Race, Power, and the Dilemma of Democracy: Hawaiʻi's First Territorial Legislature, 1901

Abstract

The formation of a territorial legislature in Hawaiʻi marked a critical transition from the preceding seven years of oligarchic rule—1893-1900. Political union with the United States threatened the currently nascent hegemony of the ascendant minority white community in the Islands. In response, white leaders sought to craft a race-centric narrative that posited native incompetence as an answer to why democracy should not prevail in an American territory. An examination and analysis of the 1901Territorial Legislature in Hawai‘i, through both native and English-language sources, provides a revealing look at the employment of race as a political tool used to denigrate native leadership and argue against democracy during this crucial struggle for political control of America’s newest territory.