Russians in Hawaii | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i in 1835. It was to change the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of mono-cropping that lasted for well over a century.

Hawaiʻi had the basic natural resources needed to grow sugar: land, sun and water. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885 and Filipinos 1905; several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

Then, in May 1909 on Oʻahu, 5,000 Japanese plantation workers went out on strike.

The serious problems involved in the plantation labor situation continued to occupy the center of attention of those interested in the welfare of the sugar industry in Hawaiʻi. (American Sugar Industry and Beet Sugar Gazette, February 24, 1911)

An opportunity soon presented itself in the person of a Russian national, AV Perelestrous, who came to Honolulu for medical treatment and rest on Waikiki and saw a good opening for business.

He introduced himself to the secretary of the Territory of Hawaiʻi and the Territorial board of immigration as a major railway contractor in Manchuria and offered his services in delivering Russian workers to local sugar cane plantations. (Khisamutdinov)

“The efforts to obtain Russian immigration were in the final results rather disastrous both in the object sought and financially. … the board of immigration was given to understand that the Russian Government would not look with disfavor upon an attempt to recruit from that quarter.”

“(I)t was decided to introduce approximately 50-families as a trial lot, and Mr ALC (‘Jack’) Atkinson (US District Attorney) was chosen to proceed to Harbin, accompanied by Mr AW Perelestrous, who some time previous had represented himself … as a Russian contractor familiar with the conditions in Manchuria. Mr Atkinson departed August 30, 1909, accompanied by Mr Perelestrous”. (US House Committee on Immigration, 1921)

The recruiting took place in Harbin, Manchuria, on the Siberian border, the center of the Chinese Eastern Railroad, where Atkinson opened his office. That way it was easier to draw up exit papers: emigrants left through the port of Dalny, where there was no Russian customs post. (Khisamutdinov)

They returned to the Islands on October 22, 1909 “with 108 men, 67 women, and 79 children, a total of 255. These people were to all appearances, both physically and otherwise (so far as could be determined by the board,) the most desirable lot of immigrants ever introduced.” (US House Committee on Immigration, 1921)

“The Russians are a clean, sturdy, fine appearing lot of people, apparently with the willingness to work and certainly with the physical strength to do so. They are peasants, the older men and women uneducated. This was to have been expected. The children, however, are” bright, active and healthy, such as should grow up to be helpful citizens with the advantages they will have in this country.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 22, 1909)

“They accepted such employment as was offered them and so highly were they spoken of by their employers that, in November of the same year the board decided to introduce some three or four hundred additional families of the same class.” (US House Committee on Immigration, 1921)

“The liner Siberia, which arrived here yesterday from the orient, landed 212 Russian immigrants at Honolulu. There were men, women and children in the party. In Russia the men had been working long hours for a monthly wage of 5 rubles and were enchanted at the prospect of a free life on the sugar plantations. That they have no intention of returning”.

“At the request of some of the passengers, one of the ship’s officers requested the Russians to sing the Russian national hymn. The quartermaster who carried the message returned shaking his head. … (They effectively told him) ‘To hell with Russia; we are learning the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”

“After landing at Honolulu every Russian tore up his passport and threw the scraps into the Pacific ocean.” (San Francisco Call, October 29, 1910)

Later shipments weren’t as enthusiastic. “Diphtheria broke out in quarantine. Bottled up, bored, hearing stories of real plantation life, they balked. … Most new recruits refused to sign up for jobs … Saying they’d rather starve than work on plantations, the immigrants exited quarantine April 4th, many of them following the Spaniards to California.” (Elks)

Later shipments met with similar resistance; Russians refused to accept the working and living conditions. As soon as steamers with settlers began approaching the shore, shouts were heard: “Don’t go to the plantations! Better drown in the sea than go there and work!” (Khisamutdinov)

The total number of Russians introduced into the Territory amounted to 1,799, at a total cost of $139,021.59, exclusive of the quarantine expenses here of $17,735.79. Of the number introduced, only a little more than 60 per cent accepted plantation employment. (US House Committee on Immigration, 1921)

On March 21, 1910, Russian emigrants went on strike. The authorities suggested that they should elect representatives who would tour the plantations and familiarize themselves with working and living conditions there. But they refused to do so because they no longer believed any promises.

The magazine In Foreign Parts (Russians in America and Australia) wrote this about Hawaii: “At first our workers suffered numerous hardships on the Hawaiian Islands, but gradually they began to adapt.”

“Some emigrated to America, some found jobs in accordance with their skills, some bought farms of their own on time, while the majority for the time being accepted their fate and were working.” (Khisamutdinov) Complaints were spread about the misinformation given while recruiting in Russia.

