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At Long Last: Hawaiian Overthrow Episode · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck, Brian over there aloha.
0:18
Speaker 1: Uh and Jerry's out there somewhere aloha. And um, this
0:22
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. How Melaka laki laka that's announced. Yeah,
0:29
Speaker 1: that's actually a little known fact. That's the Hawaiian way
0:32
Speaker 1: to say Merry Christmas to you. I didn't know the story,
0:37
Speaker 1: by the way, this is pretty interesting. Um yeah, yeah,
0:40
Speaker 1: I have to say, Chuck. Before we get started. We
0:42
Speaker 1: have to give a huge shout out huge to a dude.
0:45
Speaker 1: I don't know his name, but he's on Instagram as
0:48
Speaker 1: people Kanaka Kai. Okay, well maybe that's his name, so
0:53
Speaker 1: what maybe so? Or it could be Kai Kanaka who knows.
0:56
Speaker 1: He calls himself the Hawaiian Hillbilly, but he had is
1:00
Speaker 1: every time we post an episode, he goes on and
1:03
Speaker 1: comments Hawaiian overthrow episode please. He's been doing it for
1:08
Speaker 1: like years, So Kanaka Kai, this one is for you man,
1:13
Speaker 1: and that long last and now he doesn't have to
1:15
Speaker 1: jump into the big woo right. So what I'm hoping though,
1:19
Speaker 1: is that he's not like super well versed in this
1:22
Speaker 1: is just going to be inevitably disappointed. Hopefully, it's just
1:25
Speaker 1: something he wants to know more about, so he's been
1:27
Speaker 1: asking for it for that one. Well, I'm glad he
1:31
Speaker 1: trolld us for years because this is a really interesting
1:33
Speaker 1: and not at all surprising story. No it's not. And um,
1:38
Speaker 1: basically what we're talking about today is the overthrow of Hawaii.
1:41
Speaker 1: And it turns out that Hawaii one of the most
1:44
Speaker 1: beautiful states in the Union, probably the most beautiful state
1:47
Speaker 1: in the Union, the state where you me and I
1:49
Speaker 1: got married. In fact, sure, sure, if you're into tropical paradise,
1:55
Speaker 1: is there's not much better. Somebody for Montana might be like,
1:58
Speaker 1: you can have it with these mountains. Although I could
2:00
Speaker 1: see Montana people going to Hawaiian being like, I've been wrong,
2:03
Speaker 1: so wrong all my life and these boots are really uncomfortable. Right. So, um,
2:08
Speaker 1: it is a beautiful state. But if you go back
2:11
Speaker 1: not too very far, you will find that, um, there's
2:15
Speaker 1: a lot of arguments you could make that it should
2:18
Speaker 1: not be a state in any way, shape or form. Yeah,
2:23
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about the about the current temperature of
2:27
Speaker 1: native Hawaiian people and how they feel about that now. Yeah, yeah,
2:32
Speaker 1: Well we'll get to that eventually. Do you know, I
2:35
Speaker 1: don't know about the temperature of the Hawaiian people, but
2:38
Speaker 1: I know about some some proposals to help kind of
2:40
Speaker 1: reverse r undo some of the damage. I understood. That's
2:44
Speaker 1: for the end. Well, I guess we should go back
2:48
Speaker 1: some many thousands of years and talk about the settling
2:52
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian islands by the Polynesian people about you know,
2:57
Speaker 1: years ago, maybe a thousand years ago, somewhere in there.
3:00
Speaker 1: And for many, many hundreds of years there were the
3:04
Speaker 1: control of of Hawaii was by chiefs and then sub chiefs,
3:09
Speaker 1: and these chiefs claimed that they were divine in origin,
3:13
Speaker 1: and they said, we have a set of very strict
3:17
Speaker 1: religious um rules that we should follow, called the cop Who,
3:22
Speaker 1: And that you know wasn't so popular over the years.
3:26
Speaker 1: Well it depends. I mean, like if you were born
3:28
Speaker 1: into that society and that was what you knew, that
3:31
Speaker 1: was just what you knew. But I get the impression
3:33
Speaker 1: that over the centuries some chiefs and sub chiefs enforced
3:37
Speaker 1: the cop Who more than others. And um. One of
3:41
Speaker 1: the big bases of the cop Who laws, is that
3:45
Speaker 1: there was a strict separation of men and women, and
3:48
Speaker 1: men were divine and women were profane, and that they
3:51
Speaker 1: represented kind of like light and dark and you have
3:54
Speaker 1: to have you can't have one without the others, so
3:56
Speaker 1: they need each other. But also men were still definitely
3:59
Speaker 1: favorite and respect. But then if you also go look
4:02
Speaker 1: through Hawaiian history, there are also plenty of female rulers
4:05
Speaker 1: as well, so it's a it's really interesting. Kapu could
4:07
Speaker 1: probably get its own episode, and I'm sure now we
4:11
Speaker 1: know what Kanaka Kai will be commenting on all on.
4:16
Speaker 1: But it was so they had their own like very
4:18
Speaker 1: strict social um stratification and religious laws for sure. Yeah.
4:23
Speaker 1: I think if Emily heard that, she would say, Chuck
4:25
Speaker 1: is not divine, but I am profane, So we're halfway there, right.
4:30
Speaker 1: Non profane women rarely make history. So speaking of making history,
4:36
Speaker 1: this is where a man named James Cook enters the picture.
4:39
Speaker 1: In the late seventeen hundreds, the very famous British explorer.
4:43
Speaker 1: He was the most notable. Uh, some people say the
4:46
Speaker 1: first European to visit Hawaii. UM, definitely the most notable
4:51
Speaker 1: because there is some um. You could make an argument
4:54
Speaker 1: that the Spanish were there before him at some point. Yeah,
4:56
Speaker 1: they have maps that appear to be Hawaii from like
4:59
Speaker 1: the sixteenth country. Yeah, so the Japanese as well. But um,
5:03
Speaker 1: Cook was the first person to go as an Englishman,
5:08
Speaker 1: which was a big deal as a colonizer and say,
5:10
Speaker 1: I'm charting this island or these islands, are going to
5:14
Speaker 1: name them the Sandwich Islands. Not a great name now,
5:18
Speaker 1: because well James Cook was well known for loving sandwiches,
5:21
Speaker 1: so sure he was so crazy actually that it was
5:24
Speaker 1: named for the Earl of Sandwich, John Montague. It's the
5:27
Speaker 1: very same Earl of Sandwich though the sandwiches are named for,
5:30
Speaker 1: So that guy was really he was an influencer in
5:33
Speaker 1: Hawaii's known for their sandwiches. Yeah, poise sandwiches. So Cook visits, Uh,
5:40
Speaker 1: he visits a few times, um, and kind of did
5:44
Speaker 1: a lot of traveling while he was there. So he
5:46
Speaker 1: he makes one visit and then just starts sort of
5:48
Speaker 1: exploring the islands around Hawaii. Eventually comes back kind of
5:53
Speaker 1: on that same trip and gets really aggressive at that point. Um,
5:59
Speaker 1: not a nice fellow, trying to do sort of the
6:03
Speaker 1: the colonizer thing here. Let me make a deal with you. Um,
6:08
Speaker 1: let me trade something that isn't very valuable for something
6:12
Speaker 1: that is very valuable, which is to say, your land, right, Um,
6:15
Speaker 1: and yeah, he was just basically doing the standard euro
6:19
Speaker 1: explorer thing, which trash explorer exploitation, trying to get everybody
6:25
Speaker 1: into Kraftwick, that whole thing, right. So um, so cook,
6:30
Speaker 1: I guess he overstepped his bounds finally and he was
6:34
Speaker 1: actually killed in a major battle, um after some of
6:38
Speaker 1: his his men kidnapped um a Hawaiian chief. Well, he
6:43
Speaker 1: he did it personally from what I saw, was that right,
6:45
Speaker 1: okay said by his own hand. Not a good move,
6:48
Speaker 1: not a good not a good move, um. Because one
6:51
Speaker 1: thing about the Hawaiian islands, they were ruled by those
6:54
Speaker 1: chiefs and sub chiefs, like you said. But I get
6:56
Speaker 1: the impression that, um, they were, they were united largely
7:02
Speaker 1: when it came to the kidnapping of any Hawaiian chief
7:04
Speaker 1: by a European outsider. Yeah. Like, you can fight with
7:08
Speaker 1: your brother, but if someone else picks on your brother,
7:11
Speaker 1: then you gotta you gotta join forces. Who would ever
7:14
Speaker 1: pick on Scott? Well? I was thinking of you and me,
7:17
Speaker 1: But sure, brother like real brothers too, write well and
7:21
Speaker 1: bloods I still have that scar on my palm. I
7:25
Speaker 1: actually mine was a squib. I faked it. I thought
7:29
Speaker 1: that tasted like a high fruit toast corn. So yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: you're like chuck his sweet blood so sweet like Scott.
7:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, Cook is uh kidnaps this guy. They they
7:42
Speaker 1: did not respond very kindly to that, so they sent
7:46
Speaker 1: a faction down there too attack him in his boats.
7:49
Speaker 1: They were on the beach and that's where he died,
7:52
Speaker 1: faced down in in shallow water. He was bonked on
7:55
Speaker 1: the head by one chief I think, and then stabbed
7:58
Speaker 1: by that chiefs um kind of attendant, right right, So um,
8:03
Speaker 1: this is a This is a huge battle, a momentous
8:06
Speaker 1: battle in the history of of Hawaii. It was very important,
8:09
Speaker 1: and not just because James Cook died, but because there
8:12
Speaker 1: was a one of the I guess low level warriors
8:16
Speaker 1: there or middle middle class warriors I guess by the
8:19
Speaker 1: name of Camea Maya fought quite bravely in that battle,
8:24
Speaker 1: and Camea Maya actually went on to become the first
8:29
Speaker 1: genuinely influential Hawaiian chief, maybe the most significant Hawaiian chief
8:34
Speaker 1: of all time, because while he was there fighting the Europeans,
8:37
Speaker 1: He's like man, these guns, they they work really well.
8:40
Speaker 1: And you know, these Europeans are willing to sell him
8:43
Speaker 1: to you. And he figured out that if he could
8:45
Speaker 1: amass some European UM support and European weapons, he could
8:50
Speaker 1: get all of Hawaii basically under himself. And that's what
8:53
Speaker 1: he said about doing over the course of a couple
8:56
Speaker 1: of decades. Yeah, reading this stuff, this was the Grabster
9:00
Speaker 1: that helped us with this one. It seems I'm sorry, No,
9:03
Speaker 1: it was James Mishner. Oh really, no, you remember James
9:07
Speaker 1: Mischner would write those thousand page epics about like I
9:11
Speaker 1: think he wrote went on Hawaii basically. But this this crabs.
9:15
Speaker 1: So James misterrs this author could write these exhaustive historical fictions, um,
9:21
Speaker 1: and one of them was why. But they would be
9:23
Speaker 1: like a thousand pages easily. And I was making a
9:26
Speaker 1: jokey comment on Grabster's research skills. Yeah, English major over
9:31
Speaker 1: here flew right over my head. And by the way,
9:34
Speaker 1: a little quick side note that I wanted to mention,
9:36
Speaker 1: I am speaking of epic tones. I'm reading the Beatles
9:39
Speaker 1: biography from Bob Spitz that's like a thousand pages, and uh,
9:44
Speaker 1: one thing I wish we could have mentioned. I know
9:46
Speaker 1: you hate the Beatles, but one thing I wish we
9:48
Speaker 1: could have mentioned in the pirate radio thing was Radio Luxembourg.
9:53
Speaker 1: There would have been no Beatles without them because independently, Paul,
9:56
Speaker 1: George and John we're all on their own listening to
10:01
Speaker 1: Radio Luxembourg and that's what turned them onto that's cool,
10:04
Speaker 1: turn me on Radio Luxembourg. And uh wow, I did
10:09
Speaker 1: not see the Beatles making an appeance in this episode.
10:13
Speaker 1: So where are we now? Oh? I know what I
10:17
Speaker 1: was gonna say, was um a thread through this I
10:20
Speaker 1: found is that back then, uh Hawaiians were largely under armed.
10:26
Speaker 1: In most cases, that's a big thing. And then also,
10:29
Speaker 1: just like with all other um colonizations from outside European forces,
10:34
Speaker 1: disease basically paved the way for imperialism. Sure where even
10:39
Speaker 1: even if they were under armed and they didn't typically
10:42
Speaker 1: have standing militaries, um, I should say the Hawaiians didn't
10:47
Speaker 1: even if they had. There was like a plague that
10:50
Speaker 1: came around in eighteen oh three that killed off half
10:53
Speaker 1: of the population. They think it was yellow fever. Um.
10:56
Speaker 1: There was another measles outbreak about fifty years later that
11:01
Speaker 1: killed off another quarter of the population. So when you're
11:04
Speaker 1: dying off in like numbers like this, how could you
11:07
Speaker 1: possibly defend yourself, especially against people who have these superior
11:11
Speaker 1: weapons like guns, germs, and steel. As Jared Diamond put it, Yeah,
11:15
Speaker 1: I mean it's the it's the same story as as
11:18
Speaker 1: America and the native population here. You know, it's like, Hi,
11:21
Speaker 1: we're outsiders and we have guns, and here's some smallpox.
11:26
Speaker 1: But but God decreed that this this should be our
11:30
Speaker 1: land because he killed all of you off with these
11:31
Speaker 1: small pox right because you have no immunity. It's the
11:35
Speaker 1: same depressing story over and over again. It is. Um.
11:40
Speaker 1: So when Kameya was was ruling Hawaii, which was really
11:45
Speaker 1: he was firmly entrenched by the almost turn of the century,
11:48
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. Uh, he was pushing and you know,
11:52
Speaker 1: so much of this boils down to money and class,
11:56
Speaker 1: and he was really pushing for trade with Europe. Um.
11:59
Speaker 1: He wanted the elite landholders of Hawaii to kind of
12:02
Speaker 1: remain in that position. Um. He was traditionally religious with
12:07
Speaker 1: the Kapu and supported that. But he was very much
12:11
Speaker 1: you know, like let's let's enrich ourselves as sort of
12:14
Speaker 1: the ruling class. For for sure, but he also and
12:18
Speaker 1: he was also very open to the idea of exploiting
12:23
Speaker 1: European influence for you know, to strengthen his his kingdom,
12:29
Speaker 1: his house, I guess, is what it's called. He actually
12:31
Speaker 1: had two advisors, Isaac Davis and John Young, uh englishman
12:35
Speaker 1: and a Welshman um who were his closest advisors. And
12:39
Speaker 1: apparently I can't remember which one it was, but when
12:42
Speaker 1: one of them, whenever they would part company, Kamahomyo would
12:45
Speaker 1: just begin sobbing because he just knew one day that
12:48
Speaker 1: they he was going to leave, and he just loved
12:51
Speaker 1: him that much. Yeah, it is very interesting. It's one
12:54
Speaker 1: of those things where you know, we were raised as
12:56
Speaker 1: like Anglo Euro American boys in the eastern seaboard of
13:02
Speaker 1: the United States, right in the Midwest. So when you
13:06
Speaker 1: research history like this, it's just like Hawaiian chief did this,
13:09
Speaker 1: and then this Hawaiian chief came along. But when you
13:11
Speaker 1: start to look into him as we were older, it's
13:14
Speaker 1: it's just always so fascinating to me just how complex
13:17
Speaker 1: and complicated history really is, you know, and just how
13:21
Speaker 1: boiled down typically is presented as Yeah, totally, that's because
13:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think teachers do a good job
13:29
Speaker 1: as they can. But when we were in school, the
13:32
Speaker 1: history we were taught was pretty, uh, pretty simplified. It is.
