Sanford B. Dole

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Sanford Ballard Dole (1844–1926) was a prominent Hawaiian jurist and politician born to a white New England Protestant missionary family based in Honolulu. He was a central figure in the late 19th century overthrow of the ruling Hawaiian Kingdom, led the short-lived independent Republic of Hawaii, and served as the first territorial governor after the United States formally annexed the islands.

Key moments

1844-04-23Born in Honolulu, Kingdom of Hawaii
1887Helped implement the restrictive 'Bayonet Constitution' that disenfranchised most native Hawaiians and Asian residents, later appointed as a Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court justice
1893Took leadership of the provisional government formed after the coup that overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani
1894-07-04Sworn in as the first and only president of the newly declared Republic of Hawaii
1898Presided over the formal transfer of Hawaii's sovereignty to the United States during the Spanish-American War
1900-06-14Appointed first Governor of the Territory of Hawaii by the U.S. federal government
1903-11-23Stepped down from the governor role to serve as a U.S. federal district judge for Hawaii
1926-06-09Died in Honolulu at the age of 82

Role in ending Hawaiian sovereign independence

Dole was the public representative of the wealthy white sugar and pineapple planter elite that sought full integration with the U.S. to eliminate trade barriers for their agricultural exports. He openly defied U.S. President Grover Cleveland's order to restore the deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani to power, arguing the overthrow was a popular movement among Hawaii's propertied classes. This resistance cleared the path for congressional approval of annexation under the pro-expansionist McKinley administration, eliminating the last formal sovereign government of Indigenous Hawaiian people.

Contested modern historical legacy

20th century mainstream U.S. historical narratives long framed Dole as a pragmatic, orderly statesman who brought stable governance to Hawaii, but modern Indigenous Hawaiian sovereignty movements widely condemn his actions as the start of an illegitimate colonial occupation. His cousin James Dole later founded the famous Dole Food Company that dominated Hawaii's pineapple industry for decades, creating a clear line between Sanford Dole's political work and the exploitative plantation economy that displaced traditional Hawaiian land management systems.

Long-term impact on Hawaii's territorial legal framework

During his nearly 20 year tenure as a federal district judge after leaving the governor's office, Dole oversaw the full replacement of the old Hawaiian Kingdom legal system with U.S. federal and territorial law, establishing rules for land ownership, immigration, and commercial regulation that prioritized American corporate interests for the first half of the 20th century, shaping social and economic hierarchies in Hawaii all the way up to its statehood in 1959.

Overview

Sanford B. Dole

office2	President of Hawaii
vice president2	William Chauncey Wilder
predecessor2	Liliʻuokalani (as Queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom)
successor2	Himself (as Territorial Governor)
party	Republican
other party	Reform (Hawaii)
appointer1	William McKinley

predecessor1	Himself (as President)

successor1	George Carter

birth name	Sanford Ballard Dole

birth date	April 23, 1844

birth place	Honolulu, Hawaiian Kingdom

death date	June 9, 1926

death place	Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, U.S.

alma mater	Williams College

spouse	Anna Prentice Cate (m. 1873)

term start1	June 14, 1900

term end1	November 23, 1903

term start2	July 4, 1894

term end2	August 12, 1898

office3	Judge of the United States District Court for the Territory of Hawaii

appointer3	Theodore Roosevelt

term start3	November 18, 1903

term end3	December 16, 1915‡R1R‡

predecessor3	Morris M. Estee

successor3	Horace W. Vaughan

office4	President of the Provisional Government

term start4	January 17 1893

term end4	July 4 1894

office5	Minster of Foreign Affairs

term start5	January 17, 1893

term end5	July 4, 1894

1blankname4	Leader

1namedata4	Lorrin A. Thurston

president5	Himself

Sanford Ballard Dole (April 23, 1844 – June 9, 1926) was a Hawaii-born lawyer and jurist. He lived through the periods when Hawaii was a kingdom, provisional government, republic, and territory. Dole advocated the westernization of Hawaiian government and culture. After the overthrow of the monarchy, he served as the President of the Republic of Hawaii, until his government secured Hawaii's annexation by the United States.[2] He then became the Territory of Hawaii's first Governor and the second Judge of the Hawaiian District Court.

Early life

Dole was born April 23, 1844, in Honolulu to Protestant Christian missionaries from Maine in the United States. His father was Daniel Dole (1808–1878), principal at Oahu College (known as Punahou School after 1934), and his mother was Emily Hoyt Ballard (1808–1844). His mother died from complications within a few days of his birth. Dole was named after his maternal uncle, Sanford K. Ballard, a classmate of his father's at Bowdoin College who died in 1841.[3] He was nursed by a native Hawaiian, and his father married Charlotte Close Knapp in 1846. In 1855 the family moved to Kōloa on the island of Kauai, where they operated another school, which Sanford attended.[4][5]

Dole attended Oahu College for one year and then Williams College in 1866–1867. He worked in a law office in Boston for another year. At this time in the United States, admission to the bar was by reading for the bar and thirty years later, in 1897, he would receive an honorary LL.D. degree from Williams in recognition of his service as the first and only elected president of Hawaii.[6]

In 1873 he married Anna Prentice Cate.[7] In December 1880 he was commissioned as a Notary Public in Honolulu. Dole won the 1884 and 1886 elections to the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a representative from Kauai,[8] serving from 1884 to 1887, during which time he was active in securing the constitution of 1887.

