{"id":64312,"date":"2026-10-22T11:24:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T09:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/?p=64312"},"modified":"2026-10-22T11:24:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T09:24:49","slug":"the-stolen-kingdom-of-hawai%ca%bbi-the-illegal-overthrow-american-annexation-and-the-question-of-independence-under-a-restored-monarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/the-stolen-kingdom-of-hawai%ca%bbi-the-illegal-overthrow-american-annexation-and-the-question-of-independence-under-a-restored-monarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stolen Kingdom of Hawai\u02bbi: The Illegal Overthrow, American Annexation, and the Question of Independence Under a Restored Monarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a question at the heart of modern Hawai\u02bbi that refuses to disappear.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What might Hawai\u02bbi be today had its sovereign Kingdom never been overthrown?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is tempting to regard this as a romantic question about kings, queens, palaces and a vanished Polynesian world. It is nothing of the sort. It concerns sovereignty, land, culture, military power, economic self-determination and, ultimately, the right of a people to determine their own political future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Hawai\u02bbi was not simply an indigenous society absorbed gradually into the United States. It had been an internationally recognised sovereign kingdom, with its own monarch, constitution, legislature, judiciary, diplomatic service and relations with foreign powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And its monarchy did not disappear peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani was overthrown in January 1893 following the intervention of a group seeking annexation to the United States, with American diplomatic and military involvement. A provisional government replaced the monarchy. Five years later, Hawai\u02bbi was annexed by the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian’s monarchy on Jan. 17, 1893, by a small group of haole businessmen with the support of the U.S. minister and troops.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Queen Emma of Hawai\u02bbi (left) and Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani (right), the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Behind them, the Hawaiian flag evokes the sovereign kingdom that existed before the overthrow of 1893 \u2014 and a royal legacy that has endured long after the throne itself was lost.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A century after the overthrow, the United States Congress itself adopted what became known as the Apology Resolution. The resolution acknowledged the historical significance of what it expressly called the \u201cillegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii\u201d and apologised to Native Hawaiians for the role of agents and citizens of the United States. It further acknowledged that the overthrow would not have succeeded without the active support and intervention of American diplomatic and military representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those words matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They transform the Hawaiian story from a picturesque episode in the history of American expansion into something much more uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sovereign kingdom existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its government was overthrown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States subsequently acknowledged its involvement in that overthrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Hawaiian Kingdom never returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 130 years later, the fundamental question therefore remains: was Hawaiian sovereignty ever extinguished in a manner that satisfactorily resolved the political rights of the Hawaiian people \u2014 and, if Hawaiians were one day given the opportunity to reconsider their constitutional future, could an independent Hawaiian Kingdom conceivably rise again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Her Majesty Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Sovereign Kingdom in the Pacific<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hawaiian Kingdom emerged through the extraordinary political achievement of Kamehameha I, who unified most of the Hawaiian Islands by the end of the eighteenth century and completed the political unification of the archipelago in the early nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What followed was not merely the continuation of a traditional chiefly society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the nineteenth century, Hawai\u02bbi developed the institutions of an increasingly sophisticated constitutional state. It established written constitutions, courts, a legislature and governmental departments. Hawaiian monarchs entered into diplomatic relations with major powers and sought recognition of the Kingdom internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honolulu became the capital of an independent Pacific state situated at one of the most strategically important crossroads on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monarchy itself evolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the reigns of Kamehameha V, Kal\u0101kaua and Lili\u02bbuokalani, Hawai\u02bbi possessed many of the institutions associated with contemporary constitutional monarchies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magnificent \u02bbIolani Palace, completed in 1882 during the reign of King Kal\u0101kaua, symbolised that ambition. It was not merely a royal residence. It was a centre of government and diplomacy in a kingdom consciously presenting itself as a modern sovereign state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the Palace itself describes its history as encompassing both the splendour of the Hawaiian monarchy and the painful overthrow and subsequent imprisonment there of Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ioalani Palace, a symbol of the sovereignty.of Hawaii.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Te Throne room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That context is essential. The events of 1893 were not the disappearance of some ancient tribal institution overtaken by modernity. They represented the overthrow of the constitutional government of an established state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lili\u02bbuokalani succeeded her brother, King Kal\u0101kaua, in 1891. She inherited a kingdom already suffering profound political tensions. Foreign commercial interests had acquired enormous influence. American businessmen in particular had substantial interests in Hawaiian sugar and land. Meanwhile, the so-called Bayonet Constitution of 1887 had severely reduced royal authority and altered the political balance within the Kingdom. The Queen sought constitutional change. Her opponents responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 1893, the Committee of Safety, composed principally of businessmen and political opponents of the Queen, moved against her government. United States Marines and sailors from the USS Boston<\/em> were landed in Honolulu. The stated justification was the protection of American lives and property, but their presence had enormous political significance. The conspirators proclaimed a provisional government on 17 January 1893.