Reeling Back

In the sensuous shadows of Tiki bars worldwide, royalists are raising their Blue Hawaiians in remembrance of Queen Lili’uokalani, deposed on this day (January 17) in 1893. A vocal opponent of the 1887 “Bayonet Constitution” imposed on her kingdom by its mostly American business and land-owning elite, she attempted to reclaim the crown’s powers. The result was a regime change led by lawyer and pineapple plantation heir Sanford Ballard Dole, a coup that was tacitly supported by the U.S. minister to Hawaii and the 300 Marines standing by on the USS Boston, a cruiser conveniently anchored at the newly established Pearl Harbor naval base. He served as president of the new Republic of Hawaii until 1900, when the U.S. annexed it as a Territory and appointed Dole its governor. A century after allowing the planter’s power grab, Congress passed the “Apology Resolution.” Signed into law by President Bill Clinton, it acknowledged what historians already knew: Hawaii had been stolen from its native people. A statement rather than a policy, the bill offered nothing by way of restitution and, not unexpectedly, gave new impetus to a Hawaiian sovereignty movement that simmers to this day. For the most part, though, popular interest in the islands peaked just after 1959, when Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state. Elvis made three movies there (in 1961, 1962 and 1966), and George Roy Hill went on location to film his 1966 adaptation of James A. Michener’s best-selling novel, the historical epic Hawaii.