HAWAI ʻ I: Col. Robert W. K. Wilcox
Colonel Robert William Kalanihiapo Wilcox (1855-1903)
Colonel Robert William Kalanihiapo Wilcox is a major figure in Hawaiian history. He was the granduncle of the subject of an oral history project on which I have been working for over thirty years... Conversations with Auntie Carol, Seven Oral History Interviews with Caroline Kuliaikanuʻukapu (1923-2001). Auntie Carol often expressed great pride in his work for the Hawaiian people. Robert Wilcox was a soldier, politician, and leading revolutionary dedicated to preserving a sovereign Hawaiian nation. His Hawaiian name means chiefly one or first-born child of Kalani. He was one of the six children of Captain William Slocum Wilcox (1813-1910, a whaling captain from Newport, Rhode Island), and Kalua Makoleokalani Kekuiapoiula Hiapo Wilcox (1836-1865, a chiefess of the island of Maui). Among Robert Wilcox's siblings were: Edward Justin Makole Kupunakane Wilcox, Sr. (1861-1930, who was Carol’s maternal grandfather and an attorney, magistrate and postmaster); and Capt. Charles Kauakahiakua Wilcox (1862-1927, an attorney, journalist, politician, and county auditor).
Known as the Iron Duke of Hawaiʻi, Robert Wilcox was elected to the House of Representatives of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1880, representing the city of Wailuku, on the island of Maui. The next year, he was personally selected by King David Laʻamea Kalākaua (known as the Merrie Monarch, and author of the 1888 book, Legends and Myths of Hawaii) to participate in the Education of Hawaiian Youths Abroad Program which expanded educational opportunities for young Hawaiian men, and women, through overseas apprenticeships and university study. Wilcox attended the Royal Military Academy of Turin, Italy, where he graduated as a sub-lieutenant of artillery in 1885. While next attending Turin’s Royal Application School for Engineer and Artillery Officers, he married Baroness Maria Carolina Isabella Luigia dei baroni Sobrero. With forced passage of the Hawaiian Bayonet Constitution of 1887, the international educational program was defunded, and Robert Wilcox returned to Hawai'i.
Without career opportunities, he and his wife moved to San Francisco where he worked as a surveyor. In 1889, he returned to Hawaiʻi while his wife (and baby daughter who died at sea) returned to Italy where the Baroness was granted an annulment by Pope Leo XIII. Robert Wilcox remained single for several years, marrying Hawaiian Princess Teresa Owana Kaohelelani who was a descendant of Keona, the father of King Kamehameha I in 1896.
After returning to Hawaiʻi, Robert Wilcox worked as a surveyor and civil engineer, while embarking on a path to growing political prominence. His political activism began with the Kamehameha Rifle and Liberal Patriotic Associations, as well as the National Reform Party. In 1890, he won election to represent Honolulu in the Hawaiian Kingdom’s House of Representatives for the Island of O'ahu and reelection two years later. In 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani (sister of the deceased King David Kalākaua) was forced to abdicate during a coup d'état by the Committee of Safety (comprised of a handful of foreign residents, largely American businessmen and sugar planters) which declared martial law.
The Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was replaced by the short-lived Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi. Although U. S. President Stephen Grover Cleveland felt the coup was illegal, the Kingdom of Hawai'i had been eliminated. The Republic of Hawai'i was established in 1894 and existed for four years. Refusing to accept defeat, Col. Wilcox was heavily involved in insurrectionist activity, and instigated what is now called the Wilcox Rebellion, a short war in January of 1895. Ending in defeat, Col. Wilcox and other leaders of the revolt were arrested and tried for treason. Initially condemned to death, Robert Wilcox was instead incarcerated from 1895-1898. In January of 1898 he was pardoned by the Republic’s President, Sanford Ballard Dole.
