On this day, October 1, in 1890

The United States Congress passed the McKinley Tariff Act, which benefited American farmers by increasing protective tariffs. The Act also enabled the government to assist domestic sugar planters by paying them a 2-cent subsidy on each pound of sugar produced. This meant that the huge sugar producers in countries like Puerto Rico and Cuba, which were considered US territories, were given the financial benefit whereas the sugar producers in Hawaii, who also had a lucrative sugar industry, were not. This occurrence gave the white businessmen who dominated the Hawaiian economy a serious motive to annex Hawaii. This event contributed to the eventual overthrow of the Indigenous Hawaiian government.