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The missionary work was declared officially completed by 1863, but many of the missionary families stayed on, opened the second great epoch of Hawaii's history, founded families of growing influence. Trade prospered as huge sugar fields spread across the flatlands and mountainsides; captains of trade were the so-called "Big Five"—massive trading, shipping and factoring companies. The economy boomed, while more and more the prosperous agriculturists imported fresh shiploads of Japanese and Chinese labor. The influx, guided by the paternalistic Big Five, began subtly to change the island character as intermarriages produced new breeds of natives, new workers for the fields, new artisans, professional people and politicians.
Svengali & Scandals. Yet, as Hawaii's economy grew, her political structure shook. The French and British poised time and again to annex the islands. (The British actually did, abortively, for five months in 1863, which accounts for the Union Jack influence in the island flag.) Desperately, Kamehameha III appealed to the U.S. for annexation as a state, but failed.
When King Kalakaua—the "Merry Monarch,'' elected by the legislature two years after the end of the Kamehameha dynasty—ratified a reciprocal trade treaty with the U.S. in 1875, Hawaii boomed in earnest. But then, embroiled with a corrupt legislature and a Svengali-like adventurer, Kalakaua lost his grip; scandals raged as the spendthrift King kicked the public debt from $388,000 to $2,600,000 until, in 1887, he was forced to sign a new constitution stripping himself of his near-totalitarian powers.
Hawaii's last monarch was Queen Liliuokalani, the buxom, strong-willed sister of Kalakaua, and, like her brother, a cultivated personage (poet, musician, composer of the famed Aloha Oe). Tough-minded Liliuokalani tried to overthrow the constitution as Hawaii plummeted into the depression that followed President McKinley's punishing tariff law on sugar. Around the rugged Queen grew secret societies such as the Annexation Club, and finally, in 1893, a Committee of Safety took possession of the government office building, formed a republic, applied to the U.S. for annexation. Five years later, to the sound of a 21-gun salute from shore batteries and from the U.S.S. Philadelphia, the Hawaiian Islands became part of the American republic.
Solvency & Syllables. With stability finally assured, Hawaii's vigorous culture sank new roots. In the New Deal days came the rise of unionism and of Red-lining Harry Bridges, who won control of Hawaii's longshoremen, pineapple and sugar workers. Though Hawaiian labor made needed gains, Bridges' ironhanded control of the island economy posed a new threat; it lasts, somewhat diluted, even today, in an uneasy peace between the unions and industry.