Long before the westward march of Americans had brought their flag to
the Pacific, that ocean was familiar to their mariners. From Cape Horn
to Canton and the ports of India, there ploughed the stately merchantmen
of Salem, Providence, and Newburyport, exchanging furs and ginseng for
teas, silks, the "Canton blue" which is today so cherished a link with
the past, and for the lacquer cabinets and carved ivory which give
distinction to many a New England home. Meanwhile the sturdy whalers of
New Bedford scoured the whole ocean for sperm oil and whalebone, and the
incidents of their self-reliant three-year cruises acquainted them with
nearly every coral and volcanic isle. Early in the century missionaries
also began to brave the languor of these oases of leisure and the
appetite of their cannibalistic inhabitants.
The interest of the Government was bound to follow its adventurous
citizens. In 1820 the United States appointed a consular agent at
Honolulu; in the thirties and forties it entered into treaty relations
with Siam, Borneo, and China; and owing to circumstances which were by
no means accidental it had the honor of persuading Japan to open her
ports to the world. As early as 1797 an American vessel chartered by the
Dutch had visited Nagasaki. From time to time American sailors had been
shipwrecked on the shores of Japan, and the United States had more
than once picked up and sought to return Japanese castaways. In 1846
an official expedition under Commodore Biddle was sent to establish
relationships with Japan but was unsuccessful. In 1853 Commodore Perry
bore a message from the President to the Mikado which demanded--though
the demand was couched in courteous language--"friendship, commerce,
a supply of coal and provisions, and protection for our shipwrecked
people." After a long hesitation the Mikado yielded. Commodore Perry's
success was due not solely to the care with which his expedition was
equipped for its purpose nor to his diplomatic skill but in part to the
fact that other countries were known to be on the very point of forcing
an entrance into the seclusion of Japan. Few Americans realize how
close, indeed, were the relations established with Japan by the United
States. The treaty which Townsend Harris negotiated in 1858 stated that
"The President of the United States, at the request of the Japanese
Government, will act as a friendly mediator in such matters of
difference as may arise between the Government of Japan and any European
power." Through his personal efforts Harris may almost be said to have
become the chief adviser of the Japanese Government in the perplexities
which it encountered on entering international society.
Not only did the United States allow itself a closer intimacy with this
new Pacific power than it would have done with a state of Europe, but
it exhibited a greater freedom in dealing with the European powers
themselves in the Far East than at home or in America. In 1863 the
United States joined--in fact, in the absence of a naval force it
strained a point by chartering a vessel for the purpose--with a concert
of powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits; subsequently
acting with Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, the United
States secured an indemnity to pay the cost of the expedition; and in
1866 it united with the same powers to secure a convention by which
Japan bound herself to establish certain tariff regulations.
Nor were the relations of the United States with the Pacific Ocean and
its shores confined to trade and international obligations. The American
flag waved over more than ships and a portion of the Pacific coast.
Naval officers more than once raised it over islands which they
christened, and Congress authorized the President to exercise temporary
authority over islands from which American citizens were removing guano
and to prevent foreign encroachment while they were so engaged. In the
eighties, fifty such islands of the Pacific were in the possession of
the United States.
In 1872 an American naval officer made an agreement with the local
chieftain of Tutuila, one of the Samoan Islands, for the use of Pago
Pago, which was the best harbor in that part of the ocean. The United
States drifted into more intimate relationship with the natives until
in 1878 it made a treaty with the Samoan king allowing Americans to use
Pago Pago as a coaling station. In return the United States agreed: "If
unhappily, any differences should have arisen, or shall hereafter arise,
between the Samoan government and any other government in amity with the
United States, the government of the latter will employ its good offices
for the purpose of adjusting those differences upon a satisfactory and
solid foundation." In 1884 the Senate insisted on securing a similar
harbor concession from Hawaii, and within the next few years the
American Navy began to arise again from its ashes. The obligation
incurred in exchange for this concession, however, although it resembled
that in the Japanese treaty, was probably an unreflecting act of good
nature for, if it meant anything, it was an entangling engagement such
as the vast majority of Americans were still determined to avoid.
The natives of Samoa did not indulge in cannibalism but devoted the
small energy the climate gave them to the social graces and to pleasant
wars. They were governed by local kings and were loosely united under a
chief king. At Apia, the capital, were three hundred foreigners, nearly
all connected in one way or another with trade. This commerce had long
been in the hands of English and Americans, but now the aggressive
Germans were rapidly winning it away. Three consuls, representing
the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, spent their time in
exaggerating their functions and in circumventing the plots of which
they suspected each other. The stage was set for comic opera, the
treaty with the United States was part of the plot, and several acts had
already been played, when Bismarck suddenly injected a tragic element.
In 1884, at the time when the German statesman began to see the vision
of a Teutonic world empire and went about seeking places in the sun,
the German consul in Samoa, by agreement with King Malietoa, raised the
German flag over the royal hut, with a significance which was all too
obvious. In 1886 the American consul countered this move by proclaiming
a United States protectorate. The German consul then first pressed home
a quarrel with the native king at a time opportunely coinciding with the
arrival of a German warship, the Adler; he subsequently deposed him and
put up Tamasese in his stead. The apparently more legitimate successor,
Mataafa, roused most of the population under his leadership. The Adler
steamed about the islands shelling Mataafa villages, and the American
consul steamed after him, putting his launch between the Adler and the
shore. In the course of these events, on December 18, 1888, Mataafa
ambushed a German landing party and killed fifty of its members.
