Making matters worse, the Molokans were used to the cool, arid mountains of the Caucasus, not the hot, humid slopes of Hawaii. Archival records show they also resented the strict labor discipline the sugar cane plantation managers required and refused to work more than 10 hours a day, earning derision from the locals, who were accustomed to 12-to-14-hour days. And they tried to plan for their eventual takeover of the lease, proposing to the manager that each family work a separate section of cane.

Having hoped for a peaceful and prosperous settlement, the Molokans faced open resentment by other plantation workers, who likely feared being displaced as more Molokans arrived, and constant complaints from managers about the quality of their work.

Most of them left Kauai, and even Hawaii altogether, by early July 1906 – less than six months after their much-heralded arrival. The failed experiment laid bare the flawed concept of Americanizing the islands by increasing the white population. While other labor migrants, such as Portuguese, earned a better reputation with the planters and remained in numbers sufficient to establish a significant cultural presence in the islands, the demographic makeup of the islands would change little in the coming decades.

The plantations went back to relying on the labor of people already in Hawaii, as well as people arriving from the Philippines, which had recently become a U.S. colony.

But for a brief moment, thanks to widely shared notions of white supremacy and colonization as a positive force, even people as different as the Russian Molokans could be likened to the Pilgrim fathers of American settler myth: people who simply by virtue of their looks and background symbolized civilization, progress and a powerful connection with an imagined past.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Stepan Serdiukov, Indiana University. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Stepan Serdiukov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.