Father Damien was a soiled man. Everyone agreed connected that. Dirt would accumulate nether his fingernails; helium seldom washed his hands. His clothes—his habitual cassock and wide-brimmed hat—were worn for days connected end; helium saw nary crushed to cleanable his hut successful Kalawao, the leprosy colony connected the Hawaiian land of Molokai. His detractors claimed helium lacked elegance too: burly with a “piggish” head, they complained, helium squinted from down a brace of wonky wire-framed circular spectacles. He was anxious to larn Hawaiian, it was noted sniffily, but different helium had small enthusiasm for languages. His Latin came lone by authoritative requirement, his English was sparse; a autochthonal Flemish speaker, adjacent his French was stilted. The prose of his letters lacked refinement immoderate their language: “coarse…headstrong and bigoted” was 1 peculiarly vitriolic posthumous assessment.
None of this disquieted Damien. Hawaiian did him fine. From that messy home, built successful show of Kalawao’s cemetery, Damien wrote to his member Auguste, besides a priest, to accidental that Molokai was precisely wherever helium wanted to be.
We devour what Providence sends us. The calabash of poi is ever full; determination is besides meat; h2o successful quantity, java and breadstuff sometimes, vino oregon brew never. As I person had to enactment each week and navigator connected Sunday, you volition excuse maine if my hands are not arsenic cleanable arsenic yours, which bash nothing, I suppose, but crook the pages of books. Sometimes the plates are not good washed either. But what matter. Hunger and wont marque america devour conscionable the same. For dessert, we fume a pipe. That finished, rapidly backmost connected the horse.
In the saddle, Damien would transverse Molokai’s mountains; his parish implicit 2 1000 quadrate kilometers, helium rode down the island’s valleys beyond Kalawao itself, crossed h2o and done fields to find the astir distant of his parishioners. Today it is simply a nationalist park, chaotic ail increasing successful fragrant profusion, its achromatic flowers poking up betwixt ferns, yellowish hibiscus and amid the ki-tree, the roots of which were utilized to brew a potent beer. Across this paradise the finch-like honeycreeper flits, feeding disconnected the reddish spindly flowers of the evergreen ‘ōhi‘a lehua tree. Damien would haul gathering worldly and basal aesculapian supplies with him, anxious to supply applicable arsenic overmuch arsenic spiritual comfortableness (though helium ne'er near without an advertisement hoc altar of 4 sticks and a plank). Sometimes helium had to wantonness the equine and mules to standard by manus and ft the sheer cliff faces which routinely stood betwixt him and his flock. For Damien dirtiness brought him person to godliness, the grime grounds of his graft.
Leprosy, however, had go totemic of a motivation depravity oregon intersexual state that Europeans had agelong imagined pervaded the South Seas. The leprous, lascivious assemblage was a perversion that Western proselytizing could fix.
For his assemblage masters, those disdainful of his idiosyncratic habits, the priest’s beingness was alien astatine champion and an affront to Western bid astatine worst; religion was expected to beryllium a cleansing antidote to indigenous habits, a washing-away of the idolatry and idleness they projected onto the population, beryllium they sick oregon healthy. Yet present was Damien, adopting their ways, it would seem, on with their language. His assemblage and the leprous bodies of his parishioners were dangerously entangled adjacent earlier helium himself succumbed to the disease. This was 1872, and the pious (and patronizing) commentators of the clip muttered that Damien’s unvarnished property was owed to his elemental workplace upbringing successful agrarian Belgium. “It is perfectly beyond uncertainty that helium contracted the illness done his careless ministrations and uncleanly idiosyncratic habits,” a typical of the Hawaiian Board of Health tutted, though not without thing approaching admiration, noting the clergyman “would person leper boys astatine enactment successful his room truthful that helium could springiness much clip to his ministrations for others, being engaged from peep of time until agelong aft dark.” Dirty of body, soiled of mind, would beryllium the eventual assumption: intersexual proclivity was whispered. Damien’s brother, speechmaking Latin scripture successful a cleanable cassock 12,000 kilometers away, faced nary specified information and nary specified accusations of motivation lapse.
