YOU ASKED
Sugar planters led monarchy overthrow
By Associated Press
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 30, 2009
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QUESTION: A recent AP article about Hawaii’s 50th anniversary as a state said the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893 by a group of white businessmen. What kind of business were these men in?
HAWAII STATE ARCHIVE
A reader from New Mexico asked about the businessmen who toppled Hawaii’s last reigning monarch, Queen Liliuokalani.
Rebecca Moeller
Socorro, N.M.
ANSWER: The overthrow was organized by a group called the Committee of Safety, whose 13 members were businessmen seeking annexation of Hawaii by the United States. The members included sugar planters, Pacific shippers, a newspaper editor, lumber salesmen and a grocer.
The businessmen wanted Hawaii to become a U.S. territory so they could make more money selling their goods — mainly sugar — to the United States.
An 1890 law called the McKinley Act had imposed steep tariffs on imports to the United States to protect American manufacturers. If Hawaii joined the U.S., businesses there could regain some of the profits they had previously enjoyed under an 1875 treaty allowing goods such as sugar and rice to be imported into the U.S. tax-free.
Mark Niesse
Associated Press writer, Honolulu
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