Stamp Collecting with GS

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Stamps of Hawaii - Hawaii's Royalty on Stamps

King Kalakua

King David Kalakua (#45)

King Kalakua loved the good life but also encourged the revival of old Hawaiian traditions. For this, he was also known as the "Merry Monarch," but at the same time more and more sugar profits were pouring into the islands, into the hands of foreign businessmen, who were afraid of native controls.

In 1881 Kalakua took a world trip to meet heads of state, who were surprised to find out that Kalakua was interested in merging Hawaii into an Asian federation of nations. This made many people in Hawaii nervous, but when he returned to Honolulu, he staged a Buckingham Place-style coronation that reassured the big companies they were safe.

However, while the king settled into being the Merry Monarch again, nervous foreigners formed secret groups like the Hawaiian League and paramilitary groups like the Hawaiian Rifles, and because of them, the king was forced to accept the "Bayonet Constitution" in June 1887 that made him a powerless figurehead and allowed whites to vote.

Princess Victoria Kamamalu (#30)

In 1889 a pro-Hawaiian uprising led by Robert Wilcox and the Kamehameha Rifles against the Bayonet Constitution and the planters' Hawaiian Rifles was put down easily. Shortly thereafter Wilcox was acquited of charges by an all-Hawaiian jury and Wilcox became an Hawaiian hero.

King Kalakua and Queen Kapiolani often traveled abroad, and while he did, his sister Liliuokalani ruled in his stead, so that when Kalakua died in 1891 in San Francisco, California, Liliuokalani became Queen. She had no children and named her niece Princess Kaiulani as her heir.

Queen Liliukokalani

Liliuokalani tried to end the planters' "Bayonet Constitution" and, on the morning of 14 January 1893, she proclaimed her intention to initiate a new constitution that would restore actual rule to her as the sovereign queen of Hawaii.

Provisional Government

That afternoon a "Committee of Safety" met with US Minister John L. Stevens and on 17 January 1893 they overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy. US troops from the "USS Boston" came ashore in Honolulu, and a provisional government took control of Hawaii, led by Lorrin Thurston, John L. Stevens and Sanford Dole.