*
Damien was ne'er expected to execute the fame helium did, a awesome of planetary imperial paranoia and catalyst of spiritual fetish: a bronze statue, successful which helium wears his wide-brimmed hat, instrumentality successful hand, present represents the authorities of Hawaii successful the US Capitol building’s Hall of Columns. He was ne'er expected to beryllium the taxable of civilization wars successful his beingness and agelong after: successful 2020, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decried the prime of a achromatic antheral arsenic Washington’s awesome of the Polynesian fiftieth state. Damien was expected to enactment moving successful his parents’ fields successful Tremelo, a dull colony successful a duller portion of Belgium. The information that personage landed upon him, plucking him from the obscurity of his ngo to correspond the burgeoning sermon connected the disease, says much astir the satellite that orbited him than his actions connected the land oregon his ain governmental nous. There were plentifulness of different missionaries, successful plentifulness of different colonies, with plentifulness of different wellness issues, spreading religion and the brushed limb of imperialism. Leprosy, however, had go totemic of a motivation depravity oregon intersexual state that Europeans had agelong imagined pervaded the South Seas. The leprous, lascivious assemblage was a perversion that Western proselytizing could fix.
Damien was calved Jozef, successful 1840, the youngest lad and seventh kid of Frans and Anne-Catherine de Veuster. While Auguste and 2 of Damien’s older sisters, Eugenie and Pauline, were being prepared for spiritual work by devout Anne-Catherine, Frans wanted Jozef for the farm. The lad was burly and had a singular spot and vigor that stayed passim his life, lone faltering successful the precise past throes of death. In Gavan Daws’s fantabulous biography of the priest, written successful the 1970s arsenic an world antidote to some the mass-market hagiographic and poison-pen portraits that came before, the Honolulu-based historiographer says Jozef was taken retired of schoolhouse by the property of thirteen to harvest crops from the family’s fields.
The lad had different ideas, however, and connected reaching adulthood, having visited his member astatine his seminary successful Leuven, Jozef broke the festive cheer of Christmas Day successful 1858 to archer his parents that helium excessively wanted to articulation the priesthood, lest helium stay “unhappy forever.” Moreover, successful his blunt Flemish, helium warned them that “to forbid your lad to travel the volition of God…would bring down cruel punishments connected you.” After the holidays, helium packed his container to articulation his brother. This obstreperous cognition is 1 helium held to and it became evident again 5 years aboriginal erstwhile Auguste, present ordained, fell sick with typhus and was incapable to articulation a radical of six priests and brothers who were owed to acceptable sail arsenic missionaries to Hawaii. Jozef, inactive a seminarian who had entered the congregation and taken the sanction Damien lone 3 years earlier, bypassed his contiguous superiors and petitioned the higher orders successful Paris to beryllium allowed to instrumentality his place. On October 23, 1863, to his immense excitement, the young antheral boarded the vessel R. W. Wood with his seniors from the seminary and a tiny platoon of nuns for the astir five-month voyage crossed the world.
*
For indigenous Hawaiians, leprosy arrived arsenic Damien did, an unwanted visitant from crossed the sea. The illness whitethorn person stowed distant arsenic aboriginal arsenic Captain Cook’s assemblage voyage, but it lone became regarded arsenic a nationalist wellness contented eighty years later. “The commandant manifested a laudable humanity, successful endeavouring to shield the colonisation from the evil effects which truthful inevitably effect from transportation betwixt overseas seamen and the autochthonal females,” wrote 1 sympathetic European relationship of Cook’s trip. The evil effects weren’t conscionable motivation turpitude, but illness too. “But his efforts were successful vain. If the subject of his ain unit could person been strictly enforced, the eagerness of the women was not to beryllium repressed.” Historically, this genesis, careless of whether the women were really consenting, inextricably linked sickness with enactment successful the minds of Hawaiian and colonialist alike, with the former’s deficiency of conformity to Western and Christian mores taking the brunt of the work successful the minds of the latter.
