New Department of Interior policy seeks to strengthen bond with Native Hawaiians

Some Native Hawaiians want to secede from the United States.

The Federal government took a small but significant step towards healing the wound created when the US took part in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy.

The Department of the Interior announced Oct. 18 that, for the first time in the agency’s history, it will require formal consultation with the Native Hawaiian community. New policies and procedures, subject to formal consultation, will further affirm and honor the special political and trust relationship between the United States and Native Hawaiians.

“The Interior Department is committed to working with the Native Hawaiian Community on a government-to-sovereign basis to address concerns related to self-governance, Native Hawaiian trust resources, and other Native Hawaiian rights,” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

“A new and unprecedented consultation policy will help support Native Hawaiian sovereignty and self-determination as we continue to uphold the right of the Native Hawaiian Community to self-government.”

The draft consultation policy and procedures seek to, among other things:

• Bolster the Department’s consultation efforts to encourage early, robust, interactive, pre-decisional, informative and transparent consultation;
• Require that Department staff undergo training before participating in consultation;
• Establish bi-annual meetings between the Secretary and Native Hawaiian Community leaders to consult on matters of mutual interest;
• Clarify that the Department’s decision-makers must invite Native Hawaiian Community leaders to engage in consultation; and
• Require a record of consultation.

The draft requirements help further the spirit and intent of President Biden’s “Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships,” which outlines the Administration’s efforts to engage Indigenous communities early and often in federal decision-making.

 

The changed in relationship might stem to the growing movement that wants Hawaii to secede from the United States.

In 1893, with a contingent of 300 US Marines behind him, businessman Sanford Ballard Dole overthrew Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. In order to avoid bloodshed, the queen surrendered. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the US minister to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

On February 1, Stevens recognized Dole’s new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a US protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the US Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did not want annexation.

President Grover Cleveland sent a new US minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897.

In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal US territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the 50th state.

Unlike Native American tribes and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians are not federally recognized by the US government as having their own sovereign nation.

During the Obama administration, the federal government attempted a more formal government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians but the process got mired by the deep divisions in the Native Hawaiian community.

This new consultation policy appears to be a renewed attempt by the Biden administration to put Native Hawaiians on similar footing as other Indigenous groups that are federally recognized.

The Office of Native Hawaiian Relations (ONHR) will host two virtual consultations on Thursday, Nov. 10 from 9 to 11 a.m. HST and Monday, Dec. 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. HST to gather feedback from the Native Hawaiian Community on the new policy. ONHR discharges the Secretary's responsibilities for matters related to Native Hawaiians and serves as a conduit for the Department’s field activities in Hawaiʻi. 

More information about the consultations is available on ONHR’s website.

Senator Brian Schatz, D-HI, chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, praised the new path created by the DOI.  The policy was a “very big deal and a vital first step,” Schatz said.

“One of the most important principles in policymaking, especially as it relates to Native communities, is: ‘nothing about me, without me,’” said Schatz in a prepared statement. “This policy update recognizes that consultation with Native Hawaiians is an essential aspect of decision-making for the federal government and key to upholding its trust responsibility. We have a long way to go, but all progress starts with listening.”

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