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The Kingdom of Hawaii & Annexation. The Kingdom of Hawaii was a sovereign, internationally recognized nation established in 1795 when Kamehameha the Great unified the Hawaiian islands using modern western weapons and traditional warfare. Evolving into a constitutional monarchy with an educated elite and diplomatic treaties worldwide, the kingdom matters because it represented a thriving, modern indigenous state that navigated global politics during the height of Pacific imperial expansion.
Throughout the 19th century, American sugar plantation owners accumulated immense political and economic influence in Hawaii. In 1893, a group of Euro-American businessmen backed by U.S. Marines illegally overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani to protect corporate sugar interests and secure strategic military ports like Pearl Harbor. Despite widespread Hawaiian native resistance and petitions, the United States formally annexed Hawaii in 1898, eventually admitting it as the 50th U.S. state in 1959.