WI: American Territory of the Solomon Islands

In 1856, the residents of the small atoll of Sikaiana (also called the Stewart Islands) offered sovereignty of their land to King Kamehameha IV of Hawaii.

As we know, Hawaii was later annexed by the United States. But OTL, this threw Sikaiana into a hazy area legally. Neither Hawaii nor the US ever ceded Sikaiana to any of the colonial powers in the Solomons, which by international law could leave the island as an American territory (or part of the state of Hawaii), although sadly, the petitions of the islanders to the Hawaiian government have been ignored thus far (and the Solomon Islands has effective control there).

But what if the United States not only took up Hawaii's claim, but used it as a basis for expanding further into the Solomons? Here they'd be competing with Germany and Britain over the colonisation of the territory. This is obviously going to involve a lot of negotiating between the three nations. Perhaps the United States abandons Samoa and accepts the British claim in the Alaska boundary dispute in exchange for what was the British South Solomons (the southern few islands including Guadalcanal, San Cristobal, and Malaita). Or even a three way partition of the Solomons, with the US simply gaining control over Malaita and the nearby islands (which is the nearest land to Sikaiana), Britain gaining the rest of the South Solomons, and Germany gaining the North Solomons. I'm not sure it would be possible for the US to gain the entire Solomon Islands (which would include Bougainville), outside of some German-American War or if the US joins WWI from day one and decides to take the islands.

So what are the islands like in the modern age? I'm guessing somewhat wealthier than the OTL Solomon Islands, but still with living standards far beneath the rest of America. The territory will suffer similar issues to other territories of the United States--disproportionate amounts of corruption, unemployment, and poverty. With a population of around 300,000 (although the entire Solomons plus Bougainville might make a better argument, although given Puerto Rico's issues, it probably won't happen), it would probably never seriously be considered for statehood.

Culturally, I suspect it would be a bit like American Samoa. The Solomons could produce a large amount of talented NFL players.

Thoughts on this?
 
Did the residents of Sikaiana still want their sovereignty to be given to Hawai after the American annexation of Hawaii? Or was it only for a short period of time the islanders wanted to do so, only when Hawaii was an independant kingdom.
 
IIRC the Solomons are a very linguistically and politically diverse set of islands. As such, I think the American annexation of the Solomons would be a pretty bloody affair overall compared to the annexation of Hawaii, as there's no single monarch you can force to sign on the dotted line and take control of the whole islands. An interesting side effect of this may be very high Solomon Islander involvement in the US military, as the US recruits islanders eager to fight against rival tribes resisting the annexation. The result could be that the Solomon Islands provide an even higher level of military recruitment than the other overseas territories, which already have proportionally more residents signing up for the military than people in the states.

The Mormon church proselytizes pretty heavily in the Pacific, and I imagine would be quite involved in the Solomon Islands, filling gap from more mainline Protestant denominations IOTL.
 
IIRC the Solomons are a very linguistically and politically diverse set of islands. As such, I think the American annexation of the Solomons would be a pretty bloody affair overall compared to the annexation of Hawaii, as there's no single monarch you can force to sign on the dotted line and take control of the whole islands. An interesting side effect of this may be very high Solomon Islander involvement in the US military, as the US recruits islanders eager to fight against rival tribes resisting the annexation. The result could be that the Solomon Islands provide an even higher level of military recruitment than the other overseas territories, which already have proportionally more residents signing up for the military than people in the states.

The Mormon church proselytizes pretty heavily in the Pacific, and I imagine would be quite involved in the Solomon Islands, filling gap from more mainline Protestant denominations IOTL.

True, but how big of a campaign did the Germans and British have there? It isn't going to be like the Philippines. And it's definitely true the US could get a lot of native soldiers to help take control of the islands and force local chiefs at gunpoint into accepting the United States as their overlords. Even IOTL, American Samoa has a disproportionate amount of US military service, seen as an opportunity to escape the islands with their poverty and unemployment, and you'd be establishing a solid military tradition for them as you noted--they'd probably serve in "colored" units until the integration of the military, though, but they'd overall be very reliable soldiers for the United States.

Yeah, there would be a huge Mormon population there. (Western) Samoa has 40% LDS and American Samoa has 31% LDS. The Solomons have only a fraction of their population LDS. I think 5-10% LDS is a solid estimate for how prominent the Mormons might be there, which means at least one Mormon temple (wherever the capital is, either on Malaita or Guadalcanal).

Did the residents of Sikaiana still want their sovereignty to be given to Hawai after the American annexation of Hawaii? Or was it only for a short period of time the islanders wanted to do so, only when Hawaii was an independant kingdom.

No, this was in 1997, there was a case where the residents applied to vote (as Native Hawaiians, which they technically are as Pacific Islanders under Hawaii's rule) in some election which only Native Hawaiians were allowed to participate in. The Sikaiana residents cited their annexation by Hawaii, but were disallowed from voting due to them being citizens of the Solomon Islands. See here (page 39, footnote 2). I believe there is a case for Sikaiana to be annexed by the United States, given the case of Palmyra Island which went before the Supreme Court in United States v. Fullard-Leo. If the residents were somehow able to sue, and the case went before the Supreme Court, and was argued that Sikaiana was indeed a US territory, I believe it would legally compel the United States to acquire the island from the Solomon Islands in a way allowed by international law. Given international law cases involving the United States (where even if the US loses, the US simply ignores the verdict) and Sikaiana's irrevelance even in the Solomon Islands (the population is less than 300), it would be very easy to acquire the island. It shouldn't be surprising, given there's a decent movement in some of the Compact of Free Association countries like Micronesia to be annexed into the US due to various economic reasons.
 
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