Charles Fourier.

Charles Francois Fourier was born in Besançon, France, in 1722. His teachings and writings inspired Victor Prosper Considerant to attempt the establishment of La Réunion, a French Colony in Texas.

Copyright 1958
by
William J. Hammond

Printed in the United States of America
by
Royal Publishing Company

“The Supreme law is liberty and reciprocal adaptation.” Considerant, The Great West, 40.

“We desire the free and spontaneous unison of human forces.” Considerant, The Great West, 47.

“Les principes de liberté, de justice, et d’unité” Considerant, Au Texas, 2 ed., 199.

PREFACE

In presenting this brief history of La Réunion, we realize that the story may appear too long for such a seemingly unimportant event in our state history, but to those who are doing research work, especially years hence, the details can not be too numerous. Even now great difficulties present themselves in tracing down the materials that are now in existence.

Extensive quotations have been used throughout the monograph, too extensive in fact, but the production of these documents in full rather than in part may be justified on the basis of making them available to students of Texas History. Additional material has been given in the appendix where it was deemed too long to include such materials in the story, and it is thus given as a mere narrative of facts of one of the great romantic attempts to settle Texas and the Southwest. We have avoided complicating the story by not discussing socialism per se, dealing with its connection with La Réunion only when necessary for an understanding of the activities of the colonists.

We wish to express our thanks to the librarians of the Public Library in Fort Worth, the Texas University Library, and Congressional Library for the loan of books, and especially to Mrs. Bertie Mothershead, former librarian at Texas Christian University for her co-operation and helpfulness.

The Authors

CONTENTS

Introduction 9

Chapter I Founders of the Colony 17

Chapter II Au Texas 35

Chapter III The Society 47

Chapter IV Attitude of Texans toward the Colony 63

Chapter V The Immigrants 85

Chapter VI La Réunion, the Colony 95

Chapter VII The Breakup 107

The Appendix 117

 A. Partial list of the Settlers 117

 B. Plan of the Phalanstery 126

 C. Acts Incorporating the Colony 127

 D. Letters of Introduction 130

References 133

Bibliography 147

INTRODUCTION
SOCIALISM CROSSES THE ATLANTIC

The last half of the eighteenth century was a period of awakening for the masses of western Europe; revolution thundered in Paris and reverberated throughout all Europe. Thrones tottered and fell; others rose to take their places. Republics were created by the revolutions overnight to live and thrive only during the predominance of the French Revolution, and then fade into the kingdoms from whence they had emerged. Peoples were led to believe that the day of Utopia had arrived and they turned upon their masters and oppressors to destroy them, and then, in return, were led to the battlefields and slaughtered for the whimsical desire for glory of the man who rode the waves of emotional fanaticism to power. Out of the mad chaos created by such desires and emotions a new system of economic hope was created. French dreamers and intellectuals had seen, in a short time of twenty-five years, the ultimate hopes of a nation rise to exalted heights in a sort of religious fanaticism and then plunge to depths of despair. A culture or civilization in which such a catastrophe as that could happen, so the philosophers thought, must be faulty beyond repair. Some of these philosophers surrendered to discouragement and pessimism while others sought to rebuild and reconstruct the crumbling ruins of the past. Claude-Henri Saint Simon, Louis Blanc, François Fourier, Pierre Proudhon, Karl Marx, Robert Owen, 10 Charles Kingsley, Saint Jean-Baptiste La Salle, Frederic Engels, and Johann Rodbertus were some of the most prominent socialists and thinkers who attempted to find a solution to the economic ills of Europe and to guarantee an equitable distribution of wealth to the masses of the people.[1]

This new system became known as socialism and was a middle class movement which developed out of the shattered eighteenth century era. Side by side with socialism developed communism, a doctrine developed out of the working class needs which, it was thought by some, neither socialism nor capitalism could satisfy. Socialism, as maintained by nineteenth century philosophers, stemmed not only from the old totalitarian doctrine of the Greek city-state but from the old concept of a universal pattern of cultural religion and economics of the medieval period. The philosophers were only substituting economics for medieval religion in the new social theory. The spirit of co-operative good, of theoretical equality and ultimate perfection of society are common to both Utopian socialism and religion. The socialists visualized a world of productivity sufficient to abolish poverty and furnish abundance to those who worked. The problem, as they understood it, was to prevent the concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of a few individuals by which those who possess wealth deprive the masses of equitable distribution of goods. This concentration could be prevented, so thought the socialist, if production and distribution could remain in control of the people who produced the materials. The socialist dreamed of an economy in which there would be a social development along with the economic but in which all inequality and special privilege would be eliminated from 11 both political and economic life. One writer has defined socialism as:

A socialized industry is one in which the material instruments of production are owned by a public authority or voluntary association and operated, not with a view to profit by sale to other people, but for the direct service of those whom the authority or association represents. A socialized system is one the main part of whose productive resources are engaged in socialized industries.[2]

Over against the socialist theory was the pragmatic theory of capitalism already operating in many parts of Europe and America. The same writer defines capitalism as:

A capitalist industry is one in which the material instruments of production are owned or hired by private persons and are operated at their orders with a view to selling at a profit the goods or services that they help to produce. A capitalist economy, or capitalist system, is one the main part of whose productive resources is engaged in capitalist industries.[3]

Out of the socialist movement there developed three different types: first, socialism as represented by the Utopian idealism which is apparently impractical but which doesn’t encourage hostility between classes, groups or individuals; second, Marxian socialism which theoretically conceives of a classless society and which recognizes a ceaseless war between the so-called privileged and the underprivileged; and third, liberal socialism which involves the gradual socialization of all means of production and distribution by permitting it to remain definitely in the hands of the producer and consumer through governmental agencies or co-operating groups.[4] This latter type of socialism is the kind that many governments 12 of the world are adopting today by the procedure of the established political parties in those states acquiring what appears to them as the practical socialist doctrines as new platforms and policies. These conceptions of socialism are tenets of early socialism and not of the many varieties operating under the name at the present time.

It is Utopian socialism rather than Marxian which developed into a strong movement in Europe during the nineteenth century but failed to materialize as a successful movement. This failure to gain immediate success was accepted by the leaders of socialism as a weakness of society instead of lack of merit in socialism, and the failure was explained as due to the inherent conditions of a traditionally bound European culture. Therefore, success, so the leaders thought, required only the transfer of their efforts to new lands where traditions had not yet been so thoroughly established. America was one of these new lands where Utopias could be built in the vast spaces beyond the frontiers. And so these dreamers turned their eyes toward the United States as a place where doctrines could be established and success could be achieved. However, neither here nor in Europe has the Utopian dream approached realization.

Robert Owen was one of the Utopian socialists who crossed the Atlantic to the United States seeking to escape the inheritance of European culture so that he could develop his socialism in a new world. Owen was the son of a saddler, well-educated, religious, and thoroughly trained in business. He organized New Harmony in the United States, an undertaking which cost him three to five years of his life and four-fifths of his fortune. Another settlement similar to New Harmony, located 13 near Glasgow, Scotland, was attempted by him but also failed. Perhaps due to his eminent success in business in the British Isles, Owen was received by American leaders with more public acclaim than any other socialist. However, due to rash unorthodox religious statements and his temporary denouncement of marriage, he soon became unpopular in the United States as well as in the British Isles.

Owen was absolutely opposed to violence of any kind and was extremely favorable to recognition of the value of capital. He withdrew from the labor movement after the leaders had violated his doctrine expressed in his Address to the Workman, namely, that all workers must renounce hatred and violence directed against the capitalist or ruling class.[5]

While Owen failed to establish a Utopia in Europe or America, he did have great influence as stated by one writer:

And yet, despite his errors in judgment and the failure of many of his plans, the great-hearted and lovable cotton manufacturer and communist did exert a profound influence on the social thinking of the world. His indictment of the present order of society for its waste, its injustices, its tragedy of unemployment; his emphasis on social happiness as the ideal of human progress; his insistence that character was profoundly influenced by social environment; his urgent plea that all co-operate for the common welfare in the production and distribution of wealth, all these left their imprint on future generations. And his life of untiring devotion and sacrifice proved one of the great sources of inspiration to those who followed later in the socialist, co-operative, and trade union movements, as well as those who worked in behalf of child training, of labor legislation, of prison reform, and of similar causes.[6]

Another class of socialists found in the United States who came from across the Atlantic consisted of various religious groups. New Harmony itself had been originally created and founded by the Rappists and later purchased by Owen.

Fourier was to France what Owen was to England. There is a great difference between the position of men like Owen and Fourier and the one assumed by those who accepted Karl Marx, whose doctrines are best represented by Wilhelm Weitling. The communism of the first group was merely the communal possession of goods produced by communal effort with no thought of class conflict or the confiscation of goods produced by other means. This group sought to deny hostility and hatred between classes saying that the wealthy had the same desire to create a perfect society as did those who labored for a living. Marx held to the view that constant conflict between classes was fundamental.

Frederick Engels in evaluating the Utopian socialist wrote:

To all these Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason, and justice, and has only to be discerned to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power.[7]

Marxian socialism, on the other hand, is in direct contrast to the Utopian. He says:

From this time forward Socialism was no longer an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.[8]

Thus, it came about that the United States was fortunate in receiving whatever socialistic contributions 15 it has received from the English and French Utopian socialism of reason rather than from the ruthless Marxian socialism of conflict which never has had any great influence in the United States.[9] All the colonies established by the followers of Fourier and Owen have disappeared. La Réunion, a French colony in Texas, furnishes a splendid opportunity to analyze the reasons for these failures.

Bust of Victor Considerant erected in his native village of Salins, France. From Maurice Commanget, Victor Considerant, sa Vie, son Oeuvre, 1929, Paris France.

CHAPTER I
FOUNDERS OF THE COLONY

La Réunion, a French settlement in Texas, was the result of the efforts and teachings of three men: Albert Brisbane, Charles François Fourier, and Victor Prosper Considerant. These men were all middle-class and all were Utopian socialists. Both Brisbane and Considerant visited the colony but Fourier’s contribution was confined to the promulgation of the ideas and theories which formed a basis of the colony.

Owenism in England and Fourierism in France grew out of the distaste of businessmen for business as it was conducted during the transition period between the dominance of the Mercantile System and the achievement of control of society by the new capitalistic groups. Both Owen and Fourier deserted what promised to be a fruitful and very successful business life in order to project their fantasia of reform. The origin of these doctrines of Utopian socialism in such an environment perhaps explains the non-violent principles insisted upon by both Owen and Fourier.

Fourierism may be better understood when it is realized that Lyon, the home of Fourier, was the most highly industrialized city in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There was constant strife between the owners and guild workers, oftentimes developing into open warfare. Poverty and fear of insecurity were general. Thus Fourier was able to observe and to compare 18 capitalism with the co-operative nature of peasant efforts in the rich agricultural area surrounding the city.[1]

François Fourier was born in Besançon, France, in 1772, and while yet a child he mastered Latin and Greek, as was the custom in the educational system of those days. His father was a middle-class merchant who was frugal, if not too honest, and who was able to gather a small fortune of two hundred thousand francs of which François inherited one-half at his father’s death. In 1793 he lost his inheritance in an insurrection of the village against the French Convention then in power in France. In the same year he was forced into the army by a decree of the National Assembly, which provided that every man between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five should be conscripted for service. In 1797 he quit the army and returned to Lyon to enter business as a clerk. While making a living clerking in the store, he amused himself by writing. He published an article in a magazine in Lyon in 1803, another article in 1804; finally in 1808 his first important work, Theory of the Four Movements and the General Destinies, came from the press.

This work was met by indifference and disdain everywhere; even Fourier’s mother tried to persuade him to discontinue his work and make amends for that already published. However, he persisted. During the winter of 1815 and 1816 he left Lyon and retired to Talissier, where he prepared his second great work, Le traité de L’association domestique agricole ou attraction industrielle. It was after the production of these works that Just Muiron, one of his most faithful disciples, came to him. During these years and immediately thereafter, Fourier thought out and planned an elaborate system of 19 socialism, or economic policy, which the world today has rejected as a fantastic Utopia incapable of realization.[2]

Fourier’s idea was one of mass production and systematic co-operation which was to be accomplished by minute organization, the unit of which was to be a phalange or phalanx. People were to be impelled into this system, rather than compelled, as is the method of many Utopian schemes. No force or compulsion was to be used. The whole process of evolving such a society was to be so natural and logical that people would accept the scheme without any persuasion. Happiness and prosperity would be obtained by a minute co-ordination of the various duties of the members of the phalanx, and that without any community of property. The phalanx would, in order to be successful, contain approximately two thousand members, all living in the same huge buildings known as phalansteries, which would contain the workshops as well as living quarters. This settlement was to be surrounded with a few leagues of land which the members worked when desire prompted them to do so.[3]

Under Fourier’s plan, however, work was to be nothing more than organized sport, and thus by competitive effort all necessary work was to be pleasantly done. Each community was to be self-sustaining and each member was to draw from a common storehouse all the necessities of life, provided, of course, that he had agreed to the unity of goods and property. Food and clothing were not to be held in equal share, but to be distributed according to the merits of each member of the phalansteries.

