Reciprocity Treaty of 1875

The treaty gave free access to the United States market for sugar and other products grown in the Kingdom of Hawaii starting in September 1876.

In a later extension of the treaty, the United States negotiated for exclusive use of lands in the area known as Puʻu Loa, which were later used for the Pearl Harbor naval base.

For decades, the sugar planters in Hawaii had been economically hampered by United States import taxes placed upon their product, and consequently had been attempting negotiations for a free trade agreement.

There were concerns over American ambitions to annex the islands, with many in the business community willing to cede the exclusive use of Pearl Harbor to the United States in exchange for the treaty.

[2] At the urging of Hawaii's businessmen and the kingdom's newspapers, Kalākaua agreed to travel to the United States at the head of a Reciprocity Commission consisting of sugar planter Henry A. P. Carter of C. Brewer & Co., Hawaii Chief Justice Elisha Hunt Allen, and Minister of Foreign Affairs William Lowthian Green.

[5] It allowed certain Hawaiian goods, mainly sugar and rice, to be admitted into the United States tax-free, for a period of 7 years.

[6] The first shipment of sugar from Hawaii to the United States under the treaty arrived in San Francisco in September 1876 in a ship commanded by Captain William H. Marston.

Spreckels became one of Kalākaua's close associates, and by extension, tied in with the king's cabinet minister Walter Murray Gibson.