13:36
Speaker 1: I mean, there's also like a real um advantage to
13:39
Speaker 1: dehumanizing the people that you've done wrong to over the centuries,
13:44
Speaker 1: especially when they live in a state of yours. Still
13:47
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So, uh, under his rule, he
13:51
Speaker 1: managed to sort of sort of unify the Kingdom of Hawaii. Um,
13:56
Speaker 1: it wasn't like everyone was completely on board with what
13:58
Speaker 1: was going on, especially with the kapu and human sacrifice
14:03
Speaker 1: and some of that stuff that happened, but they did
14:05
Speaker 1: live under his rule whether they liked it or not.
14:07
Speaker 1: He was a very strong king, yeah, because he had
14:10
Speaker 1: guns finally, and people didn't and so they couldn't rise
14:14
Speaker 1: up against him. But after he died, as when things
14:16
Speaker 1: got really complicated, because then you had Hawaiian landowners, you
14:21
Speaker 1: had white people that owned land, and then you had
14:23
Speaker 1: this third group, this really large working class. Even though
14:27
Speaker 1: many were killed off, still a lot of people, and
14:31
Speaker 1: that really complicated the whole situation. And maybe we should
14:35
Speaker 1: take a break there. We should all right, we'll take
14:38
Speaker 1: a break and we'll talk about what complicated that even
14:42
Speaker 1: more right after this, So, Chuck, we have this this
15:07
Speaker 1: kind of like a brief sketch of what's going on here.
15:09
Speaker 1: We have a native group, the native Hawaiians who live here,
15:12
Speaker 1: and they are autonomous and running their own show. But
15:16
Speaker 1: then the European explorers have showed up and they are
15:19
Speaker 1: trying to make headways in exploiting this area as best
15:22
Speaker 1: they can commercially. Um for agriculture, at first it was
15:25
Speaker 1: sandal wood, and then it moved on to I think cattle,
15:28
Speaker 1: and then finally like sugarcane um. And then those European
15:33
Speaker 1: white landowners in Hawaii started bringing in tons and tons
15:38
Speaker 1: of migrant workers in basically like slave labor conditions. So
15:42
Speaker 1: you have these three groups kind of coming together in Hawaii,
15:46
Speaker 1: only one of which was originally there. Yeah, And another
15:51
Speaker 1: thing came in, which was missionaries from Europe, Protestant missionaries
15:55
Speaker 1: for the most part, and they did what missionaries do,
15:58
Speaker 1: which was say, hey, you should be Christian and not
16:02
Speaker 1: worship whatever, uh you know, Hawaiian God you worship. And
16:06
Speaker 1: this was a big deal because there were you know,
16:09
Speaker 1: Hawaii had a long, rich tradition, um, a very sacred
16:13
Speaker 1: tradition of religion and this was not that at all,
16:17
Speaker 1: but like they do, they um were pretty forceful in
16:21
Speaker 1: making sure Christianity took hold among some of the people,
16:25
Speaker 1: and it became a pretty big deal in Hawaii by
16:28
Speaker 1: like the sort of mid eighteen hundreds, Yeah, for sure.
16:33
Speaker 1: So and just like with other places where the missionaries
16:36
Speaker 1: were kind of like the leading edge of the spear
16:38
Speaker 1: as far as imperialism goes. So they just were the
16:41
Speaker 1: first to kind of brave this and bring Christianity and
16:44
Speaker 1: a you know, air quote civilization to the area. So
16:48
Speaker 1: after they started to make headway and started to change
16:52
Speaker 1: the culture it made, it allowed greater entree for for
16:56
Speaker 1: more like commercial interest to have definitely to do with religion.
16:59
Speaker 1: They were just coming to to work the land kind
17:02
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah. And forty this is when Kamayama's grandson,
17:07
Speaker 1: Kamaama the third UM wrote the first real legit Hawaiian constitution.
17:15
Speaker 1: There would be many more to follow, don't worry, right,
17:18
Speaker 1: this is just the first one. And this one basically
17:21
Speaker 1: kind of kicked Kapu law to the side. Was a
17:24
Speaker 1: little more Christian, a little more western for lack of
17:27
Speaker 1: a better word, and basically said all right, um, you
17:31
Speaker 1: can now vote over here, and this is kind of
17:34
Speaker 1: the first entree of what democracy would look like there. Yeah,
17:38
Speaker 1: I mean, it created a judicial branch, a legislature like it.
17:42
Speaker 1: It sounded awfully familiar really as far as constitutions go.
17:46
Speaker 1: And it was a huge watershed moment because, like you said,
17:49
Speaker 1: it replaced Kapu with like you said, Western style democracy
17:54
Speaker 1: basically or some version of at the beginnings of it,
17:57
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah. And it also would would establish this
18:01
Speaker 1: this framework, this foundation for people to point to and
18:05
Speaker 1: be like, oh no, no, we want to we want
18:06
Speaker 1: to go further and further towards the constitution, not back
18:09
Speaker 1: toward the old ways. So it was like a goal
18:12
Speaker 1: post that was set there that could be pointed to
18:15
Speaker 1: as we don't want the monarch anymore. Remember, we want
18:18
Speaker 1: this legislature in the judicial branch and all this this
18:20
Speaker 1: stuff that Americans and Europeans are accustomed to working within. Yeah.
18:25
Speaker 1: And also money was a big complicating factor. Um. Like
18:28
Speaker 1: we said, anytime money is introduced and there's very valuable land,
18:32
Speaker 1: it's going to get pretty gravy. And that's what happened
18:35
Speaker 1: when the white Europeans and Americans said, Wow, this soil
18:38
Speaker 1: over here in the climate of here is great for
18:40
Speaker 1: growing stuff and we're not there. You know, they don't
18:44
Speaker 1: have workers uh rights laws here, so we can really
18:48
Speaker 1: really get cheap cheap labor if not um, like you said,
18:53
Speaker 1: basically enslaved people essentially uh from Asia to work over
18:57
Speaker 1: here and not really paying much money, like bring them
19:00
Speaker 1: over under false pretense, say how great it is, how
19:03
Speaker 1: much money they're going to make, and then kind of
19:05
Speaker 1: build them back. Is it's sort of like signing a
19:07
Speaker 1: record contract and build you back for all the expenses
19:11
Speaker 1: of getting over there and overcharging for their living quarters,
19:14
Speaker 1: which were terrible. But it's you know, it's exploitation that
19:19
Speaker 1: we've seen time and time again. Um yeah, if it's
19:23
Speaker 1: still going on today, you know, like that it's basically
19:26
Speaker 1: human trafficking, is what they were doing. Yeah. So, um
19:31
Speaker 1: one thing about Kamehameha, the House of Kamehameha when the
19:34
Speaker 1: first Kamayo Maya, which is an awesomely fun word to
19:38
Speaker 1: say and also just reminds me of Magnum p I
19:40
Speaker 1: because that was the club that Rick managed, the King
19:43
Speaker 1: Kamayama Club. Wo remember that? Oh man? Uh So, anyway,
19:48
Speaker 1: I would just kill to like bee hanging out at
19:52
Speaker 1: the bar, the beach bar in that club. But anyway,
19:55
Speaker 1: um Kamayama, despite their being like up people, basically every
19:59
Speaker 1: time it's successor died, UM he managed to establish a
20:03
Speaker 1: dynasty that lasted until the eighteen seventies, I believe, UM.
