One hundred years after the US military overthrew the elected Hawaiian government in support of white American sugar planters, native Hawaiians and their allies demanded the right to indigenous self-determination through marches, debates, ceremonies and 10 days of testimony before an international tribunal consisting of legal and human rights experts. Out of 20,000 pages of testimony presented during those August 1993 hearings emerged Islands in Captivity, edited by Ward Churchill and Sharon Venne, two of the distinguished judges from a panel of nine.

Organized into sections of oral testimony, essays, charges and findings, this 800-page anthology presents the most extensive, diverse and accessible arguments for native Hawaiian sovereignty.

Ward Churchill (Keetowah Cherokee) has achieved an unparalleled reputation as a scholar, activist and analyst of indigenous issues. A professor of American Indian studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a leading member of the American Indian Movement, Churchill has served as a delegate in Geneva, Havana and Benghazi for the International Indian Treaty Council—a United Nations class II (human rights consultative) nongovernmental organization—and was a delegate to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. He is the author of numerous books, including From a Native Son and, with Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression and The Cointelpro Papers.

Sharon Venne is an international lawyer, writer and member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Selected as a representative of the Treaty Six nations of Alberta during the 1980s, Venne continues to be active in indigenous peoples’ struggles for sovereignty and human rights.