German public opinion thereupon vociferously demanded a punishment which
would establish the place of Germany as a colonial power in the Pacific.
Great Britain, however, was not disposed to give her growing rival a
free hand. The United States was appealed to under the Treaty of 1878,
and American sentiment determined to protect the Samoans in their heroic
fight for self-government. All three nations involved sent warships to
Apia, and through the early spring of 1889 their chancelleries and the
press were prepared to hear momentarily that some one's temper had
given way in the tropic heat and that blood had been shed--with what
consequences on the other side of the globe no man could tell.
Very different, however, was the news that finally limped in, for there
was no cable. On March 16, 1889, a hurricane had swept the islands,
wrecking all but one of the warships. The common distress had brought
about cooperation among all parties. Tales of mutual help and mutual
praise of natives and the three nations filled the dispatches. The play
turned out to be a comedy after all. Yet difficulties remained which
could be met only by joint action. A commission of the three nations
therefore was arranged to meet in Berlin. The United States insisted on
native government; Germany, on foreign control. Finally they agreed to
a compromise in the form of a General Act, to which Samoa consented.
The native government was retained, but the control was given to a Chief
Justice and a President of the Municipal Council of Apia, who were to
be foreigners chosen by the three powers. Their relative authority is
indicated by the fact that the king was to receive $1800 a year, the
Chief Justice, $6000, and the President, $5000.
Small as was the immediate stake, this little episode was remarkably
significant of the trend of American development. Begun under Grant and
concluded under Blaine and Harrison, the policy of the United States
was the creation of no one mind or party nor did it accord with American
traditions. Encountering European powers in the Pacific, with no
apparent hesitation though without any general intent, the United States
entered into cooperative agreements with them relating to the native
governments which it would never have thought proper or possible in
other parts of the world. The United States seemed to be evolving a new
policy for the protection of its interests in the Pacific. This first
clash with the rising colonial power of Germany has an added interest
because it revealed a fundamental similarity in colonial policy between
the United States and Great Britain, even though they were prone to
quarrel when adjusting Anglo-American relations.
While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking
shape in the Pacific another episode which had a longer history and was
more significant of the expansion of American interests in that ocean.
Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the
superb harbors of San Francisco, Portland, and Puget Sound, and with
Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even Blaine could not
resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American
traditions of isolation with oceanic expansion. Of all the Pacific
archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the shores of the
United States. Although they had been discovered to the European world
by the great English explorer, Captain Cook, their intercourse had, for
geographic reasons, always been chiefly with the United States. Whalers
continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on
American vessels and came in numbers to California in early gold-mining
days. American missionaries attained their most striking success in the
Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but
assisted the successive kings in their government. The descendants
of these missionaries continued to live on the islands and became the
nucleus of a white population which waxed rich and powerful by the
abundant production of sugar cane on that volcanic soil.
In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United
States with the Hawaiian Islands, Webster in 1842 brought them within
the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers must
not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed
a treaty of annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its
assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "There seems to be a
strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing
large interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United
States and while there are, as I have already said, many and influential
persons in the country who question the policy of any insular
acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are
also those of influence and wise foresight who see a future that must
extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will
require a resting spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific coast
and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce, and
Christian civilization."
All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate
treaty of reciprocity which was signed in 1875, and which secured
a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine became
Secretary of State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be,
seriously alarmed at the possibility of foreign influence in Hawaiian
affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native
population was declining, and should it continue to diminish, he
believed that the United States must annex the islands. "Throughout the
continent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found
for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and the spirit of
adventure, which seeks its outlet, in the mines of South America and the
railroads of Mexico, would not be slow to avail itself of openings of
assured and profitable enterprise even in mid-ocean." As the feeling
grew in the United States that these islands really belonged to the
American continent, Blaine even invited Hawaii to send representatives
to the Pan-American Congress of 1889. When he again became Secretary
of State, he was prepared to give indirect support at least to American
interests, for the new queen, Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under
British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J.
L. Stevens, the American Minister, went so far as to write on February
8, 1892: "At this time there seems to be no immediate prospect of its
being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American
vessel of war."
Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the
Queen abolished the later constitution under which the Americans had
exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the restoration
of the old constitution which established an absolutism modified
by native home rule. At two o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th of
January, the resident Americans organized a committee of safety; at
half-past four United States marines landed at the call of Stevens. The
Queen was thereupon deposed, a provisional government was organized, and
at its request Stevens assumed for the United States the "protection"
of the islands. Without delay, John W. Foster, who had just succeeded
Blaine as Secretary of State, drew up a treaty of annexation, which he
immediately submitted to the Senate.
On March 4, 1893, Cleveland became President for the second time. He
at once withdrew the treaty and appointed James H. Blount special
commissioner to investigate the facts of the revolt. While the report
of Commissioner Blount did not, indeed, convict Stevens of conspiring to
bring about the uprising, it left the impression that the revolt would
not have taken place and certainly could not have succeeded except for
the presence of the United States marines and the support of the
United States Minister. Cleveland recalled Stevens and the marines, and
requested the provisional government to restore the Queen. This Sanford
Ballard Dole, the President of the new republic, refused to do, on the
contention that President Cleveland had no right to interfere in the
domestic affairs of Hawaii. On the legality or propriety of Stevens's
conduct, opinion in Congress was divided; but with regard to Dole's
contention, both the Senate and the House were agreed that the islands
should maintain their own domestic government without interference from
the United States. Thus left to themselves, the Americans in Hawaii
bided their time until public opinion in the United States should prove
more favorable to annexation.