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To the Hawaiian People!
Craigside, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1 March 1898. Bifolium circular, 11” x 8.5”. 2 pp. CONDITION: Very good, wear to extremities, horizontal and vertical folds. A scarce circular addressed to the Hawaiian people urging a strategy for maintaining their national independence in the looming shadow of U.S. annexation, written by British businessman Theophilus Harris Davies, the guardian of the last heir to the Hawaiian throne. Published just three months before Davies’ death, this circular addresses Hawaiians as “friends” and lauds “the noble, patient way in which you have borne the distress of the past five years,” beginning with the dethroning of Queen Lili uokalani in January of 1893, which “brought sorrow to very many of your hearts.” Davies, who had come to Hawaii as a young agent for a prosperous British trading concern, eventually took over the company, and split his time between his homes in Honolulu and Southport, England. Refraining from commentary on “the origin of these troubles,” Davies outlines the course which he thinks “it would be prudent and possible to pursue,” namely, full acceptance of the Republic as a means of staving off American annexation: In the first place, the Hawaiians and the foreigners must be friends and work together. Do not think too much about what has happened, but let us all do the best for the future. Many of you would like to get the Monarchy back; but you cannot do so…But if we work faithfully together, I believe that you can keep your Independence and keep your Hawaiian flag, and be a happy and prosperous nation. There are many foreigners who will still want Annexation, but I think there are more who do not want Annexation…Now if the Hawaiians are willing to accept the Republic, on condition that the foreigners will give up Annexation and that all shall have votes and be friends, I believe that we could stop all the quarrels and have peace again, and that Queen Liliuokalani would come back and live a happy, dignified life, as Princess Kaiulani is doing, amongst her own people. Davies, a personal friend to the Hawaiian monarchy, had tried to save it by urging Queen Lili uokalani’s abdication and replacement by her niece, Princess Kaiulani (who was at the time in Britain, just shy of her eighteenth birthday and still receiving her education). Instead, however, Americans in Hawaii overthrew the Queen and established a provisional government. Davies writes: “it is now too late to reform…Therefore I come to you a doctor who says: ‘I can perhaps save your life, if you will let me cut off your arm.’ So I say: ‘You can perhaps save your Independence, if you will give up the Monarchy.” Davies’s plea originally circulated in Hawaiian and on March 1st was printed in English in the Hawaiian Gazette, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, and the Independent, and was roundly criticized by the pro-American and pro-annexation Hawaiian Star, which called Davies’ ideas “Utopian” and concluded, prophetically, that “The lion and the lamb will not lie down together as he would like.” Born in Worcestershire, England in 1834, Theophilus Harris Davies was recruited to the Honolulu-based British firm Janion, Green & Co. in 1856. He would eventually replace Green as Janion’s partner, reorganize the firm, and expand its operations beyond wholesale to invest in sugar planters, refinance the Honolulu Iron Works (which manufactured sugar mill equipment), and build new sugarcane plantations. Theo. H. Davies and Company, as it was called, quickly became one of Hawaii’s “Big Five”—major corporations that dominated the islands’ politics, economy, and society for almost a century. Davies and his wife Ellen took over guardianship of the teenage Princess Ka iulani when, following the death of her mother, she was sent to England to complete her education. Davies accompanied Ka iulani on a visit to the United States in 1893 in the hopes of gaining U.S. support for reinstating a modified constitutional monarchy. He died suddenly in England on May 25th, 1898. No examples recorded in OCLC. An open letter written by a prominent British supporter during a pivotal and wrenching period of Hawaiian history between the toppling of the monarchy and annexation by the United States. REFERENCES: “An Open Letter,” The Hawaiian Star, March 1, 1898, p. 4; “An Open Letter,” The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 1, 1898, p. 1; “An Open Letter,” The Hawaiian Gazette, March 1, 1898, p. 1.
Item #10062
On Hold
Price: $2,250.00
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