Each person was to gain initiative by the emotional 20 passions which mutual attraction naturally developed. Misery, poverty, and unhappiness, according to Fourier, came from suppression of natural desires and passions. All that was required for perfect harmony in social life was the harmonious development and satisfaction of natural desires. People were misled only because civilization, by its unnatural laws of suppression, prevented men and women from full acquisition and use of their natural talents. Each person and each phalanx was to be brought into competition with others in the arts of commerce, labor, learning, and various activities of life. Then, too, desire for company, for association and union would be fulfilled by the bringing together of several hundred men and women into one phalanx or more. Whenever one form of labor or association became monotonous for the individual, he could easily transfer to another type of work and a new group of associates. Women were to be relieved of the monotony and drudgery of housework and the rearing of children. These duties, which had previously been forced upon the women, would be abolished by the switching from one type of labor to another, and by the organizing of children into special phalanges of their own.

Fourier was neither a clear thinker nor a logical writer.[4] In fact, all his writings are disorderly and his system has no logical outline nor organization. He was never able to impart to his disciples an impulse of victory and desire such as great men are frequently able to do.[5] However, what Fourier lacked, his most prominent follower, Victor Prosper Considerant, possessed.

Considerant was born in Salins, France, in 1808 at the foot of the Jura mountains, of a family belonging to the bourgeoisie. His father was a distinguished humanist, translator of English treatises, librarian for the city, and headmaster of a small school. The family was poor and the parents often had boarders in order to make financial ends meet. Considerant finished school at Salins and then entered the Lycée de Besançon in order to prepare himself for L’Ecole Polytechnique. While attending school in Besançon he met Just Muiron in the home of Mme. Vigoureaux who, with several others, was giving considerable time to the study of the works of Fourier. Mme. Vigoureaux had lived in Salins and had sent her son to Considerant’s father for instruction; it was thus natural for Considerant to spend a portion of his time in her home. Besides the boy, she had two daughters, one of whom later became the wife of Considerant and accompanied him to Texas.

In 1826, at the age of eighteen, Considerant entered L’Ecole Polytechnique and was in due time graduated, whereupon he immediately entered the army and soon attained the rank of captain. After a short service with the army, he felt that he should give all of his time to the spreading of the teachings of Fourier and, finally, after some hesitation, resigned his commission in the army. Marshall Soult, to whom he applied for release, told him that his resignation would not be accepted for the army needed officers of his type, but that he would be granted indefinite leave of absence, and that he might return to the army at any time with the same rank as he then held.[6]

Considerant also attended school in Metz and from there he went to Paris, where he set about his work. 22 In June, 1832, the first number of the Phalanstére, organ of the Fourierists, appeared. The principal contributors to the paper were Considerant, Baudet-Dulary, Jules Lechevalier, Just Muiron, Amédee Paget, Pellarin, Renaud, Clarisse Vigoureaux, and Fourier. The followers of Fourier rejected the name Fourierists and accepted as an official title phalanstériens and the constituent parts were to be known as phalanstére or phalange. The paper soon brought discord, or rather the discord was inherent in the publication. Fourier thought that the whole movement should be advertised or established by an actual experiment, while the disciples thought that conferences, pamphlets, political actions, public speeches, and other means should be used to get the plan before the people. Then, too, besides Fourier, others led a mild revolt from the group which Considerant apparently controlled.

Fourier had an opportunity to see his scheme tested and his idea of propagation carried out when in 1833 Baudet-Dulary, deputy from the Seine-et-Oise, purchased five hundred hectares of land near the forest of Rambouillet and founded a society with a capital of 1,200,000 francs for the purpose of trying out the phalange idea. The subscription did not reach five hundred thousand francs and failure came quickly. The members could not agree, a sad situation which was repeated later at La Réunion, and the company broke up greatly in debt. The disappointment was great to Fourier; “he grew old quickly, his health declined, a bitter disquietude seized him,” and he died at the home of Mme. Vigoureaux, October, 1837. His death freed Considerant from certain restraint which the master had held over him, and permitted Considerant to develop 23 the phalange idea along the line which he thought best to follow.[7]

Great activity of the school now became imperative. The Phalanstére was succeeded in 1835 by the Réforme Industrielle, and in the following year the Phalange made its appearance. On July 30, 1843, the journal announced further changes, and on August 1, there appeared the first number of the Démocratie Pacifique, journal des intérets des gouvernements et des peuples. At first the paper appeared three times weekly, later becoming a daily. This advance and transformation of the journal was made possible by a gift of four hundred thousand francs to the society by Arthur Young, an Englishman. Young, who travelled much in France, had been converted to Fourierism and made this contribution to advancement of the doctrine. The Démocratie Pacifique, in a sense, continued the great work of the St. Simonians, although the Fourierists abstained from all theorizing on the subject of religion or on minor changes in social institutions. The great objective was the organization of the collective life of man strictly on a scientific basis. In 1840 the school founded a society for the propagation of the theories held by Fourier; the capital amounted to seven hundred thousand francs. With the aid of this money, Considerant gathered all the manuscripts which Fourier had left and, combining them into one complete series, published and sold them. Various other materials were sent out over Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Belgium, and the United States, so that in 1847 in all these countries and in thirty-four cities in France, great banquets were held in celebration of the memory of Fourier.[8]

This was undoubtedly the high tide of Fourierism; in 24 France, and everywhere the propaganda had been spread, people received and held on to it like fanatics. Fourier’s works went through several editions, his bust was sculptured and sold throughout the world; Considerant’s writings were in demand everywhere. Even the government of France feared the Démocratie Pacifique and sought to stem the tide of its influence.[9]

At the time of the publication of the first issue of the Démocratie Pacifique, the disciples of Fourier, thanks to the incessant propaganda of Considerant and his friends, already had a large number of converts, not only in Paris and other cities in France but in other parts of the world.[10] The paper, being most of the time published in secret, was housed in various places, having to be moved frequently with only a moment’s notice. However, the audacity and earnestness of Considerant and his group of young intellectuals kept it alive. Their enthusiasm is well illustrated by an incident told by Brisbane:

Those were happy days—days of faith and enthusiasm, when material obstacles were but straws to be blown to the winds before the vehemence of youth under the inspiration of a grand idea! I remember Considerant rushing into the office one day—a red fez cap, which I had given him to wear to a masked ball a few days before, on his head,—and throwing down upon the sofa a bag of money; “There,” he exclaimed, “is enough to go on with sometime yet! In twenty years we shall be in Constantinople.” Fourier’s idea was that Constantinople would ultimately become the capital of the globe.[11]

Nevertheless, such inspiration and hope could not continue under a despotic government such as ruled 25 France. In 1848, a revolution having dethroned Louis Philippe and established, for the time being, a socialistic republic, Considerant was elected to the National Assembly. Three years later, after Napoleon had been elected president, Considerant, on account of his energetic protest against the French armies’ destruction of the Roman republic and because of his known connection with the Démocratie Pacifique, was condemned to be transported to some French island, but he was successful in escaping in disguise to Belgium where he continued to dwell until he came to the United States.[12]

The incident of the escape is vividly told by Brisbane, who says:

A great many caricatures of Napoleon had been posted up in the editorial rooms of the Democratie Pacifique and these were speedily torn down: I could see that the editors felt that the reign of despotism had come; no one could tell how long he himself would be safe, and every preparation was made to meet an attack on the office. Fourier’s manuscripts and other valuables were removed to a place of safety just in time. The attack came, and Considerant made his escape by disguising himself as a fisherman. Having shaved his long peculiarly-shaped mustache he was unrecognizable, even by his intimate friends, and he thus spent several days fishing under the bridges of the Seine. At length passports were obtained and he made his way to Belgium.[13]

Considerant’s relation to the whole Fourieristic movement is splendidly summed up in an article in the Allgemeine Zeitung, which states:

The overthrow of the St. Simonian School at Paris was the point, as is well known, from which the prevalence of Fourierism commenced. With the failure of its external success, the whole of the St. Simonian School 26 came to an end, both what was true in it and what was false. The person, who was the first, and that after a period of nearly twenty years, to take a lively interest in the ideas of Charles Fourier, was Just Muiron, who in the year 1814 attempted to apply them to the “Communal Comptoir.” He was sincere and devoted, but did not possess the qualities to promulgate and defend the new system of society. It could not succeed, unless a man was found, combining profound convictions with ardent zeal, and the gift of eloquence, demanded by new ideas in order to secure the attention of the public to the question proposed. Such a man was Victor Considerant. His education in Polytechnic school had accustomed him not merely to follow a rigid calculation but to appropriate its results as actual truths; the demonstration in figures for Fourier’s statements of the subversion of the present social institutions as regards the total production was not to be set aside.

It was then but a single step to the idea of an Agricultural Association leading to the practical side of Fourier’s theory. Considerant was convinced: he formed personal relations with Fourier himself; ideas were exchanged; and the chief points of the school, then in its infancy, were established. After Jules Lechevalier (now in exile in London) and Abel Transon were brought into the School, the former lecturing upon its principles in Paris and the other promulgating them by his pen, Considerant repaired to Metz, where he delivered a course on the theory of Fourier, and subsequently became one of the most active contributors to the Phalanstère or Réforme Industrielle, which appeared at the beginning of 1832.

After the failure of a practical experiment at the time of which Reybaud said “There was silence concerning Charles Fourier,” the chief of the later Associative School, took his stand with fresh energy at the head of affairs, collected the scattered remains, and opened a new epoch for the doctrine. Victor Considerant returned to Paris. Young, bold, a fervent and 27 impulsive speaker, he could not persuade himself that the cause which he had embraced and professed as the faith of his whole life was doomed to go down so soon, and with so little effect. He went to work and wrote the book, from which the revival of the Social School is dated, the Destinée Sociale, Exposition Elementaire Complete de la Théorie Societaire. In this, he first of all takes hold of the present condition of Society, showing that the perversion of its institutions was the cause of all misery, and that there was no hope of solving the present problem but in a total transformation of Society. This work contains Fourier’s theory in a comprehensive shape, but surrounded and in fact penetrated by an acute and powerful criticism of the whole social industrial and political condition of France. Considerant thus started the Social School anew, and from him dates the progressive importance of Fourierism.

On the 11th of Dec., 1835, he delivered before the “Congress Historique” his celebrated lecture on the “True position of Fourierism in respect to the Religious and Philosophical Convictions of the Time” which he afterwards sent forth from the press, and which, at that time, caused so much sensation. The Gazette de France and the Univers attacked it with extreme violence. The discussion was pervaded by the spirit of progress, without being absolutely tied down to the dogmas of Fourier’s School. This direction has (been) always maintained by Considerant, and it is this which (has) gained an always increasing number of adherents from among the best youthful intellects to the higher and more abstract portions of social science. Entering upon this field, it contains a germ, which, though still at a distance from its true development, is alone able to secure its future.

Not less important is the second side, which the Social School presents in relation to the times. By the Revolution of July, not merely the political conditions, but also the political consciousness of the French people was thrown into confusion on all sides. Each man followed 28 only himself, claiming the liberty to enforce his convictions by every variety of method. Thus arose the secret unions of Republicans and Communists, amidst the public relations of the ever-changing struggle of parties, which were soon turned into factions, vying with each other for possession of power. Nowhere was peace, nowhere security—the most important interests neglected for questions of party—The welfare of the country was notoriously turned into a game. Disturbances arose at several points, as at Paris, Lyons, Muhlhausen. Then the public sentiment gradually began to react against these merely political movements and to become weary of them. People no longer wanted Revolution, and addressed themselves to other problems. The idea of material welfare emerged from the back ground, presenting its claims in opposition to political movements. But those who took up this direction were in want of an organ, possessing an independent life, and a representative of material necessities among the new parties demanding a Republic, Legitimacy, a Constitution and the Press. For such a position no one was better fitted than the Social School which has always acknowledged the principle that the improvement of the social condition was the true problem of the time without also perceiving the impossibility of such an improvement except in a free political State. Here also Considerant became a leading spokesman, taking his stand for the first time in decided opposition both to the Liberals and Conservatives, who displayed no other desire than to see an exclusive form of Government with a place in it for themselves. Considerant had found the points, which were sought by the general demand for criticism and system, and took possession of them in the name of Fourier. But we must here do justice to the elastic spirit of the school, which is by no means inclined to entrench itself under the dogmas of a master—it acknowledges the possibility of progress, the necessity of measuring with its principles the events of the day, and fairly uniting all in every field. Considerant was the first who gave this political direction to the 29 Social School, which enabled it on a sudden to take such a strong stand at the side of the social parties in 1848, not merely as a theoretical school but as a political power.

