Engaging Hawaiians in the Expansion of the U.S. Empire

At its inception, the United States of America realized the impor-tance of using the national resources of its federal government and armed forces to protect and develop international trade and commerce, so that its private merchant and commercial interests could prosper. From the outset, the lucrative China Trade was the principal route targeted to enrich the fortunes of American commercial entrepreneurs. Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians figured prominently in the early development of the China Trade. As U.S. investments in Hawai'i increased, American missionaries, merchants, and planters increased their influence within the Hawaiian government and the U.S. Navy assumed a key role in the military defense of Hawai'i against European and Asian imperial powers. By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had adopted its own version of an imperial policy of expansion beyond North America—develop a powerful Navy; maintain an Open Door to the China trade; construct an isthmian canal; and provoke the Spanish-American War in order to acquire insular or island colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific oceans. The island colonies would provide strategic bases from which the powerful U.S. Navy would police major trade routes to secure the flow of American commerce through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific to Asia.

Again, as Hawai'i figured prominently in the extension of the U.S. empire into the Pacific and Asia, its incorporation into the United States through annexation in 1898 became essential for the consolidation of America's influence in the region. In the early twentieth century, the United States built up its naval forces in Hawai'i, Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines to secure its economic interests in Asia against the major European powers and Japan. As technology developed in the direction of commercial air routes, the United States again drew upon Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians to maintain its competitive edge in Asian markets. By 1941, the American naval presence at Pu'uloa, Hawai'i, or Pearl Harbor, was so massive that the Japanese attacked the American fleet in Hawai'i convinced that this action would cripple the U.S. Navy. The U.S. prevailed in World War II, however, and its imperialist strategies culminated with the emergence of the U.S. as the dominant world military and economic power.

Against the backdrop of historical expansion of the American Empire across the Pacific to the shores of Asian markets, I will highlight in this essay how the U.S. government and private commercial interests engaged Native Hawaiians in their various imperialist projects. I will conclude by exploring the significance of this involvement for Native Hawaiians and the contradictions it has represented vis-à-vis the Hawaiian Renaissance and reassertion of Native Hawaiian sovereignty.

British Captain James Cook made the western discovery of Hawai'i in 1778, two years after the thirteen American colonies had declared their independence from Great Britain. American maritime entrepreneurs viewed Hawai'i as an ideal "stepping stone" for the conduct of the trade in furs from the northwest shores of North America, and for acquiring the riches of China such as tea, silks, and porcelain. In 1787, the first two American ships, the Columbia and the Lady Washington, entered the China trade. Over time, the supply of furs declined and ships extended their trading range along the entire northwest coast and as far south as what is now California. When it took more than one season to acquire a full load of cargo, fur traders voyaged to Hawai'i to wait out the winter. At the turn of the century, around 1810, it was discovered that native Hawaiian sandalwood could be used as a commodity in the China trade. Its fragrant wood was highly valued for making bureaus, chests, fans, and combs. As a result, Hawai'i became more than a stopover for provisions. It became an...