On January 12, 1912, members of the Russian staff assisting in the emigration were arrested and sent to prison. This was the end of the Russian resettlement to Hawaiʻi. (Khisamutdinov)

The image shows a front page photo showing the arrival of Russian immigrants; it is labeled ‘Hawaiʻi’s New Citizens’ from the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. (October 22, 1909)

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Russian_Immigration-‘Hawaii’s New Citizens’-PCA-Oct_22,_1909

Russian Collection, Hamilton_Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Russian_Immigration_’Hawaii’s New Citizens’-PCA-Oct_22,_1909

Russian_Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa

russian-passport-application-album-uh_manoa

Russian Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Russian Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at_Manoa

Russian Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii_at Manoa

Russian Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii_at_Manoa

“Two hundred years ago in central Russia a group of farmers defied the Russian Orthodox Church by drinking milk whenever they pleased, even on holy days. Despised and persecuted, they were called Molokans – milk drinkers.” (Southeast Missourian, November 11, 1964)

“The Molokans have been compared to Protestants for rejecting the parent church’s orthodoxy, and also have been likened to Presbyterians for having lay ministers and a loose council of dominant elders.”

“In about 1905, thousands of Molokans left Russia to escape religious intolerance and the threat of the military draft, which violates their religious principles. Church prophets instructed the Molokans to migrate to ‘the promised land.’”

“But the prophecy was not clear on an exact location, so some members ended up settling in Baja California where they established a small community known as Valle de Guadalupe. Others migrated to Northern and Central California. The majority, however, settled in East Los Angeles.” (LA Times)

“Their only occupation is agriculture and horse, stock and sheep-raising in connection with it. They live in communities of different sizes, the villages comprising from forty to 500 families. The land is owned in common, and redivided at certain intervals according to changes of working forces in families.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 26, 1905)

James Bicknell Castle became interested in members of the Molokans, “and immediately began efforts to induce some of them to come to Hawaii, and to that end invited Captain Demens (formerly a Russian nobleman and liberal leader, who has been a resident and citizen of the United States for the past thirty years) to come and examine conditions here to see if he could recommend them to his fellow countrymen.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 26, 1905)

“Captain Demens came, was pleased with soil, climate and conditions and agreed to recommend his people to come to Hawaii, upon the condition however, that they could secure land at reasonable prices on which they could locate and make a living.”

“Negotiations were immediately opened with the government for land under the homestead settlement law, and with the Makee Sugar Company which holds a lease with eighteen months yet to expire, on the government land of Kapa‘a …”

“… with a view to secure a cancellation of the lease, the homesteading of the same by the proposed settlers and favorable terms for grinding cane raised by them.”

“The day when 600 god-fearing, moral, industrious, educated people, of western civilization, become established on their own land, and doing their own work, will be a red-letter day for Hawaii.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 26, 1905)

“The first detachment Molokan settlers for these Islands arrived yesterday afternoon the China from San Francisco. Exactly 110-men, women and children composed the party, representing about 30 families. They came in charge George Thellen representing James B Castle.” (Hawaiian Star, February 20, 1906)

“It will be remembered that agents for them visited Honolulu some months ago, to spy out the land. They were looking, they said, for some kind of ‘Land of Promise,’ which their religion taught them would be given them …”

“… where they would be free from governmental tyranny, where the soil and climate would be good, and where they could live their own lives in their own way, at peace with their neighbors and infringing no man’s rights. The agents of the Molokans expressed themselves, at that time, as highly pleased with the Territory.”

“The (Los Angeles) Times said that there would be sixteen thousand of these people to follow the first movement to Los Angeles, and commented very favorably upon the gain that their coming would be to the State.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 25, 1906)

“Hawaii has cut in ahead of Los Angeles and if the Molokan experiment here is a success, there is little doubt that these sixteen thousand people will find their future home in the Territory.”

Eventually the project failed … “The Kapaa section, once flourishing with green sugar cane, is now a barren looking place. It is government land and is being set apart for homesteaders and until it is fully settled it will be bleak and barren.”

“It is said that the Molokans were disagreeably surprised when first they entered the canefields to cut the juicy stalks. They failed to fasten the bottoms of their trousers legs, as advised, and soon they were hopping about with centipedes clinging to their calves, the Japanese laughing at the predicament of their field rivals.” (Hawaiian Gazette, September 10, 1909)

George H Fairchild, the Makee plantation manager, “gave up on the Russians, declaring them too individualistic to accept supervision and too unreliable as laborers.” (Alcantara)

The ‘Molokan Experiment’ ended about as fast as it started … “(it) seems now pretty well at an end, although twelve families still remain on Kauai.”

“Thirty-four of the colonists, of which such high hopes were entertained when they were brought here, arrived in Honolulu this morning definitely announcing their purpose to leave the islands. Perhaps the trouble was that too generous terms were offered them.” (Hawaiian Star, June 9, 1906)

Castle met the expense of shipping the Molokans back to California, but the cane lands that he caused to be planted by this colony afterward became the nucleus of the plantation operated by the Makee Sugar Co. (Nellist)

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