Reform Party (Hawaii)

Reform Party
LeadersLorrin A. Thurston
Sanford B. Dole
Founded1840 (1840)
Dissolved1902 (1902)
Merged intoHawaii Republican Party
HeadquartersHonolulu
IdeologyAmericanization
Annexationism
Republicanism
American republicanism
ReligionProtestantism
National affiliationRepublican Party (United States) (after 1898)
International affiliationRepublican Party (United States) (before 1898)

The Reform Party, also referred to as "the Missionary Party", or the "Down-Town Party",[1][2] was a political party in the Kingdom of Hawaii. It was founded by descendants of Protestant missionaries that came to Hawaii from New England. Following the Annexation of Hawaii in 1898, and the creation of the Hawaii Territory in 1900, the party was largely supplanted by the Hawaii Republican Party. In 1902, The Reform Party ceased to exist and completely merged into the Republican Party. In 1912, the Republicans merged with the pro-Native Hawaiian Home Rule Party (which had been formed in 1900, following the organization of the Hawaii Territory with the Organic Act, and led by Prince Kuhio and Robert Wilcox) to form the Hawaii Republican Party in its modern composition. The fused Republican Party would lead the so-called "Haole-Hawaiian Alliance," with uninterrupted Legislative majorities until Democrats took control of the Legislature in 1954.

  1. ^ Curtis Piʻehu Iʻaukea; Lorna Kahilipuaokalani Iʻaukea Watson (May 1988). By royal command: the official life and personal reminiscences of Colonel Curtis Piʾehu Iaukea at the court of Hawaii's rulers. Hui Hanai. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-9616738-6-4.
  2. ^ Lydia K Kualapai (2001). Cast in Print: The Nineteenth-century Hawaiian Imaginary. University of Nebraska--Lincoln. p. 146.