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queen faced an impossible decision. She could attempt armed resistance and risk bloodshed, or temporarily yield while appealing to the United States to correct what she regarded as an unlawful intervention. She chose the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Grover Cleveland, who assumed office shortly afterwards, was deeply troubled by what had occurred. He commissioned former Congressman James Blount to investigate the overthrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting diplomatic record is extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States Department of State’s historical documentation contains the contemporary investigation into American participation and the circumstances surrounding what was described in the diplomatic record as the subversion of Hawai\u02bbi’s constitutional government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cleveland ultimately concluded that a grave wrong had been committed and sought restoration of the Queen. But restoration never came. The provisional government refused to surrender power. Instead, in 1894, it proclaimed the Republic of Hawai\u02bbi. The Kingdom had effectively disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Hawaiian people had not consented quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hawaiians Who Said No<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most remarkable parts of this history is also one of the least widely understood outside Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When annexation again became an immediate possibility following the election of President William McKinley, Native Hawaiians organised an extraordinary political campaign against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1897, Hui Aloha \u02bb\u0100ina and other opponents of annexation gathered signatures throughout the islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surviving petition contains 21,269 signatures of Native Hawaiians opposing annexation<\/strong> \u2014 more than half of the approximately 39,000 Native Hawaiians and people of mixed Hawaiian ancestry recorded by the Hawaiian Commission census that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegates carried the enormous petition to Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani herself was there lobbying against annexation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed treaty of annexation failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority in the United States Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the story did not end there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spanish-American War transformed American strategic calculations in the Pacific. Hawai\u02bbi’s position between North America and Asia suddenly appeared even more valuable as the United States expanded its military presence across the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than securing annexation through a ratified international treaty, Congress passed the Newlands Resolution, a joint resolution requiring only ordinary congressional majorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President McKinley signed it on 7 July 1898. Hawai\u02bbi was annexed to the United States. This distinction remains central to modern arguments about Hawaiian sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of the existing constitutional order point out that Hawai\u02bbi subsequently became an American territory and, following the 1959 statehood referendum and congressional Admission Act, the fiftieth state of the United States. Under present United States law, Hawai\u02bbi is unquestionably treated as a state, and the Department of the Interior notes that the 1993 Apology Resolution did not itself alter that legal status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independence advocates, however, raise a different question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They ask whether a sovereign foreign country could legitimately be acquired through the domestic joint resolution of another country’s legislature, particularly after a treaty of annexation had failed and in the face of extensive Hawaiian opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That remains one of the intellectual and legal foundations of the modern Hawaiian sovereignty debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States Apologises<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hundred years after the overthrow, something remarkable happened. The United States formally acknowledged its role. In 1993, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed Public Law 103-150, generally known as the Apology Resolution. Its language deserves attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress acknowledged the historical significance of the \u201cillegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii\u201d and expressed regret to Native Hawaiians. The resolution further recognised that American diplomatic and military representatives had actively supported the overthrow and that the insurrection would have failed without that intervention. It also acknowledged that approximately 1.8 million acres of Crown, government and public lands were subsequently transferred without the consent of or compensation to the Native Hawaiian people or their sovereign government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resolution did not<\/strong>, however, restore Hawaiian independence. Nor did it invalidate American statehood. That distinction is important. The historical acknowledgement is real. So is the existing constitutional reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern Hawai\u02bbi therefore lives with an extraordinary contradiction: the United States acknowledges serious wrongdoing in the destruction of the Hawaiian monarchy, while the political order that ultimately resulted from those events remains in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sovereignty Movement Is Not One Movement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be misleading to suggest that Native Hawaiians today speak with one voice about what should happen next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are advocates of complete independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are advocates of restoring the Hawaiian Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others support Native Hawaiian self-government while maintaining a relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some favour a model resembling the government-to-government relationships between the United States and federally recognised Native American nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others reject that approach because they regard Hawai\u02bbi not principally as a question of indigenous recognition within the United States, but as the unresolved question of an independent state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States Department of the Interior itself established a procedure through which a unified Native Hawaiian government could seek a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs likewise describes Native Hawaiian self-determination as dependent ultimately upon the Hawaiian electorate and recognises discussion surrounding the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity. A serious case for Hawaiian independence cannot simply assume that every Hawaiian wishes to leave the United States. Sadly, Native Hawaiians are a minority in their own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supposing, however, that the question of sovereignty were genuinely reopened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could independence offer Hawai\u02bbi?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first and most obvious answer is political self-determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An independent Hawai\u02bbi could theoretically determine its own constitution, foreign relations, immigration system, environmental policy, economic relationships and management of natural resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Land would inevitably become one of the greatest questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much Hawaiian history is inseparable from land: who possesses it, who benefits from it, who protects it and what obligations accompany ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sovereignty could provide a radically different framework through which Hawaiians approached land, water, agriculture, development and the protection of culturally significant places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Culture would constitute another pillar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawaiian language and traditional practices have experienced an extraordinary revival after periods of marginalisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a sovereign Hawaiian state, that culture would no longer exist merely as the indigenous heritage of one American state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could become foundational to the identity of the country itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there is geography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawai\u02bbi occupies an extraordinary position in the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An independent Hawaiian nation could conceivably define itself not primarily as the westernmost extremity of the United States, but as a Polynesian Pacific nation maintaining close relations with the United States while simultaneously looking towards Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and the wider Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its identity could be distinctly Hawaiian rather than an extension of either continental America or Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Independence Would Not Be Simple<\/strong> Romanticism is not enough. Hawai\u02bbi is now profoundly integrated into the United States. Independence would require negotiations of almost unimaginable complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen to American citizenship?