20:09
Speaker 1: And the problem was that there were no strong succession laws.
20:14
Speaker 1: So when the monarch died in a few instances, there
20:18
Speaker 1: were these periods called the interregnums, which is basically like, hey,
20:22
Speaker 1: you know, the government, it doesn't actually exist technically right now.
20:25
Speaker 1: It's kind of a free for all while we figure
20:27
Speaker 1: out what comes intact. We gotta we gotta get this
20:29
Speaker 1: together and decide how to move forward. And in this case,
20:33
Speaker 1: they would have the legislature vote for the ruler and UM,
20:38
Speaker 1: this wasn't super popular. It led to rioting. UM. Hawaiians
20:42
Speaker 1: were like, no, we we need uh we kind of
20:45
Speaker 1: didn't mind the monarchy and we need these succession laws
20:47
Speaker 1: to be kind of ingrained. I think that that's a
20:49
Speaker 1: real um, a real telling, revealing tell about how the
20:54
Speaker 1: Hawaiians felt that They were like, no, we don't forget
20:57
Speaker 1: the legislature, we just need better law is to say
21:00
Speaker 1: who succeeds who as far as the monarchs are concerned,
21:04
Speaker 1: because I think that's what they were used to and
21:05
Speaker 1: that's what they wanted, you know. Yeah, but what this
21:08
Speaker 1: ended up doing was kind of there was a real
21:11
Speaker 1: divide here when um, eighteen seventy four, I think was
21:15
Speaker 1: when uh kala ka oh, calliko call ka I practiced
21:25
Speaker 1: a million times Kaleika kalika ua. I mean, I love
21:30
Speaker 1: these words are so much fun to say, um, even
21:33
Speaker 1: though we're probably butchering them. But no, I'm pretty sure
21:35
Speaker 1: it's kaleika Ua alright. Kalaika Ua was the new king
21:40
Speaker 1: voted on in eighteen seventy four, and this was the
21:43
Speaker 1: first real wedge because he had this faction that supported
21:49
Speaker 1: Queen Emma and a real like opposition party was in place.
21:53
Speaker 1: Like people were very, very divided at this point. Yeah.
21:56
Speaker 1: Queen Emma was the wife of Comma the fourth, so
21:59
Speaker 1: she had a pretty alid claimer on the throne. But
22:02
Speaker 1: the legislature said, no, kalika who is definitely our guy.
22:06
Speaker 1: He's now your your king and your monarch. And he
22:08
Speaker 1: was an interesting cat too. He was known as the
22:11
Speaker 1: Merry Monarch. He was a bit of a bomb avant
22:14
Speaker 1: um hula had been banned by the big buzz killed
22:17
Speaker 1: missionaries for decades, I mean hula dancing. Yeah, So so
22:25
Speaker 1: kalika Ua said, hey, it's my birthday, let's bring hula back.
22:28
Speaker 1: So he was kind of beloved for that. He played
22:31
Speaker 1: the ukulele, but he was also very corrupt, like he
22:33
Speaker 1: took a hundred and thirty thousand dollar bribe from some
22:36
Speaker 1: Chinese businessmen who wanted an opium license, and very importantly
22:42
Speaker 1: his whole jam was little by little, the power of
22:46
Speaker 1: the monarch has been eroded to well, now it's finally
22:48
Speaker 1: my turn, and I'm basically is a figurehead here. I
22:51
Speaker 1: want the power back, so I'm going to do that.
22:54
Speaker 1: And instead, there was some white interests that had formed
22:57
Speaker 1: a group known as the Hawaiian League, and they were
23:01
Speaker 1: basically made up of landowners, businessmen, people who had but
23:05
Speaker 1: who were all like white European and American people who said,
23:09
Speaker 1: we actually don't like that idea, and in fact, we're
23:12
Speaker 1: going to make you form sign a new constitution into law,
23:17
Speaker 1: um and where you're gonna do it basically at the
23:19
Speaker 1: at the at gun point, and it's going to be
23:22
Speaker 1: called the Bayonet Constitution. Historically speaking, yes, the Hawaiian League.
23:27
Speaker 1: They were. They had a bunch of different names. Initially
23:30
Speaker 1: they were the um the Missionary not in the Missionary League,
23:35
Speaker 1: the Missionary what the Missionary Party. The Missionary thought that
23:38
Speaker 1: was too sexy, right, So Missionary Party became the Hawaiian League,
23:42
Speaker 1: eventually became the Reform Party because who doesn't like reform?
23:46
Speaker 1: And they eventually became because as we'll see, they pushed
23:51
Speaker 1: more and more towards annexation. Uh. And I don't know
23:54
Speaker 1: if it was were they officially called the Annexation Party?
23:56
Speaker 1: Was that sort of like a I I I honestly
24:00
Speaker 1: don't know the way that they were introduced. I think
24:03
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well either way, what they did was
24:06
Speaker 1: they said, all right, we um know that not many
24:10
Speaker 1: people we were an under armed society, so if we're
24:14
Speaker 1: gonna do this, we're gonna get um the guns on
24:17
Speaker 1: our side. And that was where they got the support
24:19
Speaker 1: of the Hawaiian Rifles, which was a volunteer military unit
24:24
Speaker 1: um all white people. And like you said in in
24:27
Speaker 1: July seven is when those Hawaiian Rifles got involved and
24:31
Speaker 1: said signed this new constitution. They did, and so it
24:35
Speaker 1: basically said, you know how you thought you were a
24:37
Speaker 1: figurehead before. Now you are a genuine, bona fide figurehead.
24:42
Speaker 1: Your power is completely at the um pleasure of the legislature,
24:47
Speaker 1: which by the way, is no longer appointed by you,
24:50
Speaker 1: but elected. And also further, by the way, um we
24:54
Speaker 1: Europeans and Americans now have voting rights because you have
24:57
Speaker 1: to be a landowner in literate to vote. So not
25:00
Speaker 1: only do we have voting rights now to elect the
25:02
Speaker 1: legislature to basically do whatever we want, but we've also
25:05
Speaker 1: just excluded all of those migrant Asian labors that we
25:08
Speaker 1: just brought over because they don't own any land and
25:10
Speaker 1: probably a lot of them can't read. So it's so facto.
25:14
Speaker 1: You go play some ukulele for a while, kalika uha,
25:17
Speaker 1: and thank you very much for Hawaii. Yeah, I mean
25:21
Speaker 1: I got the impression that it was under the guise of, hey,
25:26
Speaker 1: democracy is great and voting is how things should go,
25:29
Speaker 1: but like, but we're going to be the ones voting,
25:31
Speaker 1: by the way, exactly. Yeah, And I mean it definitely
25:34
Speaker 1: was presented like that, like they were trying to liberalize
25:37
Speaker 1: the island. But yeah, ultimately it was for their own interests.
25:42
Speaker 1: When you when you really got down to brass tacks,
25:44
Speaker 1: which is Cockney rhyming slang for facts as we went.