The career of Considerant from that time is too well known to those who have watched the social movements of the last three or four years, to need any comment in this place. It is sufficient to have maintained his early influence in respect to the social movements of the last ten years. His observations in the United States will still more forcibly show him the importance of combining political action with social aspirations, since the conviction will be forced upon him that there is no well-founded hope of a possible realization except in a democratic State.[14]

Albert Brisbane of New York was the third man who took a great deal of interest in the establishment of La Réunion. He was Considerant’s chief lieutenant in America, and was also a disciple of Fourier. Brisbane had studied the works of Hegel, St. Simon, and other great social leaders while in Germany and finally, by mere chance, came upon the writings of Fourier. He soon returned to Paris where he placed himself under the direct teachings of the master, to whom he paid five francs per lesson for personal instruction.[15] Here, at the same time, he also became acquainted with Considerant and was closely associated with him and his group. The part of the doctrine which appealed to Brisbane is explained in his own words as follows:

First his idea of attractive industry, bearing directly on the material interest of men. The idea that the productive labors of mankind—those of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, etc.—now so repulsive, so monotonous, so wearing to mind and body, and so degrading to those engaged in them, can be dignified and rendered 30 attractive certainly appears on the surface one of the most chimerical. Still, Fourier did not undertake to do this by any abstract, imaginative means, by persuasion or appeals to moral duties; his process is an entirely new and practical organization of those labors. It is by a minute division of their details; by convenient and labor-saving machinery; by healthy, even elegant workshops, where a certain refinement could be introduced, and scientific thought combined with the pursuit of industry; by short sessions of labor, and the prosecutions of all of its branches by groups of persons united in taste and in sympathy of character, thus bringing the play of the sentiments into industry, and identifying the social and productive life of man; lastly, by a clear appreciation on the part of humanity of the importance of these labors as regards their influence on the cultivation of the globe, and through that cultivation, on the whole economy of the planet, its climates, etc.[16]

After his return from Europe in 1839, Brisbane began propaganda for Fourierism, and by the latter part of that year had won several adherents, the most important of whom was Horace Greeley. Brisbane and Greeley started a paper in New York, called the Future, which lasted only a few weeks. When the paper suspended publication, Brisbane began a column in Greeley’s newly organized Tribune. Brisbane soon withdrew from this assignment and went to the Chronicle which he began to edit, and at the same time, wrote articles for other publications.[17]

The propaganda had great success; the repercussion, however, fell heavily upon Brisbane. Various interests, especially those who saw in socialism an enemy to established customs, began to attack him severely. In his memoirs, Brisbane writes concerning the public attitude toward him at this time as follows:

31

Gradually, I came to be considered as an atheist, and advocate of theories subversive of all morality; as a fomentor of war between classes, and what not. No color was too black in which to paint my character. For a while I endeavored to defend myself, but the attacks were so varied, the blows came from so many quarters at once, that I soon felt the impossibility of meeting them and gave it up. Bowing to the necessity of things, I accepted the reputation thus made for me.[18]

Not only was he attacked editorially, but on some occasions he would have suffered bodily harm if he had not escaped.[19] Socialism was too new and the principles were too little known for an adherent to have an unbiased hearing in a country seething with nationalism, and in a country where political demagogues would not hesitate to appeal to any prejudice that they might discover in an ignorant people.

Brisbane was a remarkable man who really felt the necessity of revamping the institutions of the world. He was interested in the most minute details of social and economic life; for instance, he writes, “Women ... are absorbed in a monotonous repetition of the trivial degrading occupations of the kitchen and the needle;—degrading because they have to be so continually repeated and on so small a scale.”[20] Moreover, he thought the labor of children under the present system was entirely wasted because of the petty amount of their task. To overcome such “smallness” of chores, he advocated that separate households be abolished and associations of households be created instead. Thus, woman would have time to help produce the material necessities of life and be an equal to man. Such an idea of combinations, 32 Brisbane thought, could be applied to all industries and especially to that of agriculture. There are only two methods to be followed he believed: the incoherent or the combined. In his book, Social Destiny of Man, or Associations and Reorganization of Industry, with the impulse of a fanatic and the learning of a philosopher, he weighs the merits of one against the merits of the other, always with prejudice in favor of the “combined.” With provocative thought and earnest application he creates a favorable impression for “associations” or “combines.” Speaking of agricultural associations, he says,

It is above all in precautions against fire and other accidental waste, that the profits (of the Association) become colossal. All measures of public security are impracticable with three hundred families, some being too poor to take necessary precautions, others too careless or indifferent. We frequently hear of a whole town being consumed by the imprudence of a single family. Precautions against insects, rats, etc. become illusive also, because there is no joint action between these families. If by great care one farmer destroys the rats in his granaries he is soon assailed by those of the neighboring farms and fields, that have not been cleared of them, for the want of a system of general co-operation, impossible with the present diversity of interest.[21]

Therefore, reasons the writer, not only in the matter of fire protection, but in every other form of agricultural work, the advantages of the Fourieristic principle of association are evident, and within the near future all activities must be carried on in such combination of various groups.

Brisbane soon became the center of a brilliant group which believed and taught Fourierism. Some of the 33 others were: John Allen, the Channings, George W. Curtis, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, Parke Goodwin, George C. Foster, Henry James, Horace Greeley, James Russell Lowell, C. Neidhardt, Francis G. Shaw, John G. Whittier, George Ripley and many others.[22]

Hundreds became interested and phalanges were established in many sections of the United States. In fact, the propaganda was so successful that an avalanche of applications fell upon Brisbane before he had worked out any plan of promotion or forms. He warned those who contemplated forming the “associations” not to be hasty and not to make any attempt to put the principles into operation until they had sufficient capital to guarantee some sort of success. However, very little attention was given to his advice and many phalanges were established, but few were successful.[23]

It was from the results of the teachings of these three men, Fourier, Considerant, and Brisbane, and from the direct effort of the last two that La Réunion was established in Texas, on the banks of the Trinity river.

34

“The best elements of the old world ask only to leave it; let America afford to them a little aid; nothing more is required, for them at once to join forces with her. Europe is now driving from her bosom whatever is good; let America give it a home with herself.”

Victor Considerant, European Colonization in Texas, p. 29.

CHAPTER II
AU TEXAS

Considerant, as a leader of the Fourieristic socialists, had always refused to combine the teaching or propagandizing of the movement with any attempt to put the phalansterian organization of society into operation. He thought that the proper promotion of either problem would require too large an outlay of energy and money ever to combine the two into one undertaking, and consequently the teaching of Fourierism and the colonization which would naturally grow out of it should be separate undertakings. However, Considerant’s ideas changed after his first visit to the United States in 1852; that is, he was willing to merge the two in a very limited manner.[1]

Considerant’s departure to the United States on his first visit seemed to have been hurriedly made, for he said that he left so quickly that he did not have time to write to any one concerning his proposed trip. At first, the trip was planned as only a four months’ tour of the United States, but it later developed into a search for a location suitable for the establishment of a colony.[2] On November 28, 1852, he left France and sailed to Liverpool, from whence he sailed for New York on December 1, and reached that port about two weeks later. No one met him at the port and, as Brisbane was 36 in Detroit, he spent the time visiting some phalanges near New York. Among these were Lowell’s and Lawrence’s colonies near Boston, and the North American Phalanx in New Jersey. The latter was the most successful and enduring of all the phalanges established in North America. Considerant, after a six weeks’ visit, pronounced the colony a failure in one sense of the word: the co-operative efforts in economic and social life were carried out very successfully, but serial development of other phalanges had been totally abandoned by the colony. This he regretted very much.[3]

When Brisbane returned to New York from Detroit, he immediately got in touch with Considerant, and they began to discuss what was best to advance Fourierism in the United States. Brisbane apparently proposed the founding of a big paper that would literally cover the United States with propaganda. Considerant, however, urged that the day of education had passed and proposed immediate founding of a colony that would show what actually could be done with Fourierism at work. The idea of disseminating propaganda should be secondary to the project itself. Agreed on this part of the program, the two men began to seek a location for the proposed colony. Brisbane proposed that lands in Ohio or Illinois be chosen, but the project was subsequently rejected both by him and by Considerant along with many other places. Finally, the following was urged: first, that the northern, eastern, and western states should be excluded because of the length and severity of the winters, the short seasons and the excessive heat in summer, and by the high price of land in the Ohio Valley; second, the citizens of the proposed colony should be of both American and European stock, 37 out of which Considerant expected the development of a super-race; and third, the colony must be located in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains. They thought of going to Santa Fe, but on the advice of Captain Macy abandoned this plan because it was too far from the Gulf of Mexico through which the colonists would have to ship their goods and produce. Thus, the only possible solution was to locate the colony somewhere in the South or in Texas. The latter place was finally agreed upon, and a trip was immediately planned for investigation of the territory and the location of the colony.[4]

Considerant and Brisbane left Lake Erie April 30, 1853, where ice was still floating in the lake and the trees had not yet budded, for Texas. The first day they went to Cleveland, from there to Wellsville, to Canton, and then to Cincinnati. Here their arrival was announced in the papers in the following way:

Albert Brisbane and Victor Considerant, two of the most eminent living Socialists, of the Fourier school, were in Cincinnati on the 5 inst. Both of these Gentlemen are able, popular advocates of the Phalansterian system of the great French associationists above named. They are on their way to Northern Texas and the Red River country, for the purpose of selecting from twelve to fifteen thousand acres of good land, with a view to the importation of a colony of French and American Socialists.[5]

It was here, also, that they met several of their old friends. Considerant refers to “our good and old friend Gingembre,” who was living in a small house surrounded with large trees, which had been built in eight days by Gingembre and his two sons. The house was dubbed “Gingembree—Box.” John Allen, another leading 38 socialist, met them and promised to sell everything within eight days after he had received notification of the location of the new colony and with his sons join them immediately.[6]

From Cincinnati their journey led them to Patriot, where they bade farewell to the last friends they were to meet, as they thought, until they returned to New York. Carrying with them only saddles and the barest necessities of a horseback journey to Texas, they embarked on a steamship for Fort Smith. They sailed down the Mississippi river to the mouth of the Arkansas and up the Arkansas to Little Rock, and later continued to Fort Smith, where they purchased horses. Considerant was amazed at the vast spaces of the West. Again and again he breaks his narrative to tell of the seemingly impossible stretches of forest, stream, and mountains. At the frontier, he is charmed by the contrast between society of the fort and that of the surrounding country. He says,

Three social periods could not have been traversed more quickly. At two o’clock that afternoon we were still in the pleasant town which lies beneath Fort Smith.... Less than two hours afterwards, our horses were floundering along in the mire, among dead branches and rotten trunks, through which we traced with great trouble a kind of a road in the primitive forest, whose dense vaults anticipated night upon the swampy bottom lands. It was utterly wild, a deep silent virgin solitude, exhaling rank perfumes, the compact and luxuriant vegetation of arborescent masses, and gigantic vines embracing the large trees in one inextricable network, vegetable generations rising without the interruptions of time and space upon the secular ruins of their dying and dead predecessors.[7]

At the Choctaw Agency he had supper, consisting of “A piece of fish perfectly burnt on one side, but, in compensation uncooked on the other,” onions, and corn. Considerant reported that a negro slave was the instructor of the Indians in the Choctaw country, teaching them the crude elements of agriculture, how to play on the fiddle, and minor industries. Here at the agency he apparently became exhausted by the long rides and was somewhat discouraged over the whole proposition, but Brisbane soon overcame his discouragement and they went on.

