How Hawai`i Became a State

Photo courtesy of the Hawai`i State Archives

By uniting the islands under a single ruler, Kamehameha I (the Great) laid the foundation for what would eventually become the fiftieth of the United States of America. Yet between those two events were attempts by France, Great Britain, and even Russia to take control of the Islands for themselves! Hawaiian monarchs variously embraced or rejected American political and economic influence … so just how did Hawai`i move from being a kingdom to becoming a territory and then a state? And what did the Hawaiian people think of all this? Join us tonight as historian Boyd D. Bond unravels the events that led to Hawai`i’s statehood.