Blount Report

Blount Report
Former Congressman James Henderson Blount was appointed by President Cleveland to conduct the report in 1893
Title page of the report, as printed in Foreign Relations of the United States

The Blount Report is the popular name given to the part of the 1893 United States House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee Report regarding the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The report is formally titled "Affairs in Hawaii," and was conducted by U.S. Commissioner James H. Blount.[1][2] Blount was appointed by U.S. President Grover Cleveland to investigate the events surrounding the January 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The Blount Report "first provided evidence that officially identified the United States' complicity in the lawless overthrow of the lawful, peaceful government of Hawaii."[3] Blount concluded that U.S. Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens had carried out unauthorized partisan activities, including the landing of U.S. Marines under a false or exaggerated pretext, to support the anti-royalist conspirators; that these actions were instrumental to the success of the revolution; and that the revolution was carried out against the wishes of a majority of the population of Hawaii.[4]

The Blount Report was followed in 1894 by the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's report by concluding that all participants except for Queen Liliʻuokalani were "not guilty".[5]: 648 

  1. ^ "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894. Appendix 2: Affairs in Hawaii". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 19, 2023.
  2. ^ "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix II, Affairs in Hawaii". Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. United States Government Printing Office. 1895. Archived from the original on June 1, 2023.
  3. ^ Ball, Milner S. "Symposium: Native American Law," Georgia Law Review 28 (1979): 303
  4. ^ Tate, Merze. (1965). The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom: A Political History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 235.
  5. ^ Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson (1967) [1938], "Chap. 21 Revolution", Hawaiian Kingdom, vol. 3, 1874–1893, The Kalakaua dynasty, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0-87022-433-1, OCLC 47011614, 53979611, 186322026, retrieved September 29, 2012