Eight days out of Fort Smith the two travellers came to Preston, located on the bluffs of the Red River. On approaching the town, Considerant describes the surrounding country and his personal reactions in the following manner:

The landscape was classic and charming; its character surprised us beyond all expression. In all civilized and cultivated America, I have seen nothing so sweet, so bewitching, so ornate and complete as these solitudes by which we entered the high basin of the Red River. Brisbane and I were struck with the same idea; we seemed to behold, transported into this rich climate and under the splendid firmament of latitude 34, those admirable parks, created and sustained at so great an expense by the high aristocracy of England....

Nature has done all. All is prepared, all is arranged: we have only to raise those buildings which the eye is astonished at not finding; and nothing is appropriated nor separated by the selfish exclusiveness of civilized man; nothing is cramped. What fields of action! What a theatre of manoeuvres for a great colonization operating in the combined and collective mode! What reserves for the cradle of Harmony, and how powerful and prompt would be its developments, if the living and 40 the willing elements of the World of the Future were transported there! A horizon of new ideas, new sentiments and hopes, suddenly opened before me, and I felt baptized in an American faith.[8]

Considerant does not describe the town of Preston and his reaction to frontier life as exhibited there. The town was full of rough and crude fellows, hijackers, murderers, and adventurers of all types. An army officer, passing through the country about the time the above named travelers were there, reported that the town was one of “bad repute.”[9]

From other sources it is learned that Considerant and Brisbane remained in the vicinity of Preston for a few days and then went on toward Clarksville. A letter from Bourland and Manion, a commercial company out from Preston, to a Major de Morse says:

Sir:

Messrs. Albert Brisbane of New York, and Victor Considerant of France, got to our house a few days ago, coming into Texas at Preston, and thence to our bend. They are on their way through northern Texas for the purpose of selecting some several thousand acres of land, with a view to the settlement of a French Colony. They are well pleased with what they have seen. They remained with us a day and night, and we sent a guide with them on their way to Gainesville. They are fine looking, intelligent gentlemen. Their purpose, when they left our house, was, to examine the Cross Timbers country, and on to Fort Worth.[10]

Having reached Texas, Considerant immediately began to write his reactions. “I was expecting something wild and rude, coarse grasses and weeds of enormous height, etc.” However, he was astonished when he found a “superior richness” of the soil, wild oats, numerous 41 tender grasses, large forests, and many prosperous, cultivated fields. Even the land which the Americans rejected as poor, rocky, and of thin soil, which they refused to cultivate, was exactly what the French needed to grow their vines. Grapevines grown on such soil were of “lower growth and much less run to wood and leaf, than the kind which overspreads the bottoms. The latter reaches forth on all sides its gigantic branches and climbs to the summit of the largest trees, balancing between them its clusters of black grapes.”[11] Near Dallas, at the junction of the forks of the Trinity river, Considerant and Brisbane met M. Gouhenans, chief of the first Icarian vanguard, who gathered these wild grapes and made wine out of them, which he sold for a dollar a bottle.[12]

The people classified the soil into four kinds: black sandy, red sandy, mulatto, and black sticky. Considerant explains that the latter is difficult to work and is more appropriate for cotton than for anything else.

The reports he gave concerning the crops were very enthusiastic. For instance, he mentions that he saw beets grown in unfertilized land that measured two feet six inches in circumference, and tomatoes that put forth shoots from ten to twelve feet in length.[13] At Fort Worth and Fort Graham gardens which the soldiers had prepared were very prolific. Within a few months after they were planted, there were beans of all kinds, green peas, melons, sweet potatoes, and twenty other plants of the kitchen garden, which were succeeding perfectly.[14] All of this was accomplished without manuring the land, an absolute necessity in Europe. There was no weeding necessary and only one or two plowings were 42 required. The garden in Fort Worth, so he reported, had been planted and no further attention given to it, yet it was in very neat order.[15]

From the very first day of their trip, when they left Lake Erie, both men had feared the Texas climate. They were afraid of the sub-tropic summers, the fevers, langour, and sun-stroke; consequently, they were surprised at the favorable reports they received wherever they went. In Fort Worth, Major Merrill, who commanded the fort, told them that the winters in Texas were so little feared “that he was in the habit of making excursions of 15 days, sometime of a month, into the prairie or forest, without serious inconvenience, and that he and his men did not often even give themselves the trouble of erecting tents for the night.”[16]

On inquiry they found that the soldiers of Fort Worth were comprised of English, French, Irish, Spaniards, Russians, Swedes; in fact, a very large portion of all the soldiers was European. However, there was no complaint of climate—“one perfect accord, not a complaint, not a regret.” The soldiers were happy and well, in spite of the not very hygienic life and the sudden long and dangerous expeditions made into the prairies and forests after the Indians. The settlers, exposed as they were in cabins open to the wind and rain, were in good health, and no serious illness was observed, except a few cases of fever in the district along the coast. Nevertheless, this is not surprising when one realizes that there are never more than thirty days of really cold weather in the winter and that the hot summer days not tempered with the Gulf breeze are few. Reflections of the climatic conditions were noticeable in the habits 43 of the live stock. There was an utter lack of shelter for the stock. Horses, cows, sheep, and goats all wandered in the woods or on the prairies the entire year without forage or shelter being furnished them. The fowls around the houses had to be fed to keep them from going “wild,” and effort had to be made to raise them, but not so with the livestock.

Considerant’s estimate of the settlers is worth considering. When a new settler came, he reported, his nearest neighbors, living anywhere from six to fifteen miles from him, asked him on what day he desired to raise his building, and at that time they all came to aid him in constructing his modest home. In the meantime, the family camped in the open in their covered wagon, the means of transportation used to get to Texas. At first the settlers intended for the log cabin to be only a temporary home, but the climate was so mild that they soon forgot to build more commodious or permanent buildings until a growing town forced them to do so. Examples of these settlers becoming financially independent in a very short time are given by Considerant; for example,

One had come with his wagon, his family, two horses and four or five dollars; another had only a pair of oxen, a third nothing at all, and the greater part of the immigrants were in this plight. We saw it everywhere, and yet everywhere at the end of some years, these families, so lately destitute, were surrounded with oxen, with cows, with horses, with hogs and fowls of their own, amid their fields which ripened abundant crops of corn, wheat, Irish and sweet potatoes, etc., and gardens where ever they chose to make them.

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We saw a man who had thus come without any means, working with a settler, to earn the team of oxen and the seed with which, three months later, he was going to commence his farming; we saw the father of a family already aged, who having begun five years ago with one cow, had hitherto provided for twelve children, the eldest of whom was hardly sixteen, and for two women, without other help than his brother-in-law. Beautiful cattle, horses and fields in full culture were the conquests of these five years.

A young French wagon maker arrived two years since on the upper Trinity with a dollar in his pocket for all his worldly wealth; he is now proprietor of the finest workshop in Dallas, which he has built at his own cost, and has an industrial capital of $1200....[17]

He characterizes the settlers as ignorant, destitute, without capital, without instruments of labor, and without reciprocal ties. The social conditions cannot be matched anywhere else in the world; in fact,

In its elements, its action and effects, it is doubtless superior to the Savage state, since it is a seed of civilization that germinates very fast. But in its form, it is inferior, for the Indians at least unite in hordes, in camps or in tribes, while among the settlers, the principle of separation is pushed to the extreme degree.[18]

From Fort Graham Considerant and Brisbane returned by the way of the Colorado River to Austin, perhaps to San Antonio and thence to New Orleans, and Havana, reaching New York August 5. Considerant immediately sailed for Europe, reaching Ostend, Belgium, August 29, 1853, having had in all a nine-months’ trip of exploration and investigation.

With great faith in his glowing reports of Texas, and with a firm belief that he could offer to the colonists 45 the fullest economic liberty and opportunity, Considerant began to gather his forces from a Europe, blind, “timorous and enslaved to routine ... despotic even in its aims of liberty and life.”

46

“We have never been, in Europe, the abettors of disturbance, or the creators of disorder. We have there been diligent laborers in the good cause, the devoted soldiers of the interests of humanity. America! Free and Republican! was it a crime in us to have wished for Liberty and a Republic for Europe? And would it not be monstrous, should she repel us because we have been, at home, the martyrs of the very cause of which she bears the glorious banner in the face of the world?”

Victor Considerant, European Colonization in Texas, p. 27.

CHAPTER III
THE SOCIETY

The over enthusiastic praise of Texas, its lands, its climate, and its opportunities in an economic sense should stamp Considerant as a promoter, if it were not for the caution with which he approached the formation of the colony. After serious investigation, it will appear to anyone that he was effusive by nature and his praise was sincere; no flattering statement was made by him to induce people to part with their money, or to participate in the Texas adventure. In fact, his first appeal to the French socialists to immigrate in mass to Texas contains a warning to those who contemplated investing money in the venture. He said that he had always with obstinate sincerity exposed the illusion of attributing to a first scientific experimental establishment the character of a profitable investment.[1]

Furthermore, he warned that: first, the establishment must be considered as a costly experiment; second, that little or no returns on the money invested could be expected; and third, it would require very extensive co-operation to avoid compromising individual fortunes.[2] All colonization, he declares, develops itself at the expense of those involved and at the risk of each individual participating in the act. However, colonization requires a collective principle at its emergence, as an individualistic principle is altogether too feeble to establish a new 48 home and new economic system in a difficult and distant state. Communism, he says, has failed, except in rare cases where the effort was supported by energetic religious faith, largely because of false theory or poor conduct in the establishment of the colony. Therefore, any effort that the Fourierists should put forth should be worked out completely in theory before the undertaking is started.

The first necessity for successful establishment, Considerant thought, was the creation of an agency to direct colonization. This agency was to have two functions: first, to acquire lands on which the first settlements were to be made; second, to prepare these lands to receive the first immigrants. Preparation was to involve the purchasing of grain, foods, live stock, implements, and the erection of houses sufficient to care for the first groups to arrive. After the advance guards of the immigrants had been established, they were in turn to choose other grounds and construct other houses for the next or succeeding wave of newcomers. This method would be continued indefinitely, much like the Wakefield method proposed in England, until the available lands were taken. Of course, the difference between the Wakefield method and the one proposed by Considerant is that Wakefield would have colonization carried on by the government on money which had been obtained by the sale of government lands, while Considerant’s scheme provided for collectivism, sanctioned and supported by private individuals, either as participants in the act of colonization or as interested observers.

Considerant was an experimenter, and intended the colony in Texas to be purely an experiment. He definitely states:

49

Although Phalansterians take the initiative in the work proposed, its object is not exclusively to realize their ideas, it is more general, it affords the opportunity of experiment and of practical verification to every other progressive doctrine, at its own cost, risk and responsibility.

Let us found in Texas a colony characterized by its progressive social faith, which shall, first of all, improve the fruitful resources of a friendly Nature....

We shall not seek to employ, as a means of effecting the colonization, our own ulterior and definite method of Social organization.[3]

Thus, again, he firmly states that it is an ideal of betterment of humanity that he is seeking and not the bolstering up of his own pet ideas. If by experiment another way could be established that would prove more acceptable than the one he already had under consideration, he would be willing immediately to adopt the other plan. Seemingly, Considerant planned the whole movement as an experiment and investigation into the social phases of life. He had an idea of social betterment, which he admitted was no more than a mere theory, and by means of this colony in Texas, placed under the most favorable conditions, he could test the theory.[4]

The aims of the colony as far as settlement is concerned were, to purchase lands in Texas, to bring a nucleus of colonists to the new location, and to prepare the ground for reception of the members of the colony. Of the latter, Considerant says,

To bring ... European colonists upon a virgin soil, without preliminary arrangements, results, in most cases, simply in the dispersion of its elements and frequently in other disasters. In Texas, it is true, that the 50 dispersion of our colonists would not be their ruin: they could easily derive advantages from their new position, but the collective enterprise and its aim would not the least be missed.[5]

He thought that the colonists should, as a general rule, find on their arrival in a new country conditions equal to those which they left, and that they should bring with them the reasonable hope that their conditions would soon be made much better. In order to insure such a development, Considerant proposes that there should be two phases of development in the colony. Americans, already accustomed to the climate and modes of cultivation practiced in Texas, were to be the chiefs of the first operations. These chiefs were to be assisted by volunteer workmen of Europe and America who expected to participate in the colony and who apparently were to labor for the “faith and interest of the enterprise,” while any lack of helpers was to be supplied by hired labor, men who were already familiar with frontier life. The workers were to clear the land, break the ground, plant the fields, sow the grain, build the buildings, purchase saw and grist mills at Cincinnati or Pittsburg and transfer them to the new fields. Livestock were to be purchased and branded with the mark of the colony and then turned loose in the fields and the forest to multiply. In fact, there was to be a fully developed and operating industrial and agricultural community already in existence before the Europeans, except “skillful nursery-men, vine dressers and gardeners,” ever arrived in Texas. Considerant writes, in enumerating what should be prepared, the following:

A. Tenements ready to receive them, and so constructed as not only to impart a degree of comfort, but also to satisfy a variety of individual tastes.

