Sugar was once the dominant industry in Hawaii, and the sugar elite held such power that they could orchestrate the overthrow of the Hawaiian constitutional monarchy. White plantation owners played a large part in the 1893 U.S.-backed illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the subsequent 1898 annexation of Hawaii2. In 1993, President Bill Clinton acknowledged and apologized for the U.S. role in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. The lack of big commercial operation and infrastructure was a problem for the sugar industry in Hawaii.
