When Was Molokai a Leper Colony?

The remote Kalaupapa peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokai housed a settlement for Leprosy patients from 1866 to 1969. When it was closed, many residents chose to remain. Over the years, more than 8,000 leprosy patients lived on the settlement.

Is there still a leper colony on Molokai?

A tiny number of Hansen's disease patients still remain at Kalaupapa, a leprosarium established in 1866 on a remote, but breathtakingly beautiful spit of land on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Thousands lived and died there in the intervening years, including a later-canonized saint.

When did leprosy come to Hawaii?

Europeans began recording leprosy in Hawaii early in the nineteenth century. The parliament introduced a bill to prohibit its spread on January 3, 1865. The legislation requiring life-time involuntary isolation continued until 1969.