The haole—the achromatic incomers—dodged blasted from among Hawaiians for leprosy too. As cases multiplied, the illness became known arsenic ma‘i pake, the “Chinese sickness,” named aft the thousands of Chinese laborers who arrived connected the islands astatine the invitation of American traders endeavoring to make an export marketplace successful sandalwood (a precursor to the sweetener manufacture that would predominate the system successful years to come). “There seems but 1 mode to forestall the full of Oceania from becoming leprous, and that is the exclusion oregon the rigid power of each Chinese coolies,” a Scottish doc warned. Wherever it came from, interaction was devastating for the indigenous Hawaiian population, which plummeted from the steadfast 683,000 radical Cook archetypal encountered to conscionable nether 40,000 Polynesian islanders near aft a period of assemblage endeavor and disease.
By the mid-nineteenth period the Hawaiian throne, and the British, were some losing powerfulness arsenic the increasing cartel of US plantation bosses aggressively sought sway. Under the feudalist system, onshore was owned by the Hawaiian monarch and controlled by a hierarchy of chiefs, but earlier agelong two-thirds of the archipelago had been “bought” by foreigners, mostly US sweetener companies. A recently convened Board of Health, which worked acold from the traditions of the medicine chiefs of indigenous Hawaiian society, tackled imported epidemics of smallpox, influenza and cholera; but nether unit from the caller concern interests, the contented of ma‘i pake became its astir pressing concern. William Hillebrand, German-born and, similar six retired of 7 of the Board of Health officers, white, warned that the illness was “threatening to go much general.”
A fewer months into 1864, the appraisal grew graver, with the English-language Pacific Commercial Advertiser thundering, “It appears that this unspeakable illness has commenced its dilatory [but] definite progress,” upbraiding the authorities for its deficiency of action. “One twelvemonth agone determination was but 1 lawsuit of Mai Pake successful this territory and that mediocre autochthonal is present successful a authorities shocking to humanity, inactive nary measures person been taken for his removal from amongst the people, but connected the contrary, hundreds of natives person been compelled to spell oregon nonstop to the precise location helium lives successful to wage their taxes!”
It was a overmuch remarked-upon puzzle for the achromatic colonisation of Hawaii that the archetypal inhabitants of the islands seemed to person small fearfulness of the illness and suffered nary of the reflexive disgust towards patients that the Westerners had internalized. In a diary introduction of May 22, 1823, Charles Samuel Stewart, traveling with a radical of aboriginal English Protestant missionaries, described however helium encountered a radical of Hawaiians “seated connected the ground, eating poe—surrounded by swarms of flies, and sharing their food, with dogs, pigs and ducks, who helped themselves freely, from the dishes of their masters! The tout ensemble was astir excessively disgusting to beryllium witnessed.” Even much distressing for Stewart was that radical suffering from what helium called the “most infective, and loathsome cutaneous disease” were sitting wrong this enactment “without reproach but successful the eyes of a foreigner.”
In disbelief, helium reports that helium again encountered “the itch” erstwhile shaking hands with a elder subordinate of the Hawaiian court. “Few look to respect it arsenic an evil, oregon instrumentality immoderate measurement to divest themselves of [this] curse of a God of purity.” It became a chorus telephone implicit the ensuing decades: a Californian doc claimed Hawaiians “sleep with lepers without immoderate suspicion of results”; an American naval medic complained that the Polynesians displayed nary of the “wholesome horror” of the illness that different ethnicities did. Worse still, a British doc justified his experimentation connected a steadfast inmate from Honolulu’s prison, inoculating him with leprosy successful speech for the man’s freedom, due to the fact that the “Hawaiians presumption with ignorant contempt the fears of the foreigners.”
It was wide believed, too, that leprosy prevention laws were a utile limb the settler industrialists could wield against immoderate Polynesian locals who baulked astatine colonization.
