Leadership Wiki Assignment: Queen Liliuokalani

Figure 1 Queen Liliʻuokalani ; Source [1], Hawaiʻi State Archives.

Queen Liliʻuokalani was the Queen of the Republic of Hawaii before from January 29, 1891 to January
17, 1893. This was before the eventual annexation of Hawaii into the United States in July of 1898, and
her rein played a major role into how the Republic of Hawaii became a state, and how the state was
perceived by locals and by Americans during that time.

From a collection of accounts [2] and analysis of some of Hawaiis most important moments in history,
Liliʻuokalani was subject to much tension during the timespan starting in 1887 to the end of her rule, the
royal family was subject to much pressure by an anti-monarch group written legislature title the Bayonet
Constitution, which Liliʻuokalani attempted to do away with [3]. There were many reasons for repealing
this document, though the primary incentive lied with the rising distaste for monarchy in general, and
desire to annex with the United States.

A group of pro-annexation white American residents eventually organized a coup and took Liliʻuokalani
captive for two years, with their sights set on annexing the republic, but as a result of Liliʻuokalani’s
continued morally motivated resistance [4], this request was denied by President Cleveland at the time,
until years later after the throne was resigned, when the pressure of the Spanish-American war forced the
United States to go through with the annexation.
Even though her rein was short-lived, she was absolutely a leader, and a ruler for the people of Hawaii.
During her time, she pushed to create a new constitution [5], which would combat the Bayonet Resolution
and attempt to restore the monarchy to it’s prior state. Much of the objective with this massive attempted
reform involved helping an economic class that had been disenfranchised by recent changed of her late
brother and predecessor, Kalākaua. This proposed constitution was a huge effort to restore a disfunctional
monarchy to a state with more organised and more active voting and government mechanism [6].
Especially near the end of Kalākaua’s rule, there were many formed groups which ford out of
dissatisfaction with the existing power system, and especially given there were many under-represented
groups on the island at the time. And, from the time that Liliʻuokalani took over rule, she began to work
towards making these societal changes. Alluding to the idea of grand challenges, this was a major goal
that she attempted to tackle, especially given the state of the republic at the time, with external and
internal pressures weighing against her.

Even aside from her actions as ruler, she continued to earn the admiration of those communities around
her through her peaceful but strong response to the group of Americans, the “Committee of Safety,” who
would hold her life at stake for the sake of making major changed to her republic. And in terms of actual
actions she was able to take as a leader before her time as a queen, we can look back to 1881, where
without the power and backing of being queen, she was able to successfully propose immediate
quarantine regulations in response to emergency health concerns involving chicken pox [1].

In the standard definition, Queen Liliʻuokalani was a literal leader, in charge of tens of thousands of lives,
especially given she was widely liked by her people. In a more general sense though, she was absolutely a
leader in the world. At the time, she lead with her ideas, attempting to implement them in the context that
she saw around her. She found problems in her community, and attempted to take them on with whatever
power she could muster at each point in her life. It’s from looking at some of these problems that we can
see the types of grand challenges she was trying to approach. She was finding challenges concerning the
sustainability of local communities and societies. By taking the time to look for issues in every social
class to ensure that everyone’s voice was heard, she was looking for problems to help with local
communities. By attempting to reform a broken government for the projected long-term benefit of the
Republic of Hawaii, she was attacking social issues, and identifying problems that could effect individual
people in later years. It’s clear that through the stance she took in the heat of having her life threatened to
annex the United States, that she would attempt to view problems in an ethical, empathetic, and more
objective lense, which would help her make achievements in her life, and would shape how she is
perceived by modern researchers and historians.

Citations

[1] P. Fernandez-Akamine, “Liliʻuokalani took decisive action to stop the spread of smallpox,” Ka
Wai Ola, 31-Aug-2021. [Online]. Available:
https://kawaiola.news/covid-19/liliuokalani-took-decisive-action-to-stop-the-spread-of-smallpox/.
[Accessed: 02-Nov-2022].

[2] L. Kualapai, “The queen writes back: Lili'uokalani's Hawaii's story by Hawaii's queen,” Studies
in American Indian Literatures, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 32–62, 2005.

[3] J. W. Pratt, “The Hawaiian Revolution: A re-interpretation,” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 1,
no. 3, pp. 273–294, 1932.

[4] T. Koeppe, “Women in history - queen liliuokalani,” DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

- Lincoln, Jan-2007. [Online]. Available: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/jwel/58/. [Accessed:
02-Nov-2022].

[5] R. W. Jr., “The diaries of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, 1885–1900 ed. by David W. Forbes
(review),” Hawaiian Journal of History, 04-Dec-2021. [Online]. Available:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/840145. [Accessed: 02-Nov-2022].

[6] J. Horn, “The Archives of Hawaii,” The American Archivist, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 105–114, 1953.