Ideas about the superiority of the white race in J. London’s “Koolau the Leper” “Koolau the Leper” is set in the 1890s and tells the story of a Hawaiian leper colony on Kauaʻi that bravely fought for its freedom of life lead by the courageous Kaluaikoolau known as “Ko'olau”. It is based on a true story about the Leper war on Kaua’i or to be more exact the version told by Bert Stolz. Through the individual story of these people Jack London paints a picture of the larger happenings of that time – the colonization and usurpation of Native American’s lands by the white race - expressing ideas that in some ways confirm its superiority and deny it in others. The first argument that speaks for the superiority of the white race is the enslavement of the Hawaiians and other races, like the Chinese, and the tricks used to accomplish it. Koolau’s opening monologue gives us a clear picture of the situation in the Hawaiian Islands. In his eyes, and the eyes of his people, the white people are all tricksters, liars. The trust shown to them by the Natives was broken and torn apart in the moment when they took their land, their freedom of choice and also of life, imprisoning them in Molokai after they get sick. “Brothers, is it not strange? Ours was the land and behold, the land is not ours. What did these preachers of the word of God and the word of Rum give us for the land? Have you received one dollar, as much as one dollar, any of you, for the land? Yet it is theirs, and in return they tell us we can go to work on the land, their land, and that what we produce by our toil shall be theirs. Yet in the old days we did not have to work. Also, when we are sick, they take away our freedom.” Second, the fight described in this short story is not a fair one by any means. The white have men and fire power that greatly outnumbers any rebel colony, in this case the lepers’ colony. Bombs, guns and the skilful men wielding them express most strongly a superiority which no race can truly fight against. It is an unjust one, a supeririority of force, that should be used wisely, but as is show in history – and this story confirms it – it is not. “He first invents a subaltern voice to critique the violence of U.S. Empire in the Pacific. London portrays Koolau as ruler of the fugitives in Kalalau, his oratory providing the perspective of a native informant critiquing white colonial violence,” says Neel Ahuja. The final argument, to me at least, is one with a double connotation. It pertains to the superiority of spirit shown through Koolau, which attests the Hawaiian strength of spirit. “In London’s text, the character Koolau is a figure of masculine resistance to U.S. Empire, refusing both stigmatization and the larger structure of colonial power that London associates with the emergence of leprosy in Hawaii,“ writes Neel Ahuja. But as much as Koolau, with his great courage and noble fight, shows this strength, a lot of his fellow comrades, his followers, deny it with their easy surrender, succumbing to the strength of the white. Their weakness is also accented by the betrayal of their leader in the deciding moments of the battle. Jack London paints a very realistic picture of the Leper war on Kaua’I, manging to express through it much larger sentiments and ideas on the supeririority of the white race. Using Koolau and his speeches, the useless fight of the lepers against the soldiers he proves that the white are indeed superior, although it is not a just superiority. One the other hand I think that what London was also trying to express here is that no matter how many give up there will always be someone to carry on the true spirit of his race, country and people. For Koolau shows that is I better to die free, than live forever a slave.

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[ 1 ]. The Imperialist Imaginary: Visions of Asia and the Pacific in American culture by John R. Eperjesi
[ 2 ]. Koolau the Leper – Jack London
[ 3 ]. The Contradictions of Colonial Dependency: Jack London, Leprosy and Hawaiian Annexation by Neel Ahuja
[ 4 ]. The Contradictions of Colonial Dependency: Jack London, Leprosy and Hawaiian Annexation by Neel Ahuja