Difference between revisions of "Template:Nhsc-v1-269"

Latest revision as of 23:16, 23 April 2006

Shortly afterward the king told Gibson of his intentions to make Momno premier and foreign minister. Gibson seemed to be amenable to this idea, but he was actually furious and started a campaign through the newspapers to dislodge Moreno. Raising the ire of the planters, Gibson fueled a fire that resulted in Moreno and the king calling for Hawaiians to throw out or kill the planter sympathizers and foreign interest groups on the islands. 26/

As the threat of violence increased, the king had second thoughts and met with the United States minister, General J. M. Comly, who told him: "Unless Moreno is discharged, the diplomatic corps has agreed to ask their governments to send warships and intercede to protect the lives and property of their nationals." 27/ Faced with the possibility of war, intrusion on his sovereignty and:

...worried by public calumny, facing an angry and agitated American minister, Kalakaua at last caught the message. Reluctantly he dismissed Moreno. In appointing a new cabinet, the king again liberally sprinkled it with faithful and dependable Americans, and he retained the indispensable Gibson. 28/

Events Leading to Cabinet Government, 1881 to 1887

Before this confrontation had barely passed, it was announced at a January 11, 1881, meeting of the cabinet that the king planned to make a world trip. The purpose of this trip was "to explore ways by which peoples from other countries could be brought to Hawaii to help reverse the population decline." 29/ Among the people Kalakaua took with him, at the insistence of the planter lobby, were Charles H. Judd and William N. Armstrong, a former New York lawyer. who the king named "Commissioner of Immigration for the expedition." 30/

Word of the expedition caused concern to United States Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who feared that Kalakaua's taste for spending and need for funds might cause him to sell pert of his kingdom to a foreign country. 31/ Blaine wrote "to the American ministers in the countries the king intended to visit telling them to watch the activities of Kalakaua closely, and Instructed them to Inform any foreign power to which the king might offer to sell a portion of his kingdom that such a transfer would not be allowed by the United States." 32/ While visiting Italy, the king was met by the ousted Moreno. Armstrong and Judd discovered that Moreno was attempting "to get all the European countries to guarantee (the] independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom." Armstrong and Judd "warned the countries that any such action would be looked upon by America as an interference in her sphere of influence." 33/

The fears of a land sale were unrealized; the king never raised the subject on his tour. Instead, while the king admired other countries' wealth and cultures, Armstrong pushed the planters' view that only laborers were wanted in Hawaii, not a migration. The Advertiser, a pro-Hawaiian newspaper, commented: "[h]e is obviously endeavoring to hinder any migration except that of cheap plantation labor although his instructions from the king are that he is to bring families for repopulating the Islands." 34/ This point seemed to have been verified when, during the king's trip, ships arrived in Hawaii carrying "Chinese immigrants Armstrong had arranged as consignment for plantation labor;" 35/ those immigrants were found to be carrying smallpox. Even though the ships flew the yellow flag, "Board of Health President H. A. P. Carter, yielding to pressure by merchants and planters,