Ke Kumu O Kānāwai ʻAwaʻawa: The Origins and Expansion of the Native Hawaiian Congressional Policyscape

Abstract

Since claiming U.S. jurisdiction over Hawaiʻi in 1898 the U.S. Congress has passed over 250 laws regarding Native Hawaiians, the Indigenous people of Hawaiʻi. While the effect of many of these laws has been researched and debated, little scholarship has sought to understand the role of Native Hawaiian advocates in the creation of these policies. This dissertation explores the development of U.S. Congressional policy regarding Native Hawaiians, the role that Native Hawaiian advocates played in shaping some of those laws, and connects Native Hawaiian policy advocacy to some of the aspects of pre-contact Native Hawaiian political life. The dissertation begins by examining the participatory aspects of political life in Wā ʻŌiwi Wale (prior to sustained Western Contact). Lawmaking, petition, and diplomacy were all well developed by Native Hawaiians as Indigenous practices; a fact that allows us to examine Native Hawaiian efforts to influence Congress as the modification of Indigenous practices in changing times. Exploring fourteen policy cases between 1843 and 1993, the author shows the evolution and continuity of Native Hawaiian policymaking and petition in various circumstances. Despite the cultural, structural, and other disadvantages that Native Hawaiians face in influencing Congress, this study finds Native Hawaiians played a role in ideating and otherwise influencing many of the examined Native Hawaiian Congressional policies across a series of eras (Kingdom, Territorial, and both Early Statehood and Recent Statehood). Due to the sometimes successful efforts of Native Hawaiians throughout these eras, Native Hawaiian Congressional policy can be understood the result of a mix of forces, outside Native Hawaiian control but within Native Hawaiian influence.