ABSTRACT
Efforts to displace rulers occurred from time to time before the arrival of Captain Cook. Despite the two inconsequential "White riots", in 1853, the kingdom considerably thinned down its army, which was bankrupting the treasury. Government force was used to quell a weird civil disturbance in 1868. Hawai'i's boom in sugar exports during the American Civil War ended when production resumed in Louisiana after the North defeated the South, resulting in a serious economic downturn. After 1875, King Kalakaua became increasingly bold in the exercise of power, for example staffing the civil service with sycophants and placing his nobility buddies into the legislature. His spending was bringing the kingdom to the verge of bankruptcy, and he was not getting along with the sugar planters, who controlled the economy. However, no coup was in fact being planned, so the incident is sometimes known as the Burlesque Conspiracy.
