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Originally Posted by North Beach Person
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf
One consideration was that the navies of the second half of the 19th century ran on sail, but also on coal, necessitating the acquisition of far-flung coaling stations and naval bases. The naval empires sought out natural harbors around the globe, and Pearl Harbor at Oahu was one of the best harbors in the central Pacific.
Yes, it still sucks that the US, abetted by American businessmen based in Hawaii for the sugar trade, pretty much overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii, but I posit that it was just a matter of time before either the United States or some other European power snatched up Hawaii as a possession.
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England was eyeing Hawai'i at the time. So was Japan, which was shipping thousands of workers to the sugar plantations. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Babe_Ruth
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf
One consideration was that the navies of the second half of the 19th century ran on sail, but also on coal, necessitating the acquisition of far-flung coaling stations and naval bases. The naval empires sought out natural harbors around the globe, and Pearl Harbor at Oahu was one of the best harbors in the central Pacific.
Yes, it still sucks that the US, abetted by American businessmen based in Hawaii for the sugar trade, pretty much overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii, but I posit that it was just a matter of time before either the United States or some other European power snatched up Hawaii as a possession.
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Good post.
And Grover Cleveland basically tried to protect Hawaii from predation, but..
My opinion, Cleveland had a very wise & modest approach to the presidency & power in general. |
Good posts and good points all. Obviously all the Pacific islands that I can think of were gobbled up by the U.S., Japan or European powers, with the exception of islands off the South American coast. Tahiti and a bunch of others went to France. I could be wrong on some of this, but believe the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Fiji and others went to Japan. Alaska (not an island of course) and the Aleutian Islands went to Russia, and thence to the U.S. The Philippines initially went to Spain, and thence to the U.S. Hawaii was one of the last to fall, and it fell to the U.S.
I had not thought of the angle of coaling stations but it makes sense, from the number of Pacific islands taken over, that may have had some impact. I would assume that major shipping companies would have wanted to control and ensure their ability to traverse the Pacific.
As far as Grover Cleveland, he was not yet President. Benjamin Harrison was in office through March 4, 1893.
What I did not know, however, was that there was a prior revolt in 1887 which the Queen tried to reverse.
Link to New York Times article. Apparently the situation was a lot less stable than I had thought. I will read more over the next day or two, now that I saved the link for myself.
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