51

B. A complete system of alimentary supplies, which supposes, besides certain commercial facilities, depots of provisions, cultures in full bearing, fields sown with grain, gardens planted with vegetables, and a full stock of horses, cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry; then, machinery and workshops fitted to transform the raw materials into objects of daily consumption,—mills, ovens, and kitchens with their utensils.

C. A provision of cottons, woolens, leather, and other materials for clothing.

D. Such workshops, tools and special implements of art and industry, not comprised already in the preceding categories, as may be requisite to the most advantageous employment of the previously ascertained industrial capacities of the colonists expected.

E. The creation of a commercial agency for the sale of the products created by the colony, as well as for the purchase of objects not produced by it.[6]

The second phase was apparently nothing more than the Europeans’ taking possession of what had already been created, and their continuing to repeat the process of preparation for others still to arrive.

In spite of the Utopian scheme, the plan would have probably succeeded in establishing some sort of colony had not the colonists in America and Europe been too anxious and rushed in before preparations were made for them. Instead of waiting and gradually settling the lands which had been purchased as planned, the colonists came to unprepared fields and barren hills. This haste, no doubt, was due in large part to the advertisement which both Considerant and Brisbane gave the proposed colony in America and Europe.[7]

There was one group of bachelors, especially, that 52 Considerant attempted to persuade not to come, telling them that he would make no agreement with them in his name or in the name of the society. However, they disregarded his advice and came to La Réunion. He even sent Cousin, one of his lieutenants, to several places to advise groups to wait until a later date for their departure.[8] Nevertheless, when Considerant reached New Orleans on his way from New York to La Réunion he learned that more than two hundred colonists were already on their way to the new establishment—young men, old men, old women and young women. They came from Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, France and Sweden, all hurrying to the New Utopia which Considerant had promised them in Au Texas.[9]

On September 26, 1854, at Brussels, Belgium, the articles of the Société de Colonisation Europeo-Americaine au Texas were signed by Victor Prosper Considerant, Allyre Bureau, Charles Francois Guillon, Jean Baptiste Godain-Lemaire, and four others.[10] This was the third society formed by Considerant, the other two being Considerant, Paget and Company, founded in 1840, and Considerant and Company formed in 1843. While these two societies did some colonizing in France, it was not for this reason that they failed. The chief reason was the debt which had accrued as a result of publication of newspapers and other propaganda of the society.[11] One of their undertakings had been the establishment and support of an orphan asylum in Paris of which Savardan had control.[12]

In the new society some arrangements were to be 53 made to indemnify the people who had worked in these two societies.[13] The unsuccessful outcome of these previous societies may have been the reason Considerant took a minor place in the Société de Colonisation Europeo-Americaine au Texas.

The first article of the statutes of the society provided for the establishment of a central agency in Paris, other agencies in New York and in other places where the business of the company might justify such an establishment. Furthermore, it stated the purpose of the society to be the planting and promoting of a colony as explained and defined in Considerant’s book entitled Au Texas, published in Paris in May, 1854.[14] To carry out this purpose the society was to purchase or secure lands in all parts of the State of Texas and to transport the colonists thereto. It was also to guarantee development of the colony by collectivism or individualism, as the members might direct.

The second article provided conditions of investments of capital and for the payment of dividends resulting from the operation of the society. The company was capitalized at $1,000,000 in American money, or 5,250,000 francs, and subscriptions were to be received in units of five, twenty-five, and one hundred twenty-five dollars. The subscriptions were to be divided into two groups: actions a dividendes and actions a primé. The former was divided into three series, to be issued each succeeding six months period and was to bear interest at the rate of four per cent. The actions a dividendes were not to participate in the earnings of the society, with the exception of ten per cent of the net income, which was to be set aside to constitute a reserve fund.

Provisions were made in the statutes for the appointment of an agent in Texas to be the executive officer of the organization in that state, and who would be held directly responsible to the governors of the society. Considerant accepted the proffered position and was instructed to establish himself in America, where he was to receive subscriptions and deliver bonds purchased from the society; acquire or sell in the name of the society, furniture, tools, and lands; receive payments and give quittance; agree in courts, and treat with the states for concessions, or in general to transact any and all business for the company in America. Furthermore, he agreed to give the society all concessions made by him personally while in America, thus removing any chance of criticism of the conduct of affairs by the officials. His salary was not to be less than $1,200 per year.

The life of the charter of the society was to extend to December 31, 1874, with the possibility of extension of time, provided two-thirds of the bondholders present and voting declared such to be their desire. Should no extension be decided upon, the affairs of the company would be liquidated.

By article thirty-one of the statutes the society was to be constituted as soon as the subscription should reach $100,000, which was declared to have been achieved on September 26, 1854, when A. Brisbane and Godin-Lemaire subscribed $20,000 each, Considerant had brought to the society an undesignated amount.[15] Other people were to be urged to subscribe at least a million dollars for the proposed colony. In fact, before leaving Europe in the early part of 1855, Considerant 55 was able to leave knowing that more than $300,000 had been subscribed for the project, and prospects were good for the total amount to go beyond $2,000,000.[16] Considerant reported that already more than $80,000 had been expended upon the first project of the company at the conclusion of the first year, 1855.

The above amounts were not merely investments in the form that we understand investments today, they were payments of “rights of participation.” That is, a man bought a certain amount of bonds and this gave him a right to lands controlled by the company and a corresponding right to draw from the company’s storehouse a certain specified amount of materials or food, or as Considerant himself said,

A third plan is based on the principle of co-partnership of different kinds of labor and industry united. In this system, each one co-operates to create a joint amount of stock and products, but each member draws a share proportionate amount of his capital and the value of his labor. In this combination a separate account being kept for each person I place confidence, and I should like to see some experiment made of it, under favorable conditions.[17]

The plan was apparently very much like the profit-sharing plan which many leading industrialists are placing into operation today, each employee being paid for his labor and, in addition, receiving an income from the money which he has invested.[18]

In order to raise money for the colony, Considerant realized that he had to depend upon the capitalists for a great deal of the money, to which many of his followers objected. However, Considerant pleaded for 56 the co-operation of capital and labor. He wanted the capitalists to furnish the capital for an interest payment. The appeal for funds on the ground of gain was made directly to the men of affairs and not to the potential settlers; the settlers were to receive freedom, a home, and higher development. The capitalists and the company were to receive the profits. The company was to use the profits to purchase lands and transport additional colonists, and the capitalists were to use their money as they pleased. Considerant, in answering those who charged him with being friendly with the capitalists, said that he had to have money to operate his society and if the objectors knew any method whereby he might obtain the money without interest payment, or would mention someone to whom he could go to secure the money, even on interest, he would be glad to accept.[19]

The first proposal concerning capital was rather chimerical. As an hypothesis, the sum of $800,000 was taken as a reasonable amount for the promotion of the company. With this sum 400,000 or perhaps 300,000 acres of land were to be bought at the price of twenty-five cents per acre, and within two years 1200 colonists were to be permanently settled on this land. In addition the following estimates were made:

Thus, there would be a balance of $400,000 in the treasury for further development of the colony. In order to make it easy to raise this money there were provided four ways in which one could invest, viz., (a) invest the money and reserve the right to participate in the movement later as a colonist, (b) to become a colonist, (c) gifts to be paid in installments, (d) people to act as commercial and colonizing agents.[21]

Such relations in a financial way would determine the status of a settler after he had arrived at the colony, and, of course, the settler’s own desire as to his relations with the colony would have some effect. The financial relations were to be determined by the formation of the following groups within the colony:

1. Associates in capital and in labor

2. Associates in labor

3. Associates in capital, working of their own accord

4. Workers not associated, salaried by the association

5. Some non-associated, or semi-associated residents working of their own accord

6. Pensioners, or boarders, orphans, old and infirm, etc.

Only the first two groups were to have a full fellowship, the others merely held rights in the company and participated in its activities in a small degree.[22]

Outside of the above practical and semi-practical purposes, and underlying the whole idea of the colony was a theory, novel, interesting, and at times fantastic. In the first place, the colony was not communistic but socialistic; that is, a socialism partaking of both present day socialism and advanced capitalism. Several times Considerant voiced his objection to communism and once stated that nearly all new societies had been ruined by a “gross and rudimentary form of Communism.”[23]

In La Réunion a person was to be either worker or proprietor, and no equal division of earnings was ever to be made. Each person was to reap the reward of his own labor, and partake of the profits of the company as they accrued.[24] In fact, the whole success of his program depended upon unearned increment, and co-operation with the capitalists in the whole undertaking.[25]

He proposed, however, very advanced actions which progressive capitalists accept today, namely, a maximum and a minimum wage scale to be determined by the members of the society; co-operation “in credit, of exchange, of mutual insurance, by provisions of cases of sickness, and social guarantees in behalf of old age and infancy.” These regulations were to be basic, but were subject to 59 change, not being regulatory after the society determined that there was a need for change.[26]

Considerant did not object to private establishments, even being willing to aid them in reaching the new country and in getting established near the colony. He thought that if they were to establish themselves in proximity to the colony it would help increase the value of the colonial lands. Any benefits derived from collectivism would also be extended to the individual owners surrounding the colony. The unified efforts would be to such a great advantage, it appeared, that no one would long desire to remain outside. The colonists “must possess every moment, not only an abstract and theoretical kind of liberty, but a practical guarantee, by the very nature of organization, of the faculty to detach themselves from it at their individual pleasure.” The colony was to be an example of co-operation one with the other. The members could work in communities practicing “individualism” and take advantage of the co-operative organizations in so far as they desired. One might live several miles from the colony, or he might live in the colony, and work as an individual or in a group (phalanx). One could change rapidly from the individualistic to the co-operative or vice-versa. Anyone might enter the colony or leave it as he might desire. No compulsion was to exist, no regulatory demands made on any person.[27]

The society itself was not to be exclusive: all other societies that desired to co-operate—whether of the same opinion or not—had the right to participate. The function of the European-American Colonization Society was to prepare a place of liberty and prosperity and to represent liberal doctrines. Other societies were invited 60 to come to try out their doctrines by experience and application, and if they were proved workable, then the Fourieristic society would accept them, for there existed no right or reason for the members to attempt to impose any pre-conceived plan upon the colonists. This seemed to Considerant to be so rational there was no need to insist upon it.[28] However, it seemed to him that there were certain principles of colonization already established by the trial and error method recorded in history which should not be disregarded. These were simple maxims, such as local self-government, avoidance of extreme communism, and freedom of action.

Another part of his scheme was that of instruction or teaching. One day was to be set apart for the teaching “of the social aims and of the common faith, to the discussion of the general ideas and expressions of the harmonic or the religious sentiment of the population.” Certain functions that were unitary and of utilitarian value were to be considered and voted upon by the whole body, and were to be developed out of the religious emotions of the people. Favorable attitudes toward progressive measures were also to be created, taking care, however, that the whole movement was one of spontaneity and not one of passive acceptance.[29]

A university and primary schools were to be provided wherein the French and English languages and literatures were to be taught: art, physical and mechanical sciences were to be taught by men of approved ability, giving an opportunity to every person to follow the trend of his own inclinations. A library was also to be provided, supplied, no doubt, from the expected gifts of books to be received in subscriptions to the stock of the company. The whole educational system, however, was to allow for spontaneous acceptance of the program 61 without any appearance of compulsory education.[30]

Perhaps the most illusory part of the dream was that concerning commerce. La Réunion was to become the center of a gigantic commercial system. Colonies were to be established in all the states of the union, especially in the Southwest, and they were to carry on their commerce with one another, and through the mother colony connection would be made with Europe. Considerant visualized great wagon trains winding through the valleys and over the hills converging at La Réunion with their loads of foods, metals, and manufactured goods ready for the European markets. In fact, the shorter distance from Dallas to the Gulf of Mexico than from Santa Fe to the same port was one of the determining factors which led to the selection of the land near Dallas for the center of this undertaking. At La Réunion the plan was to have the colony self-sustaining and able to manufacture various materials for exportation, such as furniture, pottery, brass work, glass, smelted iron, as well as articles of food, especially pickles, and meat products.[31]

His supreme concept of the colony was expressed as follows:

Instead of a life consumed by cruel anxieties, we shall have conquered at last the right of Freedom from Care, which results from the blessed sentiment of solidarity and which gives to each the consciousness that his individual life is integrant of the social life. It is the right to social life, the right to a harmony between the elements of life, and the being who lives. Each one here feels himself a member of a social body founded for his faith and by his faith, destined soon to realize this in its plenitude, and recognizes himself as an associate and an active agent in a work whose grandeur penetrates him deeper and deeper every day.[32]

With such arrangements and connections in Europe as have been mentioned, and with such a Utopian plan, Considerant asked for and received letters of introduction from various men in Europe and the United States, among whom were H. W. Merrill, Lieut. Major, U.S.A., and J. J. Seibel of the American Consulate in Belgium, and came to establish a colony in Texas.

