WI: Hawaii Remains Independent

What if Hawaii had never been annexed by the United States or any other power in the 1890s? What if it remained a free and independent nation until the modern day?
 
I don't know if this is possible. Hawaii really doesn't have anything yo make it much more special than any other Pacific islands. In the end, her population is so small, and she has almost no way to defend herself, that Hawaii will eventually be at least a protectorate of a greater power.
 
There not be way keep invaders away from Hawaii. Its population was too small and technologically backwar to avoid foreign invasion. European diseases too caused much damage for Hawaiian population.

Best case for islands would be that it becomes British/French protectorate and can keep its monarchy and some things on its culture and then get full independence on 1970's or 1980's.
 
Sovereign nation under the protection of the British Crown would be the most likely outcome if annexation by the USA is avoided. The Hawaiian State Flag does include a Union Jack after all.
 
Unless there was some sort of "International Agreement" that no power takes direct control, it would likely fall to America, France or Britain by 1900.

If not, then probably to Japan from 1900 to 1950.
 
I have an idea where Hawaii became a British protectorate in the early 1800s, though it not actually fit OP's description
 
Sanford Dole overthrows the Hawai'ian kingdom in 1893, making way for the Hawai'ian provisional government. Hawai'i then declares itself a Republic in 1896. The Cleveland administration is furious and withdraws all diplomats from the Hawai'ian republic. Sanford Dole is confident that his friend, William McKinley will win in the next election cycle and Hawai'i will be annexed.

However, Sanford Dole get some unsettling news Grover Cleveland has just won re-election.

The Hawai'ians and Asian immigrants heard the news too, although it took 6 months for the news to flow to the nonwhite Hawaiians. With machetes and crude guns in hand, they wait outside the Palace. Dole's in hot water. He's ordered to either come to the mainland US to face the Cleveland Commission or face having his American assets seized. Literally, he has to choose between his money or his life.

Naturally, he goes to the US. In San Fransisco, the Cleveland commission finds in favor of the Hawaiian kingdom and orders all but 10% of the troops who are in Hawai'i to come back home, except for troops stationed in Pearl Harbor. Sanford Dole is ordered to return to Hawaii.

Queen Lydia is restored to the throne and swiftly puts Sanford Dole on trial for treason. He is later found guilty and is banished to northern Kahoolawe. In Kahoolawe, a few patriotic Hawai'ians throw him in the ocean, never to be seen again.

Realizing that her kingdom has become multi-racial and multi-ethnic, Queen Lydia decides to open up her country's ruling class to half and quarter bloods. She nominates a quarter blood to the throne, Princes Alani. She wins the election as expected and will rule once Queen Lydia dies.

Queen Lydia then installs a new constitution.

In her new constitution, she also includes the stipulation that only Hawai'ians, spouses of Hawai'ians or half and quarter bloods can own any future land in Hawai'i, and to own Hawai'ian land, you must have a Hawai'ian name. It forces any and all landowners to take Hawai'ian wives, adopt Hawai'ian names and adopt Hawai'ian culture. She also changes the naturalization laws of Hawaii. No naturalized citizens may own land or any major industries in Hawaii.

To become a naturalized citizen in Hawaii, you must be born in Hawaii, lived in Hawaii for 20 years, adopt a Hawaiian name, and demonstrate a working knowledge of the Hawaiian language. Any and all residents who were influential in weakening the crown are excluded from any Hawai'ian citizenship.


Due to the influx of mixed marriages and mixed bloods, Hawai'i becomes more Americanized while staying more Hawai'ian. This changes Hawai'is culture from being more collectivist and open to being more individualist and nationalistic, as well as more racist. Lighter skinned hapa offspring of the American sugar plantation owners have more power over the darker skinned Hawai'ians. The darker skinned Hawai'ians are left in nearly the same place they were during the provisional government. Queen Lydia realizes what's happening and institutes an affirmative action program for all Hawai'ian owned businesses. At least one pureblood must be on the board of any major Hawai'ian-based business.

To show President Cleveland gratification for restoring their independence, Queen Lydia decides to rename the area around Pearl Harbor "New Cleveland". Queen Lydia peacefully dies in her sleep in 1912, but not before naming a new successor to the throne, a Quarter-Blood named Alani, who ironically enough, is a distant cousin of Sanford Dole.

