Lili’uokalani

Early Life and Background

Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Kamakaʻeha, later known as Queen Liliʻuokalani, was born on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu in the independent Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.[1][2] She was the biological daughter of High Chief Caesar Kapaʻakea and Analea Keohokālole, members of the aliʻi (nobility) who traced their lineage to ancient Hawaiian chiefs.[1][17] In accordance with the customary practice of hānai, an informal but socially binding adoption, she was given as an infant to Abner Pākī and his wife Laura Kōnia, who raised her as their own daughter.[1]

Liliʻuokalani grew up in a milieu that combined Hawaiian traditions with increasing Western influence. She attended missionary-founded schools, including the Royal School, where children of high-ranking chiefs were educated in English and European subjects by American Protestant missionaries.[1][7] This education gave her fluency in English, familiarity with Western political ideas, and musical training, while she retained a strong grounding in Hawaiian language, protocol, and cultural values.

As a child and young woman, Liliʻuokalani was exposed to the complexities of diplomacy and governance. The Hawaiian Kingdom, internationally recognized and party to numerous treaties, was navigating relationships with the United States, Britain, and other powers while maintaining its sovereignty.[6][9] These dynamics shaped her understanding of the fragility of independence and the importance of constitutional frameworks.

Her upbringing as a hānai child in a prominent household and as part of the aliʻi elite fostered a strong sense of duty. She later wrote that her early life instilled in her a belief in the sacred bond between land and people and the responsibilities of leaders to safeguard both.[8] This sense of kuleana (responsibility) would define her actions as princess, queen, and later as an advocate for her people after the monarchy’s overthrow.

Marriage and Personal Life

In 1862, Liliʻuokalani married John Owen Dominis, an American-born resident of Honolulu whose family held the prominent property known as Washington Place.[1][2] Dominis served in various governmental roles, including as governor of Oʻahu under King Kalākaua.[1] The marriage linked Liliʻuokalani to powerful foreign-descended circles while also illustrating the multiethnic character of Hawaiian society in the 19th century.

The couple did not have biological children. Liliʻuokalani engaged in the Hawaiian practice of hānai with several children of relatives, including her brother’s children, and she maintained close relationships with younger family members.[1][17] Washington Place became both a family home and, later, a critical site of her political life—serving as the residence where she lived under house arrest after her imprisonment and where she eventually died.

Liliʻuokalani’s personal life was also deeply entwined with music and spirituality. A devout Christian, she participated in church life, yet retained an appreciation for traditional Hawaiian beliefs and customs.[7] Her sensitivity to suffering, particularly of children and the poor, informed both her compositions and later philanthropic initiatives, culminating in the creation of the Queen Liliʻuokalani Trust in 1917.[1][12]

Career Beginnings and Development

Liliʻuokalani’s public career began long before she ascended the throne. As a member of the royal family, she was drawn into ceremonial and governmental responsibilities. In 1874, her brother David Kalākaua was elected king by the legislature after a contested succession.[1][2] Liliʻuokalani supported his reign and increasingly took on duties as his representative.

In 1877, Kalākaua formally designated her as heir apparent and invested her as Crown Princess on February 12, placing her first in line for the throne.[1] She later served as regent when the king traveled abroad, gaining direct experience in overseeing governmental affairs.[1][17] These roles allowed her to observe cabinet deliberations, legislative proceedings, and the evolving balance of power between the monarchy and the growing class of foreign planters and businessmen.

Liliʻuokalani was also active in social initiatives. She supported education and health care institutions, including fundraising for the Queen’s Hospital, founded by Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV.[13] She engaged in charitable work focused on women and children, which reflected both Christian influences and long-standing Hawaiian values of communal care.

By the late 1880s, the Hawaiian Kingdom had come under increased pressure from foreign residents seeking political control. The "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887, imposed on King Kalākaua by an armed militia, sharply limited royal authority and disenfranchised many Native Hawaiians by tying voting rights to property and income qualifications.[1][15] Liliʻuokalani witnessed these developments closely, and they heavily informed her later determination, as queen, to restore the rights of her people.

Accession as Queen and Constitutional Reform

King Kalākaua died unexpectedly in San Francisco on January 20, 1891, while visiting the United States.[1] News of his death reached Honolulu, and within days, Liliʻuokalani assumed the throne. On January 29, 1891, she took the oath of office and was formally proclaimed Queen Liliʻuokalani before the kingdom’s ministers and Supreme Court justices.[1][2]

As queen, she became Hawaiʻi’s first and only queen regnant and its last sovereign monarch.[1][2][13] Her accession occurred at a time when the kingdom was economically prosperous but politically constrained, with sugar exports tied closely to U.S. markets and foreign investors wielding significant influence.

Liliʻuokalani sought to govern within constitutional bounds while addressing the inequities created by the 1887 charter. She advocated for policies that protected public lands and infrastructure, such as the Highways Act of 1892, which safeguarded trails and roads for public use and remains foundational to Hawaiʻi’s public access laws.[4][12] She emphasized the welfare of Native Hawaiians, pushing for measures that supported health, education, and land rights.

Central to her reign was the desire for a new constitution. On January 14, 1893, she announced her intention to promulgate a charter that would restore monarchic authority and broaden suffrage for Native Hawaiians, reversing the disenfranchising effects of the Bayonet Constitution.[1][15] While she did not sign the new constitution, the mere proposal galvanized her supporters and alarmed foreign-descended elites.

