American Merchant Empire

In the 1820's a group of zealous and hardy puritan missionaries set out for Hawaii from Boston. As with most missionary movements around the world and throughout time, this "trojan horse" laid the stage for a commercial invasion of Hawaii.

Along with the missionaries, other foreigners-- mostly American businessmen-- infiltrated Hawaiian society. They sold Hawaiian leaders on the virtues of American-style economic development, notably sugar and pineapple cash-crop plantations. They quickly established themselves as a virtual economic "ruling class" on the Island before the local political system could adequately respond or develop.

By 1898, Hawaii had a very diverse population. About 55 percent of the population was native, 20 percent was of mixed Asian origin, and the remaining 25 percent was composed of European foreigners-- from the United States, France, England, Germany and other European-majority countries. The native population was in decline, stripped of their economic base and source of income.

The new plantation owners imported masses of foreign labourers-- "coolies" from China and India. Land was bought up from native Hawaiians, who were often tricked or compelled to sell their property at ridiculously undervalued prices.

"White" Americans, who were often deeply racist, resented the influx of "non-whites" into the U.S. and Hawaii. This was the time of the Yellow Peril scares, when "civilized" European-Americans were whipped up into a frenzy of Asian-hatred by their leaders and media. North Americans (specifically, Americans on the West Coast and Canadians in British Columbia) were afraid of being overwhelmed by Asian immigrants. Undisguised racism certainly had more to do with the problem that any actual threat.

Businessmen and the Anglo-American elite in Hawaii actively encouraged other Americans to immigrate. The Hawaiians didn't want to become a minority in their own country. But they were also eager to avoid a confrontation. Seeing the need to develop their economy and trusting the powerful American representatives, the Hawaiians naively thought these businessmen to be honest and fair. This proved to be a disaster.

Abused and isolated, Hawaiian culture was badly damaged through contact with Europeans.

A nasty infection arrived with the foreigners, especially those with extensive trade contacts in South-East Asia.

In order to make the colonization and invasion of Asia easier, Imperial British merchants and businessmen forcibly established the opium trade, using their centres of India and Burma for production. This trade was used in a deliberate campaign to undermine non-European societies and addict native populations to European "product". What would today be considered a grave criminal action was then the standard policy for imperial powers.

In a humiliating war, the Chinese Empire was defeated and forced to give lucrative concessions to European powers-- called the "Unequal Treaties". For the single-handed creation of a massive social problem, the British rulers and wealthy elite received absolutely no censure from European "civilization", and the native populations were entirely blamed for being "degenerate", "weak", "lazy" and "sub-human" though the social disesae hd been imposed on them by Europeans.

The British even established a new distribution colony, the crude southern town on the coast of Guangdong (Canton) province, called Hong Kong. Despite the most valiant efforts of the collapsing Chinese Imperial State, opium addiction spread throughout the Chinese population with the help of greedy European governments.

Afflicted with the European-engineered addiction to opium and drugs, the 20,000-strong Hawaiian Chinese community brought this social plague with them when when they were settled in Hawaii as labourers and merchants.

Social and racial abuse at the hands of the European-Americans added insult to injury. At the time, these Asians and Americans were nothing more than guests in Hawaii. Even though they continued to abuse the boundless goodwill of their Hawaiian hosts, they were always treated well and reasonably by the Hawaiian authorities.

When it was convenient, the Americans resident in Hawaii and their children called themselves "Hawaiians". At other times, they called themselves (white) "Americans". Their selective use of the concept of citizenship was transparent to anyone who cared to notice. They had to claim Hawaiian nationality in order to take power away from the native Hawaiian population. But the foreigners were in no real sense "Hawaiian"; the American businessmen merely claimed Hawaiian nationality so they could hand Hawaii over to the U.S. In reality, the white population did everything it could to dissociate itself from the native inhabitants

As Liliuokalani noted, once the American businessmen had established themselves, the agitated for more and more power. Soon, they arrogantly decided to dispense with native Hawaiian government and establish a system that would give them political as well as economic control. Not satisfied with most of the control over Hawaii, they wanted it all, and needed to disenfranchise the native population in order to steal the little wealth that remained outside of their hands.

The foreigners called the constitutional monarchy abusive and an affront to democracy. In reality, they knew that the Hawaiian monarchy was more interested in protecting the interests of the Hawaiian people and would eventually be impossible to control. These robber-barons didn't want to have to provide for the people they were shamelessly exploiting. They had to dispel the last defenders of Hawaiian native society and replace it with their own rule.

The foreign business class, in attacking the Hawaiian monarchy, had no intention of honouring the Hawaiian peoples' freedom or creating a real, open democracy-- for one thing, there were too many natives and "Asians" present, and they had to guarantee "white" rule and "white" interests. They wanted to set themselves up as de-facto rulers. The call for democratic reform was little more than a public betrayal, a callous grab for power and territory.

In almost all cases, from Texas and Puerto Rico to Cuba and the Phillipines, the American Congress tended to side with American pirates. Officialdom in the United States maintained the self-satisfactory illusion that "America" could do no wrong, regardless of its actions, and that the American people could be manipulated into endorsing any policy regardless of its merits or the democratic hypocrisy involved.

Like all great powers the U.S. ruling elite didn't take the freedom of foreign peoples seriously, and actively abused it on a regular basis. The American Republic-made-Empire was eager for new land and influence. It was more than willing to oblige the conspirators.

Soon, the fate that befell most other aboriginal and native societies landed with full force on the Hawaiians. The Polynesian Hawaiians were completely overwhelmed by foreigners. and were, in the end, unable to put up any kind of rational defence.

The Hawaiian King was forced through threat of violence to sign a disastrous new constitution, called the "Bayonet Constitution". This stripped the Hawaiian system of government of its native element and all power to regulate Hawaiian society.

The new cabinet, formed exclusively of white, foreign Americans, now proceeded to sell out Hawaii to the United States. They drafted a disgraceful Annexation Treaty, which did absolutely nothing for native Hawaiians and made a mockery of American ideas of freedom, equality before the law and justice.