Exploring Overthrow of Hawiian Monarchy

In writing of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy, it is important to dispel at least two possible misconceptions. First is that the monarchy was a native form of government that had existed from a time before contact with Western powers. While I do not wish to dispute that there were some moves toward centralization of authority before Western contact, I will claim that the move to label the ultimate centralization of that authority a monarchy is another matter. In fact, the people of the island had been ruled by a system of Ali‘i, or chiefs, who organized labor on tracts of land inhabited by their followers and who husbanded resources. That government was essentially local (though there were ruling chiefs or m?‘i that appointed other chiefs within larger portions of the islands); the islands were not united until the reign of Kamehameha I, the first recognized “king” of the Hawaiian islands. His reign, if we consider him king from the time he conquered map iconO‘ahu, began about 1795, introducing a hybrid system of government that sought to adapt traditional principles of government to a system that would be recognized by Western powers and enable interaction with them. Second is that the overthrow was a single event. On January 16, 1893, a self-proclaimed “provisional government” with the help of U.S. troops from the U.S.S. Boston displaced Queen Lili‘uokalani's constitutional monarchy and the U.S. minister John Stevens recognized it as the de facto government.