Nation Within: The Story of America's Annexation of the Nation of Hawaii [Paperback]

Tom Coffman (Author, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin called this book "a new vision of Hawaiian history," a nation-to-nation story that brings the once-independent nation of Hawai'i to life. As the 19th century wanes, America incessantly pressures the native government for ever-greater control, then conspires with missionary descendants to overthrow the island government. Long-buried evidence reveals that the native Hawaiians, far from being passive, engage in a five-year resistance against annexation. The American axis that runs between Washington and Honolulu, thwarted in its ambition, desperately turns to an insult of Japanese immigrants and a dangerous provocation of Japan. Native Hawaiian lobbyists in Washington again stymie an annexation treaty. But the American drive to expand into a first-rate power is relentless, finding new opportunities when the U.S.S. Maine blows up in Havana Harbor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" ... Coffman has gracefully constructed a new vision of Hawaiian history, broader perhaps than any produced in the last 100 years ... a stunning, trans-oceanic story ..." -- Kehaulani Lum, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

"... moves to center stage an American well-known for many other things, but seldom connected with Hawaiian history -- Theodore Roosevelt ..." -- A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

"Astronomers peer into the daunting depths of space, attempting to find black holes ... historians like Tom Coffman are looking backward, only a century, and see a black hole blanking out the events of 1898." -- Burl Burlingame, author and historian

"The book answers big questions. Were the overthrow and annexation isolated events, idiosyncratic to an island nation? Or were the events an outgrowth of American manifest destiny? What were the international implications? Who were the key players, here, and in Washington? What drove them and what were the interrelationships?" -- Chuck Freedman, Honolulu Advertiser

"Tom Coffman has gone on a far-reaching treasure hunt for long-buried facts, revealing for the first time the full array of events and shifting international forces that led to the overthrow and annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii ... not to be missed ... " -- Herb Kawainui Kane, artist/historian

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Having survived the brutal cold of Washington's winter, the Hawaiian delegation welcomed spring. Having survived yet another campaign to annex their homeland to America, they took a brief moment to remark cheerfully on the survival of Hawai'i as an independent nation. Perhaps the moment for America to take over Hawai'i had come and gone, and perhaps the Hawaiians could now get their country back.

The queen of Hawai'i had been living in a hotel in Washington during most of 1897, and the delegates of the native political societies had arrived toward the end of the year, in the dead of winter, to support her with the most ambitious of their many petitions. The delegation had come from mass rallies in Hawai'i against annexation that had been attended by thousands of Hawaiians, who now were nearly one quarter of the earth's surface away. At one of the rallies against annexation, a speaker had likened the Kingdom of Hawai'i to a house, which had been built by the great king, Kamehameha. A handful of foreigners had taken over the house, and they had given the Hawaiians a lei stand in return, where the Hawaiians were expected to reside and sell flowers.

Would the Hawaiians live in the lei stand? "Agole," the crowd had shouted back. No, never.

When the delegates to Washington closed their eyes they could remember the faces, the families, and the petitions passing from hand to hand for people to sign their names. As a result of the petition drive, the Hawaiian delegation had arrived in Washington with thirty-eight thousand signatures protesting America's proposed annexation of their country, and they were eager to call the petitions to the attention of influential Americans. Considering that only forty thousand or so Hawaiians survived, it was surely true, as their opponents said, that some of the signatures were duplicates, and some were the names of children, and perhaps some were names of the dead. But the petitions nonetheless were a virtual census of the Hawaiian nation, as Hawaiians still called themselves, and the petitions said eloquently that in spite of everything that had happened, they wanted to be what they had been, a nation in the world system of nations.

Product Details

• Paperback: 345 pages
• Publisher: Epicenter (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892122006
• ISBN-13: 978-1892122001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,087,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A revelation, August 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Nation Within: The Story of America's Annexation of the Nation of Hawaii (Paperback)

This book is a revelation! I thought I knew quite a bit about the annexation of Hawaii into the United States, but Tom Coffman has gone back to original sources and come up with a new and compelling account. This book shows how the annexation of Hawaii was engineered by American planters and how mainland public opinion was manipulated into accepting the takeover. It also places the annexation in context of the imperialism and colonalism that was sweeping the world in the late 19th century. Finally, it shows the resistance of the Hawaiian people to being submerged in the American nation and gives us an idea of what is behind the sovereignty movement in Hawaii today. This book is not an easy read -- it's packed with detail and unfamiliar names and places. But if you want to look beyond "beautiful Hawaii" and read some little known US and world history, you will find this book fascinating.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book revealing context and process of annexation, December 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Nation Within: The Story of America's Annexation of the Nation of Hawaii (Paperback)

The annexation of Hawai`i by the U.S., as well as the preceeding overthrow of Hawai`i by U.S. military forces and the installation of a republic, is not widely understood. In fact, most sources either gloss over the overthrow and annexation or else present a grossly misleading presentation which has worked its way from the writings of those who originally orchestrated the events into the average history book.

Tom Coffman goes through much effort to review not only the body of secondary sources, but also a very large body of primary sources available from the records of the Republic, the various Hawaiian civic bodies, the original newspapers (including the Hawaiian language newspapers), the letters of American businessmen and politicians, and other sources. The synthesis he builds reveals a very insightful and different story of how and why Hawai`i went from an internationally-recognized autonomous nation to a property of the U.S. In contrast to the claims of many sources, the overthrow and annexation were against the wishes of the vast majority of Hawaiians, whose opinions are recorded in petitions stored at the U.S. National Archives as well as in the newspapers and Hawaiian-language writings of the time.

Coffman goes well beyond merely correcting many of the common misconceptions about the stability of the monarchy and the opinions of the people of Hawai`i. He presents insights into the thinking and motivations of all involved parties, from various segments of the population of Hawai`i to businessmen and politicians in the U.S., and explains how Americans in Hawai`i and the U.S. worked together on the common goal of overthrowing and annexing Hawai`i.

This is an important text for anybody trying to understand the history or current events of Hawai`i. It is also of interest to anybody who is interested in American politics at the turn of the century, as Manifest Destiny changed its goal from expanding to fill the continental U.S. into the U.S. exerting itself as an imperial global superpower.