25:49
Speaker 1: So I didn't think that was gonna show up either.
25:52
Speaker 1: So in one that is when he died the aforementioned Kalakaua,
25:58
Speaker 1: right Cali Kaleikaa, and he was succeeded by someone Keito's
26:04
Speaker 1: his sister. How are you gonna make me queen Lily
26:10
Speaker 1: Uoh Kalani? Yeah, man, all right, I think that's right. Yeah,
26:15
Speaker 1: so yeah, and so she if if Kaleika had a
26:20
Speaker 1: problem with being a figurehead, Lily Oh Koalani was definitely
26:24
Speaker 1: um opposed to the idea of just being like Queen Elizabeth,
26:29
Speaker 1: you know, we're just showing up for um state functions
26:33
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. Like she was. She considered
26:35
Speaker 1: herself the ruler of Hawaii. She was the monarch who
26:39
Speaker 1: who was meant to succeed um kaleika Ua fair and square,
26:45
Speaker 1: and had a real problem with this. And but by
26:47
Speaker 1: the problem was that within the four years that Kaleika
26:51
Speaker 1: who assigned the Bayonet Constitution, the doors have been thrown
26:56
Speaker 1: so far open for Western intra business interests in Hawaii
27:02
Speaker 1: that she basically faced an insurmountable challenge and undoing just
27:08
Speaker 1: the changes that had come in in the last four years.
27:11
Speaker 1: It had been slowly creeping up over the decades, but
27:14
Speaker 1: from that Bay and that constitution forward over those four
27:17
Speaker 1: years between then and when she took over, the changes
27:20
Speaker 1: were insurmountable. Basically, Yeah, married to an American too. Incidentally,
27:25
Speaker 1: Well that that that shows you, like just how how
27:29
Speaker 1: intermarried American politics in European politics were with Hawaiian politics. Literally. Yeah,
27:34
Speaker 1: and I don't think we mentioned like this whole time.
27:37
Speaker 1: There are both American and British warships in Honolulu Harbor. Yeah,
27:43
Speaker 1: so like they've been there the whole time there the military,
27:46
Speaker 1: and I didn't get the idea that they were active
27:49
Speaker 1: at that point. They were just there kind of parked there. Yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: I think just more to send a signal, but also
27:54
Speaker 1: to keep other interlopers out. I think the British and
27:56
Speaker 1: the Americans basically considered Hawaii There's right, unofficially, but moving
28:04
Speaker 1: toward officially, because when you said the door was thrown
28:06
Speaker 1: wide open and change was afoot, it was the Hawaiian
28:10
Speaker 1: League that was really um you know, they had flirted
28:12
Speaker 1: with annexation a little bit, but by this point they
28:15
Speaker 1: were really uh, and this is where they took on
28:17
Speaker 1: the name the Annexation Club. Like I mentioned earlier, they
28:20
Speaker 1: were really really headed towards annexation, which is where we
28:24
Speaker 1: have to kind of go back over to America and
28:28
Speaker 1: talk about the Terriff Act of eighteen ninety or the
28:30
Speaker 1: McKinley Tariff, which was basically a very protectionist thing. Um, Hey,
28:35
Speaker 1: we need US goods to be an industry here to
28:38
Speaker 1: be ramped up, so we're gonna charge huge tariffs on
28:42
Speaker 1: goods imported into the US, and that meant Hawaiian goods
28:46
Speaker 1: and um, landowners in Hawaii said this is not good
28:50
Speaker 1: for us because this is gonna make us raise prices.
28:53
Speaker 1: Sales are gonna go down, our profits are gonna go down.
28:56
Speaker 1: And um, while they were you know, the annexation was
29:00
Speaker 1: making hay about democracy being a good thing, it really
29:03
Speaker 1: kind of came down to money. Yeah, that's exactly right
29:06
Speaker 1: with that. That in that McKinley tariff like really kind
29:09
Speaker 1: of forced everyone's hand. Um, because like you said, I mean,
29:14
Speaker 1: Hawaii was a sovereign nation and so there were tariffs
29:17
Speaker 1: on the import. Didn't matter that they were American companies
29:19
Speaker 1: and stuff was being produced in Hawaii, so when it
29:22
Speaker 1: came into America, there was a huge tax slapped on it.
29:26
Speaker 1: So they started saying, Okay, we need to figure this out,
29:28
Speaker 1: like we need to we need to get Hawaii and
29:31
Speaker 1: next and the so I get the impression that the
29:35
Speaker 1: um the Hawaiian League kind of went from There were
29:39
Speaker 1: some people in there that have been saying the whole time, annexation, annexation,
29:42
Speaker 1: it's definitely the way to go to. Where that was
29:45
Speaker 1: like the point of the Hawaiian League from that moment
29:48
Speaker 1: forward was getting annexed um fortunately for them. Uh lially
29:53
Speaker 1: Huo Kalani, whose name just flits in and out of
29:57
Speaker 1: my capability to pronounce she um. She said, Hey, you
30:02
Speaker 1: know what, I don't like all this. I don't like
30:04
Speaker 1: where this is going. I'm going to rewrite the constitution.
30:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to restore the power of the monarchy. And
30:11
Speaker 1: you know, your legislature, your legislature can go sit on
30:14
Speaker 1: it because I'm passing this by royal fiat, just by
30:18
Speaker 1: me decreeing that it's true. It's true. And when that
30:23
Speaker 1: came out, that news came out that she was planning
30:24
Speaker 1: on doing that, the Hawaiian League said it's go time. Yeah,
30:28
Speaker 1: And as far as the US goes, you know, they um,
30:31
Speaker 1: they didn't outright say they wanted to annex. It was
30:33
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky situation for them. They didn't want
30:36
Speaker 1: anyone else to get in there in front of them,
30:39
Speaker 1: of course, but they also didn't and they didn't want to.
30:42
Speaker 1: I feel like they didn't want to be too aggressive
30:44
Speaker 1: with it, like well, hey, if you're open to it,
30:46
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it, but we're not gonna ask you
30:50
Speaker 1: to dance, right, But it wasn't out of any respect
30:53
Speaker 1: or deference necessarily to Hawaiian. It was because they didn't
30:57
Speaker 1: want to tick off the British. So um so yeah.
31:01
Speaker 1: So when Lilio man So, when Lily Uo Kalani said,
31:07
Speaker 1: um that she was going to to rewrite the constitution
31:10
Speaker 1: and this came out, the opposition was really strong, and
31:14
Speaker 1: she actually backed down and she announced, Okay, I'm definitely
31:18
Speaker 1: not going to do it by royal fiat, but I'm
31:19
Speaker 1: gonna do it through normal channels and and really kind
31:23
Speaker 1: of took the any hostility out of the move. But
31:27
Speaker 1: it was it was too little, too late as far
31:28
Speaker 1: as the Hawaiian League was concerned. And like I said
31:31
Speaker 1: they decided it was go time, and Chuck, I say,
31:34
Speaker 1: it's go time for us to go to commercial. Let's
31:36
Speaker 1: do it, alright, So it's go to time in Hawaii. Uh,
32:03
Speaker 1: Queen Lily Okolani has drawn a line in the sand.
