GASINSKI

11. GOVERNOR JOHN OWEN DOMINIS

According to the secretary of the United States Minister in Hawaii, John L Stevens, sent to Washington on September 3, 1891, the "'Prince Consort, husband of the present Queen, John Owen Dominis , was born in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1832." This. report repeated an earlier statement, published in the Honolulu Daily Bulletin on August 28, 1891, which had stated that John Owen Dominis was born "at Schenectady, N.Y., March 10, 1832, hence. was at his death in his sixtieth year." The same source, closely related to.the Royal Palace, wrongly informed its readers that "his father was an Italian, his mother an American lady from Boston."

Although, some sources claim that John 0. Dominis attended the Hawaiian Chiefs' School, organized by Mr. Cook, where he met Great Chiefess Lydia K. Paki, the sweetheart.of his childhood, later known as Liliuokalani, in reality he went to the Rev. Dole's school, located next door to the school of Mr. Cook. Julius A. Palmer, who knew Hawaii very well, asserted in his book that the Prince Consort "'received his education at Chauncy Hall School in Boston,"" an independent, prestigious school founded in 1828. The very fact of John 0. Dominis' admission to that school indicates that he was an excellent and well-prepared student because even today this small school "'seeks student body from around the world who are capable of meeting the high competitive requirements of four-year colleges and those who do not plan to elect this type of continuing education."

It should be mentioned that during the California gold rush Dominis left the Islands for one year and worked in San Francisco as a clerk, returning to his adopted homeland in 1850. Upon his return, he first worked for the firm of Chas. Brewer as a bookkeeper; but soon afterward, he was appointed private secretary to King Kamehameha IV. He continued in this position under the rule of Kamehameha V, who subsequently appointed him to the key political position of Governor of Oahu. John 0. Dominis held that office for twenty years, until it was officially abolished. For a short time, he was also Governor of Maui. After the ascendance to the throne by Liliuokalani (1891-1893), he again filled the position of Governor of Oahu, which was awarded by the Legislature as a purely honorary title. However, at that time he was Commander-in-Chief of the Hawaiian Army, a force of over a hundred twenty men.

Governor, or perhaps it is better to say, Gcneral Dominis became a member of the House of Nobles, in spite of hiscommoner’s status for life by act of the Constitution of 1864, decreed by King Kamehameha V, which was revised in 1887 by the so-called. "'Bayonet Constitution." According to the letter of this new constitution ""Nobles, instead of being'appointed by the king, were to be elected by voters who had a fairly large income or amount of property (in practice, this article placed the election of nobles in the hands of voters of foreign birth or ancestry)." In addition "the right to vote was extended to resident foreigners of American or European birth or descent if they took an oath to support the constitution."" The provisions of this constitution transferred the political power of the country from the King and the Hawaiian ncibility to the rich foreign residents of Caucasian race, and de facto it marked the political downfall of Governor Dominis who for many years was second only to the King. In addition to the above mentioned offices, John 0. Dominis performed a number of other important public duties under the rule of five Hawaiian monarchs, who treated with complete trust and confidence this stubborn Croatian-American defender of Hawaiin independence.

On September 16, 1862, John 0. Dominis married Lydia K Paki who became a royal princess after her brother, David Kalakaua, was declared King in 1874 (in 1877 she was proclaimed heiress to the throne as well as regent during the King's absence). Both he and his wife had a great compassion for the Hawaiian people, attested by the following passage form the autobiographic book of the Rev. Titus Coan: "

His Excellency John Dominis, Governor of Oahu, and Her Royal Highness Lydia Dominis, the King's sister, were commissioned to come to our aid with the donations from Honolulu. A judicious distribution of money, lumber, etc., was made among the people, thus encouraged they went cheerfully to work.

Following the death of John 0. Dominis on August 27, 1891. the semiofficial Daily Bulletin published a long obituary which ended with these sorrowful remarks, probably dictated by the Queen:

The lamented Prince was a contemporary of five reigning sovereigns, every one of whom he exercised a strong influence. His counsels were born of an excellent judgement and he had rare tact in impressing others with his views. Few people were aware of the beneficial services that Gov. Dominis had time and again rendered to the country. His retiring disposition and unostentatious manner prevented him from receiving a title of the praise that was due to him as a public man..

On August 31, 1891 (that is shortly after the said article expressed the official sentiments of the Hawaiian people toward the departed prince of the realm) a special meeting of the Privy Council of the State was held to commemorate his death. The following resolution, presented by Attorney General W.A. Whiting, was adopted by its members and forwarded to Liliuokalani:

His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, John Dominis, departed from his life at Washington Place, Thursday the 27th instant.

By this sorrowful event the marriage relation of her Majesty with the deceased happily substituting through many years has severed, and the nation through the death of the Prince Consort, has lost a tried and familiar friend.

Resolved by the Privy Council of State here assembled that we tender to Her Majesty our profoundest sympathy in Her time of grief and bereavement, and We commanded Her for comfort and solace to the Almight God.

