Sugar and the Hawaiian Revolution

Abstract

HISTORIANS of the Hawaiian revolution of January 17, 1893, have often concerned themselves with the controversial question of the role of in the revolution. Writers inclined toward the economic interpretation of history have explained the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and the establishment of the provisional government in terms of the need of the planters to find relief from the depression which engulfed the islands with the passage of the McKinley Tariff in 1890. This act erased the preferential treatment of Hawaiian in the American market by admitting all foreign duty free and by granting domestic producers a bounty of two cents a pound. The effect upon Hawaii had been severe, as the price of dropped from one hundred to sixty dollars a ton. Thus, Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman cite as the prime cause of the trouble in Hawaii. They claim that only annexation and the imposition of duty on competing could have sufficed to restore Hawaiian prosperity in the 'nineties and that heavy property damage was avoided by the revolution, sponsored by American business men, supported by United States diplomatic representatives, and bulwarked by the new tariff act of 1894.' Following in this tradition, Charles and Mary Beard write that it was mainly that precipitated the crisis. In support they point to the testimony of a sugar planter from the island of Lanai, who stated that the causes of the revolution were simply two cents a pound on sugar-to get some treaty or arrangement with America.2 Further investigation, however, reveals that this sugar planter was actually Fred H. Hayselden, a British stock raiser, whose total investments in the islands amounted to $200 worth of stock in the Mutual Telephone Company of Oahu. He had been sheriff in Lanai at the time of the revolution and