Why was Queen Liliuokalani held hostage in a palace for eight months?

Question

Why was Queen Liliuokalani held hostage in a palace for eight months?

Answer 1

On  January 17, 1893, a group of American businessmen, with the backing of a U.S. Navy gunboat, assembled at the Government House in Honolulu to proclaim the end of the Hawaiian monarchy. They said they were promoting democracy and stability, but the deposed Queen and her cabinet, among others, argued that they had engineered a coup to serve the American sugar companies. President Grover Cleveland, inaugurated two months later, once declared, “I am ashamed of the whole affair.”

The events surrounding the 1893 overthrow took place, as U.S. radio personality Paul Harvey expressed it in a 1993 centennial broadcast, "down in the shadowy realms where U.S. foreign policy shakes hands with the devil."  In those appalling days of early 1893,  `Iolani Palace, the residence of Queen Lili`uokalani and the center of Hawaii's political activity, was seized by American troops, along with various other government buildings.

The palace was later to become Lili`oukalani's prison after an abortive attempt to restore the lawful Hawaiian government.

Answer 2

The American government wanted Hawaii.The only way to do this without fighting a war was to take the existing government out of power.

Answer 3

Lili'uokalani was arrested on January 16, 1895 (several days after a failed rebellion by Robert Wilcox) when firearms were found in the gardens of her home, of which she denied any knowledge. She was sentenced to five years of hard labor in prison and fined $5000, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment in an upstairs bedroom of ʻIolani Palace, where she composed many famous songs. After eight months, she abdicated her throne in return for the release (and commutation of the death sentences) of her jailed supporters, including Minister Joseph Nawahi, Robert Wilcox, and Prince Kuhio.