1893 - Political Events

Political Events

Romania's diffident Crown Prince Ferdinand, 27, is married January 10 at Sigmaringen to Marie Alexandra Victoria, 17, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria and of the late Czar Aleksandr II. She had hoped to marry Victoria's grandson George, now duke of York, who is married at Buckingham Palace July 6 to his late brother's fiancée, Mary of Teck.

Britain's Labour Party is founded by socialists who include Scotsman James Keir Hardie, 37. A miner from age 10 to 22, Keir Hardie organized a labor union among his fellow miners, headed a new Scottish Labour Party in 1888, and was elected last year to Parliament. His secretary is Warwickshire-born socialist Tom Mann, also now 37, who came to prominence 4 years ago in the Great London Dock Strike.

Former French premier Jules Ferry is shot with a revolver by a madman at Paris and dies of his wound March 17 at age 60, having become president of the Senate. The ministry of Premier Alexandre Ribot falls in April as a consequence of scandalous revelations regarding the 1889 collapse of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique (Panama Canal Co.), whose directors have allegedly bribed members of the government and of parlement (former premier Henri Brisson has headed the investigating commission). Former president Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice, comte de MacMahon, dies at Loiret October 17 at age 75, having long since been defeated in his hopes of restoring the monarchy.

Former Bulgarian prince Aleksandr I dies at Graz, Austria, November 17 at age 36.

Hawaiian annexationists overthrow Queen Liliuokalani with support from U.S. minister John Leavitt Stevens. Armed marines from the U.S.S. Boston are landed January 16 to "protect" U.S. interests, the queen abdicates under duress January 17 after reigning for less than 2 years, and the annexationists block U.S. efforts to restore the monarchy. "I yield to the superior forces of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary . . . has caused United States troops to be landed in Honolulu and declared that he would support the . . . provisional government." Grover Cleveland begins a second term as president March 4 and opposes the annexation of Hawaii. An investigation shows that most Hawaiians have not supported the coup and that Hawaiians and Americans in the pineapple and sugar industries have played a leading role in opposing the queen. Cleveland tells Congress that he will try to restore her to her throne in return for clemency for those who organized the coup, but the queen and the provisional government refuse the deal and Cleveland abandons the idea (see 1894).

Former Union Army general Benjamin F. Butler dies at Washington D.C. January 11 at age 74; former Union Army general (and alleged baseball "creator") Abner Doubleday at Mendham, New Jersey, January 26 at age 73; former president Rutherford B. Hayes at Fremont, Ohio, January 17 at age 70, having spent his retirement years since 1881 working for education of black children in the South and for prison reform; former secretary of state (and 1884 presidential candidate) James G. Blaine dies at Washington, D.C., January 27 at age 62; former Confederate Army general Pierre G. T. de Beauregard at New Orleans February 20 at age 75; former secretary of state Hamilton Fish at Garrison, New York, September 6 at age 85, having retired from public life in 1877.

Nicaraguan politician José Santos Zelaya, 39, comes to power through a Liberal revolt that ends 30 years of Conservative Party dominance. Zelaya will rule as dictator until 1910, virtually monopolizing the country's economic resources as he resists U.S. influence and tries to unify Central America (see 1906).

France establishes French Guiana in South America as a formal colony. Its so-called "Devil's Island" has become an offshore penal colony (see religion [Dreyfus], 1894).

Former Mexican president Manuel González dies on his Hacienda de Chapingo, near Guanajuato, May 8 at age 59, having spent his final years as governor of Guanajuato.

Afghanistan's emir Abdor Rahman Khan holds talks near Kabul in November with a British delegation headed by Sir Mortimer Durand, 43, and accepts what will be called the Durand Line of demarcation in the Hindu Kush between his country and British India, relinquishing some hereditary rights over tribes on his eastern border. Now about 49, Abdor Rahman has ruled since 1880, crushed a revolt by Ghilzai tribesmen, pacified his country, brought in foreign experts, and imported machinery for making agricultural tools, consumer goods, and munitions (see 1919).

Laos becomes a French protectorate as France begins to develop a new colonial empire in Indochina. Col. Simon Gallieni, 44, and Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve Lyautey, 39, move to pacify a region as large as France herself, with 16 million inhabitants whose country will be securely in French control by 1895.

France establishes the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) in Africa as a formal colony.

French colonial forces on the Niger River defeat Tuareg warriors and gain control of Dahomey along with the former slave- and palm-oil port of Ouidah (see 1892; Lugard, 1894).

Transvaal annexes Swaziland.

Natal gains self-government.

The king of the Matabele leads a revolt against Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company, but Leander Starr Jameson cuts the Matabele down with machine-gun fire October 23, suppresses the revolt, forces King Lobengula to give up his capital Bulawayo, and drives the king into exile, where he will die next year (see 1891; 1895).