If Kamehameha The Great (c. 1758? - 1819) was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Liliuokalani was the last one, ruling from January 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893. Born Lydia Liliu Loloku Walania Kamakaeha on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, in a high-ranking family, she received a thoroughly modern education, which was augmented by a tour of the Western world.
After a time as a member of the court of Kamehameha IV, she was married in September 1862 to John Owen Dominis, son of a Boston sea captain and himself an official in the Hawaiian government. In 1874 her brother David Kalakaua was chosen king (under the name Kamehameha V), and in 1877, on the death of a second brother, W.P. Leleiohoku, who was heir apparent, she was named heir presumptive. Over the next 14 years she established herself firmly in that role.
She served as regent during King Kalakaua's world tour in 1881, and she was active in organizing schools for Hawaiian youth. During a world tour in 1887 she was received by U.S. President Grover Cleveland and by Britain's Queen Victoria. On the death of King Kalakaua in January 1891, Liliuokalani ascended the throne, becoming the first woman ever to occupy it. Liliuokalani regretted the loss of power the monarchy had suffered under Kalakaua and tried to restore something of the traditional autocracy to the Hawaiian throne.
She had earlier made her position clear by opposing the renewed Reciprocity Treaty of 1885, signed by Kalakaua, granting privileged commercial concessions to the United States and ceding to them the port of Pearl Harbor. This attitude forever alienated her from Hawai's haole - foreign businessmen - who, after her accession, tried to abrogate her authority. Led by Sanford Dole, the Missionary Party asked for her abdication in January 1893 and, declaring the queen deposed, announced the establishment of a provisional government, composed of European and American bussinemen, pending annexation by the United States.
The overthrow efforts were supported by United States Government Minister John L. Stevens with an invasion of U.S. Marines, who came ashore at the request of the conspirators. Advised about supposed threats to non-combatant American lives and property by the Committee of Safety, Stevens obliged their request and summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the cruiser USS Boston and 162 sailors to land on the Kingdom under orders of neutrality and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893.
To avoid bloodshed, Liliuokalani surrendered, but she appealed to President Cleveland to reinstate her. Cleveland ordered the queen restored and rejected the treaty of annexation sent to Congress by his predecessor, President Benjamin Harrison. Dole defied the order, claiming that Cleveland didn't have the authority to interfere. In 1895 an insurrection in the queen's name, led by royalist Robert Wilcox, was suppressed by Dole's group, and Liliuokalani was kept under house arrest on charges of treason.
On January 24, 1895, to win pardons for her supporters who had been jailed following the revolt, she agreed to sign a formal abdication. As head of the Onipaa (meaning immovable, steadfast, firm, resolute) movement, whose motto was "Hawaii for the Hawaiians," Liliuokalani fought bitterly against annexation of the islands by the United States. Annexation nonetheless occurred in July 1898. In that year she published Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen and composed Aloha Oe, a song ever afterward beloved in the islands. Thereafter she withdrew from public life, enjoying a government pension and the homage of islanders and visitors alike.
About the stamp
The stamp is a Global Forever one, depicting The Moon, about which I wrote here.
References
Lili'uokalani - Wikipedia
Liliuokalani - Enciclopaedia Britannica
Sender: Marius Vasilescu
Sent from Honolulu (Hawaii / United States), on 29.03.2018
A reproduction of an oil painting by William Cogswell, which hangs in Iolani Palace
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