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The success of the joint house Texas annexation set a precedent that would be applied to the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. [ 187 ] Republican President Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893) attempted, in 1893, to annex the Republic of Hawaii through a Senate treaty.
The majority of the population of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the late 1890s was vociferously opposed to annexation. In a single weeklong petition drive in 1897, 21,269 signatures — representing well over half of the native adult population of Hawaii at the time [3] — were procured by horseback, boat and foot travel by members of Hui Aloha ʻĀina (Hawaiian Patriotic League).
After William McKinley, who favored annexation, became President of the United States in 1897, a new treaty of annexation was signed and sent to United States Senate for approval. In response, the Hawaiian Patriotic League and its female counterpart petitioned Congress, opposing the annexation treaty.
The annexation of Hawaii as a U.S. territory was finalized by August 12, 1898, and marked the end of the island nation's independence. Hawaii would not become an official U.S. state until 1959.
This 1897 political cartoon portrays the U.S. annexation of Hawaii as "Another shotgun wedding, with neither party willing". Multiple viewpoints in the United States and in Hawaii were raised for and against annexation from 1893 to 1898. Historian Henry Graff wrote that at first, "Public opinion at home seemed to indicate acquiescence ...
A new constitution was subsequently written while Hawaii was being prepared for annexation. The leaders of the Republic, such as Sanford B. Dole and Lorrin A. Thurston, were Hawaii-born descendants of American settlers who spoke the Hawaiian language but had strong financial, political, and family ties to the United States. They intended the ...
The Committee of Safety, formally the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety, was a 13-member group of the Annexation Club. The group was composed of mostly Hawaiian subjects of American descent and American citizens who were members of the Missionary Party, as well as some foreign residents in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
The petitions collectively were presented as evidence of the strong grassroots opposition of the Hawaiian community to annexation, and the treaty was defeated in the Senate. [ 2 ] [ 7 ] However, a year following the defeat of the treaty in the Senate, Hawaii was annexed via the Newlands Resolution , a joint resolution of Congress, in July 1898.