At first, Alani is quite skeptical of the American presence in Hawai'i, preferring to do business with the Japanese and the British. Hawai'i becomes a British protectorate for 29 years, until the British could no longer afford to protect Hawai'i. Hawai'i is vulnerable and on its own. She recognizes the Japanese threat and softens her stance on the Americans.
FDR, fearing Japanese takeover of the islands, sends an ambassador to Hawaii to patch USAmerican-Hawai'ian relations. The meeting was successful. FDR sends thousands of seamen to Pearl Harbor as well as lots of weapons.

Alani then relaxes the rule on naturalized citizenship. Any person who has lived in Hawaii for 10 years, adopts a Hawai'ian first name, has a working knowledge of the Hawai'ian language and is conscripted, has a son who is conscripted, or adopts and raises a native Hawaiian boy in accordance to Hawai'ian culture and conscripts him in the Hawai'ian armed forces is allowed naturalized citizenship. The Hawai'ian military grows from about 20,000 conscripted members to 300,000 6 months later.


DECEMBER 7TH, 1941

NEW CLEVELAND, HAWAIIAN KINGDOM.

December 7th, 1941 is a day that will live in infamy in the Hawai'ian kingdom and in the US. Pearl Harbor, an American naval base located in Hawai'i, is bombed by the Japanese. Japanese paratroopers then land in the surrounding city of New Cleveland and take it over. However, due to FDR's foresight, the rest of Hawai'i had weapon stockpiles and resists the Japanese takeover. Hawaii joins the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union in the war against the Axis. Hawai'i becomes a great strategic point in the war effort, crippling the Japanese's navy.

The Allies win the war. Japanese-Hawaiians are then sent to take over the provisional government of Japan, with the help of the Americans. Japan's economy recovers. Thankful for the Hawai'ians effort in the war, the US hands over the Marshall Islands and Northern American Samoa to Hawaii.

Hawai'i is now a force to be reckoned with. And the Japanese-Hawai'ians make it clear to their ancestors that Hawai'i controls Japan, not the other way around. And America has Hawaii's back.

Hawai'i is now a great power.
 
I Like It

Sanford Dole overthrows the Hawai'ian kingdom in 1893, making way for the Hawai'ian provisional government. Hawai'i then declares itself a Republic in 1896. The Cleveland administration is furious and withdraws all diplomats from the Hawai'ian republic. Sanford Dole is confident that his friend, William McKinley will win in the next election cycle and Hawai'i will be annexed.

However, Sanford Dole get some unsettling news Grover Cleveland has just won re-election.

The Hawai'ians and Asian immigrants heard the news too, although it took 6 months for the news to flow to the nonwhite Hawaiians. With machetes and crude guns in hand, they wait outside the Palace. Dole's in hot water. He's ordered to either come to the mainland US to face the Cleveland Commission or face having his American assets seized. Literally, he has to choose between his money or his life.

Naturally, he goes to the US. In San Fransisco, the Cleveland commission finds in favor of the Hawaiian kingdom and orders all but 10% of the troops who are in Hawai'i to come back home, except for troops stationed in Pearl Harbor. Sanford Dole is ordered to return to Hawaii.

Queen Lydia is restored to the throne and swiftly puts Sanford Dole on trial for treason. He is later found guilty and is banished to northern Kahoolawe. In Kahoolawe, a few patriotic Hawai'ians throw him in the ocean, never to be seen again.

Realizing that her kingdom has become multi-racial and multi-ethnic, Queen Lydia decides to open up her country's ruling class to half and quarter bloods. She nominates a quarter blood to the throne, Princes Alani. She wins the election as expected and will rule once Queen Lydia dies.

Queen Lydia then installs a new constitution.

In her new constitution, she also includes the stipulation that only Hawai'ians, spouses of Hawai'ians or half and quarter bloods can own any future land in Hawai'i, and to own Hawai'ian land, you must have a Hawai'ian name. It forces any and all landowners to take Hawai'ian wives, adopt Hawai'ian names and adopt Hawai'ian culture. She also changes the naturalization laws of Hawaii. No naturalized citizens may own land or any major industries in Hawaii.

To become a naturalized citizen in Hawaii, you must be born in Hawaii, lived in Hawaii for 20 years, adopt a Hawaiian name, and demonstrate a working knowledge of the Hawaiian language. Any and all residents who were influential in weakening the crown are excluded from any Hawai'ian citizenship.


