The Akaka Bill is back in the news, having once again passed the U.S. House of Representatives. ( It failed in two previous attempts to get Senate approval but prospects look better for passage this time.) Rather than describe the provisions of the bill, I’d like to give you a way to look at the efforts to establish self-governance for Native Hawaiians and what that process means to casual visitors to the islands.
The perspective to keep in mind is this: nearly everyone agrees that something needs to be done to both address past maltreatment of the indigenous peoples of Hawaii and to provide a means of moving forward for all residents of the state. However, it is much harder to agree on what, exactly, that "something" is. As one example: the bill includes a way to identify who is Native Hawaiian and, no matter where the line is drawn, some who consider themselves to have deep and abiding roots in the land and culture of Hawaii will fall outside the definition. As you might imagine, this is a deeply personal issue and it ignites passionate responses. Governance issues like these will be debated by Hawaii residents and government leaders in the years to come. However, if you have no interest in the discussion, it is unlikely to touch your daily activities.
The second thing to keep in mind is that many of the specific concerns of Native Hawaiians – not political governance, but how they are treated – are already being dealt with in one way or another. A state can’t just put important decisions on pause while Congress waits to act. There is an Office of Hawaiian Affairs that now serves as the focal point for Native Hawaiian concerns. ( It is a state agency but is not under the control of the governor.) The planned light rail project is a issue of this type because it is certain to displace many traditional burial areas. These issues often generate news stories, debates and protests as part of the way that conflicting concerns of citizens are worked out in an open society. Again, if you have no interest, you probably won’t even notice.
It helps to realize that Hawaii’s civil government contains both historical developments and future concerns that are contentious. But it is also true that much of what makes Hawaii such a special place is that it has a tradition of welcoming visitors and a spirit of aloha that transcends politics.
Posted by Cindy Scheopner Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner
Published by Bruce Fisher
Since 2006 Bruce Fisher has been publishing the Hawaii Vacation Blog and the Hawaii Vacation Connection Podcast which create daily content about Hawaii Travel and Tourism. This Blog is the only online resource providing Hawaii-based information aimed at travelers seven days per week. postings reflect the Hawaiian Islands, their culture and their lifestyle as accurately and thoroughly as possible.
February 24th, 2010
When you’re in the islands on vacation, you may hear or read about the ongoing debate about ceded lands, and about the Akaka Bill, and wonder what’s going on. Here’s a briefing:
In 1893, the government of the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown by a group of planters and businessmen — mostly American — supported by a contingent of U.S. Marines. The revolutionaries then established the Republic of Hawaii and entered into negotiations with the United States to seek Hawaii’s annexation.
When Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898, the Republic of Hawaii ceded the public lands of Hawaii to the United States. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, the United States conveyed more than a million acres of that land to the new state, which was to hold the land in trust for five specific purposes, including "the benefit of Native Hawaiians." The resulting "Ceded Lands Trust" is like the school lands trusts established in the admission acts of most states that joined the Union after 1820 or so.
In 1993, Congress issued an apology for the United States’ role in overthrowing Hawaii’s monarchy. Last year, based on that apology, the Hawaii Supreme Court held that the State cannot convey lands from the Ceded Lands Trust to private parties until the claims of Native Hawaiians to the lands have been resolved. Today, lot of work remains to resolve a lawsuit that was filed by the Office of Hawaiian over the issue.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the state Supreme Court’s ruling and sent the case back to that body, ruling that the apology does not prohibit Hawaiian officials from selling or transferring state land.
The Hawaii Attorney General and attorneys from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are now trying to work out the future of the lawsuit.
In the meantime, The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 – commonly known as the Akaka Bill – is under consideration in Congress. (U.S. Senator Dan Akaka, pictured above, has proposed various forms of the bill since 2000.) The bill seeks to establish a process for Native Hawaiians to gain federal recognition that would be similar to the recognition that some Native American tribes currently have. It also prohibits Hawaiians from establishing casinos under current laws without banning the establishment of casinos under future negotiations from participation in programs and services enjoyed by Indians. It also prohibits Hawaiians from being included on the Secretary of the Interior’s list of tribes eligible for federal benefits because of their status as Indians.
There are several aspects of the Akaka Bill that have generated debate, but we won’t go into those here.
While you’re here on vacation, either or both of those issues may be in the news. The foregoing provides you with a little background so you know what’s up.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
Related Blog Posts
Take moment for History on Your Hawaii Vacation
Before Hawaii Went Commercial
Two Extremes in Hawaii’s History
More links:
Follow us on twitter
See our latest videos
Book your Hawaii vacations here
Published by Bruce Fisher
Since 2006 Bruce Fisher has been publishing the Hawaii Vacation Blog and the Hawaii Vacation Connection Podcast which create daily content about Hawaii Travel and Tourism. This Blog is the only online resource providing Hawaii-based information aimed at travelers seven days per week. postings reflect the Hawaiian Islands, their culture and their lifestyle as accurately and thoroughly as possible.
April 5th, 2009
.jpg)
Now that it’s 2009, we can watch to see all the promotional and celebratory events that will take place in Hawaii during this year that marks the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood.