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would Hawaiians possess dual nationality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What currency would an independent Hawai\u02bbi use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would assume responsibility for existing public debt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen to Social Security, Medicare and federal programmes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would be the status of American military installations, including Pearl Harbor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen to federally owned land?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would existing private property rights be protected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What immigration arrangements would apply?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would be the position of residents who are not ethnically Hawaiian?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would defence be organised?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What economic relationship would exist with the United States?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who, precisely, would be entitled to participate in determining the new constitution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not peripheral matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would determine whether independence succeeded or failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any credible restoration movement based on the illegal events of 1893, would have to demonstrate that a sovereign Hawaiian state could provide stable democratic government, protect individual and property rights, maintain economic prosperity and guarantee the rights of all its citizens irrespective of ancestry. That is a far more demanding task than simply waving the flag of the old Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And What of the Monarchy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to perhaps the most fascinating question of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Hawai\u02bbi ever became independent, should the Kingdom itself be restored?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is YES but there is no inherent reason why restoring Hawaiian sovereignty would require recreating the political system of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Japan demonstrate in different ways that monarchy and parliamentary democracy are not incompatible. A restored Hawaiian monarchy could be entirely constitutional. The monarch could reign rather than govern. Political authority could rest with an elected parliament and responsible government, while the sovereign served as head of state, guardian of constitutional continuity and embodiment of the history and culture of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, monarchy might possess a particular attraction in Hawai\u02bbi precisely because the Crown predates the political divisions of the modern sovereignty movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monarch would be above politics. The Crown could represent continuity between the ancient ali\u02bbi, the nineteenth-century constitutional Kingdom and a modern democratic Hawaiian state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a deeper argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Hawaiian monarchy disappeared because of an overthrow subsequently acknowledged by the United States as illegal, restoration could be seen by its advocates not as the invention of a new institution, but as the symbolic repair of a historical rupture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a powerful idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it raises an unavoidable question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would wear the crown? There are two contending branches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two principal dynastic traditions have followed markedly different paths in modern Hawai\u02bbi. The Kaw\u0101nanakoa family has enjoyed considerable public and institutional prominence and possesses a particularly significant historical connection to the succession contemplated during the final years of the monarchy. Quentin K\u016bhi\u014d Kaw\u0101nanakoa, however, has expressed much of his public service through the institutions of the modern State of Hawai\u02bbi, serving as a Republican member of the Hawai\u02bbi House of Representatives and subsequently seeking election to the United States Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Prince Quentin K\u016bhi\u014d Kaw\u0101nanakoa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Princess Owana Ka\u02bb\u014dhelelani La\u02bbanui Salazar has taken a different course. Her public identity has been more closely associated with Hawaiian cultural and sovereignty causes and with the preservation and assertion of the dynastic claims of the House of La\u02bbanui. Her supporters trace that claim through a collateral line of the House of Kamehameha and the ali\u02bbi recognised as eligible for the Hawaiian succession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Princess Owana Kaohelelani and her son and heir Prince HRH Prince Noa Kalokuokamaile III<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Princess Owana and members of her house continue to participate publicly in Hawaiian cultural, commemorative and international activities. The Royal House records Princess Owana’s participation with her delegation at the 2024 Onipa\u02bba Peace March commemorating the anniversary of the overthrow. It records Prince Noa presenting the Royal Order of the Star of Oceania in 2025 to respected Hawaiian waterman Richard \u201cBuffalo\u201d Keaulana and Momi Keaulana. Princess Owana and a delegation also attended events surrounding the eightieth anniversary of the United Nations in 2025, and in January 2026 she delivered an opening address for The Wall That Heals<\/em> at the University of Hawai\u02bbi\u2013West O\u02bbahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These contrasting paths illustrate one of the central difficulties surrounding any hypothetical restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy. Historical dynastic precedence, genealogical descent, cultural leadership and contemporary popular legitimacy are not necessarily the same thing. No credible contemporary opinion polling establishes that either claimant commands the support of a majority of Native Hawaiians, still less of Hawai\u02bbi’s population as a whole. Any genuine restoration would therefore confront not merely the question of sovereignty, but the equally difficult question of who, if anyone, could legitimately inherit the Crown.