great. The Kingdom of Hawaii had a monarchy government system, where the rulers were of the same family and royal blood. King Kalakaua was the last king of Hawaii and Queen Lili’uokalani was the last ruler of Hawaii. While Queen Lili’uokalani was locked away from her throne, she sat under house-arrest in the hopes the next heir to the throne, Princess Ka’iulani would make a change for the better of Hawaii’s sovereignty. Into the present, the Hawaiian Monarchy has been overthrown, annexed and in control by the United States of America.
Imperialism was a controversial idea that a nation can extend its power outward through means of diplomatic or military force. This often results in a shift of power from one major force currently in control to another. The people of that nation under control conflict may also experience wars, rebellions, or cultural destruction. Looking at some of these events, we see some positives and negatives of imperialistic action taken by the United States, and how it affected the nations imperialized by the United States. For starters, let’s look at Hawaii’s annexation.
Before 1890, America was against imperialism, which is acquiring colonies for the sole reason of building an empire. America was once a colony, so they were only interested in trade than colonization as they expanded into more territories. In 1867, Russia offered the Americas Alaska in exchange for seven million. President Andrew Johnson, at that time, wasn’t entirely convinced on taking Alaska, but Vice-President Seward convinced that the U.S. would gain not only more land, but new resources such as gold and oil. For Hawaii at first was trade then establishing business.
Both Nell Irvin Painter and Kristin L. Hoganson have two different prospective on the annexation of the Philippines. Painter’s approach of explaining the annexation was more of an economic view rather then Hoganson’s, which was a more sexiest view. An example of Painter’s view is when he said,” the culprit, it seemed, was agricultural and industrial overproduction” (Painter). He is saying the America simply produced too much, and they did not care. Business thought taking over The Philippines would help American gain access to trading with China.
Many Native Hawaiian people have lost touch with their culture. Many people around the world don’t know about the unique Hawaiian culture. People in America don’t know a lot about these unique Hawaiian arts either. Many of the old Hawaiian traditions were lost because foreigners took over the Hawaiian islands and banned many Hawaiian traditions that have been going on for decades. This loss of culture was devastating for the people and was hard to gain back after almost being completely eliminated.
United States’ Imperialism Power Over Hawaii Throughout the course of the years, the United States began investing their time into intervening in different countries to become a dominant world power in the Western Hemisphere. As the time reached of when the U.S. became more determined and serious over spreading its forces across colonies, a plentiful amount of the world had been already claimed. Only a few territories remained liberated from the imperialist movement, in which Hawaii was one of the unclaimed areas. In order to pertain Hawaii as their own intervention, the U.S. had mainly focussed onto preventing European countries of investing into the Hawaiian markets, resources, political stability, and economic interests.
In 1899, the United States annexed the Philippines after a short but bloody war with Spain. These rich, plentiful islands full of resources were in great demand. The U.S. saw the Philippines; fighting against Spain so like them when they were rebelling, and decided to step in and aid ‘the spirit of 1776’ (Doc. A). However, the question still remains: should the United States have annexed the Philippines?
The US should not have annexed the Philippines because it would be hypocritical of Americans, the
The United States has inflicted imperialism on the island Hawaii on January 17, 1893. They did this by overthrowing the government which was a monarchy and its ruler was Queen Liliuokalani. Then by overthrowing the sugar planters who overthrew the Queen, President William Mckinley was able to obtaining the territory for the U.S after the Spanish-American war. The U.S wanted to obtain Hawaii because of its monopoly on Sugar and its Sugar exports to The United States. The United States wanted to obtain the territory also to get rid of taxes on them and the business, and wealthy people were losing their ability to manipulate the government and wanted it as a naval base like pearl harbor.
Eight islands, two thousand miles off the U.S. west coast attracted attention from the Americans as a place to occupy. The U.S. owned three fourths of Hawaii’s wealth through sugar exports. Americans
In 1874, the U.S. Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, allowed for the recognition of Hawaii’s independence, letting Hawaii enter treaties with major world powers. Soon after, American influence appeared due to Americans seeking land for plantations. This put pressure onto the King and chiefs with demands to give Americans land to grow crops. Once the Pacific Hawaiian climate was found to be very suitable for growing sugar cane, newly
Annexation could lead to the result of the US involvement in the political and military issues. To avoid this kind of conflict, the only solution is to avoid imperialism if you want to take a risk and continue it could lead to these conflicts. At this time in history there is land up for grabs so the greater nation is trying to expand like Russia, Japan, Spain, and the U.S. The U.S is mostly concerned about annexing islands.
Deciding the Annexation of the Philippines Assessment: On Google Docs you need to write a three paragraph essay arguing whether or not the United States should or should not annex the Philippines. You need to use 2 pieces of evidence from the documents per paragraph. Americans might have thought that all war and chaos would have ended and stayed in the year of 1898, when we (America) won over the Spanish, in the Spanish-American war. Although, we were partially right with allowing us to have some sort of peace, we did not figure that we may have to have annex a whole different country, taking away from our “peace”.
Japan and China, the relationship between the two big countries are located in Asia is heating up since the dispute between the two countries in the fight over a small island located in the East China Sea named Senkaku island. The dispute occurred because these two countries at the same time claim that the Senkaku Island belongs to them. Senkaku islands are islands covering an area of 7 km2 located on the 175km of the northern island of Ishigaki (Okinawa prefecture), 190 km northeast of Taiwan and 420 km from the east of mainland China. Disputes between China and Japan in the seizure of this island has occurred since the end of World War II until today. Disputes occurred because the two countries have a different perspective in terms of the ownership of the Senkaku islands.
