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On January 17, 1993, over 15,000 Hawaiians and their supporters marched through Honolulu to the palace of their ancient chiefs to commemorate and protest the American overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom a century earlier. Solemn and traditional, the chanting throng included infants and great-grandparents, Natives and non-Natives, politicians, curious tourists, and dozens of news reporters from the United States and the Pacific Rim. By most reckonings, the 'sovereignty' march was the largest of its kind in modern Hawaiian history (Honolulu Advertiser, January 18, 1993; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 18, 1993).
The historical event which focused the march was the overthrow by the United States government of Queen Liliuokalani on January 17, 1893. On that fateful day, the U.S. Minister to Hawaii ordered the landing of American Marines in support of a committee of 13 haole (originally 'foreigners,' now glossed as 'white people') businessmen who sought to seize political power. Fearful of the American military, the Hawaiian Queen ceded her authority, not to the committee, but to the United States (Blount, 1893: p. 586). In 1897, a protest petition against annexation to the United States was sent toWashington D.C. Over 21,000 Natives, representing the overwhelming majority of adult Hawaiians, had signed the anti-annexation petitions (Honolulu Advertiser, August 5, 1998; Silva, 1998: p. 61).
Hoping for restoration from President Cleveland, Queen Liliuokalani was never to recover her throne; Hawaii was annexed, in 1898, during the McKinley administration, after a brief period as a Republic. Union with the United States meant the transfer of 1,800,000 acres of Hawaiian Government lands, that is, nearly half the archipelago, to the all-haole planter oligarchy. At the dawn of the 20th century, Hawaii was an American Territory, one whose governor would continue to be appointed by the President of the United States until after statehood was achieved in 1959 (U.S. Congress, 1898).
As both commemoration and declaration, the march was a political and cultural statement of the desire for Hawaiian self-government. Americanization had not only ended Hawaiian political independence but had resulted in the banning of the Hawaiian language in 1896, during the period of the Republic.
Today, with an economy deeply anchored in mass-based, corporate-controlled tourism, the indigenous people find the last of their rural enclaves rapidly diminishing throughout the archipelago. Since...