page_title: Liliʻuokalani
section_title: Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Liliʻuokalani / Reign / Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom
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: Liliʻuokalani was the only queen regnant and the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, ruling from January 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893. The composer of "Aloha ʻOe" and numerous other works, she wrote her autobiography Hawaiʻi's Story by Hawaiʻi's Queen during her imprisonment following the overthrow.
  Liliʻuokalani was born on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu. While her natural parents were Analea Keohokālole and Caesar Kapaʻakea, she was hānai at birth by Abner Pākī and Laura Kōnia and raised with their daughter Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Baptized as a Christian and educated at the Royal School, she and her siblings and cousins were proclaimed eligible for the throne by King Kamehameha III. She was married to American-born John Owen Dominis, who later became the Governor of Oʻahu. The couple had no biological children but adopted several. After the accession of her brother David Kalākaua to the throne in 1874, she and her siblings were given Western style titles of Prince and Princess. In 1877, after her younger brother Leleiohoku II's death, she was proclaimed as heir apparent to the throne.
context_section_description: The political fallout led to citywide political rallies and meetings in Honolulu. Anti-monarchists, annexationists, and leading Reform Party politicians that included Lorrin A. Thurston, a grandson of American missionaries, and Kalākaua's former cabinet ministers under the Bayonet Constitution, formed the Committee of Safety in protest of the "revolutionary" action of the queen and conspired to depose her. Thurston and the Committee of Safety derived their support primarily from the American and European business class residing in Hawaiʻi. Most of the leaders of the overthrow were American and European citizens who were also Kingdom subjects. They also included legislators, government officers, and a justice of the Hawaiian Supreme Court.
  In response, royalists and loyalists formed the Committee of Law and Order and met at the palace square on January 16, 1893. Nāwahī, White, Robert W. Wilcox, and other pro-monarchist leaders gave speeches in support for the queen and the government. To try to appease the instigators, the queen and her supporters abandoned attempts to unilaterally promulgate a constitution .
  The same day, the Marshal of the Kingdom, Charles Burnett Wilson, was tipped off by detectives to the imminent planned coup. Wilson requested warrants to arrest the 13-member council of the Committee of Safety, and put the Kingdom under martial law. Because the members had strong political ties to United States Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens, the requests were repeatedly denied by the queen's cabinet, who feared that the arrests would escalate the situation. After a failed negotiation with Thurston, Wilson began to collect his men for the confrontation. Wilson and captain of the Royal Household Guard Samuel Nowlein had rallied a force of 496 men who were kept at hand to protect the queen. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of US sailors landed and took up positions at the US Legation, the Consulate, and Arion Hall. The sailors and Marines did not enter the palace grounds or take over any buildings, and never fired a shot, but their presence served effectively in intimidating royalist defenders. Historian William Russ states, "the injunction to prevent fighting of any kind made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself".
  The queen was deposed on January 17, and the provisional government established under pro-annexation leader Sanford B. Dole was officially recognized by Stevens as the de facto government. She temporarily relinquished her throne to the United States, rather than the Dole-led government, in hopes that the United States would restore Hawaii's sovereignty to the rightful holder. The government under Dole began using ʻIolani Palace as its executive building. A delegation departed for Washington D.C. on January 19, to ask for immediate annexation by the United States. At the request of the provisional government, Stevens proclaimed Hawaii a protectorate of the United States on February 1, to temporarily provide a buffer against domestic upheaval and interference by foreign governments. The US flag was raised over the palace, and martial law was enforced. The annexation treaty presented to the US Senate contained a provision to grant Liliʻuokalani a $20,000 per annum lifetime pension, and Kaʻiulani a lump-sum payment of $150,000. The queen protested the proposed annexation in a January 19 letter to President Benjamin Harrison. She sent Prince David Kawānanakoa and Paul Neumann to represent her.
  Neumann delivered a letter from the queen to Grover Cleveland, who began his second non-consecutive term as president on March 4. The Cleveland administration commissioned James Henderson Blount to investigate the overthrow. He interviewed those involved in the coup and wrote the Blount Report, and based on its findings, concluded that the overthrow of Liliʻuokalani was illegal, and that Stevens and American military troops had acted inappropriately in support of those who carried out the overthrow. On November 16, Cleveland sent his minister Albert S. Willis to propose a return of the throne to
caption: The USS Boston's landing force on duty at the Arlington Hotel, Honolulu
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