> Why is that so? I provided the reasoning in the rest of that paragraph. It's pointless to judge the previous culture on those merits since it was not overthr

> Why is that so? I provided the reasoning in the rest of that paragraph. It's pointless to judge the previous culture on those merits since it was not overthrown because of them. Christianity and "civilization" were not introduced to benefit the Hawaiians, but to control them. And similarly to how our culture cherry-picked from the cultures that came before, so should also the Hawaiians be able to retain elements of their culture and their heritage. > Colonialism assumed that the colonies send resources back to the metropolis country. As you can see, this is not happening at all with Hawaii. Actually, Hawaii was sending resources to the mainland US back then. Most importantly, sugar. However, in the US market Hawaii had trouble competing with other exporters because of tariffs. Already before annexation, Hawaii's business men (mostly of non-native or mixed origin) forced the kingdom to lease territory to the US in exchange for lower tariffs. Annexation was a definite solution for that problem. And nowadays it is still crucial to protect the interests of the USA in the Pacific.