That summer, the government of the Republic consented to passage of the Newlands Resolution by a joint resolution of the U. S. Congress, which led to Hawaiʻi becoming a territory of the United States. The U. S. sought the annexation because of a need to use Hawai'i as a base for launching military forces during the Spanish-American War which included Guam and the Philippine Islands in the Pacific. When the Hawaiian Organic Act of 1900 authorized the election of a single non-voting delegate to Congress, Col. Wilcox helped form the Home Rule Party (renamed the Independent Home Rule Party). In the same year, Col. Wilcox became the first Representative to the United States Congress from Hawai'i, where he was identified as an “independent” party member.
He died in office on October 23, 1903. The Congressional publication of past and present Asian and Pacific Islander members offers a biography of Robert Wilcox that is comprehensive. Many books, like that by Merze Tate, have examined established facts, as well as conspiratorial theories, regarding the failed rebellions that sought to restore Hawaiian sovereignty. The testimony of revolutionary Albert Losmeas provides many details of the revolutionary work of Robert Wilcox. It should be noted that Queen Liliʻuokalani did not speak favorably of all of his endeavors in her book.
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“Farewell Said: Independents Hold Meeting Last Night; Kaumakapili, The Scene of Speeches: Natives Attend a Big Luau and Listen to the Words of Leaders,” Honolulu Advertiser, December 1, 1900, 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image258307061.
Hawaiʻi State Office of Hawaiian Affairs. “Hawaiians Have a History of Civic Engagement.” Ka Wai Ola, 33, no. 7 (Honolulu: July 1, 2016), 13. Translation generated by the website
Hawaiʻi State Office of Hawaiian Affairs. “Wilcox was Hawaiian Revolutionary Hero,” Ka Wai Ola, 10, no. 10, (Honolulu: October 1, 1993), 3, 17. Translation from the website https://www.papakilodatabase.com/pdnupepa/?a=d&d=KWO19931001-01.2.11&srpos
=3&e=en-20-KWO-1--txt-txIN%7ctxNU%7ctxTR-robert+wilcox.
"A Hawaiian Island Romance, in Which a Native Newporter Formed an Important Part-Remarkable Career of a Son of a New-port Whaler of Three-quarters of a Century Ago. Newport Mercury, for the Week ending March 3, 1923, 8.
Kalākaua, David. Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People. (New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1884. [The author's title and full name is King David Laʻamea Kamanakapuʻu Māhinulani Nālaʻiaʻehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua.]
Kuykendall, Ralph S. and A. Grove Day. Hawaii: A History from Polynesian Kingdom to
American Statehood, rev. ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1961).
Liliuokalani. Hawaii’s Story by Hawaiʻi’s Queen, annotated, illustrated ed. (Honolulu: Hui Hānai, 2013), 231-234, 267.
Men of Hawaii: being a biographical reference library, complete and authentic, of the men of note and substantial achievement in the Hawaiian Islands, Vol. 1 (Honolulu: Star-Bulletin Printing, 1917-1935).
Nakanaela, Thomas K., comp., ed., The Biography of Hon. Robert William Wilcox (Honolulu: Lake and Nakanaela, 1890), newly translated by Nancy J. Morris, with editing by Niklaus R. Schweizer, 1993, http://ulukau.org/chd/Texts/wilcox-intro.pdf.
Starr, David, "Robert Wilcox and the Revolution of 1895: Hawaiian Revolutionary Honored.” Against the Current, no. 57, (Detroit: Solidarity: July-August 1995).
https://againstthecurrent.org/atc057/p2642/.
Tate, Vernie Merze. The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom; a political history (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965).
“Trial of Albert Losmeas for Treason,” The The Honolulu Star Bulletin, October 9. 1889, 3. https://www.newspapers.com/image/49699420.
United States Congress, Biographical Directory, 1774-present. (U.S. Congress, n.d.), http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000459.
United States House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives, “Wilcox, Robert W.,” https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/W/WILCOX,-Robert-W--(W000459)/.
United States House of Representatives, Office of the Historian and Office of the Clerk, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans in Congress 1900–2017, “Robert William Wilcox,” Hdoc108226 (Washington: D.C.: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2017), general history on pages 67-75, and the biography of Robert Wilcox on pages 102-110.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-108hdoc226/pdf/GPO-CDOC-108hdoc226.pdf.