32:06
Speaker 1: H White men in Hawaii were super worried all of
32:09
Speaker 1: a sudden, and so that annexation club that has now
32:12
Speaker 1: changed names four times, changed their names again and said
32:16
Speaker 1: all right, now we're the Committee of Safety. And by
32:18
Speaker 1: Committee of safety, I mean we're going to lead a
32:22
Speaker 1: military coup, right, which are typically very safe. Yeah. So, um,
32:28
Speaker 1: there was a a move basically to collect um arms,
32:34
Speaker 1: specifically to depose Liliu o'collani. Like that was the point
32:39
Speaker 1: that that this this um, this this group had I
32:42
Speaker 1: guess it was pretty if it wasn't like overt Basically
32:46
Speaker 1: everyone knew about it so much so that uh loyalists
32:50
Speaker 1: to um Liliuokolani. His name was Charles B. Wilson. Yeah,
32:54
Speaker 1: he was a loyalist, which we should say, so his
32:57
Speaker 1: name sounds pretty um America, and that's for good reason,
33:01
Speaker 1: because he was American. And if you go back a
33:04
Speaker 1: couple of monarchs, um, you will start to see like
33:08
Speaker 1: Germans and Americans and British people in their cabinets like
33:14
Speaker 1: as like foreign minister or Secretary of Finance, like just
33:17
Speaker 1: just like it's just you know, some normal thing. Um,
33:20
Speaker 1: that's how intrenched everything was. So. Charles B. Wilson was
33:24
Speaker 1: to Liliuokalani um the Marshal of Hawaii, which, as ed put,
33:29
Speaker 1: is kind of like the head of the FBI and
33:30
Speaker 1: the head of the Department Offense all rolled into one.
33:33
Speaker 1: But he was in charge of the national police basically,
33:36
Speaker 1: and he found out about this plot and he wanted
33:38
Speaker 1: the plotters arrested for treason. Yeah, he called it out
33:41
Speaker 1: and said arrested the committee or whatever they're calling themselves today,
33:45
Speaker 1: And the American members of the cabinet said, no, we're
33:48
Speaker 1: not gonna do that because this could break out in violence,
33:51
Speaker 1: so let's all chill out. Um. That all changed on
33:55
Speaker 1: January seventeenth, when there was a shooting. A Native Hawaiian
33:59
Speaker 1: policeman was shot trying to prevent a delivery of some
34:02
Speaker 1: weapons to the Annexation Club. Um, he didn't die, but
34:06
Speaker 1: he was shot, and there wasn't like a lot of
34:10
Speaker 1: I mean, James Cook obviously died pretty in a grizzly way,
34:14
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of like actual violence and
34:16
Speaker 1: bloodshed that was riding and stuff over the years. But
34:20
Speaker 1: I get the feeling that this shooting was kind of
34:22
Speaker 1: a big, big thing at the time. It was. I mean,
34:25
Speaker 1: it was the only shooting in the entire overthrow of Hawaii,
34:30
Speaker 1: in this entire coup, which makes it significant. But I
34:34
Speaker 1: get the same impression that you had that Hawaiian society
34:37
Speaker 1: was generally rather peaceful, and so to shoot somebody was
34:40
Speaker 1: a very very big deal. Um. So much so that
34:43
Speaker 1: the cop got two hundred dollars for his his wounds
34:47
Speaker 1: collected by the local community. Pretty nice, pretty good scratch
34:51
Speaker 1: back then. Yeah, I don't I didn't look it up
34:54
Speaker 1: on West Egg. We should have. Uh. So the Committee
34:58
Speaker 1: of Safety goes to you know, mentioned the warships in
35:00
Speaker 1: the harbor. Uh They go to our the the USS
35:05
Speaker 1: Boston that's parked there, and go to Captain Wilts and say, hey,
35:11
Speaker 1: you know what, um, they're American citizens on the island there. Now,
35:14
Speaker 1: you guys are having a good time, just kind of
35:15
Speaker 1: hanging out and playing cards, but there's property that's in danger.
35:19
Speaker 1: There's American citizens that are in danger and there are
35:21
Speaker 1: armed troops. UM like, we need you guys in your
35:25
Speaker 1: guns to come on the island. And he went, well,
35:28
Speaker 1: all right, uh, come on, guys, let's go. And they
35:31
Speaker 1: all put down their cards and a hundred and sixty
35:33
Speaker 1: two soldiers went ashore. And that was sort of the
35:38
Speaker 1: real turning point as far as an actual American military
35:42
Speaker 1: presence in their supposedly defending property and American citizens from danger.
35:48
Speaker 1: But it really ratcheted things up as far as conflict goes. Well, yeah,
35:52
Speaker 1: and particularly for Liliuokalani. To her, she saw American troops
35:57
Speaker 1: coming ashore, um establishing a full were like a couple
36:00
Speaker 1: of hundred yards away from the Imperial Palace and and
36:05
Speaker 1: basically creating a presence on native sovereign Hawaiian land. And
36:12
Speaker 1: this was at the same time that the UM the
36:16
Speaker 1: Committee for Safety, had run up on the steps of
36:19
Speaker 1: the Capitol building read a proclamation that the queen had
36:22
Speaker 1: been overthrown, that the monarchy didn't exist any longer, and
36:26
Speaker 1: that she had been deposed and that UM they were
36:28
Speaker 1: now in charge. And combine that, from her point of
36:32
Speaker 1: view with the presence of American troops, She's like, okay,
36:35
Speaker 1: I guess the Americans just overthrew me. She didn't know
36:38
Speaker 1: who was working with who. She just knew there were
36:40
Speaker 1: armed troops. She didn't really have any kind of standing
36:42
Speaker 1: army or anything like that. So she made a very
36:44
Speaker 1: wise and in my opinion, very noble decision to say,
36:48
Speaker 1: you know what, I will. I will surrender for the
36:52
Speaker 1: moment because I don't want to. I want to avoid
36:55
Speaker 1: any unnecessary bloodshed, Like anybody who fights for me is
36:58
Speaker 1: going to get wasted by these American marines, and I
37:02
Speaker 1: don't want to see that happen. So I will surrender,
37:05
Speaker 1: but I'm not surrendering my position to the provisional government.
37:09
Speaker 1: All surrender to the United States of America temporarily until
37:13
Speaker 1: they can restore my position, because this is b S. Yeah,
37:18
Speaker 1: And in in her statement, we won't read the whole thing,
37:20
Speaker 1: but at the end she essentially says I'm doing this
37:23
Speaker 1: for now, until which time I will be reinstated as
37:27
Speaker 1: the authority, at which point everyone just kind of patted
37:30
Speaker 1: her on the head and said, that's that's adorable that
37:32
Speaker 1: you think that's actually gonna happen. She said, ps B S.
37:38
Speaker 1: And I don't think we mentioned this new provisional government said,
37:41
Speaker 1: all right, we have a president now, and his name
37:42
Speaker 1: is Sanford Dole. Uh if that name sounds familiar, um.
37:47
Speaker 1: Sandford's brother James founded the Dole Fruit Company in Hawaiian
37:51
Speaker 1: So really no surprise how how that worked out, right,
37:54
Speaker 1: So so let's just recap real quick. Okay, So there
37:57
Speaker 1: was a group of American in Europe in white business interests, landowners,
38:02
Speaker 1: businessmen who overthrew like during this, during this, a little
38:06
Speaker 1: melee after a cop was shot, ran up onto the
38:10
Speaker 1: capital steps read a proclamation that they were in charge.
38:13
Speaker 1: John John Stevens, who hadn't mentioned he was the American
38:17
Speaker 1: Minister to Hawaii. He was very much in on this
38:20
Speaker 1: and in league with the Hawaiian League UM. And he said, I,
38:24
Speaker 1: as official representative the United States officially recognized you, the
38:27
Speaker 1: provisional Government, as the true government of Hawaii. I no
38:31
Speaker 1: longer recognized the monarch. And that was it. All of
38:34
Speaker 1: a sudden, this island kingdom of Hawaii that had been
38:38
Speaker 1: around for a thousand or more years and had been
38:43
Speaker 1: organized since for a couple of hundred years or a
38:45
Speaker 1: hundred or more years, UM, just didn't exist anymore. Poof
38:50
Speaker 1: because an American minister recognized a group of other Americans.