CHAPTER IV
ATTITUDE OF TEXANS TOWARD THE COLONY

When Victor Prosper Considerant, the founder of La Réunion, came to Texas for the first time in 1852 he evidently met with hospitality from all the people, as his reports show no feeling of having been treated otherwise. In fact, in his writings he frequently refers to the kindly interest in, and attitude of the people toward, his scheme of colonization; especially does he mention Captain Macy of the United States Army, and Major Merrill, Commanding Officer at Fort Worth. However, when he returned to the United States seventeen months after his first trip to Texas, he found conditions considerably changed.[1]

The first overtures he made to men of prominence after his return were very favorable. He says, “The cordial reception and warm support, moreover, which our first overtures have met with from many eminent persons in Washington—senators or representatives from Texas, former governors and etc., with whom I have had recently the honor to converse, tended to strengthen me in my confidence.”[2] But the masses of the people of the South and of Texas, had during these seventeen months which had intervened between the first and second trips, been over-powered with one of those peculiar psychological 64 phenomena which occur quite frequently in a nation. This time it was the Know-Nothing Party.

This party grew up almost overnight and became a strong force in the politics of the nation. The party was a secret organization which had as its principal theories the idea that the government of the United States should be in the hands of “Native Americans,” that no one should be permitted to become a citizen until after a very long period of probation, and that Catholics should be excluded from all offices. The party gained its largest number of votes in 1854 and declined rapidly after that time, being dead in less than three years after its victories in 1854 and 1855. Such an organization, of course, could have very little welcome for a group of French socialists and, in the main, would be openly hostile toward them.

The rather sensitive and alert Considerant quickly sensed the change. He immediately issued a statement concerning the attitude of himself and his colonists in which he stated:

I by no means intend to criticize or to approve this political movement, or to pass judgment upon it in any manner whatever. God forbid that I should follow the example of those new comers who, having scarcely set foot on a great country where they find hospitality, freedom, and an immense field open to their activity, hasten to take part in its internal affairs, mixing themselves up in questions of which they cannot yet understand the first elements, speaking, judging and deciding, right or wrong, on all sorts of subjects, which demand long study and profound knowledge of things in order to be comprehended.

No! my friends and myself, I am authorized to say, 65 are men of common sense. We do not come to America in order to enlist in parties, of which we know neither the principles, the traditions, nor the exciting causes.

It is undoubtedly our earnest desire to attain, as soon as possible, the dignity of American citizens. But we will patiently wait the time when the law shall accord to us this title of nobility (whatever delay it may prescribe us to-day or establish to-morrow). We hold this title in high esteem, sufficiently to understand that the law, before conferring it on foreigners, should require them to become worthy of the privileges; and for ourselves, we do not pretend to see farther than the Americans into their own affairs. So far from aspiring to give them lessons of political conduct, we know that on all questions of this nature they are our superiors and masters, and it is our part to place ourselves on the seat of instruction. We feel ourselves far more urgently called to cultivate the earth, to erect buildings, and to establish various branches of industry, workshops, and schools, than to swell the ranks of any political party, to deposit our votes in the ballot box, or to place ourselves in either a scale of the political balance in the United States, Know-Nothingism, and Anti-Know-Nothingism—American Democracy Whiggism, Abolitionism, Pro-Slaveryism, with all the other isms of the same nature, are as yet to us only words expressing ideas, interests, and principles on which we are not ashamed to confess our ignorance, and to declare our perfect incompetence. All these questions, we think, are essentially American, concerning Americans alone, and in which no foreigner can reasonably take part until after he has been thoroughly Americanized; and,—this is not the work of a day.[3]

He expressed no fear of the consequences that Know-Nothingism would have on his scheme. On the other hand, he analyzed the movement from a political and social viewpoint and said nothing but good would come 66 out of it if it were conducted in a proper way. He had been told that the party had as a cardinal principle the exclusion of all foreigners from the domains of the United States, but through reading and investigation he found out the true position of the party, namely, that it did not particularly desire to exclude foreigners but to increase the time of their residence within the United States before conferring political rights upon them. Their civil rights were not called in question. Considerant believed the causes for the rise of this party to be the following: (1) accumulation of slums in larger cities causing indigent people to become numerous; (2) lowering of wage scales by incoming immigrants; (3) the possibility of these indigent new citizens forming a political block that would destroy American principles of government; (4) fear of the religious affiliations of these immigrants of whom practically all were Roman Catholics.[4]

Considerant either was a novice in his judgment of American political attitudes and was mistaken concerning the essential results of the Know-Nothing Party on foreigners, or he was showing masterful diplomacy. It seems the former was the case. He always esteemed the American people very highly, ascribing to them far more love of liberty and toleration than they possessed. It seemed absolutely impossible to him that the Americans, steeped in democracy, would deny newcomers a small piece of the vast uninhabited wilderness in which to live, no matter what form of democracy they might profess. Then too, Considerant trusted the masses, and like Jefferson, believed that eventually justice and right would triumph if the people were permitted to decide the issues of government. However, he was to learn 67 that the hard-working American of 1853 whom he had met on the frontier and in the cities was a different type of man from that of 1855 when agitated by political leaders seeking votes to control the national government. He met opposition from men from whom he expected help and especially from the newspapers.

The attitude of the papers of that day toward his project ranged from the position of vigorous opposition to that of active support. The Texas State Times and the Austin State Gazette were the ones most actively engaged against the colony. The proximity of these papers to the capitol, where those interested in land speculation, railroad grants, and other forms of private privileges came to press their application, perhaps accounts for some of the opposition, but both papers had on their editorial staffs men favorable to the Know-Nothing Party, and furthermore, the highly intellectual reputation of the French colonists excited the prejudice of the writers. The Dallas Herald and the Northern Standard were the two papers most favorable toward the colonists; also the Galveston News took a favorable attitude. Outside of Texas the New York Tribune became one of the prime movers in support of the colony, while the Washington Sentinel (Washington, D.C.) was hostile to the socialists. The opposition based its objections to the colony upon the following four points: first, socialism, as such; second, the alleged opposition to slavery on the part of the colonists; third, dislike of foreigners; and, fourth, Considerant’s high intellectual training, and his request for a subsidy of land in Texas for his colonists.

In regard to socialism, the Texas State Gazette in its issue of February 17, 1855, says:

68

We are always pleased to have industrious immigrants come among us. Plenty of work can be found by mechanics and laborers, and there is room in all our towns for more enterprising merchants and business men. There is one class, however, that we are opposed to, and have no disposition to hold out to them inducements to settle among us. This class is of that Propagandist school which in France and in parts of the United States, has and is seeking to sap the foundations of society. The socialist desires to destroy individual rights in property; and, if he is not a very intelligent and moral man—a rare thing,—we may have in him a neighbor who will rob and plunder us whenever he can get the chance; for he holds it as a primary principle in his creed, that no individual has a right to accumulate property for himself, and all above what is necessary to sustain him belongs to the rest of society.... Again, the socialist is an abolitionist everywhere. He would not be less opposed to slavery by living in Texas than in France or in Ohio. It is part of his creed. Now, we are told that John Allen, of Ohio, and Mons. Victor Considerant, propose bringing out from France to western Texas a colony of socialists. This move, for the purpose of building up a sect opposed to our political institutions, may well be regarded with jealousy, and the founders may rely upon it that they will not be suffered to tamper with our institutions. The whole principle of colonization, where men of a peculiar caste in religion or politics seek to array themselves together in particular sections of the country, both as landholders and factionists, is at war with all the elements of society, and cannot be carried on without creating bitter and unrelenting prejudices and animosities among our native citizens. We note this advent of socialism in Texas as foreboding us no good; and we wish them to have a fair understanding before they reach our soil, that as a political sect, our whole people are against them.[5]

The editorial just quoted was apparently read with 69 wide interest all over Texas and the United States. Considerant, himself, read the article in New York and made a reply to the criticism; the Washington Sentinel (Washington, D.C.) entered a long editorial in its column in support of the stand taken by the Texas State Gazette; and, as a further indication of interest, the writers of the editorial in the Gazette received numerous letters praising them for the position which they had taken against the socialists.[6] The Washington Sentinel stated that no paper had been more earnest in defending the rights of naturalized foreigners and in insisting upon the supremacy of the constitution than it had, but there were certain interferences that even it could not and would not submit to, and this interference was socialism.[7]

On June 2, 1855, the Texas State Gazette again called the attention of the people of Texas to the serious danger which confronted the citizens of the state by permitting the socialists to establish themselves among the people. In an article, “The Socialist in Texas,” the paper declared:

We have had enough discussion of the principles of Socialism from Greeley, Brisbane, and other fanatics and abolitionists, to know what Socialism must be in Texas, and how it will finally end.

When men get tired of the glorious institutions of our republic, there is something wrong with them, themselves, radically. They are certainly good enough to protect us in our life, our liberty and pursuit of happiness. Whatever may be their new views, they are at least not the class of men to do a state any good. We have had occasion before to allude to the importation of foreign Socialists into Texas, and the opinions we 70 have expressed have certainly undergone no change. We believe them to be a mischievous element of population, and did we not believe that their wild theories would not long stand the test of experiment, and would soon be abandoned, we might urge our objections more seriously than we have done.

In the same article was a letter from a man who signed himself J.L. from the city of Washington. The writer of the letter mentioned that he had seen a short article in a northern paper in which the attitude of the Gazette, as expressed in a former editorial, was very unfavorable to the “settlement of a colony of Fourierestes under the auspices of M. Considerant,” in Texas. He appealed to the “Southerners of Texas, not to permit that band of lawless and unprincipled foreigners to settle in their midst,” and listed reasons why his appeal should be heeded as follows:

1. That it is the purpose of the Socialists to overthrow all constituted government and establish instead a system in which the members would “follow the tendencies of their passions and inclinations regardless of any restraint of laws.”

2. That they were opposed to the Christian code of morals as stated in the decalogue, because that would check their passional liberty.

3. That they were all infidels.

4. That they condemned marriage relations and wherever they dared to do so, “openly avow promiscuous intercourse of sexes, accordingly.”

5. That they were abolitionists of the most vile stamp.

6. That they would divert individual property to their own peculiar organizations.[8]

Considerant answered these charges in a very dignified way in a pamphlet published in New York.[9] However, he was astonished at the attitude of the papers and asked, “why are we so precipitately attacked by persons to whom we are entirely unknown, and who have been informed of our projects only by vague rumors?” Why such an attitude could be held by people of a free land against Europeans fleeing persecution was a mystery to him; however, he sought to answer it on two grounds, namely, a crusade of private interest, and on the ground of ignorance.

In his answer the Texans were assured that the immigrants did not desire to leave the theatre of European struggles, to seek a theatre of other struggles in Texas. They came to Texas seeking liberty and peace and were seeking a place remote from civilization where the ideals of their society could be developed in peace and security. If such a place was not secured for them in Texas, they would be forced to seek other climes, either in North America or Central America, even though such a movement was repugnant to them as they had already selected Texas as their adopted home. Considerant derided the Texas State Gazette in that it appeared to believe that the socialists were to make an assault on Texas and, as mere barbarians, invade and destroy it. Such an absurd idea! These gentle and civilized folk—more so than the Texans—were too mild-mannered barbarians to wish to harm or disturb anyone.[10]

Such a wrong implication seemed so foreign to the 72 sympathetic nature of Texans that Considerant was inclined to excuse the attack on the ground of ignorance. There were two errors in the statement of the Gazette, he contended, one of fact and one of logic. The error of fact was that there were several kinds of Socialists, and two divisions of the Fourieristic type, one favoring private property and another opposing it. The larger group of Fourierists, especially the colonists coming to Texas, were those who believed in possession of private property. In fact, the leaders of the former group had carried on several extensive debates and had written articles against those favoring the abolishing of private property. The error of logic was that the paper reasoned from the assumption that because the immigrants did not believe in private property they would in turn rob and pillage their neighbors who possessed property. He stressed the fact that the men immigrating to the United States in his colony were men of honor and accomplishments and were not suddenly going to turn robbers and marauders. However, Considerant did not ask for any special forbearance and importuned the Americans for but one thing, namely to assure to the colonists the protection of their lives and the property which they hoped to acquire.

