What countries could annex Hawai before the USA does?

Which nation has the best chance to annex Hawai?

  • United Kingdom

    Votes: 142 88.8%
  • Spain

    Votes: 6 3.8%
  • Russia

    Votes: 8 5.0%
  • France

    Votes: 4 2.5%

  • Total voters
    160
Britain and France are the most likely candidates. Dunno about Spain, their colonial empire was already waning. Maybe Japan if they got lucky. Definitely not Russia, they had no ambitions to grab any tropical islands in the Pacific.
 

althisfan

Banned
Britain and France are the most likely candidates. Dunno about Spain, their colonial empire was already waning. Maybe Japan if they got lucky. Definitely not Russia, they had no ambitions to grab any tropical islands in the Pacific.
Three forts being built on the islands is "no ambitions"?
 
Britain and France are the most likely candidates. Dunno about Spain, their colonial empire was already waning. Maybe Japan if they got lucky. Definitely not Russia, they had no ambitions to grab any tropical islands in the Pacific.

There’s a theory that the Hawaiians did see Spanish ships sailing between North America and the Philippines, so there is potential for early contact.

Butterflies down the line from that, make figuring out what would happen much more tricker.
 
Definetely the British would. They briefly annexed them in 1843, so why wouldn't them try to stablish a protectorate in, say, late 1890's? Hawai'i could also serve as a stop place for ships coming from British Columbia to the Pacific. No doubt they had the upper hand in the late 19th century.

Spain likely witnessed the islands two centuries before Cook. An expedition led by Villalobos and cartographed by Juan Gaetano depicted three large islands located ten degrees east of the actual location of Hawaii. The islands were called "La Desgarciada", "Isla de los Monjes" and "La Mesa". The last one is specially interesting given Gaetano stated that it was the largest island of the three, and in those times "Mesa" equals the english word "Plateau". And as far as I know, the big island of Hawai'i looks like a big plateau if seen from sea level. However, if Spain was to annex Hawai at roughly the same time the US did, it'd be impossible as Britain would've contested that.

French forces under Louis Tromelin actually landed in Hawaii in 1849 and would have conquered the islands rather easily. However, after that event, the French never tried to enforce their claim on Hawaii and it was abandoned as the French preferred Polynesia and Melanesia.

Japan would only have Hawaii if the British and French fully renounced to taking the islands for themselves. Japanese fleet wasn't designed at the time for long sea missions, so keeping contact with Hawaii would be difficult.
 

Kaze

Banned
But...surely they would bring their own beer with them. :winkytongue:

There was no beer in Shandong either before the Germans arrived. Before the Germans built the colonial governor's mansion, they built the Tsingtao Brewery. Seems they had their priorities right, since Tsingtao Brewery is still producing beer to this day.
 
There was no beer in Shandong either before the Germans arrived. Before the Germans built the colonial governor's mansion, they built the Tsingtao Brewery. Seems they had their priorities right, since Tsingtao Brewery is still producing beer to this day.

Germany gotta Germany.
 
There’s a theory that the Hawaiians did see Spanish ships sailing between North America and the Philippines, so there is potential for early contact.

Butterflies down the line from that, make figuring out what would happen much more tricker.

The Spanish very probably knew the islands were there and there's some small evidence that they landed on them at least once or twice. Apparently they didn't consider them very interesting considering their destination on that route would have been China.
 
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