Congress apologizes for Hawaiian overthrow and Native Hawaiian harms

Congress passes the Apology Resolution, signed on November 23, 1993, acknowledging and apologizing for the United States role in the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The resolution recognizes that Native Hawaiians never directly relinquished their claims to sovereignty. The apology does not create a settlement or restore sovereignty, but it places the overthrow within a federal record of colonization and dispossession. Native Hawaiian advocates use the resolution in broader debates over self-determination, land, and cultural survival. Racism in U.S. history includes colonial dispossession of Indigenous peoples beyond the continental states.