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Princess Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kaw\u0101nanakoa died in 2022, she lay in state at \u02bbIolani Palace \u2014 the first member of a Native Hawaiian royal family to receive that honour there in more than a century. The Governor ordered flags lowered for her funeral services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not the acts of a society that has entirely forgotten its monarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond questions of succession, the symbols and institutions of the old Kingdom remain woven throughout Hawaiian life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u02bbIolani Palace still stands in Honolulu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mauna\u02bbala remains the resting place of Hawaiian royalty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The names Kamehameha, Kal\u0101kaua, Ka\u02bbiulani and Lili\u02bbuokalani remain everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royal societies and orders preserve ceremonial traditions. Portraits of the monarchs remain potent cultural images. The Hawaiian flag itself predates American annexation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commemorations of the overthrow continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The memory of Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani has never disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And descendants of the royal and chiefly families continue to participate in Hawaiian cultural life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean that Hawai\u02bbi secretly possesses a government-in-waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor does it mean that one contemporary claimant can simply declare himself or herself monarch and thereby restore the Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A crown requires more than genealogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It requires constitutional legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Hawai\u02bbi were ever to become sovereign again and if Hawaiians chose monarchy, the succession would have to be resolved through a legitimate constitutional process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History itself offers precedent for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hawaiian monarchy was not governed exclusively by automatic hereditary succession. When a monarch died without a designated successor, the legislature could elect a sovereign from among eligible ali\u02bbi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A restored Kingdom could therefore conceivably establish a constitutional mechanism for determining the Crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genealogy would matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historical legitimacy would matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surviving royal houses would matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But ultimately the decision would require political legitimacy from the Hawaiian nation itself. The strongest modern argument for restoration may therefore be symbolic rather than political. The monarch would represent Hawaii and be its symbol of sovereignity. The Crown could become the custodian of Hawaiian history and tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could patronise Hawaiian language, music, education, environmental stewardship and indigenous culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could maintain the royal orders and ceremonial traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could receive foreign heads of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could represent Hawai\u02bbi throughout Polynesia and the wider world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps most importantly, it could provide a human connection between the Hawaiian state of the future and the sovereign Hawaiian state that existed before 1893.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For supporters of restoration, the coronation of a Hawaiian monarch would therefore mean considerably more than putting a crown upon someone’s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would signify that the historical chain had been reconnected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would this be possible? History occasionally produces political changes that once appeared impossible. And Hawai\u02bbi possesses something unusual among former monarchies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The institution was not rejected through a popular revolution against the Crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its last reigning Queen did not voluntarily abolish it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A substantial Native Hawaiian movement subsequently opposed annexation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States itself later acknowledged wrongdoing surrounding the overthrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the cultural memory of the Kingdom survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That combination explains why the Hawaiian monarchy remains more than a curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most extraordinary achievement of Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani was not political but historical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lost her throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the memory of the Kingdom survived her defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Palace survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The royal families survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The songs survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The language survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceremonies survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The genealogy survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the question survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawai\u02bbi today is unquestionably transformed from the Kingdom Lili\u02bbuokalani knew. Generations have been born as American citizens. People from across the world have made the islands their home. Any future Hawaiian state would therefore have to belong not merely to the descendants of nineteenth-century Hawaiians but establish a just constitutional relationship among everyone who legitimately calls the islands home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restoration cannot simply mean turning the clock back to 1893.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No nation can do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more interesting possibility is whether Hawai\u02bbi could one day take something interrupted in 1893 and carry it forward into the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A democratic parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A constitutional monarch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong protection for individual rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A renaissance of Hawaiian language and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A distinct Pacific foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A special relationship with the United States rather than political incorporation within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Crown that governs no political party but represents the continuity of the Hawaiian nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether Hawaiians would choose such a future is for Hawaiians themselves to determine. The historical question can not be dismissed as fantasy simply because more than a century has passed. The real question is far more profound: If the Hawaiian people were ever again given the opportunity freely to determine their political destiny, could they take the sovereignty that was lost, combine it with modern democracy, and create a new Hawaiian Kingdom for the twenty-first century?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 130 years after Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani surrendered her authority rather than risk the blood of her people, that question remains unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that is why the story of the stolen Kingdom of Hawai\u02bbi is not merely a story about the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an unfinished story about the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.crownofhawaii.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.kamehamehafoundation.org<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a question at the heart of modern Hawai\u02bbi that refuses to disappear. What might Hawai\u02bbi be…","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":64313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opinion-politics","8":"category-royalty"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64326,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64312\/revisions\/64326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metaphoremagazine.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}