Due to the influx of mixed marriages and mixed bloods, Hawai'i becomes more Americanized while staying more Hawai'ian. This changes Hawai'is culture from being more collectivist and open to being more individualist and nationalistic, as well as more racist. Lighter skinned hapa offspring of the American sugar plantation owners have more power over the darker skinned Hawai'ians. The darker skinned Hawai'ians are left in nearly the same place they were during the provisional government. Queen Lydia realizes what's happening and institutes an affirmative action program for all Hawai'ian owned businesses. At least one pureblood must be on the board of any major Hawai'ian-based business.

To show President Cleveland gratification for restoring their independence, Queen Lydia decides to rename the area around Pearl Harbor "New Cleveland". Queen Lydia peacefully dies in her sleep in 1912, but not before naming a new successor to the throne, a Quarter-Blood named Alani, who ironically enough, is a distant cousin of Sanford Dole.

At first, Alani is quite skeptical of the American presence in Hawai'i, preferring to do business with the Japanese and the British. Hawai'i becomes a British protectorate for 29 years, until the British could no longer afford to protect Hawai'i. Hawai'i is vulnerable and on its own. She recognizes the Japanese threat and softens her stance on the Americans.
FDR, fearing Japanese takeover of the islands, sends an ambassador to Hawaii to patch USAmerican-Hawai'ian relations. The meeting was successful. FDR sends thousands of seamen to Pearl Harbor as well as lots of weapons.

Alani then relaxes the rule on naturalized citizenship. Any person who has lived in Hawaii for 10 years, adopts a Hawai'ian first name, has a working knowledge of the Hawai'ian language and is conscripted, has a son who is conscripted, or adopts and raises a native Hawaiian boy in accordance to Hawai'ian culture and conscripts him in the Hawai'ian armed forces is allowed naturalized citizenship. The Hawai'ian military grows from about 20,000 conscripted members to 300,000 6 months later.


DECEMBER 7TH, 1941

NEW CLEVELAND, HAWAIIAN KINGDOM.

December 7th, 1941 is a day that will live in infamy in the Hawai'ian kingdom and in the US. Pearl Harbor, an American naval base located in Hawai'i, is bombed by the Japanese. Japanese paratroopers then land in the surrounding city of New Cleveland and take it over. However, due to FDR's foresight, the rest of Hawai'i had weapon stockpiles and resists the Japanese takeover. Hawaii joins the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union in the war against the Axis. Hawai'i becomes a great strategic point in the war effort, crippling the Japanese's navy.

The Allies win the war. Japanese-Hawaiians are then sent to take over the provisional government of Japan, with the help of the Americans. Japan's economy recovers. Thankful for the Hawai'ians effort in the war, the US hands over the Marshall Islands and Northern American Samoa to Hawaii.

Hawai'i is now a force to be reckoned with. And the Japanese-Hawai'ians make it clear to their ancestors that Hawai'i controls Japan, not the other way around. And America has Hawaii's back.

Hawai'i is now a great power.


MOTHRA-sized Alien Space Butterflies at work here, a whole armada of them, but I Like It! ;)
 
If Liliuokolani had acquiesced in the so-called Bayonet Constitution, the "missionary party" might have accepted the continutation of a (figurehead) monarchy and at least nominal independence--with, however, strong economic and military ties to the US. (Some have argued that the death of her husband John Dominis removed a restraining influence on her.)
 
Given the US population and business interests on Hawaii, the Kingdom becomes a protectorate of the US as the US negotiates various trade and security treaties with whatever government Hawaii has.

The US would not tolerate another foreign power gaining control of the islands.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
It's certainly possible; if the decision not to annex is

What if Hawaii had never been annexed by the United States or any other power in the 1890s? What if it remained a free and independent nation until the modern day?

It's certainly possible, even with a departure point in 1898; absent the Pacific theater of the Spanish-American war, there's not much more of a reason to annex the Republic as there was a decade earlier; so if the decision not to annex is simply seen as internal politics in the US, Hawaii could rumble along as a small and fairly poor republic with a large US economic interest - de facto protectorate.

Something akin to Liberia, except with a better economy and a US military presence on Oahu.

The problem is, from a strategic perspective, vacumns tend to be filled... and if its not the US, it going to be Britain, France, or Japan, none of which are (for example) going to put Hawaii on track to anything equivalent to statehood.

And the geographic issue is that east of the Dateline is pretty far from Japan, and north of the equator is pretty far afield from the British and French possesions worth the name (Clipperton doesn't really count); and so the Hawaiian islands are tailormade as a mid-Pacific outpost for the US.

