14 June 2009

The annexation of Hawaii

The United States annexed the Republic of Hawaii in 1898, and soon thereafter appropriately re-named it the Territory of Hawaii.

Why? Well ... my vague impression until recently was that like much that has happened since, this was about energy and oil. Specifically, Hawaii had become the crucial mid-Pacific stop for whaling ships.

But I've had to revise that. The whaling voyages made Hawaii of strategic interest, but they don't really explain the need for annexation. After all, the ships had been stopping there for decades. If Hawaii had remained an independent republic, would there have been a threat to whaling?

Hawaii hadn't been a republic for very long. It had been a monarchy until 1893. It was only a republic, then, for a brief period prior to its annexation -- a path similar to that of the Lone Star Republic/State.

And the dramatic events all had more to do with sugar than with oil. Energy yes, oil no.
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Pragmatism Refreshed

Knowledge is warranted belief -- it is the body of belief that we build up because, while living in this world, we've developed good reasons for believing it. What we know, then, is what works -- and it is, necessarily, what has worked for us, each of us individually, as a first approximation. For my other blog, on the struggles for control in the corporate suites, see www.proxypartisans.blogspot.com.