Nevertheless, in spite of such declarations, when the pamphlet reached Texas, perhaps in July or August of 1855, the attack of the newspapers became even more severe. The Texas State Gazette, in an article in which sarcasm rather than dignity was displayed, attacked Considerant personally. Of him it was said that he possessed the traits of a diplomat instead of those of a philosopher; that he was cunning and ingenuous rather than dignified and learned. His good face was presented 73 to the Texans and his bad face was kept in the background, but his “supercilious airs” and “unabashed self-sufficiency” were evident to anyone reading the pamphlet. Fear of socialism seems to be the predominant note in the long editorial. In one place the editor says:

We would rather see the State a howling desert than witness the spreading waves of Socialism stretch itself over the Christian Churches and the Slave Institution of Texas. To hold out inducements to these Socialists is to take steps to make every part of the State where they may inhabit, undesirable for settlement to Southern citizens of other States, and as the Socialist increases, must we look forward to the repulsion and retirement of slave-holders. It is an excellent initiatory step for Northern Agressionists and may be flatteringly successful, if we lack the nerve at the present time to withhold our disapproval.[11]

The Texas State Times, in a more dignified and reasonable manner discussed the pamphlet. The writer referred to the work as “an ably written address to the American people upon the subject of European colonization in Texas.”[12] But in a sarcastic vein it is shown how Considerant desires to better the condition of a “Heaven deserted state ... by the introduction of mechanical arts among its rude people, and designing to fruitfully occupy their leisure moments by illustrating the practical workings of diverse new and improved social systems.” The editor further states:

The deep interest which this modern reformer manifests towards everything in America in general, and in Texas in particular, and the unselfishness with which he avows his willingness to bring his colony, with all their capital, ingenuity, industry, virtue, and vices, too, we suppose, and settle them in our midst, in consideration 74 of a grant of our worthless lands, would excite our gratitude, if we were not convinced that quite a sufficiency of this description of better citizens reach our shores through the usual medium of emigration, without the aid of any special agent, and that European malcontents can spread the slow but certain poison of their obnoxious principles quite rapidly enough for the good of this country, when they come singly and in couples, without this wholesale importation.[13]

Again, it was the fear of dissemination of socialistic principles that stirred the writer to warn his fellow countrymen.

The dissemination of any set of principles antagonistic to an existing government, must inevitably decrease the strength and vigor of that government, be it democratic or monarchial, in the same ratio that these principles find defenders and advocates. Wherever doctrines, however preposterous and destructive to society, have been broached by men of mind, they have never failed to find disciples.[14]

The principles which Considerant was advocating were such, the writer said, as the “vilest Red Republicans of France have repudiated, in the most licentious and stormy days of that wavering government.” Even though the whole scheme was to be experimental it would be very much better, so the writer thought, that such experiments should be done by “our own people rather than by a deputation of French philosophers” whose attempts to “half-sole and heel-tap society in days gone by” had ended in miserable failure.[15]

There were papers, however, that did not fear socialism and were anxious to see the experiment tried in Texas. The Galveston News even thought that the experiment might discover or explain certain social regulations that would bring to humanity “greater happiness 75 and a higher degree of civilization.” But in such statements there existed in the mind of the writer a certain pessimism for he says, “Discord, which creeps into all human organization, may cause it to riot in infamy.”[16]

Even so, the colony was not sufficiently large or powerful to cause any serious dangers to the republican institutions of Texas. The Dallas Herald favored the colony because of the profit which would come to the city of Dallas and the surrounding country from the manufactories which Considerant proposed to establish.[17] The fact, though, that the men who were to form the colony were republicans who had been expelled from France because of their sentiments struck a responsive chord in the minds of the Dallas editors, and caused them to issue a general welcome to the colonists and express hope for their success. The Standard said:

For ourselves only, we say that we think the immigration of such a class of persons as he describes would be eminently beneficial to the State, and tend to its enrichment, by the introduction of Manufactures, without which no State is truly independent, and free from tribute in an eminent degree to other States. The agriculture, manufacturing and commercial elements all confined in a body politic, give it great power as the result of great resources—Texas has the elements for the successful development of all three, to which may be added mining in coal and iron.[18]

The support of the New York Tribune perhaps did Considerant more harm than good, as the Southern papers were suspicious of anything with which Greeley was connected. The mere fact that Brisbane and Greeley favored the colony was enough to convince most people in the South that the colony was organized for the sole 76 purpose of establishing Free-soilers and Abolitionists in the slave states.

In fact, all the papers, even those supporting Considerant, were unanimous in their condemnation of the anti-slavery sentiment as expressed by Considerant. The State Gazette on October 13, 1855, says:

It is a matter of deep solicitude to all Southern men, that these Socialists should know in advance the opinions and views of our people. We are far from being fit subject for the transcendental theorists of the North and of France. The thousand isms of the day find no congenial soil in the South, and besides this, the hatred of the Slave Institution, cherished by these Socialists and avowed openly by them in our State, must only the more remind us of our duty and awake us to action.

It was said in the same issue that socialists were to be emptied upon Texas by the thousands, and already that their surveyors were working through several counties in which the colony had secured nearly every available piece of ground. Rumor had it that the slave-holders who lived near these people thought it opportune to dispose of their slaves, and many Southerners were disposed to leave their homes and seek plantations farther West.[19] Such statements apparently were wide of the mark as investigation fails to produce a single protest from people in the vicinity of the colony; such exaggeration merely represents the usual effort of some editors and newspapers to carry their points in any sensational issue and should not be given credence here. The incongruous statements of the Washington Sentinel are amusing:

We have a great country, interminable in extent, blessed with every variety of climate, and adapted to 77 every kind of production. We have vast uninhabited wilds that resound oftener with the tread of the buffalo or the howl of the wolf than with the step or the voice of the man. We have room for the oppressed, the enterprising, the industrious and the patriotic of every clime and country. They are welcome. We would say to them, come—our arms are open to receive. Come ... and be naturalized into our free American brotherhood.

Yet when an effort is made to plant amongst us, and that, in a slave State (Texas) a colony of French Socialists and abolitionists (they are endorsed by the New York Tribune) then we demur, most positively and absolutely.

We want no abolition plantations or colonies here, whether they are foreign or native. We want no European ideas of liberty. We carved out, by our own strong arms, the independence of this country, and we want nothing of foreign origin infused into our system.

But Socialists are system-makers, government builders, and communists—they are political incendiaries and propagandists, and would not only plant themselves and their social institutions upon our soil, but would endeavor insidiously and furtively to erect the system of government which they espouse, on the same soil. Their system is altogether different from our system.... Besides, it is an abolition system. It is useless for M. Considerant or M. Anybody else to attempt to disguise it. They want to get a foothold here, and they will adopt any means to do so. It is vain for M. Considerant to attempt to hide his purposes under the rubbish of pedantic and scholastic phrases. Those purposes are plain and palpable.[20]

The above article was based largely upon Considerant’s declaration against slavery contained in his pamphlet, European Colonization in Texas, in which he stated that “The evil of slavery should not be increased by an 78 addition of peculiar grants.” Considerant well understood that the slavery question would soon drive the North and South into war if it were not settled by some scientific formula rather than by the hot heads of either side. Personally, he wanted to see slavery abolished gradually. He was influenced in this position, no doubt, by Brisbane, who suggested as early as 1840 that a special investigation should be made into all slavery or involuntary servitude to determine whether it was economically sound to have such an institution. If it were found to be economically unsound or unjust to the men so penalized, then some plan should be worked out scientifically for its abolition.[21] The charge of many of the Southern papers that Considerant had been influenced by Greeley, Brisbane, and other liberal leaders of the North in the formation of his American political attitudes cannot be gainsaid. However, the wide political and basic fundamentals of his concept of social and political relations were European, and that of the extreme liberal school. Slavery was certainly against all his doctrines concerning the political and social equality of man, but he was not a fanatic on the subject as were many of the Northern and Southern leaders.[22]

The State Gazette referred to his statement of his position on slavery as “traitorous” and said that he was merely using “honeyed words” to cover up his “pernicious dogmas.” The prejudiced attitude of mind of the editors is evidenced in the editorials in the Gazette. They state that Considerant’s term “social relation of humanity” meant nothing more than “nigger good as white man” and that his proposal for a “scientific and peaceful progress” of the settlement meant “the development 79 of this fact in the legislature.”[23] Seemingly conscious of the fact that many of Considerant’s arguments and pleas were unanswerable by reasonable arguments, the papers resorted to sarcasm and appealed to the prejudice of an inflamed public sentiment. It was not mere neutrality on the slavery question that was demanded; it was actual participation in the agitation for permanence of the institution.[24] Such activity would not have been possible from the colonists’ viewpoint because Considerant had distinctly declared against any active participation in the politics of the nation until the members of the colony had become thoroughly conversant with its problems, nor would such participation have been acceptable to the South which was at this particular time largely dominated by the “Know-Nothing” attitude toward the foreigner.

During the time that Considerant was trying to establish his colony in Texas, Albert Brisbane, his chief lieutenant in the United States, was having a very difficult time in New York. On one occasion the police, urged on by the usual anti-socialist complaint of that day, raided a meeting at which Brisbane was speaking. The New York Tribune in describing the scene said:

Nervous young gentlemen, destitute of hats, and bemoaning rent gloves and departed overcoats, dashed about to and fro in confusion—In Broadway, around the doors of Taylor’s saloon, and thickly packed up the sidewalks of nearly the distance of a block, stood an expectant crowd, who had got the wind of the fun that was to be heard of above, and who watched with intense eagerness the egress of one victim after another in the relentless grasp of the Police. As the female members 80 of the club emerged from the doors, like a flock of frightened sheep chased by wolves, the Police followed closely in their tracks, the crowd raised loud shouts,—“Make way for the Ladies;” “Here they come;”—“Three Cheers”—“Let us see them”—“Hoo-Raw for the Free Lovers,” etc., etc., etc.[25]

The attitude of the legislature of Texas is very interesting. This attitude, perhaps, can best be explained by the study of a petition presented by Considerant and by the report of bills in the House and the Senate. Ignorance on the part of the legislators of the purposes and policies of the colony is astonishing, and this ignorance existed in spite of the fact that Considerant had done everything to inform them of his purpose and policies. At one time he distributed to the members his pamphlet on European Colonization in Texas which went into detail concerning the proposed colony. Savardan, in his book, states that this distribution was the greatest mistake made by Considerant because he took a neutral stand on political problems, especially on slavery. This, Savardan explains, was the very thing that Texans, especially the legislators, did not want. Conditions and circumstances in Texas demanded partisan politics and not neutrality. One must of necessity be for or against slavery, building of railroads, immigration, and similar movements.

In December, 1855, Considerant presented a petition to the House of Representatives and the Senate setting forth his appeal for grants of land in Texas.[26] In this he said that in returning to Texas for the second time he found there had been considerable change: in the public sentiment toward foreigners; in that all vacant lands in the north part of the state had been taken 81 up by settlers, located on by speculators, or reserved to the Pacific Railroad Company. Thus the advantage which he clearly foresaw in 1852 for his colonization company and which he put forth as inducements in his reports to his friends to settle in Texas, had practically vanished, leaving him in a peculiar situation. The reaction to such a situation in Europe and among his friends had been such as to endanger the project of colonization. In consideration of these factors he asked if “a grant, for instance of two hundred sections of land, made to the Colonization Company, would exceed the measure of the favor” which the state would feel disposed to extend to the company as encouragement and compensation for the heavy expenses already undergone by the company in bringing settlers to Texas. So when he returned to present the above petition, he found public opinion aroused opposing his project.[27]

Considerant, thoroughly realizing this opposition to him and his colonists in Texas, attempted to answer the charges brought against him. In a letter to the governor of Texas, he said that certain persons “see only in our immigration an invasion of fanatics, enemies of property, of robbers, abolitionists,” and that they “imagined that we came to this country with the intention of subverting her institutions and laws, to bring about the abolition of slavery, and to create a State within a State.” Such charges were, according to him wholly unfounded, and could be charged only to “persons who had previously given unmistakable signs of mental aberration.”[28]

Nevertheless, in spite of Considerant’s pleading and earnest presentation of facts, the state legislature did not see fit to grant him lands which he had requested. This was due perhaps to the change of policy in regard to 82 state lands which had been recently adopted rather than to any particular objections to the French colonists or their socialistic doctrines. Of course, as was shown by newspaper reports, the objection to the colonists was so great that no land would have been granted even if there had been no change of policy.

