Taudenciah Oluoch
History 1302-004
Mr. Terry D. Cowan 21 October 2015
In 1875 the United States got involved in Hawaii, when King Kalakaua signed a treaty with the United States permitting access to American Markets for Hawaiian sugarcane, which was the island 's largest agricultural product. The planters ' belief that a coup and annexation by the United States would remove the threat of a devastating tariff on their sugar also spurred them to action. In 1893 planters staged an uprising to overthrow the queen. This agreement resulted in a boom in sugar production, and American planters in Hawaii soon formed an economic elite that built its fortunes on cheap immigrant labor, mainly Chinese and Japanese.
The native Hawaiian population had been reduced to a minority by smallpox and other foreign diseases, and Asians quickly became the most numerous group. As the United States started looking to conquer new lands most of
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The independent state was led by a hereditary monarchy. As Americans planned their next move they waited with anxiety on the located island. The ultimate climax arose in 1890 when congress approved the Mckinley tariff which had an impact on foreign sugar. The Mckinley tariff destroyed Hawaii’s favored position in the sugar trade by putting the sugar of all countries on the duty free list and granting growers in the continental United States a 2 cent subsidy per pound of sugar. This change led to an economic crisis in Hawaii and brought political turmoil as well. When Mckinley became president, he was looking for an excuse to annex the islands. “We need Hawaii, he claimed, just as much and a good deal more than we did