Title: how was Hawaii acquired by U.S.? | Yahoo Answers
Headings: how was Hawaii acquired by U.S.?
how was Hawaii acquired by U.S.?
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Big B
Lv 6
1 decade ago
In 1898 American businessmen tried to bring Hawaii under U.S control by engineering the overthrow of Hawaii's last Queen LILI'UOKALANI. By bringing Hawaii under U.S control, it would remove the trade barriers and protectionist policies of the U.S to Hawaii, and make American businessmen very rich. However, although the newly established pro-American provisional government overthrew the Queen, they were not able to directly secure the U.S annexation until events of the U.S spanish war. The U.S annexation of Hawaii came with the U.S-Spanish War in 1898, in which the U.S aquired for the first time an overseas empire such as the Philippines, Puerto Rico. But where the U.S had aquired these through rejecting Spanish colonialism and claiming to be fighting a war against colonialism, Mckinley completely abandoned any pretension to be liberating Hawaii or for freedom and democracy. What helped the U.S annexation of Hawaii was a very popular and influential paper by Alfred Mayan came out stating that the United States should set about securing economic markets by establishing a chain of overseas island colonies. The annexation of Hawaii came also as part of U.S 'Open Door' policy to force countries to open themselves up to U.S economic interests. President McKinley told Congress on 11th June 1898 that "we must have Hawaii to help us get our share of China". In July 1898, Congress passes the Hawaii annexation bill. The annexation of Hawaii was clearly out of U.S geopolitical and economic interests as stated in the Annexation articles
which itself points to all the reasons why the U.S annexed Hawaii.