38:53
Speaker 1: We just said, we claim this place basically as our own. Yeah,
38:57
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, we're voting for this now.
39:00
Speaker 1: Dole is president, like I said, but the Royalists are
39:03
Speaker 1: boycotting the elections. So the Annexation Party, which eventually became
39:08
Speaker 1: the American Union Party, they just were winning the elections
39:11
Speaker 1: because it was no contest basically, Yeah, which is I mean,
39:14
Speaker 1: it's a problem. You're in such a pickle with that,
39:16
Speaker 1: you know, like you're like, I reject that these elections
39:20
Speaker 1: are even valid on their face. Um, but but then
39:24
Speaker 1: if they just keep pulling these elections and other people
39:26
Speaker 1: keep recognizing them as valid, then you're you're s o
39:30
Speaker 1: l you know it. It was a really sticky, terrible
39:33
Speaker 1: situation for the Native Hawaiians and their their monarch. Yeah.
39:36
Speaker 1: So Dole and and the gang are firmly entrenched at
39:39
Speaker 1: this point, and this is when they can really really
39:42
Speaker 1: start to go after annexation. Um. So over in America,
39:45
Speaker 1: you have Grover Cleveland in office and he's like, wait
39:49
Speaker 1: a minute, this this all sounds very kinky and illegal,
39:53
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna send an envoy. James Blunt to Hawaii.
39:58
Speaker 1: You put together a report and and report back to
40:01
Speaker 1: me and let me know what's going on. Blunt went
40:03
Speaker 1: over put together as report and he said, yeah, it
40:06
Speaker 1: was super illegal what happened. And so Cleveland said, all right, queen, um,
40:12
Speaker 1: if you want, will send troops in there to over
40:15
Speaker 1: overthrow the republic and UM put you back in in
40:19
Speaker 1: in a position of queen. But what you have to
40:22
Speaker 1: do is is you got to offer amnesty to that
40:24
Speaker 1: Committee of Safety that overthrew you kind of using our
40:27
Speaker 1: soldiers to begin with. And she probably had whip flash
40:30
Speaker 1: at this point, but she was like, uh, no, I'm
40:33
Speaker 1: not going to do that, and actually those guys should
40:36
Speaker 1: be beheaded, um, if I'm really being completely honest. And
40:39
Speaker 1: so Cleveland kind of slunk down and said, all right, well,
40:42
Speaker 1: I guess we uh we're not going to do that. Then, yeah,
40:45
Speaker 1: he said, beheadings are gonna it's gonna be tough to
40:49
Speaker 1: get past Congress. So I guess we don't have anything
40:53
Speaker 1: to say here, but you have to kind of hand
40:54
Speaker 1: it to Lily uh Kolani that um, I mean, she
40:57
Speaker 1: stuck to her principles and she could she could have
41:00
Speaker 1: been restored as monarch maybe even back to like the
41:04
Speaker 1: pre figurehead version of the monarchy. And she said, nope,
41:08
Speaker 1: I'm cutting their heads off if if you put me
41:10
Speaker 1: back as as queen. Yeah. At the same time, the
41:13
Speaker 1: US Congress gets involved. They said, you know what, we're
41:16
Speaker 1: the ones who investigate people. So listen to over our guy,
41:20
Speaker 1: John Tyler Morgan. And Morgan went over and his report said,
41:25
Speaker 1: you know what, this was not some illegal coup. This
41:28
Speaker 1: was just Hawaii being Hawaii. This is their politics, this
41:33
Speaker 1: is how they do things. We didn't really do anything wrong.
41:36
Speaker 1: No blood on our hands. It's Hawaii. This is what
41:39
Speaker 1: they do. No big deal. So the Congress is like
41:43
Speaker 1: good enough for us. UM. By this time, also, UM,
41:47
Speaker 1: Cleveland had been replaced by who is Cleveland's successor? Mley? Okay,
41:52
Speaker 1: so the McKinley tariff came before all this, huh there
41:56
Speaker 1: came after all this. No. I got the idea that
41:59
Speaker 1: maybe it was as a senator or something. Okay, I'm
42:02
Speaker 1: completely wrong though, No, but that would make way more sense.
42:05
Speaker 1: But the point is is that McKinley UM was much
42:09
Speaker 1: more in favor of annexation, uh than Cleveland was, and
42:13
Speaker 1: so the the United States officially annexed Hawaii as a
42:17
Speaker 1: territory in and this was exactly exactly what all of
42:24
Speaker 1: those American and European landowners wanted, because, especially in America,
42:31
Speaker 1: no longer were they subject to these high tariffs for
42:34
Speaker 1: the imported goods because Hawaii was an annexed territory. But Chuck,
42:39
Speaker 1: they also were in a state, which means that they
42:42
Speaker 1: weren't subject to US laws like immigration, which meant that
42:46
Speaker 1: they could continue up their their human trafficking, which meant
42:50
Speaker 1: that as an annexed territory, their profit margins were as
42:54
Speaker 1: wide as they've ever been. Basically, yeah, I mean those
42:57
Speaker 1: were uh, I mean, they were terror doble in reality,
43:01
Speaker 1: but those were the golden years if you're a plantation
43:03
Speaker 1: owner in Hawaii, because you're you're basically just making money
43:08
Speaker 1: hand over fist with no oversight. Right. And by the way,
43:11
Speaker 1: I just looked at real quick. McKinley was a House
43:13
Speaker 1: representative when that terrifact came out. Not thank you. That
43:17
Speaker 1: was a really great in show correction. We usually don't
43:20
Speaker 1: do this. Uh So, when does statehood come on the scene,
43:24
Speaker 1: Because Hawa I didn't become a state until nineteen fifty nine,
43:28
Speaker 1: which was not that long ago. No, it was, and
43:30
Speaker 1: it was a full sixty plus years after it was annexed.
43:34
Speaker 1: And because they were just fat cats and they were
43:36
Speaker 1: loving it. That's that's exactly right. The powerful interests who
43:41
Speaker 1: basically ran the legislature said, hey, you know, we we
43:45
Speaker 1: were really like Chuck said, we're making money hand over
43:48
Speaker 1: fist and somebody said, who's Chuck. They said, just give
43:51
Speaker 1: it a couple of decades, you'll see it's gonna knock
43:53
Speaker 1: your socks off. But they had no, no desire to
43:56
Speaker 1: be a state, because then that meant that they're immigration
44:00
Speaker 1: laws would be imposed and they'd have to follow a
44:02
Speaker 1: lot more um, social and cultural more's that America had established, um,
44:08
Speaker 1: and it was going to be a bad jam for them.
44:10
Speaker 1: The other thing was here at home, and it was
44:13
Speaker 1: just straight up like racist xenophobia. Yeah, um, you know,
44:17
Speaker 1: I think I don't know if we said to put
44:18
Speaker 1: a pin in it, but we were talking about all
44:20
Speaker 1: these migrant workers who you know, had kids and stuff,
44:24
Speaker 1: and those kids were born there eventually became a non
44:27
Speaker 1: white majority in Hawaii, and they were like, you know
44:30
Speaker 1: what if we make this place of state, he said,
44:34
Speaker 1: they're gonna actually these microworkers are gonna gain real voting
44:37
Speaker 1: power and they have a non white majority, and we
44:40
Speaker 1: really don't want those people in our congress. In Congress,
44:44
Speaker 1: that was basically the reason that kept Hawaii from being
44:46
Speaker 1: a state until nine. People didn't want people of Asian
44:50
Speaker 1: or Native Hawaiian descent in in d C. And Congress,
44:54
Speaker 1: I guess. And that nuts. Yeah, So it took until
44:57
Speaker 1: March eighteenth nine to find become a state, and then
45:02
Speaker 1: it took until for Congress to pass an apology bill.
