Aloha Kakou, Pursuant to 42 U.S. Code § 11701 The Congress finds that: (1) Native Hawaiians comprise a distinct and unique indigenous people with a historical continuity to the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian archipelago whose society was organized as a Nation prior to the arrival of the first nonindigenous people in 1778. (2) The Native Hawaiian people are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territory, and their cultural identity in accordance with their own spiritual and traditional beliefs, customs, practices, language, and social institutions. (3) The constitution and statutes of the State of Hawaii: (A) acknowledge the distinct land rights of Native Hawaiian people as beneficiaries of the public lands trust; and (B) reaffirm and protect the unique right of the Native Hawaiian people to practice and perpetuate their cultural and religious customs, beliefs, practices, and language. (4) At the time of the arrival of the first nonindigenous people in Hawaii in 1778, the Native Hawaiian people lived in a highly organized, self-sufficient, subsistence social system based on communal land tenure with a sophisticated language, culture, and religion. (5) A unified monarchical government of the Hawaiian Islands was established in 1810 under Kamehameha I, the first King of Hawaii. (6) Throughout the 19th century and until 1893, the United States: (A) recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Nation; (B) extended full and complete diplomatic recognition to the Hawaiian Government; and (C) entered into treaties and conventions with the Hawaiian monarchs to govern commerce and navigation in 1826, 1842, 1849, 1875 and 1887. (7) In the year 1893, the United States Minister assigned to the sovereign and independent Kingdom of Hawaii, John L. Stevens, conspired with a small group of non-Hawaiian residents of the Kingdom, including citizens of the United States, to overthrow the indigenous and lawful Government of Hawaii. (8) In pursuance of that conspiracy, the United States Minister and the naval representative of the United States caused armed naval forces of the United States to invade the sovereign Hawaiian Nation in support of the overthrow of the indigenous and lawful Government of Hawaii and the United States Minister thereupon extended diplomatic recognition of a provisional government formed by the conspirators without the consent of the native people of Hawaii or the lawful Government of Hawaii in violation of treaties between the two nations and of international law. (9) In a message to Congress on December 18, 1893, then President Grover Cleveland reported fully and accurately on these illegal actions, and acknowledged that by these acts, described by the President as acts of war, the government of a peaceful and friendly people was overthrown, and the President concluded that a “substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people required that we should endeavor to repair”. (10) Queen Lili’uokalani, the lawful monarch of Hawaii, and the Hawaiian Patriotic League, representing the aboriginal citizens of Hawaii, promptly petitioned the United States for redress of these wrongs and for restoration of the indigenous government of the Hawaiian nation, but this petition was not acted upon. (11) In 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii through the Newlands Resolution without the consent of or compensation to the indigenous people of Hawaii or their sovereign government who were thereby denied the mechanism for expression of their inherent sovereignty through self-government and self-determination, their lands and ocean resources. (12) Through the Newlands Resolution and the 1900 Organic Act, the United States Congress received 1.75 million acres of lands formerly owned by the Crown and Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and exempted the lands from then existing public land laws of the United States by mandating that the revenue and proceeds from these lands be “used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for education and other public purposes”, thereby establishing a special trust relationship between the United States and the inhabitants of Hawaii.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:01:51 +0000
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