Overthrow of the Monarchy

Liliʻuokalani’s constitutional initiative became the pretext for a dramatic political crisis. The Committee of Safety, composed of U.S. and European businessmen and residents—many with ties to the sugar industry—claimed that her actions endangered property rights and political stability.[1] In coordination with U.S. Minister John L. Stevens, they arranged for the landing of U.S. Marines from the USS Boston in Honolulu.

On January 17, 1893, the Committee declared a provisional government and announced that Liliʻuokalani had been deposed.[1][2] Facing the possibility of bloodshed if she ordered loyal forces to resist, Liliʻuokalani chose a path of nonviolence. She yielded her authority under protest, explicitly stating that she did so to avoid conflict and in the expectation that the United States would later investigate and restore her constitutional rights.[1][2]

The overthrow was later scrutinized in the Blount Report, commissioned by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, which found that American representatives had improperly aided the coup.[1] However, subsequent political developments in Washington led to the recognition of the provisional government and then the Republic of Hawaiʻi, headed by Sanford B. Dole.[1][10]

Liliʻuokalani’s deposition ended the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent, monarchic state. For Native Hawaiians and many observers, it represented a clear injustice and an act of imperial expansion. For women’s history, the event underscores how a woman sovereign confronted not only domestic opposition but also the power of a foreign nation-state, choosing peaceful protest over armed resistance.

Imprisonment, Abdication, and House Arrest

After the establishment of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, royalist sentiment remained strong among many Native Hawaiians. In early 1895, supporters of the monarchy attempted a counter-revolution aimed at restoring Liliʻuokalani to the throne.[1][17] The uprising was suppressed, and weapons were discovered, leading the republican authorities to target the former queen.

On January 16, 1895, Liliʻuokalani was arrested at her private home, ʻĀinahau, and taken to ʻIolani Palace.[1][17] She was imprisoned in an upstairs room, under constant guard, for several months. During this time, she spent many hours in prayer and composed music, later describing the emotional toll of her confinement in her autobiography, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen.[15]

The republican government charged her with misprision of treason—knowing of treason and failing to report it—based on allegations that she had been aware of the plot to restore the monarchy.[1][17] Under pressure and seeking to protect her supporters from harsh punishment, Liliʻuokalani agreed to sign a formal act of abdication on February 24, 1895, in favor of the Republic.[1][17] She later maintained that she had done so primarily to secure clemency for those involved in the uprising.

In September 1895, her sentence was commuted. On September 6, 1895, she was released from palace imprisonment and allowed to reside at Washington Place under conditions resembling house arrest.[1] Though her movements and political activities remained constrained, this transfer allowed her to resume limited social life and continue her advocacy through writing and music.

Anti-Annexation Activism and Diplomatic Protests

Even after the monarchy’s formal abolition, Liliʻuokalani remained an active political figure. She opposed the Republic’s efforts to secure annexation by the United States and supported Native Hawaiian resistance. In 1897, when a treaty of annexation was proposed, Hawaiian organizations circulated extensive anti-annexation petitions, gathering signatures from tens of thousands of citizens.[16][17] Liliʻuokalani lent her support to these efforts and traveled to the U.S. mainland to advocate against annexation.

On June 16, 1897, she submitted a formal letter of protest to U.S. President William McKinley, asserting that the proposed annexation treaty was illegitimate and violated the rights of the Hawaiian monarchy and people.[1][17] She pointed out that the Republic of Hawaiʻi did not represent the will of the majority of Hawaiians and that the 1893 overthrow had been aided by U.S. officials.

The initial annexation treaty failed to gain sufficient support in the U.S. Senate, due in part to the petitions and opposition voiced by Native Hawaiians and their allies.[16] However, geopolitical considerations during the Spanish–American War soon shifted the calculus, and Congress adopted the Newlands Resolution in 1898, annexing Hawaiʻi by joint resolution rather than treaty.[1]

After this development, Liliʻuokalani continued her diplomatic protests. On September 6, 1898, she filed an official diplomatic protest against annexation in Washington, D.C., maintaining her opposition to the transfer of Hawaiian sovereignty.[1] She refused to attend annexation ceremonies in Honolulu, unwilling to witness the lowering of the Hawaiian flag and the raising of the U.S. flag.[13]

Later that year, on December 18, 1898, she sent a letter to President McKinley formally withdrawing her annexation protests, though she continued to assert claims over crown lands and sought compensation.[1] This shift signaled a move from contesting sovereignty itself to focusing on the economic and legal consequences of annexation.

Authorship, Music, and Cultural Contributions

Liliʻuokalani was an accomplished writer and composer whose cultural work significantly shaped Hawaiian identity. She authored "Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen", published in 1903

In the realm of music, Liliʻuokalani composed more than 150–200 songs, blending Hawaiian poetic forms with Western harmonies.[13][17] Among her most famous works is "Aloha ʻOe", a song of farewell that has become perhaps the best-known Hawaiian composition worldwide.[13][15] She also wrote "He Mele Lāhui Hawaiʻi" in 1866, at the request of King Kamehameha V; it served as the national anthem of the Hawaiian Kingdom for about twenty years.[4][17]