Why planters wanted Hawaii to be a part of the US?

Answer 1

They wanted to steal Hawai'i (overthrow the monarchy) because Hawai'i at the time was a sovereign country and being that, any 'planters' as you called them had to pay his fee's and taxes to have their goods shipped to and sold in America. To avoid this, American plantation owners (who by the way, were allowed to use the land for FREE by the royalty) got together and convinced American soldiers to assist them in seizing our royalty at gunpoint and holding her hostage until they could convince America to illegally take over Hawai'i. The American president at the time, found out about this and immediately sent word to release our royalty and stand down calling it these plantation workers actions a 'illegal act of war' against the Hawaiian nation. Before word could reach Hawai'i however, that President left office and a new President was sworn in who wanted to keep the occupancy of Hawai'i because it served America to keep Hawai'i under their power because of the location of Hawai'i being between America and Asia.

It was an illegal overthrow and the result was Hawaiians having the lands that they had deeds to (given to them by Hawaiian royalty) stollen from them by gun wielding Americans who knew that they could get away with it now that there was American backing. They would go to homes and hold guns to their heads demanding they sign over the deeds or they would kill and rape their wives, children etc.

Hawaiians were later forced to not dance hula or speak the Hawaiian language by penalty of law. Doing so could get you arrested and more often than not, beaten.

Hawai'i citizens later got to 'vote' on whether or not they wanted to become part of the U.S. but most Hawaiians couldn't even speak or write in english so most of the people voting were U.S. citizens and even British citizens who at the time held a large percentage of residents. Most Hawaiians didn't get to vote although according to U.S. documents, they say otherwise.

Later, the U.S. started OHA or office of hawaiian affairs, to deal with hawaiian issues. There is something called Hawaiian homelands in where Hawaiians are allowed to live on land set aside for them (it is land that the US deems undesirable for any other purposes) but in order for someone to live there, they have to have atleast fifty one percent hawaiian blood. Most Hawaiians, having lived with americans and other immigrants brought in to work the fields for the plantation owners like chinese, japanese, filipino, portuguese etc, had married and had children with these other nationalities and therefore were not allowed to live on hawaiian homestead lands. The US, knowing this and knowing that there would soon not be anyone who was fifty one percent or more hawaiian, started the homestead program hoping that they wouldnt have to give out homestead land for long.

When President Clinton was in office, he signed the 'appology bill' stating that America wrongfully and illegally took possession of Hawai'i. No other ammendments have been made to undue the wrong done to Hawaiians though.