Signatures on anti-annexation petition contradict Twigg-Smith


Kathy Corcoran has a letter in the Maui News responding to Thurston Twigg-Smith's earlier letter, pointing to the anti-annexation petitions as contrary to one of his statements.

She's right that the majority of the population was opposed to the annexation, but I'm not sure where she got the 99% figure for the petitions. She is probably combining the two petitions—one against annexation with over 21,000 signatures and the other, calling for restoration of the monarchy, with over 17,000. But even then, in the 1890 census there were 48,107 Hawaiian nationals, with 40,622 being pure or part aboriginal Hawaiian. And I have mentioned this before, but since the second petition has never been recovered (although its existence is not questioned), there is no way to tell how much overlap there was between the two petitions, and it is reasonable to assume there may have been quite a bit. So you can't just add the two up and say that is the total number of signatures.

But even with just the first one that has been recovered, it was a substantial portion of the Hawaiian national population that protested annexation (with signatures gathered in a matter of a couple weeks all across the islands). And this in fact helped stop the treaty of annexation from being ratified in the senate, forcing congress to resort to a mere joint resolution that by its very nature has no extraterritorial force and is not sufficient by U.S. constitutional or international law for the valid annexation of a foreign country.

She's absolutely right that "today's Hawaiians were proud to find the signatures of their ancestors on this document."


Posted: Tue - April 5, 2005 at 04:34 PM    
   
 
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Published On: Dec 27, 2005 10:13 PM
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