Peter W Noonan
In the nineteenth century Hawaii achieved a widely-recognized status as an independent state but it was unable to retain its independence. The loss of Hawaii’s independence followed changes in US foreign policy, and a local coup d’état that was supported by the US Navy and Marines, which set Hawaii on a course towards inclusion in a new American Pacific Empire. But the last Crown Princess of the Kingdom, seventeen year old Princess Victoria Kaiulani, who was a student in England when the crisis broke struggled against the annexation of her country. She travelled to America to try and influence American public opinion, and she met with the President of the United States to bear witness to the tragedy that had befallen Hawaii. Her poignant pleas for her country touched the conscience of many, and her actions helped to foil Hawaii’s immediate annexation, giving her country a brief reprieve from the loss of its national sovereignty. Later, after Hawaii was absorbed by the United States, she strove to ensure that indigenous Hawaiians would be able secure their political rights as US citizens, before she suffered an early death at the age of twenty-three.