Bayonet Constitution

In June 1887, local businessmen, sugar planters, and politicians backed by the Honolulu Rifles forced the dismissal of the cabinet of controversial Walter M. Gibson and forced the adoption of the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The new documents limited voting rights to the literate males of Hawaiian, European, and American descent, while imposing income and wealth requirements to be eligible to vote for the House of Nobles. This effectively consolidated power among the elite residents of the island. In addition, the new Constitution minimized the power of the Monarch in favor of more influential governance by the cabinet. Dole and other lawyers of American descent drafted this document, which became known as the "Bayonet Constitution".[9]

King Kalākaua appointed Dole a justice of the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Hawaii on December 28, 1887, and to a commission to revise judiciary laws on January 24, 1888. After Kalākaua's death, his sister Queen Liliuokalani appointed him to her Privy Council on August 31, 1891.[8]

End of the monarchy

The monarchy ended on January 17, 1893, after the 1893 Hawaiian Coup organized by many of the same actors involved in the 1887 revolt. Although Dole declined to officially be part of the Committee of Safety, he helped draft their declaration.[10]

Dole was named president of the Provisional Government of Hawaii that was formed after the coup and was recognized within 48 hours by all nations with diplomatic ties to the Kingdom of Hawaii, including the United Kingdom.[11] His cabinet (called the "executive council") included James A. King as minister of the interior,[12] William Owen Smith as attorney general,[13] and banker Peter Cushman Jones as minister of finance. Dole acted as Minister of Foreign Affairs himself until February 15, 1894.[8]

President of the Republic of Hawaii

Lorrin A. Thurston declined to run for the presidency of the Republic of Hawaii, and Dole ran instead, winning election in 1894. Dole would serve as the first and only elected president of the Republic of Hawaii from 1894 to 1898. The electoral system of the Republic was established by those who had overthrown the monarchy. Voting rights were restricted and the electoral process resulted in the consolidation of power within the Republic to the elite of American and European descent. As president, Dole appointed Thurston to lead the lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., to secure Hawaii's annexation by the United States.

Dole's government secured diplomatic recognition from every nation that had recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii, and weathered several attempts to restore the monarchy, including a January 1895 counter-rebellion led by Robert William Wilcox. After being defeated, Wilcox and the other conspirators were captured and sentenced to death, but had their sentences reduced or commuted by Dole. Queen Liliuokalani abdicated and, under duress, swore allegiance to the Republic of Hawaii, declaring, "I hereby do fully and unequivocally admit and declare that the Government of the Republic of Hawaii is the only lawful Government of the Hawaiian Islands, and that the late Hawaiian monarchy is finally and forever ended and no longer of any legal or actual validity, force or effect whatsoever."[17] She later provided a more detailed accounting of the events from her perspective in her book, Hawaii's story by Hawaii's queen, Liliuokalani.[18]

State Visit to the United States

As president of the republic, Dole traveled to Washington, D.C., in early 1898 to personally urge annexation of Hawaii by the United States. Dole and his party traveled from Honolulu to San Francisco via steamship, arriving in the Bay on January 16.[19] This marked the United States' fifth state visit by a foreign leader, the first being King Kalakaua's visit to the United States in 1874.[20] After arriving in San Francisco, President Dole stayed in San Francisco's Occidental Hotel, before leaving the city for Washington D.C on January 19.[21] On the President's last day in San Francisco, he was given a tour of the Presidio of San Francisco by General William Rufus Shafter, with the military band playing upon his arrival, and also had a luncheon with San Francisco's mayor James D. Phelan.[22] President Dole and his party took off for Washington D.C via railroad, using a private railcar named "Guadalupe", supplied by Henry E. Huntington.

Governor and federal judge

On July 4, 1898, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution to annex the Republic of Hawaii. Known as the Newlands Resolution after its sponsor, U.S. Representative Francis Newlands (D-Nevada), it came into effect on August 12, 1898.[27] A formal ceremony marking the transfer of Hawaiian state sovereignty to the United States was held that day on the steps of ʻIolani Palace, where the Hawaiian flag was lowered and the American flag raised in its place.

Under the terms of the Resolution, Dole retained the powers he previously exercised as President of Hawaii while Congress developed a new Hawaiian territorial frame of government. Later, when one was established through the Hawaiian Organic Act, President William McKinley appointed Dole as the first governor of the Territory of Hawaii. Dole assumed the office on June 14, 1900, serving for three years until his resignation on November 23, 1903, to accept an appointment by President Theodore Roosevelt as judge for the U.S. District Court of Hawaii after the death of Morris M. Estee. He served in that post until his retirement on December 16, 1915, and was replaced by Horace Worth Vaughan.[28]

Family and legacy

Dole's cousin, Edmund Pearson Dole, came to Hawaii to practice law in 1895, and became Attorney General of Hawaii from 1900 to 1903.[30] Another cousin, James Dole, came to Hawaii in 1899 and founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company on Oahu, which later became the Dole Food Company.[31] James' father Charles Fletcher Dole also came to Hawaii in 1909.[32]

Dole Middle School, located in Kalihi Valley on the island of Oahu, was named after him in April 1956, about a century after his father founded the school in Kōloa.[33] In the film Princess Kaiulani, his role was played by Will Patton.

In Hawaiian, the pale and hair-like Spanish moss is called ʻumiʻumi-o-Dole, meaning "Dole's beard".

External links

The Morgan Report (full-text, scanned images and additional commentary); supports Dole
attacks Dole

References

Reports of causes determined in the United States District court for the district of Hawaii Hawaiian Gazette company, 1918^
Robert McNamara. Sanford Dole, Lawyer Helped Make Hawaii a US Territory ThoughtCo, April 15, 2019, retrieved June 10, 2020^
History of Bowdoin College: With biographical sketches of its graduates, from 1806 to 1879, inclusive