An historical account of native Hawaiian encounters with and resistance to American colonialism, based on little-read Hawaiian-language sources.

In 1897, as a white oligarchy made plans to allow the United States to annex Hawai'i, native Hawaiians organized a massive petition drive to protest. Ninety-five percent of the native population signed the petition, causing the annexation treaty to fail in the U.S. Senate. This event was unknown to many contemporary Hawaiians until Noenoe K. Silva rediscovered the petition in the process of researching this book. With few exceptions, histories of Hawai'i have been based exclusively on English-language sources. They have not taken into account the thousands of pages of newspapers, books, and letters written in the mother tongue of native Hawaiians. By rigorously analyzing many of these documents, Silva fills a crucial gap in the historical record. In so doing, she refutes the long-held idea that native Hawaiians passively accepted the erosion of their culture and loss of their nation, showing that they actively resisted political, economic, linguistic, and cultural domination. Drawing on Hawaiian-language texts, primarily newspapers produced in the nineteenth century and early twentieth, Silva demonstrates that print media was central to social communication, political organizing, and the perpetuation of Hawaiian language and culture. A powerful critique of colonial historiography, Aloha Betrayed provides a much-needed history of native Hawaiian resistance to American imperialism.

"Aloha Betrayed represents a maturation of Native Hawaiian scholarship in the past two decades based on diligent investigation of critical primary sources. In that sense, it is a milestone of the first phase of contemporary Native Hawaiian scholarship and also a native 'takeover' of the historiography of modern Hawai'i." - Journal of American Ethnic History

"A fresh new approach to the critique of colonial historiography." - Contemporary Pacific

"Brilliant. . . . This book is a superb contribution to the ongoing process of decolonization, recovery, and overcoming the suppression of Kanaka Maoli knowledge. Silva's clearly written account based on her original research is a gift to all Kanaka Maoli, especially those currently engaged in the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty. This book-the fruition of Silva's meticulous and beautiful intellectual labor-is sure to win awards for its value and contribution to knowledge in the fields of political science, history, American studies, and indigenous studies, just to name a few." - Hawaiian Journal of History

"[P]rovocative. . . . [A] bold and unapologetic revisionist history." - American Historical Review

"Readers interested in the colonial encounter, Hawaiian history, the politics of language and literature, cultural studies, indigenous rights and post-colonial theory will find Aloha Betrayed a provocative book. The language is accessible, the content well-researched and coherently written, and students will find the conclusions at the end of each of the five chapters particularly useful." - Journal of the Polynesian Society

"This slender volume packs quite a punch. . . . [A]n important study." - Journal of American History

"With its substantial and thoughtful reading of the Hawaiian-language archive, Aloha Betrayed makes a major contribution to this reexamination of history." - Contemporary Pacific