page_title: Hawaiian Kingdom
section_title: Overthrow
hierarchical_section_title: Hawaiian Kingdom / Kalākaua dynasty / Overthrow
caption_attribution_description: English: Bluejackets of the U.S.S. Boston occupying Arlington Hotel grounds during overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. Commander Lucien Young, U.S.N. in command of troops. Site of childhood home of Queen Liliuokalani. According to the U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph, the original photograph is in the Archives of Hawaii and this halftone was published prior to about 1920.
context_page_description: The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, originated in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island of Hawaiʻi, conquered the independent islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi and unified them under one government. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian archipelago became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Hawaiian Kingdom voluntarily. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom: the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.
  The kingdom won recognition from major European powers. The United States became its chief trading partner and watched over it to prevent some other power from threatening to seize control. Hawaiʻi was forced to adopt a new constitution in 1887 when King Kalākaua was threatened with violence by the Honolulu Rifles, a white anti-monarchist militia, to sign it.
context_section_description: In 1893, local businessmen and politicians, composed of six non-native Hawaiian Kingdom subjects, five American nationals, one British national, and one German national, all of whom were living and doing business in Hawaiʻi, overthrew the queen, her cabinet and her marshal, and took over the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
  Historians suggest that businessmen were in favor of overthrow and annexation to the U.S. in order to benefit from more favorable trade conditions with its main export market. The McKinley Tariff of 1890 eliminated the previously highly favorable trade terms for Hawaiʻi's sugar exports, a main component of the economy.
  United States Government Minister John L. Stevens summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of U.S. sailors to land on the Kingdom and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893. This deployment was at the request of the Committee of Safety, which claimed an "imminent threat to American lives and property." Stevens was accused of ordering the landing on his own authority and inappropriately using his discretion. Historian William Russ concluded that "the injunction to prevent fighting of any kind made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself."
caption: USS Boston's landing force on duty at the Arlington Hotel, Honolulu, at the time of the overthrow, January 1893[38]
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