Information About U.S. Foreign Policy on Hawal During the eighteenth century, the United States became interested in the Hawaiian Islands as a way station and provisioning point for shippers, sailors, and whalers trading with Asian nations. New England missionaries preaching Protestant Christianity also settled in the islands in 1820. Many of the descendants of these missionaries became prosperous sugar growers who dominated the economy and government of Hawaii. These Americans, as well as those on the West Coast, This picture shows Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii (center), seated with Sanford B. Dole (eft), the first head of the gradually came to regard the Hawaiian provisional government atter Hawail became a US territory Islands as an extension of the United States and sought to gain more direct influence over the islands. During the 1840s the United States warned other powers to stay out of Hawaii. In the late 1800s the United States made a commercial trade agreement with the Hawaiian government, followed by a treaty guaranteeing the United States a naval base at Pearl Harbor. In 1891 Queen Liliuokalani came to power. She insisted that native Hawaiians control Hawaii. She attempted to restore the power of the Hawaiian monarchy and reduce the power of foreign merchants. This alarmed the white planters, who were mostly Americans. Although the whites were a minority, they organized a successful revolt in 1893. The revolt was openly assisted by U.S. troops, who landed under the unauthorized orders of the expansionist U.S. minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens. The whites seized power and set up a provisional government. Following the revolt, the American whites applied to the U.S. Congress for U.S. annexation of Hawaii. However, before the Senate could act on the annexation treaty, President Grover Cleveland withdrew it from consideration. The president believed that the United States was guilty of improper actions in Hawaii. He led an investigation into the overthrow, during which he discovered that the majority of native Hawaiians did not favor annexation to the United States. President Cleveland made a formal apology to Queen Liliuokalani and sought unsuccessfully to have her restored to power. However, Cleveland's actions only slowed the imperialists and white revolutionaries who held economic control in Hawaii. Five years later following the Spanish-American War, many Americans recognized the strategic and commercial value of Hawaii. In 1898 the islands were annexed and officially became a possession of the United States U.S. intervention resulted in long-lasting resentment among many native Hawaiians.