Resolved, that by the death of the Prince Consort, this Council has lost an honored and esteemed member of the eldest in service among us, with whom we now part in sorrowful regret, a member loyal to the Crown, and held in high regard by the nation. Resolved, that the members of this Council wear the customary mourning.

Resolved, that a copy of these resolutions be presented to Her Majesty, and that they be entered on the records of this Council. This resolution was unanimously adopted.

Perhaps it might be worthwhile to contrast those official opinions uttered in behalf of Governor Dominis with the views of those of his wife, Queen Liliuokalani, and some other contemporary men of note.

Thus, Liliuokalani who evidently took the loss of her husband very hard, made this comment, officially recorded in 1895:` ... in the month of July my husband was taken sick on the 27th of August, 1891, he breathed his last. I felt his loss very much, as his experience with Kamehameha IV and V, and also under Lunalilo and Kalakaua's reign, proved valuable to me. He was a kind and affectionate husband, a man of honor, and is esteemed by all who knew him. To those he gave in charity it was never spoken of. His death was a severe loss, for I needed him most at that time to advise with the affairs of state.

From this touchy picture, drawn by the Queen, one can see that she enjoyed her husband not only for the extraordinary features of his character, but most of all for his long experience with all the recent Hawaiian rulers and as her own political adviser. This supports our previously expressed conviction about Governor Dominis' indispensability to the cause of the Hawaiian monarchy and interest of the native Hawaiian people, who at that time represented a decisive majority of the entire population."

The striking, similarity of some thoughts expressed in the above comment on the deceased to those of the previously discussed obituary suggests that she authored the first article and that the passage of four years did not affect her high opinion of John 0. Dominis.

However, her statement on Governor Dominis' sudden illness is not correct in light of this evidence offered by a report sent on September 3, 1891, by the U.S. Minister in Hawaii to the Department of State that said :

Proper respect to the government to which I am accredited, renders it proper for me to inform the Department of State that Prince Consort, husband of the present Queen, John Owen Dominis, died. in Honolulu August 27. For several years his health has been "imperfect and for a considerable time before his death he had been confined to his room.

Hence, we know that the Prince Consort did not die unexpectedly and that Liliuokalani had ample time to prepare herself for the eventuality of his death. But there is no doubt that as long as he lived, he had exercised a restraining power on the Queen's hasty and ill advised political decisions that led to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by the Revolution of 1893. In fact, her most radical political moves, especially unpopular among the small, but economically strong, Caucasian or haole population in the Hawaiian Kingdom, occurred soon after Governor Dominis' death.

John L. Stevens, United States Minister in Hawaii, observed in the abovementioned report that John 0. Dominis has been regarded by his associates "amiable, in character and of strong American sympathies."

But this allegedly pro-American attitude of Governor Dominis somewhat clashes w'th another secret report, forwarded six days later to the Foreign Office by Theo. D. Davies, Acting Commissioner of the United Kingdom in Honolulu, asserting that "Dominis, though of American parentage, was as 'English' as any of them (that is the members of Liliuokalani's cabinet)."

In view of these two contradictory statements. by the foreign representatives of the two Pacific powers with the biggest strategic and economic stakes in the former mid-Pacific kingdom, one could think that the shrewd Croatian--American statesman played both sides, a typical political game in small powers, in order to preserve the independence of his adopted country. This is, perhaps why both our diplomats considered him to be their man in Honolulu.

This assumption is even more evident in light of the critical remark of a distinguished historian, Ralph S. Kuykendall, bitterly claiming that John 0. Dominis, "a native of New York State, was not a man of great force of character." He obviously ignores that even being not a forceful man, Governor Dominis was able to accomplish much on the domestic and foreign scene. Thus, for example, the Queen, deprived of her husband's tactful guidance and misadvised by her new counsellors, tried to restore autocratic government and carry through, the unpopular among the American residents, 0pium and lottery bills so as to defranchise a large class of non naturalized Caucasian residents who had voted since 1887.

The alarmed United States Minister in Honolulu reported to his government that the Queen who is "well known to be more stubborn than her brother the late King" is surrounded by some of the worst elements in the country, persons of native and foreign birth ... under her extreme notions of sovereign authority and the influence of her bad advisers, the Queen is trying to force the resignation of the ministers and get a Cabinet composed of her tools.

The Honolulu-based journal The Mid-Pacific (No. 213, 1917) in an article, written on the occasion of Liliuokalani's death, incorrectly saying that she "was married to John 0. Dominis of Boston," had basically repeated Mr. Stevens' assessment of her rule by confirming that after the loss of her husband during the first year of her reign she: relied on the advice of native counsellors opposed to -the new Costitution and repeatedly evaded some of its essential provisions.

The article concludes that as a result of this "'after a reign of two, years she was dethroned by a revolution (January 17, 1893)." Although, this violent act brought to an end the short-lived and tragic reign of Liliuokalani, it did not close the fascinating story of the royal connection between Croatia and Hawaii. Actually, after the loss of her throne, Liliuokalani for some unclear reasons had focused her attention on the Dalmatian (read Croatian) heritage of her late husband, trying to locate some living descendants of Captain John Dominis.