“Any resistance will be met by force,” snapped the Marine lieutenant. While two civilians glared angrily, a sergeant and two privates strode to the flagpole and began lowering the colors. The flag was the Stars and Stripes, the Marines were Americans, and the two civilians were members of the U. S. diplomatic service. The Marines had landed on foreign soil not to restore order or to protect American lives, but to lower the flag of the United States.
This landing, unique in our history, took place at Honolulu in the then-independent kingdom of Hawaii on 21 September 1870. At the time, Hawaii was in the midst of its transition from way station for merchant ships to tropical garden spot. The landing of armed men was no novelty, for, in a rowdier era, the Hawaiian Islands had served as a haven for Pacific whaling ships and their rugged crews. Both native Hawaiians and foreigners doing business in the islands had looked forward to the arrival of the occasional American warship that visited the area. The whaling men were a violent lot, and it helped to have handy a few sailors and Marines who could be depended upon to crack the thickest of skulls.
The lawless years had passed, however, long before the summer of 1870, when Commander William T. Truxtun guided the USS Jamestown to her berth at Honolulu. American merchants and missionaries had done their best to convert the islands into a miniature New England and make Honolulu resemble a suburb of Boston. Hawaiian women had been enshrouded in clothing designed to withstand the rigors of a Yankee winter, and the old gods had been toppled, but as yet no one had found a way to make pineapples taste like codfish.
In spite of this, all was not placid at Honolulu, though the trouble, actually a clash of personalities, was confined to the city’s American colony. The resident American Minister was Henry A. Pierce, well-bred and a credit to the diplomatic corps, but thought by some to be too dignified. The American Consul, Thomas J Adamson, Jr., for instance, felt that Pierce was more dignified than efficient. Soon the inhabitants of Honolulu’s American community, like those of any small New England town, were pricking up their ears to catch Adamson’s latest outburst against his superior.
Entertaining as Adamson’s stories were, the most prominent of the Americans sided with Pierce, for dignity counted heavily with these merchants and their wives. By the autumn of 1870, little more than a year after his appointment as consul, Adamson was on the way out. As he waited for the axe to fall, the impetuous consul longed for an opportunity to puncture his rival’s poise. The death of Queen Kalama gave him his chance.
Kalama, Dowager Queen of Hawaii, fell ill, lingered for a few weeks, and then on 20 September died. Her timing, for Adamson’s purposes, could not have been better, for Pierce was out of town. By 8 o’clock the following morning, all but one of the foreign consulates had lowered their flags to half-mast out of respect for the dead queen. The single exception was the American Consulate, where Old Glory flew from the top of the staff. Such an act of arrogance, Adamson gloated, was sure to shake the minister’s famed dignity.
Among those who noticed the consul’s breach of etiquette was Commander Truxtun of the Jamestown. Truxtun, one of the absent minister’s most devoted admirers, already had ordered the Jamestown's colors lowered to half-mast. He confidently expected the consul to follow his example, but nothing of the sort happened. When it became obvious that the American flag was going to stay just where it was, Truxtun ordered Ensign Andrew Dunlap to go ashore and remind Adamson of the niceties of international courtesy.
Ensign Dunlap walked into Adamson’s office, politely asked that the flag be lowered to half-mast, then waited for the diplomat to comply. Adamson’s answer stunned young officer, who had been schooled in the idea of prompt and unquestioning obedience. “I consider this,” growled the consul, “a piece of impertinence on the part of your commanding officer.” The diplomat was not responsible to a naval officer, and if Truxtun had any suggestions to make, he should make them to Pierce who would then pass the recommendations on to Adamson. In other words, as long as Pierce was out town, the flag would remain at the top of the staff. Upon Dunlap’s return to the Jamestown, Truxtun listened impatiently as he blurted out the story of his defeat ashore. Then the naval commander made a decision that would result in the Honolulu newspaper, The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, beginning its front page with: “On Wednesday the habitués of Queen Street were witnesses to a most remarkable scene . . . .” Turning to his executive officer, Truxtun ordered him to “land the landing force”—words that usually bring to mind the picture of thousands of Marines swarming across a fire-swept beach.
