“The Rights of My People” examines the two battles for Hawaii’s sovereignty. Liliuokalani led them.

Author Neil Thomas Proto revisits the first battle – the 1893 coup d’état and annexation in 1898 – through a new perspective: the harsh remnants of the Civil War, the missionaries’ disquieting view of race, and the Renaissance and newly defined role of Hawaiian women.

Explored for the first time is the second battle: the fate of the Crown lands – a quarter of the Hawaiian Islands – taken in the 1893 coup d’état and contested aggressively by Liliuokalani through 1910.

For more than a decade, the queen took up residence in the nation’s capital, often for months at a time, to challenge the complicity of the United States in the media and before Congress. With reluctance, she turned to a court of law; many found this to be disquieting.

Through previously unexamined court records, correspondence, and graphic portrayals, “The Rights of My People” tells the story of Liliuokalani’s political, legal, and media maneuvering. She used her hard-earned wisdom and skill to lend credibility to her claim that the taking of the Crown lands by the United States was immoral and illegal.

The threat of execution and assassination and the continued use of religious and racial condescension and deception by her adversaries, old and new, unfold in Honolulu, Hilo, and onto the continent in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, D.C.