forty million years ago the ocean floor
cracked open and molten lava started
flowing out it cooled as it hit the cold
ocean water and turned solid eventually
making mountains in the ocean those
mountains got taller and taller and soon
a chain of islands was born and then
around two thousand years ago a group of
people arrived to these islands in
canoes those communities eventually
unified into one Kingdom the kingdom of
Hawaii
a sovereign nation in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean Hawaii became a language a
culture a national identity but that's
sovereignty that culture that identity
was soon stolen captured by a new bigger
country an ocean away the story of these
islands
for millions of you there was no land
here only mistake
hawaii's half century old request for
statehood and branded the Kingdom of
Hawaii remained a fairly remote
disconnected country for many years
until these guys arrived during the 17
and 1800s many people from Europe in the
United States came to visit Hawaii
mainly on expeditions of exploring the
ocean but the ones that stayed were
mainly Americans who arrived to these
islands wanting to talk about Jesus for
the most part the Kingdom of Hawaii
welcomed these visitors one British
explorer even gifted the Hawaiian King a
British flag and Hawaii eventually
adopted the British flag into their own
flag there was general friendship and
good relations here the American
missionaries who had settled on the
island eventually had kids and grandkids
and soon these missionaries and their
descendants weren't just interested in
talking about Jesus they were also
interested in building businesses mainly
focused on sugar with this increased
economic interest these Americans who
had originally come to be missionaries
were now much more into sugar and they
did what people of European descent have
been doing for many centuries looking at
a culture and government that is
different than theirs and saying we
think we could do this better let us
take it from here and so during the
1800s
these Americans slowly chipped away at
the Hawaiian government structure they
were still newcomers in this ancient
island nation they didn't have much
power but that changed quickly by the
end of the 1800s these Jesus sugar
Americans had amassed a huge amount of
Hawaii's wealth and those original
missionaries who had come to the island
to convert people to their religion
years earlier now had grandkids that
looked like this
a full-on armed militia of white
Hawaiian citizens descendants of the
missionaries who were eager to get the
government out of the way so that they
could run the country themselves and
help make it more favorable for their
sugar businesses now remember these guys
were born in Hawaii they considered
themselves Hawaiians but even still
their loyalty still lie with the country
of their ancestors they were effectively
Americans still by 1893 this local white
militia and their political allies were
ready for a full-on takeover of the
government which at the time was headed
by this woman Queen Liliuokalani the
sugar missionaries were still a minority
and a full-on overthrow of the
government would have been hard by
themselves but luckily for them they had
helped the American ambassador of Hawaii
at the time helped coordinate the
arrival of an American military ship and
troops to show up on the shores of the
island of Oahu into the capital city of
Honolulu up until this point the
conflict in Hawaii was technically
internal meaning it was between the
locals and the white missionaries who
were technically locals because they
were born there but the moment the US
arrived to Honolulu to provide military
backup for a government overthrow it
became a full-on military coup sponsored
by a foreign power a cardinal sin in
international relations but even still
the government backed the overthrow the
Queen was forced to give up her power
and they put this guy as the leader of
the New Republic of Hawaii
his name was Sanford dole his family was
huge in the sugar business a new cake in
pineapple rum dough and now he was the
leader of the country of Hawaii the
locals fought this but peacefully they
protested nearly every adult on the
islands signed a petition condemning the
takeover back in Washington DC a debate
began as to what to do with Hawaii now
that a bunch of Pro American
missionaries turned sugar warriors had
grabbed power Dole himself traveled to
DC to lobby for the u.s. to take over
Hawaii for themselves but so did a group
of local Hawaiians to oppose the
American encroachment the queen who was
overthrown wrote a letter demanding to
be reinstated as the
jit iment leader of the Kingdom of
Hawaii the United States was split on
what to do until 1898 when the new
president surrounded himself with
leaders who kind of loved war an
American expansion and this is what
sealed the fate of Hawaii all of these
displays of vehement peaceful protests
by the Hawaiian people were trampled on
by a superpower who had bigger guns and
an insatiable desire for control so one
summer day in 1898 the u.s. showed up
and the flag of the Kingdom of Hawaii
was taken down and the US flag was
raised Hawaii was now officially a
possession of the United States of
America with the help of these sugar
loving missionaries these islands had
been plucked from their people and put
in the hands of a growing superpower but
stealing land is one thing the real
theft is what happened next
at this point Hawaii was just a u.s.
territory not a state but even still the
u.s. began a deep widespread destruction
of Hawaiian way of life the Hawaiian
language was banned in schools and
government and businesses were by law
required to be conducted in English the
US began developing land often on sacred
sites and the history itself was
censored to make it seem as if the
Hawaiian people welcomed the u.s.
without a fight much of the real history
became inaccessible because it was only
documented in the Hawaiian language
which was beginning to die and then in
1959 Hawaii became the 50th state of the
Union and quickly became the place we
know today
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meanwhile dole Food Company the company
who was perhaps helped the most by this
land grab has become a massive global
corporation by 1993 Hawaii was a full-on
part of the United States that year
President Bill Clinton came out with an
apology
presidential apology at the White House
yesterday President Clinton signed a
formal letter of apology to the people
of Hawaii he was apologizing on behalf
of the US government for the
government's involvement a hundred years
ago in removing the independent Hawaiian
monarchy by force but despite this
horrendous land grab and the pillaging
and theft of these islands there is a
little bit of Hope here that spirit of
peaceful resistance that led to
petitions and protests back in 1893
persisted even after the takeover the
Hawaiian language was delicately
preserved through painstaking effort and
today there are full emersion Hawaiian
language public schools Hawaiian
traditions have stayed alive and last
year Hawaiians showed that they were not
willing to give up their sacred sites
they staged a dramatic protest to
protect a holy mountain that was slated
to be developed on Hawaii may have been
stolen and attempts made to erase its
culture but while the negative effects
of this Imperial land-grab are wide
reaching many pillars of this beautiful
culture have survived
you
[Music]
so I haven't really been traveling much
for obvious reasons and because of that
I've been watching a lot more shows in
the evening which has been really fun to
sort of watch new stuff learn new things
one of the shows I wanted to watch for
ages was the Michael Jordan documentary
which was off-limits to me because I
don't like have cable or ESPN or any of
that last month
I discovered a way I could watch it
using Express VPN which happens to be
the sponsor of today's video but also
something that I genuinely want to tell
you about because it's pretty exciting a
VPN allows you to route your connection
through a different country which
there's some security benefits in
keeping your data safe and private and
all that but in this case it allowed me
to watch the Michael Jordan documentary
in its entirety on Netflix on demand
which was just like I feel like I had
won the lottery everyone was talking
about it and I just wasn't watching it
and suddenly I was and is and I just
benched it there are a lot of offerings
on Netflix that are available in other
countries and not your country suddenly
I can watch spirited away on Netflix or
Lord of the Rings I mean I've been using
Express VPN for years mainly for the
sort of privacy element but in this case
I'm realizing that it's way more than
just a privacy tool it allows me tastes
have way more content at my fingertips
there's a link in my description
expressvpn dot-com / Johnny Harris you
can click that link and find out how to
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click that link in the description it
helps support this channel when you do
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before for free for 3 months go binge
Lord of the Rings and Thank You
expressvpn for sponsoring this video
thank you all for watching I will see
you in the next one
[Music]
you
[Music]