45:06
Speaker 1: And this is hysterical and it's so believable, but it
45:10
Speaker 1: points out that they were, uh, it was disputed because
45:14
Speaker 1: they were literally arguing about either the Blunt Report or
45:17
Speaker 1: the Morgan Report being more accurate, like a hundred years later. Yeah,
45:21
Speaker 1: can you do Clinton apologizing? Oh what do I have
45:26
Speaker 1: to apologize for? That was great. So so that bill
45:30
Speaker 1: actually said that Hawaii or the Native Hawaiians quote, never
45:35
Speaker 1: directly relinquished to the US their claims to their inherent sovereignty.
45:39
Speaker 1: The US said, in in some in in so many words,
45:44
Speaker 1: like the United States stole Hawaii. Hawaii is the state
45:47
Speaker 1: because we took it basically back in eighteen ninety. That
45:51
Speaker 1: or the eighteen eighties. Pretty great story. It is so
45:55
Speaker 1: that you were asking about the pulse of Hawaii today.
45:58
Speaker 1: There's a bill that was introduced in two thousand by
46:00
Speaker 1: Senator Daniel k Akaca, and he's since retired, I believe,
46:05
Speaker 1: but the Acaca Bill is still around, and it basically
46:08
Speaker 1: would extend sovereignty to Native Hawaiians and virtually the same
46:12
Speaker 1: way that um Native American tribes in the continental US
46:17
Speaker 1: have their own tribal nations. They have their own governments
46:20
Speaker 1: that make decisions for them, and they have their own
46:22
Speaker 1: laws and all that um and there's it's just never
46:25
Speaker 1: been passed. There's I don't think there's quite enough support
46:28
Speaker 1: for it or what the hold up is, but it's
46:30
Speaker 1: still languishing right now. I haven't been. I gotta go
46:34
Speaker 1: at some point. Oh dude, I would like to live
46:37
Speaker 1: there one day. Yeah. That's good. A place where you
46:39
Speaker 1: you and you meet to retire. It's a it's amazing.
46:42
Speaker 1: So uh and maybe I'll meet up with Kanaka Kai,
46:46
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian hillbilly while we're there. I think with your
46:49
Speaker 1: magnum obsession, you were destined to just while away with
46:53
Speaker 1: a coconut with a straw on it in your hand.
46:56
Speaker 1: Who do I have to kill the cu to refill
46:58
Speaker 1: his coconut? I used to be somebody. How do you
47:03
Speaker 1: think I got this rainbow helicopter? That's right, oh man,
47:07
Speaker 1: I've been to the Magnum house before you metok me,
47:10
Speaker 1: does not surprise me, it's neat Um. Well have you
47:13
Speaker 1: got anything else about the overthrow of Hawaii? Well, if
47:16
Speaker 1: you wanted more about the overthrow Hawaii, there's a lot
47:19
Speaker 1: more out there. It's pretty interesting story in Hawaiian culture
47:22
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting too, now that we dug into it.
47:24
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
47:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this anvils. And by the way, this
47:33
Speaker 1: um this is from Nolan. Nolan did not point this out,
47:36
Speaker 1: but we heard from many people who said that the
47:38
Speaker 1: Smithy was not the Blacksmith, but the place, uh their
47:42
Speaker 1: workshop is called the Smithy and I can't know that smithy,
47:46
Speaker 1: Like that's the Blacksmith. Yeah, that's what I thought. I
47:49
Speaker 1: think they're the smith Okay, not the Smith's. That's Morrissee
47:53
Speaker 1: and Johnny morn Company. That's right. Hey, guys, love the
47:57
Speaker 1: episode on Blacksmith thing. I've been to Blacksmith since I
47:59
Speaker 1: was nineteen when I bought my first anvil. I started
48:02
Speaker 1: listening stuff you should Know during grad school and my
48:04
Speaker 1: anvil was sadly packed away. I had no time to
48:06
Speaker 1: use it, but thankfully it isn't on the shelf any longer,
48:09
Speaker 1: and I found myself sitting next to it while listening
48:11
Speaker 1: to your episode. Uh. Seems silly, but these things have
48:13
Speaker 1: a real personality to them. They're like old friends. I
48:16
Speaker 1: met mine close to a decade ago, and it's a
48:19
Speaker 1: one dash, zero dash, sixteen and twenty eight pound Peter Wright.
48:24
Speaker 1: That means something to Smithy's. I was impressed by the
48:28
Speaker 1: Peter right. Yeah, he's He's a legendary anvil list Smithie.
48:34
Speaker 1: So Uh. One thing on the show I thought I
48:36
Speaker 1: mentioned is about anvil's Josh said, you want to attach
48:39
Speaker 1: the anvil to a stump to disperse the hammer strike
48:41
Speaker 1: to the earth, which is partially which is partially correct,
48:45
Speaker 1: but missed one beautiful thing about a good anvil, which
48:49
Speaker 1: is it's rebound. Uh. An anvil's quality can be measured
48:52
Speaker 1: by the rebound. This is how much force pushes back
48:54
Speaker 1: at you when you strike. Because this is a good anvil.
48:57
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because of this, a good anvil hits back
49:01
Speaker 1: when you strike it, and a good blacksmith uses this
49:04
Speaker 1: to effectively forge both sides of a workpiece at the
49:07
Speaker 1: same time. I also one thing I also saw somebody
49:10
Speaker 1: else right in to say that that helps you um
49:13
Speaker 1: and swinging a ten pound hammer like like working the
49:17
Speaker 1: rebound to your advantage to totally. He said, you can
49:21
Speaker 1: tell if you have a good anvil by the rebound
49:24
Speaker 1: by dropping a ball bearing on it or lightly dropping
49:28
Speaker 1: a hammerhead and seeing how high it bounces. A dead
49:30
Speaker 1: anvil will have no bounce and only gives a soft thud.
49:33
Speaker 1: A good anvil bounces back a lot and leaves a
49:36
Speaker 1: ringing in the air. And this is actually where the
49:38
Speaker 1: phrase has a nice ring to it comes from. Oh
49:41
Speaker 1: really about that? I love that stuff. It was a
49:44
Speaker 1: blacksmith in phrase. So great job, guys, as always keep
49:47
Speaker 1: it up. I always love tuning into these shows. Can't
49:50
Speaker 1: wait hear more. And that is Nolan. Thanks Toland, you
49:53
Speaker 1: really quenched our thirst for etymology big time. Appreciate Nolan,
49:58
Speaker 1: Appreciate everybody, all of the smiths who wrote in to
50:01
Speaker 1: let us know all the stuff we got wrong, but
50:03
Speaker 1: also say, hey, you generally got it right. So in
50:05
Speaker 1: Farriors we heard from farriers. Yeah, tons of farriers out there,
50:09
Speaker 1: So we appreciate all of you and we're fascinated by
50:12
Speaker 1: the work you do. If you want to get in
50:15
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can send us an email. Send
50:17
Speaker 1: it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
50:24
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
50:26
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50:29
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50:32
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.