Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Siler

Author:Julia Flynn Siler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2011-11-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Crime of the Century, 1893

The House of Kalākaua rose amid violence and conflict. But its fall, on Tuesday, January 17, 1893, was surprisingly swift and almost bloodless. Lili‘u had remained indoors all afternoon. Soon after the proclamation one of her former ministers crossed the street from the government building to the palace carrying the bad news: Ali‘iōlani Hale occupied and a new government with Sanford Dole as its president which had won recognition from the American minister. He told the queen it was his painful duty to inform her that she must abdicate. Lili‘u replied hotly she had no intention of doing so.

Her options were narrowing. All four of her cabinet ministers made their way to the palace. Although Marshal Wilson had asked the cabinet for permission to surround the insurrectionists at the government building and “shoot them down, as they were only a handful,” the ministers refused. Wilson, in turn, refused to surrender the station house until he was ordered to do so by the queen. Wilson certainly had a sizable enough force to regain control of the government building: 272 guards of the household, 500 or so royalist volunteers, and 30,000 rounds of ammunition, compared with the 164 American troops and officers armed with just over 13,000 rounds of ammunition and the provisional government’s own troops, numbering fewer than 50 men. The ministers, it seems, were reluctant to get into a fight with the United States and may have had an exaggerated idea of the force at the Committee of Safety’s command.

When the ministers met with Lili‘u in the Blue Room, they advised her to surrender to avoid bloodshed. Perhaps thinking back to the Paulet episode of 1843, resolved by the British government restoring the Hawaiian king to power after five months of British rule, Lili‘u agreed. She was counting on Washington to rule in her favor. Agreeing to yield, she issued a carefully worded protest, delivered to Dole at dusk.

I, Liliuokalani, by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this Kingdom.

That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellence John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said provisional government.

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

Dole signed the back of this protest, indicating he’d received it. He may have been so stunned by her surrender that

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