By James C. Mohr
A bit over a century in the past, bubonic plague--the comparable Black dying that decimated medieval Europe--arrived at the shorelines of Hawaii simply because the islands have been approximately to turn into a U.S. territory. during this soaking up narrative, James Mohr tells the tale of that apprehensive visitation and its fiery climax--a titanic conflagration that engulfed Honolulu's Chinatown. Mohr tells this gripping story mostly in the course of the eyes of the folk stuck up within the catastrophe, from individuals of the white elite to chinese language medical professionals, eastern businessmen, and Hawaiian newshounds. on the center of the narrative are 3 American physicians--the Honolulu Board of Health--who grew to become digital dictators whilst the govt granted them absolute keep watch over over the military and the treasury. The medical professionals quickly quarantined Chinatown, the place the plague was once killing one or humans an afternoon and obviously spreading. They resisted excessive strain from the white group to burn down all of Chinatown immediately and in its place ordered a cautious, managed burning of constructions the place plague sufferers had died. yet a freak wind whipped a kind of small fires right into a roaring inferno that destroyed every little thing in its course, eating approximately thirty-eight acres of densely packed wood buildings in one afternoon. a few 5000 humans misplaced their houses and all their possessions and have been marched in surprise to detention camps, the place they have been limited below armed safeguard for weeks. subsequent to the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Chinatown hearth is the worst civic catastrophe in Hawaiian historical past. A dramatic account of individuals suffering within the face of mounting disaster, Plague and fireplace is a stimulating and thought-provoking learn.
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Extra resources for Plague and Fire: Battling Black Death and the 1900 Burning of Honolulu's Chinatown
Example text
They hoped to find such a place in Hawaii, where their friend Sun had gone to school, even though the new government there had recently forbidden incoming Chinese to remain in the islands more than one year. Li and Kong graduated from Canton Medical School on the morning of June 3, 1896, and were married in a Lutheran chapel that same afternoon. The following day they boarded the Garrick, a steamer carrying Chinese merchandise and Asian foodstuffs to Hawaii. Delayed more than a week by unusually heavy storms at sea, the Garrick arrived exactly one month later.
In January 1893, Liliuokalani publicly suspended the constitution of 1887 and dramatically announced from the balcony of the Iolani Palace her intention to establish a constitution of her own. Her plan of government would restore indigenous control over the islands and reestablish autocratic royal rule. The Annexation Club, now somewhat augmented in numbers and calling itself the Committee of Safety, took the queen’s bold I 19 i Plague and Fire maneuvers as a pretext for launching the four-step plan they had been discussing.
They did not want a possibly unfounded threat of plague in 1899 to trigger another round of intervention in their lives similar to what they had experienced in 1895. Also living and practicing inside Chinatown, however, were Chinese physicians who took a strikingly different approach from that of the traditional healers and most of the other residents. At the head of the dissenting faction were Dr. Li Khai Fai and Dr. [Li] Kong Tai Heong, who were married but maintained separate practices. Li Khai Fai had been born into a prominent and scholarly family in a region of south China wracked by political, social, and economic disruption.