American Imperialism - Hawaii

Hawaii Hawaii had always been an attraction for us Americans in the early decades of 1900 because the islands serve as a way station and provisioning point for Yankee shippers, sailors, and whalers. However, America had caught its eye on Hawaii even before current times. In 1820, almost a century ago from present-day 1916, the first New England missionaries arrived there and preached Protestant Christianity, and spread it along to their children, whose intentions at this point were to do good and spread their faith. This created resemblance between Hawaii and early New England settlements. Eventually, the islands were regarded as an extension of the American coastline, where State Department became overprotective and enforced our territory in the 1840s and warned other imperial powers to stay away. Later, in 1875, the ties to Hawaii were even more strengthened with a commercial reciprocity agreement, which equalized trade between the US and the islands. Furthermore, a treaty in 1887 granted the US to a naval-base in Pearl Harbor. Despite the growing connection to Hawaii, economic and political trouble was arising. Cultivating sugar crops, which was very profitable at the time, diminished their value after the McKinley Tariff in 1890, which created restrictions on the product. To resolve this, white Americans thought the best solution would be to annex Hawaii to the US once and for all. But this was challenged by their ruler, Queen Liliuokalani, who claimed that only native Hawaiians should be allowed to administer control over the islands. Although the whites were only a minority among the natives, they managed to revolt against the Queen in 1893, assisted by American troops. Now, they had even more reason for annexation and quickly sent a proclamation to Washington during Harrison’s presidency. However, by the time Senate was able to approve it, Republican Harrison’s term ended and Grover Cleveland became the new president, who felt that the Americans had mistreated the Queen. Cleveland got rid of the treaty from Senate in 1893 and sent an investigator to Hawaii, who revealed that the majority of Hawaiian natives did not favor annexation, even though most white Americans did. The Americans would not have held back unless Cleveland used armed force against them, which would have been an intolerable move. Annexation was delayed until 1898 due to Cleveland’s honorable efforts. He was faced with criticism which said that he did not uphold Manifest Destiny and the debate over annexation ran for the next few years.