Qualla: Republic of Hawaii

Republic of Hawaii: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. On August 12, 1898, the Hawaiian flag was lowered over Iolani Palace for the last time. The Stars and Stripes rose in its place, and the Republic of Hawaii -- a government that had existed for exactly four years, one month, and eight days -- ceased to be. It had never been intended to last. The republic was a holding pattern, a political structure built by men who had overthrown a queen and needed something to govern with while they waited for the United States to say yes.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Republic of Hawaii: The Bayonet and the Coup

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Davey [1][2], Public domain. The roots of the republic lay in a document forced on King Kalakaua in 1887. The so-called Bayonet Constitution, imposed by the Reform Party under threat of violence, stripped the monarch of most governing authority and concentrated power in the hands of a legislature dominated b...

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Image: Frank Davey [1][2] | Public domain

Republic of Hawaii: A Republic That Was Never Meant to Be

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The coup's leaders -- Sanford B. Dole, a former justice of the Kingdom's Supreme Court, and Lorrin A. Thurston, a former interior minister under Kalakaua -- wanted annexation by the United States, not independence. But President Cleveland, a Democrat who opposed imperialism, refu...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Republic of Hawaii: The Queen's Last Stand

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit credited to Bernice P. Bishop Museum, R. J. Baker Collection, Public domain. Not everyone accepted the new order. In January 1895, Robert William Wilcox -- a Hawaiian revolutionary who had previously led an uprising against the monarchy itself -- organized an armed counter-revolution to restore Liliuokalani. Royalist supporters smuggled weapons from San F...

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Image: credited to Bernice P. Bishop Museum, R. J. Baker Collection | Public domain

Republic of Hawaii: Annexation and Erasure

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. With the opposition broken, the path to annexation opened. The 1897 election -- the republic's last -- saw less than one percent of the population vote. Royalists boycotted; the American Union Party won every seat. When Republican William McKinley took the presidency, the politic...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Republic of Hawaii: What the Petitions Said

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Republic of Hawaii, Public domain. The annexation was not unopposed by the people it affected most. Native Hawaiians submitted two petitions carrying over 20,000 signatures -- representing more than half the indigenous population -- protesting the transfer of sovereignty. Liliuokalani herself traveled to Washingto...

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Image: Republic of Hawaii | Public domain