The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai [Hardcover]

John Tayman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From 1866 through 1969, the Hawaiian and American governments banished nearly 9,000 leprosy sufferers into exile on a peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Former Outside editor Tayman crafts a tale of fear, endurance and hope in telling the story of these unfortunate victims of ignorance (leprosy is caused by a simple bacteria and isn't nearly as contagious as was long believed). After a smallpox epidemic wiped out a fifth of the Hawaiian population in the 1850s, leprosy was seen as the next cataclysmic threat, and drastic measures were taken. For more than 100 years, anyone diagnosed with the disease was taken to the remote colony. Initially, conditions were horrible, with few services or proper medical treatment. Pushed to their limit and fueled with potent moonshine, the internees frequently rioted, causing overseers to enforce cruel laws. Later, as science and social thinking evolved, conditions improved and many in the settlement lived lives of near normalcy. Drawing on contemporary sources and eyewitness accounts of the still surviving members of the colony, Tayman has created a fitting monument to the strength and character of the castoffs in particular, and human beings as a whole. B&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Hawaii's isolation from foreign illness slowly disintegrated through the nineteenth century as trading ships arrived bearing the yellow flag of disease. When leprosy cases appeared, panicked local officials designated the island of Molokai, some fifty miles from Honolulu, a "leprosarium," because it was naturally inaccessible, presenting a sea cliff "so sheer that wild goats tumbled from its face." The first twelve lepers were rowed to its rocky shores in January of 1866. Drawing on eight thousand pages of documents, Tayman reconstructs a fascinating history of the settlement, which officially lasted until 1969. Shortages of food, water, and shelter sent some lepers into caves pocketed inside an extinct volcano. Tayman's multilayered account sketches in scientific details, such as the fact that later medical studies proved that most of the exiles weren't even contagious.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1St Edition edition (January 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074323300X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743233002
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #532,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Medicine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven, August 4, 2006

By	Loves the View "Louise" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai (Hardcover)

It's hard to imagine the devastation that took place over 2 generations in Hawaii. The population was decimated by diseases for which there were no known causes and no cures. With the emergence of yet a new disease, one with very visible effects there should be no surprise about the panic it caused.

The story of the first exiles is heartbreaking. Their exodus was so poorly planned that the first patients (all quite ill) once disembarked, had to walk up a cliff and then further to a new "home" on which they were expected to forage and farm and build their homes. The captain of the boat that brings these and subsequent exiles to Molokai escapes incarceration for obvious and continuing acts of theft and abuse of the exiles, a true metaphor for the neglect of the Board of Health. From forboding beginnings, a thriving community emerges and later wanes due to advances in medicine.

I think this book was rushed to publication. While the author did 18 months of research, I don't think he digested it all. The result is a book that doesn't hang together very well. It seems that after finding a lot of interesting information Tayman wanted to use it all whether or not he could provide context for it. Where he was able to produce full stories, I'm not sure he had a handle of their significance. I'm not critical of this because I understand their significance, but I expected the book to be more than collection of anecdotes and facts. This book has a lot of very good information, a lot of which I believe is newly presented, but I think the author needed more time to reflect on the topic for a more coherent presentation of it.

Some things are not followed up on, like the personality of Ferdinand Hutchinson, who seems to be focused on doing things cheaply. Even before his exiled son is introduced, he is dropped from the narrative (How responsible was he for the boat captain? What was his attitude/political posture towards his son's exile and did his views change upon it?) Walsh's administration is portrayed as a failure, but later a rather large hospital built in his tenure is casually mentioned. There are some places which I think would be important turning points, but little information is given. It would seem that the introduction of water and electricity would be a major sociological changes for the residents, as well as logistical achievement of the Board of Health, but it gets only a passing mention. Taymen cites things that improve after the death of King Kalakua, and in 1907 Jack London praises the settlement. How these changes occurred and who was responsible for them is not clear from the text.

There are some strange adjectives, for instance "The Little Grass Shack" is labled a "nonsensical" song. There are vignettes that cause pause, for instance during WWII, a civil defense officer has boys march with sticks "hoping enemy submarines will mistake them as soldiers." This one sentence is planted in the middle of a narrative on how the area was being protected. Could this be literal?

This book has caused controversy in Hawaii. The cover photo is allegedly a cliff in Italy. There is criticism of the title. More important, the survivors, who are profiled in the last chapters, perhaps 20% of the book, have objected to their portrayal. Tayman writes sympathetically of them, but some of his phrasings could be construed as condescending to them. One portrait even begins with his minimization of the endearing, "Grass Shack" song.

54 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Human Toll Of Ignorance, January 21, 2006

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai (Hardcover)

Much like the early years of the AIDS epidemic, leprosy had created a fear of the unknown and brought out the worst of human nature. Supported by Biblical injunctions (like the ones that supported slavery), bigots would hunt down and exile those with leprosy as if they were sin incarnate instead of a person infected with a disease. Image isolating for life someone with migraines merely for having migraines -- there was no court of appeals, just a prison for life because they were ill.

America's role in this inhumane madness came after the American occupation of the Hawaiian Islands in 1893. The island of Molokai was already the site for exiled lepers on an isolated sliver of land for nearly three decades. American policy was one of neglect and of allowing "The Colony" to exist until 1969 -- a quarter century after safe medical treatment was devised.

The history of "The Colony" on Molokai will make the reader angry and ashamed of how the lepers were condemned, exiled, cut off from the world as if they were subhuman. Mr. Tayman graphically describes the cost that the lepers paid in being ostracized by society and the painful suffering endured by them with minimal medical care, shelter and food. James Michener described the leper colony in his sprawling historical epic novel "Hawaii"-1959. "The Colony" is not an easy book to read but it is a book worth reading.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched....Riveting chronicle, February 3, 2006

By	C. Green - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai (Hardcover)

I have a personal interest in the leper colony at Molokai as Donald Walsh, one of its early superintendents, was a brother of my great-grandfather. Unlike previous histories which gloss over Walsh's contributions, The Colony gives him due credit for establishing a school, improving residences, and planning for a hospital. Regrettably, Walsh died before he could complete all of his plans, and the settlement reverted to disarray until the saintly Father Damien came along. Superbly researched and highly readable, The Colony concludes with biographical sketches of several current residents. A riveting chronicle of human suffering from beginning to end!
--Review by William Schmidt