Decision FIVE: Annexation of Hawaii

Since the 1820s, the U.S. has been sending Christian Missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands to convert them. “Conversion” in that era was more than just religious, it was also cultural and political. In other words, to properly convert the Island, they believed it needed to be Americanized. With the aid of some local converts, the missionaries essentially declared that their group had formed a new government, the Republic of Hawaii. The president of the new government was the son of Christian missionaries, Sanford Dole.

The problem was that Hawaii already had a government, a monarch, led by a queen, Liliuokalani. She and her followers rebelled against the new missionary government. The American government sent marines to Hawaii to support the American missionaries. The queen was captured and imprisoned. She was blackmailed into signing a document surrendering her throne.

When released from imprisonment, the queen came to Washington DC to beg the US government not to annex Hawaii as an American territory, but to restore her to the throne.