Mahalo MANA for sharing this moolelo. AND mahalo Liko Martin and Laulani Teale for Red Ribbons Liliuokalanis Letter of Protest to US Annexation, aka, the Red Ribbon Letter July 16, 2014 at 1:39am At the first Department of Interior recognition meeting held in Honolulu on June 23, 2014, Kiliwehe Kekumano was passing out copies of Liliʻuokalanis 1897 letter of protest against annexation to the United States, also known as the “red ribbon letter”, to those in attendance as a reminder of the Queens clear position against anything less than full independence for the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and her people. At this same meeting, Liko Martin sang a song he had composed about the red ribbon letter as his official testimony opposing federal recognition. Although the Queen’s letter of protest is found in her book, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, at the time of the DOI hearings many of us had never heard of the “Red Ribbon” letter. When asked that day at the Honolulu DOI hearing, Kiliwehe Kekumano explained that she herself retrieved the a certified copy of the Queen’s original letter of protest against annexation to the United States at the federal archives in Washington DC in response to accusations that the letter published in the Queenʻs book was inauthentic. Kekumano’s retrieval of the letter from the US archives proved the existence and authenticity of Liliʻus letter and more importantly, her position, once and for all. When the letter was submitted by Liliʻuokalani in June of 1897, it was verified with the attachment of a red ribbon to the document, a signifier of authenticity that could only be given had the Queen delivered her own letter in person. Indeed, via boat and train, Liliuokalani traveled from Hawaiʻi to Washington DC to deliver her letter of protest. The letter of protest retrieved by Kekumano has been nicknamed the Red Ribbon Letter and is not only a record of her protest and her commitment to country, her people, and the land but also her steadfastness and her long journey to submit her official protest which can now never be delegitimized. From the point of learning this story from Kekumano, we decided to wear red ribbons on our hearts as a symbol of our own commitment to the Queen and the will of our kupuna to continue resistance to annexation and US takeover, federal recognition, and to represent our ongoing commitment to our country, our lands, our people and our independence. From Makakilo to Keaukaha, from Kahului to Tulalip, Washington, red ribbons were seen on the shirts of many kanaka who were there to testify on behalf of our country and in opposition to federal recognition. We encourage you to make and wear this symbol of Unity every day and especially on days of collective resistance against US occupation and also in celebration of Hawaiian Independence. Walk in support of the Queen. Make yourself recognizable to other Independence patriots and help build this Aloha Aina movement! ********************** Queen Liliʻuokalanis letter of protest (the Red Ribbon letter) to the treaty of annexation in 1897 in full: I, Liliuokalani of Hawaii, by the will of God named heir apparent on the tenth day of April, A.D. 1877, and by the grace of God Queen of the Hawaiian Islands on the seventeenth day of January, A.D. 1893, do hereby protest against the ratification of a certain treaty, which, so I am informed, has been signed at Washington by Messrs. Hatch, Thurston, and Kinney, purporting to cede those Islands to the territory and dominion of the United States. I declare such a treaty to be an act of wrong toward the native and part-native people of Hawaii, an innovation of the rights of the ruling chiefs, in violation of international rights both toward my people and toward friendly nations with whom they have made treaties, the perpetuation of the fraud whereby the constitutional government was overthrown, and, finally, an act of gross injustice to me. Because the official protests made by me on the seventeenth day of January, 1893, to the so-called Provisional Government was signed by me, and received by said government with the assurance that the case was referred to the United States of America for arbitrations. Because that protest and my communications to the United States Government immediately thereafter expressly declare that I yielded my authority to the forces of the United States in order to avoid bloodshed, and because I recognized the futility of a conflict with so formidable a power. Because the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and an envoy commissioned by them reported in official documents that my government was unlawfully coerced by the forces, diplomatic and naval, of the United States; that I was at the date of their investigations the constitutional ruler of my people. Because such decision of the recognized magistrates of the United States was officially communicated to me and to Sanford B. Dole, and said Doles resignation requested by Albert S. Willis, the recognized agent and minister of the Government of the United States. Because neither the above-named commission nor the government which sends it has ever received any such authority from the registered voters of Hawaii, but derives its assumed powers from the so-called committee of public safety, organized on or about the seventeenth day of January, 1893, said committee being composed largely of persons claiming American citizenship, and not one single Hawaiian was a member thereof, or in any way participated in the demonstration leading to its existence. Because my people, about forty thousand in number, have in no way been consulted by those, three thousand in number, who claim the right to destroy the independence of Hawaii. My people constitute four-fifths of the legally qualified voters of Hawaii, and excluding this imported for the demands of labor, about the same proportion of the inhabitants. Because said treaty ignores, not only the civic rights of my people, but, further, the hereditary property of their chiefs. Of the 4,000,000 acres composing the territory said treaty offers to annex, 1,000,000 or 915,000 acres has in no way been heretofore recognized as other than the private property of the constitutional monarch, subject to a control in no way differing from other items of a private estate. Because it is proposed by said treaty to confiscate said property, technically called the crown lands, those legally entitled thereto, either now or in succession, receiving no consideration whatever for estates, their title to which has ben always undisputed, and which is legitimately in my name at this date. Because said treaty ignores, not only all professions of perpetual amity and good faith made by the United States in former treaties with the sovereigns representing the Hawaiian People, but all treaties made by those sovereigns representing the Hawaiian people, but all treaties made by those sovereigns with other and friendly peers, and it is thereby in violation of international law. Because, by treating with the parties claiming at this time the right to cede said territory of Hawaii, the Government of the United States receives such territory from the hands of those whom its own magistrates (legally elected by the people of the United States, an in office in 1893) pronounced fraudulently in power and unconstitutionally ruling Hawaii. Therefore I, Liliuokalani of Hawaii, do hereby call upon the President of that nation, to whom alone I yielded my property and my authority, to withdraw said treaty (ceding said Islands) from further consideration. I ask the honorable Senate of the United States to decline to ratify said treaty, and I implore the people of this great and good nation, from whom myth ancestors learned the Cristian religion, to sustain their representatives in such acts of justice and equity as may be in accord with the principles of their fathers, and to the Almighty Ruler of the universe, to him who judgeth righteously, I commit my cause. Done at Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America, this seventeenth day of June, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. Liliuokalani Joseph Heleluhe Wokeki Heleluhe Julius A. Palmer......Witnesses to Signature D O I 6-23-14 OUR ANSWER ONIPAA KUE EA At 2:33.........Red Ribbons performed by Liko Martin and Laulani Teale.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:25:13 +0000
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