At the aforesaid clip arsenic Hansen’s segregation policies were coming into unit successful Norway, successful Hawaii, successful 1865, American lobbying resulted successful a royal charter, signed by the mostly compliant monarchy of King Kalākaua, establishing 2 sites for the segregation of “any idiosyncratic alleged to beryllium a leper.” These were a infirmary adjacent Honolulu that would measure suspected cases, and a colony, Kalawao, connected the bluish broadside of Molokai Island successful which patients with confirmed leprosy would beryllium marooned. The wellness authorities complained that galore relatives of the patients attempted to structure their loved ones from some doctors and the constabulary who did their bidding, condemning themselves, they thought—like Verdi’s Aida hiding successful her beloved Radamès’ tomb—to a definite decease retired of sentimentality.
The Hawaiians viewed the caller rules arsenic tyrannical; those with the illness were wont to fell successful the hills of the islands, everlastingly connected the run. In the opera, the lovers dice declaiming the “valley of tears” successful which they are imprisoned; the Hawaiian authorities failed to admit the akin trauma enforced connected the patients. Lifted retired of context, Edward Said’s damning verdict connected Aida could beryllium applied to the leprosy colony’s relation successful Hawaiian society: “an imperial spectacle designed to alienate and impressment an astir exclusively European audience.”
On Kalākaua’s decease successful 1891, his sister and successor, Liliuokalani, attempted to reconstruct a grade of indigenous sovereignty, her efforts answered by a US-backed coup d’état successful 1893. Championed by the steadfast of the Advertiser, a paper that carried the regular terms per ton of sweetener connected its masthead alongside a upwind summary, afloat annexation of the kingdom followed wrong 5 years (and successful 1958 Hawaii became the fiftieth US state). It was wide believed, too, that leprosy prevention laws were a utile limb the settler industrialists could wield against immoderate Polynesian locals who baulked astatine colonization.
Chris O’Day was an American doc who had been doc to Liliuokalani. He claimed that dozens were spuriously diagnosed with the illness aft they refused to merchantability up to the sweetener farmers. Once they were shipped disconnected to the leprosy colony, the businessmen would prehend the land; stuck crossed the h2o arsenic a diligent connected Molokai, the section idiosyncratic had nary entree to ineligible remedy. “The past king of Hawaii stood with the sweetener interests,” O’Day said during a bid of condemnatory speeches. “Once the unfortunate was landed connected Molokai the satellite closed its doors against him, and much efficaciously than successful the tomb was helium swallowed up.” The Advertiser called the claims “spiteful perversions”—but his accusations chime with different Pacific Island narratives. There is simply a persistent content among the indigenous islanders of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that Chilean colonialists injected them with leprosy successful a genocidal act, paving the mode for expropriation of the onshore by concern and subject directed from Santiago.
Though determination is nary nonstop grounds to beryllium the veracity of either claim, O’Day’s speeches caused waves successful Hawaii and beyond. The lawsuit was taken up by Appeal to Reason, America’s biggest socialist paper astatine the time, successful which a analogous decried that “the tone of greed has stifled the achromatic man’s conscience….Of each the damnable outrages ever inspired by greed for profits, I deliberation this 1 stands wide and chiseled arsenic the astir conscienceless.” O’Day was yet granted entree to Kalawao itself and recovered galore perfectly steadfast individuals stuck there, seemingly proving his theory. Under pressure, the authorities agreed to demands from astir 2 100 Molokai residents that they beryllium re-examined, with galore consequently released. They were returned to their location towns and villages but found, Appeal to Reason reported, “modern commercialism had gripped their islands. They were lost. Their lands were gone. Their families had disappeared.”
Dwight Baldwin, a US aesculapian missionary, was among those who championed institutionalization: “We person a foul and unsafe illness among us,” Baldwin wrote. “The autochthonal colonisation are not excessively overmuch alarmed. In this portion the steadfast are often seen mingling with the leprous, which happening ought not truthful to be.” His son, Henry, went connected to bankroll dormitories connected Molokai, utilizing a luck founded connected sweetener cane. Today, the institution Henry established, the New York Stock Exchange-listed Alexander & Baldwin Inc., is 1 of the largest landowners successful Hawaii.
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From Outcast A History of Leprosy, Humanity, and the Modern World by Oliver Basciano. Copyright © 2026. Available from Graywolf Press.
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