All the strategic interests lean toward the US taking control, de jure or de facto, by 1900, or so, and given that, better for the Hawaiians to be a territory than a colony... territories, by definition, were on the path to statehood. Colonies, protectorates, insular possesions, whatever, were not...

Now, the US could have foregone annexation in return for basing rights, but to defend Oahu appropriately pretty much demands the entire archipelago and the obvious "forward" positions - Midway, Palmyra, Johnson - be under US control.

Hawaii would certainly be better off as a US state than - say - Samoa was as a possession...

Would Hawaii be better off independent than as a US state? That can be argued in the abstract in an ideal world, certainly, but in reality?

This is not an ideal world.

Best,
 
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If Bryan were to win in 1896, it might only delay its annexation until the next time a Republican is in the Whitehouse, or it might delay it to the point that by the time Bryan is out of the Whitehouse, the ruling junta has been overthrown or given up its attempts to have it annexed to the US.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
The OTL annexation's a bit weird anyway. It's not the same kind of thing which happened in Texas (both houses moving to join) nor indeed in Ireland (twin Acts of Union), but a unilateral annexation.

Not exactly baseball, what?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Wartime measures rarely are.

The OTL annexation's a bit weird anyway. It's not the same kind of thing which happened in Texas (both houses moving to join) nor indeed in Ireland (twin Acts of Union), but a unilateral annexation. Not exactly baseball, what?

Wartime measures rarely are.

The Hawaiian republic had lasted for almost five years as a de facto protectorate of the US; considering all that it had taken to make that happen was one cruiser and three companies of marines and sailors, and given the choice of remaining in something resembling political limbo - and with even less formality than Samoa as an "insular possession," for example - or territorial status on the way to statehood, it's a fair statement that territorial status offered more.

Again, in an ideal world, the Hawaiians would never have been contacted by the West at all, but that's not especially likely, in the 1770s or the 1870s.

Best,
 
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I don't know where this idea that Bryan opposed the annexation of Hawaii comes from, other than an over-generalization from the "anti-imperialist" line he took with regard to the Philippines. The fact is that "At a meeting of the Trans-Mississippi Congress in July 1897, which he chaired, Bryan 'favored the annexation of Hawaii, an isthmian canal, and a free Cuba.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=krGUuY99S10C&pg=PA93

Later, when opposing the annexation of the Philippines, Bryan was careful to distinguish it from Hawaii: "The Hawaiian Islands are nearer to the western than to the eastern hemisphere, and their annexation was urged largely upon the ground that their possession by another nation would be a menace to the United States. When objection was made to the heterogeneous character of the people of the islands, it was met by the assertion that they were few in number. In the opinion of those who favored the annexation of Hawaii the advantages to be gained from a strategical standpoint outweighed the objection raised to the population. No argument made in favor of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands can be used in support of the imperialistic policy." https://books.google.com/books?id=KWI9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA99

There were many other people who opposed the annexation of the Philippines but had supported that of Hawaii--Benjamin Harrison being the most obvious. https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=8509632&postcount=1
 
If the British or Americans don't take it, then I'd say Germany would eventually snatch it; if THIS isn't so, the Japanese would surely gobble it up given the opportunity.
 
If the British or Americans don't take it, then I'd say Germany would eventually snatch it; if THIS isn't so, the Japanese would surely gobble it up given the opportunity.
The Americans (and to a lesser extent the British) had far too much influence in Hawaii to tolerate any other nation taking it; that likely would mean at least the threat of war.

Remember that Hawaii had a significant American-born population by this point, who controlled much of the economy. Even a US that refuses to annex Hawaii is not going to allow it to be annexed by another nation.
 
If the British or Americans don't take it, then I'd say Germany would eventually snatch it; if THIS isn't so, the Japanese would surely gobble it up given the opportunity.

There is no way that any foreign government could have taken Hawaii without going to war with the US. Even Americans who were opposed to annexation of Hawaii were insistent that no *other* country annex it. This had been US policy dating back to the time of John Tyler.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/polsciwb/brianl/docs/1842TylerDoctrine.pdf
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/ygQXOpY7v-Q/pxSUQRbo9ZAJ
 
Oh, I missed the "1890's" part of the OP. :eek:

In that case, Hawaii is practically already American, no way to avoid it. If we have an earlier PoD, such as the Laplace Affair, Hawaii could easily become French.
 
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