September 24, 1897: David Kalauokalani – Part 1
David Kalauokalani, as described below in an article published in The San Francisco Call, was the President of the Hawaiian Political Association. In this article, he endorses a statement issued by James Keauiluna Kaulia which reads:
I honestly assert from an intimate knowledge of the Hawaiian people that they, men and women, as a race and nation, are emphatically opposed to the annexation of Hawaii to the United States of America or to any other nation. We love our independence too dearly.
Kalauokalani had been the president of Hui Kālaiʻāina, and Kaulia the president of Hui Aloha ʻĀina. In 1900, the two groups joined together as a political party called the Independent Home Rule Party. Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism 161 (2004). For nearly ten years, Kalauokalani served as their President. See “Kalauokalani No More Leads Home Rulers,” Hawaiian Gazette (Sept. 26, 1905), pg. 1.
Prior to Kalauokalani’s leadership in the Home Rule party, he was a district court judge. In the next blog entry, we examine this in more detail.