In this case, the landing force totaled only six Leathernecks—First Lieutenant Henry Clay Cochrane, a sergeant, and four privates. Nor was the ship-to-shore movement much of a problem. The Marines simply piled into a boat manned by bluejackets and were rowed to the dock. Even though the seamen might find the operation amusing, Lieutenant Cochrane took his work seriously. Once ashore, his Marines fell snappily into formation and marched on the “enemy”—in this case Adamson and his thoroughly confused assistant, Jonathan S. Christie.
Lieutenant Cochrane had been ordered to “keep the consular colors at half-mast from 8 a.m. to sunset,” and this he intended to do. The consul had different ideas, however. “I do not recognize Commander Truxtun as my superior officer,” he declaimed. “I look to Mr. Pierce as my official superior, and I decline to half-mast the flag until I receive notice from him.” Then Adamson delivered his final blow: “I outrank Commander Truxtun, and he has nothing to do with me at all.” Thomas J. Adamson, Jr., could not have made a more unfortunate remark. As the Marine officer of the Jamestown, Lieutenant Cochrane had the job of enforcing Commander Truxtun’s wishes. As far as he was concerned, the skipper of a man-of-war was the supreme lawgiver—with the possible exception of the Commandant of the Marine Corps. No one was going to disobey Commander Truxtun if Henry Clay Cochrane could help it.
As the lieutenant started forward, Adamson vowed that he would fight, if he had to, but the Marine officer gave him pause by assuring that “any resistance will be met by force.” When both Adamson and Christie “went to the door to prevent the ingress of the Marines” and refused to budge, Cochrane ordered his men to throw them out the door; then he reconsidered and thoughtfully added, “as gently as possible.” The pair of diplomats, “after a smart scuffle,” according to the next issue of the Honolulu paper, “yielded to superior force.” They were carefully deposited outside the consulate, where they sat watching as the American flag was lowered to half-mast.
Doubtless the newspaper writer enjoyed describing how “a file of Marines . . . charged upon the U. S. Consulate and carried it by force, after a short but gallant resistance on the part of the Consul” and his vice consul; however, his article ended with a conclusion that probably summed up the opinion of the American residents of Honolulu:
The quarrel as it stands between the several U. S. officials is none of ours: but we may be allowed to protest at the course taken by the Commander of the Jamestown, in landing a force upon our shores, as an insult to this government. American interests here cannot be benefited or promoted by such outrageous proceedings.
Fortunately, the American Minister returned to Honolulu in time for the burial of Queen Kalama. To atone for the flag incident, Minister Pierce and Commander Truxtun arranged for a 50-man detachment of sailors and Marines to march in the funeral procession. This gesture of respect ended the affair as far as the participants were concerned, but the Secretary of the Navy was yet to be heard from.
Conscientious officer that he was, Commander Truxtun had penned his version of the incident. He ordered Cochrane and Dunlap to describe their actions, and mailed all three letters to the Honorable George M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy. A quick glance at the reports sent Robeson scurrying to the State Department where, to his horror, he learned that Truxtun, by landing six armed men on neutral soil, had shattered one of the principles of international law. From Washington, D.C., a letter sped to Truxtun, a document in which Secretary Robeson termed the landing “a subject of profound astonishment.” As far as the Secretary the Navy was concerned, the incident proved Commander Truxtun’s “unfitness for responsible command.”
Although Truxtun had managed to settle the quarrel between diplomats on the spot—in a day and age when a lack of rapid communications prevented any consultation with higher headquarters—and had, in addition, soothed the injured feelings of the Hawaiians, he now found himself in disgrace. Ordered home immediately, he was subsequently assigned to a position ashore as an ordnance specialist at the Boston Navy Yard.
Once the Hawaiian “war” had been forgotten, however, Truxtun later won promotions to captain and finally to commodore. Nor was the career of Lieutenant Cochrane impaired, for he completed 40 years of service in the U. S. Marine Corps and retired as a brigadier general.
The State Department, as was customary in those days, treated its representatives in a most diplomatic manner. Since Adamson was already scheduled for transfer, he was appointed the American Consul in Melbourne, Australia, a post which paid $4,000 year—a splendid salary in those days. Pierce remained at Honolulu. With half the Pacific Ocean between them, the two men worked peacefully and efficiently. Thus, the Hawaiian incident of 1870 resulted in no casualties to either side.