Annexation of Hawaii HW

Read the following and answer the questions completely!

THE ANNEXATION OF HAWAII

By the 1880s American business interests dominated the island’s lucrative sugar business and had significant influence in Hawaii’s economy and government.  Angered by U.S. domination, Hawaiian Islanders in 1891 welcomed a native Hawaiian, Liliuokalani, as queen.

Hawaii had the finest harbor in the mid-Pacific and was viewed as a strategically valuable coaling station and naval base.  In 1893, a small group of sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, helped by the American minister to Hawaii and backed by heavily armed U.S. soldiers and marines, deposed [overthrew] Hawaii's queen. They imprisoned the queen and worked to annex the islands to the United States.

President Cleveland ordered a study of the Hawaiian revolution, which concluded that the American minister to Hawaii had conspired with the businessmen to overthrow the queen and that the coup would have failed "but for the landing of the United States forces upon false pretexts respecting the dangers to life and property."  The study proved that the people of Hawaii had not sanctioned the revolution.  And the report showed that American businessmen had organized it. 

But Congress did not act to restore the monarchy and in 1894, Sanford Dole, who was beginning his pineapple business, declared himself president of the Republic of Hawaii without a popular vote.

The Republican Party platform in the presidential election of 1896 called for the annexation of Hawaii. New Republican president William McKinley called for a joint resolution of Congress (the same way that the United States had acquired Texas). With the country aroused by the Spanish American War and political leaders fearful that the islands might be annexed by Japan, the joint resolution easily passed Congress. Hawaii officially became a U.S. territory in 1900.

1.   How did the U.S. get control of Hawaii?  Explain

2.   Do you agree with America’s foreign policy regarding the annexation of Hawaii?  Explain