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    The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
    The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
    The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai

    Written by John Tayman

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

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    About this audiobook

    In the bestselling tradition of In the Heart of the Sea, The Colony reveals the untold history of the infamous American leprosy colony on Molokai and of the extraordinary people who struggled to survive under the most horrific circumstances.

    In 1866, twelve men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then forty more, and then a hundred more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious, yet all were caught in a shared nightmare. The colony had little food, little medicine, and very little hope. Exile continued for more than a century, the longest and deadliest instance of medical segregation in American history. Nearly nine thousand people were banished to the colony, trapped by pounding surf and armed guards and the highest sea cliffs in the world. Twenty-eight live there still.

    John Tayman tells the fantastic saga of this horrible and hopeful place-at one time the most famous community in the world-and of the individuals involved. The narrative is peopled by presidents and kings, cruel lawmen and pioneering doctors, and brave souls who literally gave their lives to help. A stunning cast includes the martyred Father Damien, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, John Wayne, and more. The result is a searing tale of survival and bravery, and a testament to the power of faith, compassion, and heroism.

    "Tayman's narrative pulls the reader beyond the superficial, medical horrors of leprosy to the more devastating human horrors that lie beneath. In doing so, he has brought to light the profound dignity of his subjects."-New York Times

    "Tayman's crisp, flowing writing and inclusion of personal stories and details make this an utterly engrossing look at a heartbreaking chapter in Hawaiian history."-Booklist

    "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."-Publishers Weekly
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 15, 2006
    ISBN9781400172276
    Author

    John Tayman

    John Tayman is editor at large of Men's Health. The former deputy editor of Outside magazine, he is an award-winning editor and writer, and has served as executive editor of New England Monthly, editor at large of Men's Journal, and contributing editor to Life, GQ, People, Business 2.0, and other publications. He lives in Northern California. Visit his website at www.johntayman.com.

