Committee of Safety (Hawaii)

For other Committees of Safety, see Committee of Safety (disambiguation).
Committee of Safety
Formation1887
Dissolved1893 (succeeded by Provisional Government)
TypeSecret society
PurposeOverthrow of the government of Hawaii, annexation by the United States
Location
  • Oʻahu, Hawaii
Membership
Elite business and political leaders
Official language
English
Unofficial leader
Lorrin A. Thurston
Main organ
Committee of Thirteen,
Committee of Safety
AffiliationsHonolulu Rifles
Lorrin A. Thurston long advocated annexation by the United States

The Committee of Safety, formally the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety, was a 13-member group of the Annexation Club. The group was composed of mostly Hawaiian subjects of American descent and American citizens who were members of the Missionary Party, as well as some foreign residents in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The group planned and carried out the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi on January 17, 1893. The goal of this group was to achieve annexation of Hawaiʻi by the United States. The new independent Republic of Hawaiʻi government was thwarted in this goal by the administration of President Grover Cleveland, and it was not until 1898 that the United States Congress approved a joint resolution of annexation creating the U.S. Territory of Hawaiʻi.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ Thomas A. Bailey, "The United States and Hawaii during the Spanish–American War" American Historical Review 36#3 (1931), pp. 552–560 JSTOR 1837915 doi:10.2307/1837915
  2. ^ Kam, Ralph Thomas; Lyons, Jeffrey K. (2019). "Remembering the Committee of Safety: Identifying the Citizenship, Descent, and Occupations of the Men Who Overthrew the Monarchy". The Hawaiian Journal of History. 53. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society: 31–54. doi:10.1353/hjh.2019.0002. hdl:10524/63187. ISSN 2169-7639. OCLC 60626541. S2CID 212795443.
  3. ^ McWilliams, Tennant S. (Feb 1988). "James H. Blount, the South, and Hawaiian Annexation". Pacific Historical Review. 57 (1): 25–36. doi:10.2307/3639673. JSTOR 3639673. Archived from the original on 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2014-10-08.