On this day in 1898, the U.S. Congress officially voted to annex Hawaii, making it part of U.S. territory after decades of American commercial and military presence in the archipelago. This decision marked the end of a complex story that began with a coup in 1893, when a group of American businessmen and Marines overthrew the independent Kingdom of Hawaii and the government of Queen Liliuokalani.
In the 19th century, Hawaii was an important trading post on the Pacific route, and its strategic location attracted U.S. interest, especially after the establishment of a naval station at Pearl Harbor. As American economic influence grew, so did talk of annexation, particularly after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, which made the Pacific a vital theater of conflict.
President William McKinley, then in office, seized the political moment, sending an annexation resolution to Congress, where it passed overwhelmingly on June 10, 1898. With this decision, all public assets of Hawaii were dissolved and integrated into an American entity.
However, the annexation was not without consequences. The undemocratic nature of the 1893 coup and the pressures of American economic growth made the annexation a subject of domestic debate in the U.S. for decades. Opponents saw it as an imperialistic model over an independent country, while supporters viewed it as a necessary step to secure American interests in the Pacific.
Today, June 10 remains a day that reflects the dual American tradition: between the pursuit of expansion and the declared principles of self-determination for peoples.