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    Reviews for The Colony

    4/5

    18 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It is a real eye opener for those who do not know that autrocities like this occur. John Tayman strove to make us understand the differing view points of those involved, and how truly horrible the conditions were. It was a pretty quick read, full of wonderful and accurate information.
    • 4/5
      John Tayman, has marvelously succeeded in this sweeping history of the exiles of Molokai. It bears tragic witness to the banishment of the victims of Hansen's disease to a hostile isolated island beginning in 1866 with twelve men and women and one stowaway child and continuing for over a century. Along the way we are confronted with legislative debates such as, "Is it a crime to be afflicted with leprosy?" and although the necessary answer is no, it is a disease, in actual fact these people were treated as criminals. They were rounded up and forcibly exiled. The pages are littered with historical figures and events revealed in both their humanity and their inhumanity. We find Robert Louis Stephenson, Jack London, Mark Twain, and even more recently a skittish John Wayne . We witness Pearl Harbor, and the establishment of Hawaii as the the fiftieth state.While we do find the posthumous saints such as Father Damien Joseph De Veuster who by one account dug over 1300 graves, and we also find much cruelty. The account of the Dying Den, bears witness to a man being dumped from a wheelbarrow to the threshold of this hell in order to, "spare the sensibilities of the other hospital inmates."Probably the most succinct description of the history of this disease, "leprosy itself [is] a rich source of ironies, populated ... "with rogues and vagabonds, saints, and martyrs.""Although this is not a casual read it is worth the time, this lesson must be re-learned and not repeated.
    • 4/5
      The way John Tayman writes this book it feels less like a history book and more like a novel. At the end you are in awe of how he was able to capture these events and emotionally attach you to the victims of this terrible disease.
    • 4/5
      I had read Molokai by Alan Brennert, and was interested in a nonfiction work on the island, but not too dry. I really enjoyed the way Talman worked in personal histories with the scientific info- especially since I don't have a scientific bent. I learned quite a bit- for example, I didn't know there was a leper hospital in Louisiana also. After reading this, I was more impressed with Molokai and it's historical research and background.
    • 5/5
      I visited the exiled patients on the island of Moloka'i (Hawaii) some years ago after reading Damien the Leper by John Farrow (1937). The history and treatment of Hansen's disease has interested me since childhood. O.A. Bushnell's Molokai (1963) although fiction, was also interesting on the subject at the time. John Tayman's recent The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of The Exiles Of Moloka'i (2006)seems excellent and is entirely documented from the beginnings of this place set up to hide these "outcasts". It reads as easily as Alan Brennart's Moloka'i (2003) which is fiction with some historical detail and Hawaiian culture to add to the interest. Books like these were not available years ago and the leper colony town of Kalaupapa was not mentioned in the tourist brochures. Controversaries aside, we need information on this subject. I have also recently read The Island by Victoria Hislop, an excellent novel set in Crete. The historical details of the local island leper colony,Spinalonga,are accurate regarding its fifty year history. These stories and histories need to be told and I am happy to have them. I can refer to medical literature for clinical details and not be fooled by the falsehoods and scare-mongering horrors written of in less demanding times. I enjoyed, and learned something, from each of the books mentioned here. Too many think this crippling disease has been eradicated. While it is treatable, most of the people who have it can't afford the 6-12 month course of inexpensive medication required. Then it cripples and disfigures and the damage is permanent.The Leprosy Society of London reports that there were 400,000 new cases diagnosed in 2004, 70% of those in India. It's still present in many parts of the world. I think people should know that. Reading John Tayman's The Colony is as good a place as any to start on the subject.
    • 4/5
      The fascinating and horrifying true story of the "leper colony" at Kalawao (and later, Kalaupapa) Moloka'i. Obviously well researched.
    • 4/5
      Just what the dust jacket promised: this was a fascinating history from both the medical and the personal perspective, full of colorful characters. I had never heard of the Molokai colony before and hadn't even realized that leper colonies ever existed in America. The way the patients were treated early on reminded me very uncomfortably of the Jewish ghettos the Nazis created. Even after conditions improved, the patients still faced hardship and a great deal of prejudice.The story of the Molokai colony could easily be made into a movie. It even contains a few shoot 'em up sequences! Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      It may be cheating to put this book on the list but i think we are pretty much making up our own rules, and this feels like a finish of sorts to me. I've been reading The Colony for over a year. The story of the leper colony of Hawaii, it has chicanery, heroism, human suffering, man's inhumanity to man, and man's resilience all between two covers. Despite this great potential and the bonus of being a true story, it was so dry that I struggled mightily for 166 pages before making the decision to call it quits. This is a rare thing indeed for me but quite a relief.
    • 2/5
      The book was hard for me to follow ... I felt like the writer skipped around a lot. Like he would start to write about person A who knew person B, then talk about person B for a while, then jump back to person A and not becuase he was saying things chronologically. It was also hard to keep up with all the people he mentioned ... nonfiction isn't always the easiest to follow, especially when I am used to reading fiction, but this book just seemed harder to follow than normal.I admit I though it was an eye-opening book as I had NO idea this happened. So it was served the purpose of being informative and giving me a history lesson.However it was a hard read ... it took me a while to get through it too!
    • 4/5
      From 1866 through 1969, the Hawaiian and American governments banishednearly 9,000 leprosy sufferers into exile on a peninsula on the Hawaiianisland of Molokai. After a smallpox epidemic wiped out a fifth of theHawaiian population in the 1850s, leprosy was seen as the next huge threat,and drastic measures were taken. For more than 100 years, anyone diagnosedwith the disease was taken to the remote colony. Initially conditions werehorrible, with few services or proper medical treatment. (The businessmen onthe Board of Health thought these people were going to die anyway, so whyspend money?) Pushed to their limit and fueled with some potent moonshine,the internees frequently rioted, forcing overseers to enforce cruel laws.Later, as science and social thinking evolved, conditions improved and manyin the settlement lived lives of near normalcy.Tayman has done his research. The book is bulging with contemporary sourcesand eyewitness accounts. He also shows that we haven't evolved nearly asmuch as we'd like to think. Remember when we first learned about AIDS? Howso many people thought AIDS sufferers should be quarantined and kept awayfrom the rest of us? What place do you think came up as the best place tokeep "them"? Yup. Molokai.The only real gripe I have with this book is that it is a bit too fact-ladenand dry. Tayman did not bring history to life. I don't know if that was hisintention to begin with. As a record of what happened there, it's excellent;however, I was never fully engaged in the account.
    • 4/5
      On the surface, this book is about some people, who happened to contract Hansen's disease (leprosy) and how they were taken forcibly from their families and exiled. The deeper story is our human response to physical illness. Leprosy, prior to the 1950's was a terrible, disfiguring and painful disease. Although it is not highly contagious in most forms, the fear surrounding it is both literally and figuratively Biblical. It is both fascinating and disturbing to read about the level of fear and disgust that continues regarding this disease even today when the disease is curable. The chapter that deals with WWII and Japanese internment was interesting. The compassion that the exiles had for the Japanese was very clear in quotes and histories of the time.I was inspired by the good and brave men and women who gave their lives, including risking contracting Hansen's disease, to serving and helping the exiles of Molokai. I was inspired by the exiles themselves, by their ability to create a new life and by their courage in truly terrible circumstances. I cheered for the few who were brave enough to stand up for what was right, even to the point of losing their jobs. The book is well researched with exhaustive notes and the narrative never lags."The more we suffer, the more strength we have. The more suffering, the closer we are to one another. Life is that way. If you haven't suffered, then you don't know what joy is. The others may know something about joy, but those who have gone through hell and high water, I think they feel the joy deeper." resident of Kalaupapa, Molokai
    • 4/5
      A very interesting read.
    • 5/5
      Excellent companion book to Molokai which gives the backstory to the novel as well as detailed history about the leper colony and the medical history of leprosy and its ultimate cure.
    • 4/5
      Themes: illness, superstition, compassion, love, scienceSetting: Molokai, Hawaii 1866-1970sLeprosy. It's a horrible disease. It makes your extremities fall off. It's horribly contagious. It causes nasty oozing sores that spread germs to everyone you pass by. It's always fatal. And there's still no cure.Except that none of this is true. Except that is a pretty horrible disease, if not treated. But there is a very effective treatment available. It's not very contagious at all. Only a small portion of the population is susceptible to it in the first place. Even then, only some of them get the worst form. It's more a matter of nerve damage and swelling. And diagnosis is a matter of minutes, so getting started with the right treatment now takes just days.What a change from the past. This book is all about the bad old days of leprosy, and in the United States, it didn't get worse than in Hawaii. Hawaiians were some of those that for some reason were particularly prone to catching leprosy. And back then, there was no treatment available. They could diagnose it, all right. Then they would pack you up and ship you off, without another word, off to Molokai, the leper colony. Good luck to you.Incredible story, and it's all true. At least, the author says it's all true. Apparently there's some controversy. But it made for great reading. It was shocking stuff. I couldn't believe how they treated lepers like criminals. It's not a crime to be sick. (Although in this country, I often wonder.) But they were treated like they had done something wrong by getting a disease. I couldn't put it down. 4 stars.
    • 3/5
      The lives those poor people led were terrible. And everyone who got anywhere near them became corrupted with greed.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating!