While American missionaries and businessmen had settled as residents in the Hawaiian Kingdom since 1820, relations with the United States developed slowly, beginning in 1826, when the first treaty between the two countries was signed by Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones and Kuhina Nui Kaʻahumanu.

This treaty was signed one year after the US has expanded its territorial base to the Pacific coast of North America, making the two countries "neighbors".

Relations between the two countries were aggravated following the 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, in which then-Minister John L. Stevens had participated; he was accused of inappropriate conduct by the Blount Report, and was forced into retirement by the United States government that same year.

After the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed, a new minister, James Henderson Blount, was sent to the country to investigate the overthrow of the monarchy.

After Blount issued his report, he was succeeded by Albert Sydney Willis, who convinced the deposed queen to grant an amnesty to the instigators of the coup, and then demanded that the Provisional Government turn power back to the monarchy.