Most of the celebrations will be happy ones, certainly worthy of your notice if you’re thinking of vacationing here during the year. (The third Friday in August is when Statehood Day is recognized.)
But Hawaii’s statehood did not come easily, nor was it universally welcomed in the islands. Here is a brief history of the process:
Back in 1887, a group of the Hawaiian kingdom subjects, members of the Hawaiian government, and American and European businessmen got together and forced King Kalākaua to sign the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii. That document stripped the king of administrative authority, eliminated voting rights for Asians and set minimum income and property requirements for American, European and native Hawaiian voters. That essentially limited the electorate to wealthy elite Americans, Europeans and native Hawaiians. Queen Liliuokalani succeeded Kamehameha and ruled until she was overthrown in 1893. That year, she had announced plans to establish a new constitution that would have replaced the 1887 Constitution. A group of business leaders and citizens formed a Committee of Safety in opposition to the Queen. United States Government Minister John L. Stevens, responding to a request from the Committee of Safety that expressed concern about possible violence directed against American citizens, summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines to come ashore. The presence of those troops made it impossible for the monarchy to enforce its new constitution.
After the overthrow, Queen Liliuokalani was replaced by a Provisional Government composed of members of the Committee of Safety. In the following years, the queen tried to re-establish her throne. The administration of President Grover Cleveland commissioned the Blount Report, which concluded that the removal of Liliʻuokalani had been illegal. The U.S. Government demanded that Queen Liliʻuokalani be reinstated, but the Provisional Government simply refused. Congress then responded to Cleveland’s referral with another investigation, and submitted the Morgan Report by the U.S. Senate in 1894, which found all parties (including Minister Stevens and with the exception of the queen) "not guilty" of any responsibility for the overthrow. The accuracy and impartiality of both the Blount and Morgan reports has been questioned by partisans on both sides of the historical debate over the events of 1893.
A century later, in 1993, a joint Apology Resolution regarding the overthrow was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, apologizing for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It is the only time in American history that the United States government has apologized for overthrowing the legitimate government of a sovereign nation.
The Republic of Hawaii was the formal name of Hawaii from 1894 to 1898, when it was run as a republic. Iolani Palace in Honolulu was the republic’s capitol.
When William McKinley became president in 1896, the issue of annexation was revisited. His predecessor, Grover Cleveland, was a friend of Queen Liliuokalani and had remained opposed to annexation until the end of his term, but McKinley was open to persuasion by U.S. expansionists and by annexationists from Hawaii. He agreed to meet with a committee of annexationists from Hawaii in 1897, when he agreed to a treaty of annexation of the Republic of Hawaii. The president then submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for approval. Despite some opposition in the islands, the Newlands Resolution was passed by the House and the Senate in 1898, annexing Hawaii as a U.S. territory. Its legality continues to be questioned because it was a United States Government resolution, not a treaty of cession or conquest as is required by international law. Both houses of the American Congress carried the measure with two-thirds majorities.
In 1900, Hawaii was granted self-governance and retained Iolani Palace as the territorial capitol building. Though several attempts were made to achieve statehood, Hawaii remained a territory for almost sixty years. Plantation owners and key capitalists, who maintained control through financial institutions known as the "Big Five," found territorial status convenient because it enabled them to continue importing cheap foreign labor, which was prohibited in many states. Their power was finally broken by activist descendants of the original immigrant laborers. Because they were born in a U.S. territory, they were legal U.S. citizens. Expecting to gain full voting rights, they actively campaigned for statehood for the Hawaiian Islands.
In March 1959, both houses of Congress passed the Hawaii Admission Act and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law. On June 27 of that year, a referendum was held asking residents of Hawaii to vote on accepting the statehood bill. Hawaii voted at a ratio of 17 to 1 to accept. There has been criticism, however, of the Statehood plebiscite, because the only choices were to accept the Act or to remain a territory, without addressing the issues of legality surrounding the overthrow.
Today, the so-called Akaka Bill is designed "to provide a process for the reorganization of the single Native Hawaiian governing entity and the reaffirmation of the special political and legal relationship between the United States and that Native Hawaiian governing entity for purposes of continuing a government-to-government relationship." The government the bill intends to reorganize is identified as the Kingdom of Hawaii in the first paragraphs of Indian Affairs Committee Report 108-85. The bill remains alive in Congress.
That’s a pretty complicated history to follow and remember, but if you plan to vacation in Hawaii this year, a lot of it will be flurrying in the media and you might want to be at least a little bit tuned in.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
Related blog posts:
Hawaii’s Strange Politics
Make Way. Hawaii Has Arrived
Hawaii Scoundrels
Links:
Follow us on twitter
See our latest videos
Book your Hawaii vacation here
Published by Bruce Fisher
Since 2006 Bruce Fisher has been publishing the Hawaii Vacation Blog and the Hawaii Vacation Connection Podcast which create daily content about Hawaii Travel and Tourism. This Blog is the only online resource providing Hawaii-based information aimed at travelers seven days per week. postings reflect the Hawaiian Islands, their culture and their lifestyle as accurately and thoroughly as possible.
January 6th, 2009
