On the advice of his physician King Kalākaua traveled to the
US continent for a change of climate to recuperate his health. He died at the
Palace Hotel in San Francisco on January 20, 1891.
His remains were brought back to Hawaiʻi aboard the USS Charleston. As
the ship rounded Diamond Head, the flags were seen lowered to half-mast, and it
was then that the King's subjects realized Kalākaua was dead.
Kalākaua was succeeded by his sister, Liliʻuokalani, who was proclaimed Queen
on January 29, 1891. Her experience as Princess Regent during King Kalākaua’s
nine-month journey around the world in 1881 and her visit to the United States
in 1887 with Queen Kapiʻolani
helped prepare her for her new role as Queen of Hawaiʻi.
Queen Liliʻuokalani
was determined to strengthen the political power of the Hawaiian monarchy and,
at the request of her people, to limit suffrage to subjects of the kingdom.
Her attempt to promulgate a new constitution galvanized
opposition forces into the Committee of Safety, which was composed of Hawaiʻi-born citizens of American
parents, naturalized citizens and foreign nationals; they later organized the establishment
of a provisional government.
On January 17, 1893, Queen Lili`uokalani yielded her
authority to the US government in a letter delivered to Sanford B Dole: “…Now
to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this
under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as
the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it,
undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which
I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.”
"Weary with waiting, impatient under the wrongs they
were suffering, preparations were undoubtedly made amongst some in sympathy
with the monarchy to overthrow the oligarchy." (Queen Liliʻuokalani)
In 1895, an abortive attempt by Hawaiian royalists to
restore Queen Liliʻuokalani
to power resulted in the Queen's arrest. She signed a document of abdication
that relinquished all her future claims to the throne. Following this, she
endured a public trial before a military tribunal in her former throne room.
Convicted of having knowledge of a royalist plot, “at two
o'clock on the afternoon of the 27th of February I was again called into court,
and sentence passed upon me. It was the extreme penalty for "misprision of
treason," – a fine of $5,000, and imprisonment at hard labor for five
years.” (Queen Liliʻuokalani)
The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in an upstairs apartment
in ʻIolani Palace.
Queen Liliʻuokalani's “prison” room is on the makai-Diamond
Head second-floor corner of ʻIolani Palace.
If you visit the Palace today, the area where the Queen was held is
clearly noted by its white covered-over window.
Contrary to urban legend, the Palace windows were not
frosted and painted over to block the Queen’s ability to see out and others to
see her inside.
In 1887, the Palace’s second story windows were opaque
glass. When the Palace was attacked in
1889 during the initial Wilcox Rebellion, many of the Place windows were
broken. When repairs were made (through
1890,) these windows were replaced with frosted glass.
There are apparently no
photographs of the Queen's room during her imprisonment. She describes the apartment as, "a
large, airy, uncarpeted room with a single bed in one corner. The other
furniture consisted of one sofa, a small square table, one single common chair,
an iron safe, a bureau, a chiffonier (storage for odds and ends,) and a
cupboard, intended for eatables ... There was, adjoining the principal
apartment, a bath-room, and also a corner room and a little boudoir
..." (Queen Liliʻuokalani)
During her imprisonment, the Queen was denied any visitors
other than one lady in waiting (Mrs. Eveline Wilson.) She began each day with
her daily devotions followed by reading, quilting, crochet-work or music
composition.
“Though I was still not allowed to have newspapers or
general literature to read, writing-paper and lead-pencils were not denied; and
I was thereby able to write music, after drawing for myself the lines of the
staff.” (Queen Liliʻuokalani)
The Palace has a quilt the Queen made; the center square of
Liliʻuokalani's quilt includes the embroidered words "Imprisoned at Iolani
Palace ... We began the quilt there ..."
“Surrounding the Kalakaua coat of arms and framed by pairs
of crossed Hawaiian flags, the center block outlines the sequence of events
that changed the course of Hawaiian history, including the stitched date the
Provisional Government was put in place, when Lili'uokalani was forced to step
down, and the date of the aborted Wilcox revolution that precipitated the
queen's arrest." (Star-Bulletin)
Embroidered dates indicate the quilt was completed after
Liliʻuokalani's release on September 6, 1895.
She spent 8 months in this room. After her release from ʻIolani Palace, the
Queen remained under house arrest for five months at her private home,
Washington Place. For another eight months she was forbidden to leave Oʻahu
before all restrictions were lifted.
Liliʻuokalani died of a stroke on November 11, 1917 in
Honolulu at the age of 79.
The image shows the welcoming of Queen Liliʻuokalani at
Washington Place on her return from imprisonment. In addition, I have added other images in a
folder of like kind in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.
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