Even though Considerant and others of the colony labored assiduously for the grant of land and recognition of the colony, a bill permitting incorporation was all that they could achieve. On July 19, 1856, the Committee on Public Lands made the following report concerning the petition of the colony:

The Committee on Public Lands, to which was referred the petition of Victor Considerant, have had the same under consideration, and instructed me to report against the prayer of the petitioner; yet they have instructed me, in virtue of the fact that the petitioner represents a company with a large capital, and whose objects are to engage in manufacturing and other branches of industry, which it is believed will be of incalculable advantage to this country, to report a bill incorporating said company for the above purpose and recommend its passage.[29]

Later, on August 16, such a bill was introduced to “incorporate the European and American Colonization Society in Texas.” Some one immediately moved to amend the bill by inserting Harrison County and substituting G. G. Gregg, W. Adair, W. M. Evans. The amendment was tabled. Still another amendment was offered to substitute thirty-three and one-third years for the one hundred years contained in the bill, which amendment was also lost. Mr. Dickson of Red River, when his name was called, arose and said,

83

I would like to know what this incorporation means to do. I don’t see any proposition to do any particular thing. The bill just incorporates a body of men, without specifying for what purpose.

Now, I understand that this is a French Colony of Communists, and that those people there work for the leading men at about twenty cents a day, and are charged for their provisions, thus coming in debt at the end of every night.

Without having any explanation of what these people mean to do, and hearing these things charged against them, I vote No.[30]

The bill to incorporate finally passed the House by a vote of forty-eight to twenty according to the House Journal, but only forty-three to twenty according to the records of the State Gazette.[31]

In the Senate the bill suffered the same fate as to amendments. On August 25, one was offered which “provided, that this act shall not take effect or be in force until said Corporation shall (if they be foreigners) first file evidence in the State Department of their naturalization.” Then another amendment,

Provided, that a majority of the directors of said company, and the President thereof, shall be residents of Texas, and that the principal office shall be kept in this State, where all writs and citations shall be served.

and then the third amendment,

Provided, that this act shall not be so construed as to entitle said company to the benefit of any law, granting land or money to any Railroad or Manufacturing or Colonization Company, nor shall it authorize the company to prohibit slavery in any territory occupied by them.[32]

The bill as amended was voted on and failed of adoption 84 in the Senate by a vote of fifteen for and thirteen against, two-thirds being needed for its passage.

After the bill failed in passage, Senator McDade moved for a reconsideration of the vote, but it was laid on the table for future consideration.[33] Later, on August 29, Bryan called upon the Senate to reconsider the vote on the colony, and was successful in winning the passage in the Senate, fifteen to seven.[34] Then, on the following day the bill was reported in a list of bills enrolled—having been signed by the speaker of the House and the President of the Senate and being ready for the governor’s signature.[35]

On September 1, 1856, the bill to incorporate the “American Colonization Society in Texas,” was signed and thus became a recognized act of the State Legislature. Thus, in spite of the prejudice created by the newspapers the colony was legally established in Texas, but the outcome was very discouraging to those who had expected success.

CHAPTER V
THE IMMIGRANTS

After the organization of the company in Belgium on September 26, 1854, immediate preparations were made to raise money and prepare the colonists for their emigration to America. François Cantagrel and a Mr. Roger, Belgian medical student, left Brussels October 3, 1854, for New York, reaching that port October 27. Cantagrel’s plan was to go overland to Cincinnati where he was to purchase supplies and equipment for the new colony. From this place he intended to continue his journey to Texas, reaching his destination not later than the latter part of November. However, his progress was far slower than he expected; he was still on his way in February, 1855, and presumably did not reach La Réunion until the latter part of that month.[1] The arrival of Cantagrel and his party was announced as follows:

Some of the leading gentlemen connected with the French Colony of Messrs. Brisbane and Considerant are now in town. From them we learn some additional items in relation to the designs and objects of the association. It is in contemplation to establish three provisional settlements; one, probably, in this county, one in Tarrant, and one on the Keechi or Brazos. A large number of the settlers for these colonies are now en route, having left Cincinnati in December last. They are probably detained by the low stage of the rivers.

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We understand that industrial, mechanical, and learned professions will be fully represented. It is their design to make everything they use within themselves, and they will engage largely in manufactures of different kinds. It is especially their intention we learn, to engage largely in the cultivation of the grape and manufacture of wines. Such a settlement in our midst, of a nation celebrated for its intelligence, genius and skill in the mechanic arts, cannot fail to add greatly to its prosperity. Some of the leading republican minds and most distinguished authors of France, who, since the usurpation of the “Man of the 2nd December” have been exiled from their country for opinion’s sake, are engaged in this enterprise. A welcome and success to all say we.[2]

It is not known just how many were in the party, but some joined Cantagrel and Roger at Cincinnati and others were hired along the way to do labor at La Réunion. Brisbane explained that the work of Cantagrel was to explore the country and decide on a definite location for the project, begin the erection of buildings for the first immigrants, sow crops, prepare gardens, vineyards, and in general construct the colony.[3] He further stated that it was hoped that “a body of intelligent and enterprising Americans” would be “attracted to the work by the noble aim which it holds out, and the advantages of a higher social life which it offers.”[4] Other parties of immigrants soon followed, some small, some large. One of these parties was reported by the National Intelligencer, Washington, May 7, 1855, as having passed through Anderson sometime previous to the date. It says:

The Central Texan says that a party of French emigrants, about forty in number, passed through Anderson 87 a few days ago enroute to Dallas. They belong to the Colony which M. Considerant is engaged in establishing. He proposed to introduce about two thousand this year.

M. Cousin, Belgian, conducted a party of twelve, eight Belgians and four Frenchmen. One of this party was a young man named Guelles, son of the French Consul-General at Jura, who had been exiled to Belgium. Savardan, who disliked Considerant and his group, never tired of telling how Considerant and his wife had persuaded this youngster to accompany the party, even against the wishes of his mother, who yielded only when Madame Considerant promised to look after the boy very carefully. However, once in America, Guelles was turned loose to manage for himself. He left the colony to live with some people near by and soon fell ill with tuberculosis and died.

One of the largest groups was assembled by Dr. Savardan. He was one of the outstanding disciples of Fourier in France and had assisted in the formation of other phalanges. Savardan was ready to leave Brussels the week Cantagrel left, but he and Considerant could not agree on terms. Nevertheless, without agreement, he gathered his party at le Havre and sailed on the Nuremberg, a ship of 1800 tons, on February 28, 1855. Savardan had forty-three people and a considerable amount of material which he was bringing to La Réunion. There were five members of this party from Jura who remained in New Orleans and did not finish the trip, eleven from Carcassonne, three from the Hautes-Alps, three from Ardennes, four from Chateau-Renault, seven from Mons, one from Orleans, one from Rouen, four from Paris, and four from Chapelle-Gaugain.

They all had a very pleasant trip which took its course from le Havre to the Azores, where they passed on March 12, through the West Indies, and from thence to New Orleans. Here the Nuremberg stopped and the colonists and materials were loaded on to another ship bound for Galveston. On April 25, Dr. Nicolas, one of the leaders, and ten others left for Galveston because they could not any longer endure the stifling heat at New Orleans. Savardan and the other colonists tarried a few days longer in order to purchase supplies for the party for the remainder of the trip. The purchase consisted of:

The total weight amounted to 7000 pounds and cost, including freight charges to Dallas, $1,000.[5]

The party embarked from New Orleans on May 3 with five women and one young man, Christopher, added to the party. Savardan had been advised that Considerant and his family would join his group at New Orleans, but they did not arrive. However, they joined them later at Galveston. Considerant brought with him his wife, a small child, M. Cesar Daly, and two other Frenchmen from the North American Phalanx named Maguet and Willemet. Galveston was reached May 5, and from here they sailed on a small steamboat, the L’Eclipse, up Buffalo Bayou to Houston. Here additional wagons and horses were purchased and teamsters were hired to take the provisions, some of which had been sent from New York, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, to La Réunion.

On May 18, the French wagon train, guided by a farmer who lived near Dallas and who had come to Houston to sell two bales of cotton, moved out through the woods toward Dallas. Some of the colonists were riding horses, two or three riding in carriages, and some were walking. A few of the men who had been drafted as teamsters were laboring with oxen, trying to get them to move along. Poorly built wagons and the absence of roads greatly hindered progress. They camped at night all together for protection against Indians, the women and children sleeping in the wagons and the men and boys on the ground. Eggs, milk, and poultry were purchased 90 at farm houses as the caravan traversed the sparsely settled districts; some stealing was done, but, generally speaking, the colonists conducted themselves well on the entire trip.

All the way from Houston to La Réunion Savardan reports the colonists were expecting welcoming groups from La Réunion to come out and meet them. This, of course, never occurred because the people already at camp were finding it difficult to keep things going. They arrived at La Réunion June 16, 1855.[6]

Several other groups and individuals arrived at La Réunion during the following eighteen months. In fact, many arrived just in time to see the colony disband, leaving them to shift for themselves. Philip Goetsel, a Belgian, had a ranch of seventeen sections on Mountain Creek, twelve miles west of Dallas, on which he established a colony of Belgians. Several cabins were built on low lands which were subject to overflow; other improvements were made, but the colony never did become more than a dependency of La Réunion. Goetsel, however, planned to build a huge city upon the land, which he proposed to name Louvain in honor of his home city in Belgium. He had invested thirty thousand francs in La Réunion and when he noticed that it was going to pieces, he demanded his money with the intention of investing it in the “Louvain scheme.” The directors of La Réunion refused him his share on the grounds that he was building Louvain in opposition to La Réunion and that it would draw all the trade away from the community stores of the colony.[7] Still another party, time of arrival uncertain, was the one led by M. M. Raizant composed of nine people. These apparently came by 91 New Orleans and Galveston, perhaps preceding Savardan’s party.

La Réunion was made up of high class, well educated and cultured people. A brief biography of the founders of the colony has already been given in the first chapter of this book, but a short sketch concerning several will here serve to give the reader a better comprehension of the colonists as a group.

Dr. Augustin Savardan had already helped to establish phalansteries in France before coming to Texas. He had also organized and supervised an orphans’ home in Paris which Napoleon III had helped to sustain. He was one of the first men Considerant and his colleagues called into conference in Brussels when they began the organization of the European-American Colonization Society, and they asked him to act as chairman in one of their first meetings. In his report of his practice as a physician at La Réunion, he stated that he treated 226 patients and served in many other capacities during his stay here.[8]

Julien Reverchon came from a distinguished family in France.

His father, J. Maximilien Reverchon, was born at Lyons in 1810, and died at Dallas in 1879; and his mother (born Mlle. Florine Pete) was the daughter of a distinguished Lyonnaise advocate. Julien’s grandfather, Jacques Reverchon (1746-1829), was a Jacobin member of the National Convention (1792-95), as well as the Council of Five Hundred and of the Council of Elders. This Jacques Reverchon the revolutionnaire is that same citizen-representative from Saone et Loire, Rhone-et-Ain, whose reports on the rapacity of the Maratists at Lyons have been quoted in Taine’s Les Origines de la France Contemporaine.[9]

Julien and his father came to La Réunion as members of a colony arriving there in December, 1856. The father was a trained agriculturist and attempted to direct the colonists in scientific farming. He told them that if they would plow and stir the land deep in the fall and plant early in the spring, good crops would be produced. The men, however, were inexperienced in farming and Reverchon had little success. Nevertheless, in spite of the most severe drought that Texas had experienced in a long time, Reverchon grew crops, planted fruit trees, and introduced advanced methods in Dallas County farming.[10]

One of the most interesting names is that of François Santerre, farmer and ex-soldier, who remained with his wife and children near the colony site, engaged in sheep raising and farming when the colony disbanded. His varied interests included a love of books, particularly of the sixteenth century edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses which he took with him on six business trips he made to France.[11]

This book, among others, was in the possession of his son, Gustave, former owner of the La Réunion Fruit Farm. His eldest son, Germain, was one of two surviving immigrants in 1930, the other being M. Guilbot, who lived near Alvarado.[12]

There is partial information concerning several others who were outstanding in the colony. Madame Clarisse Vigoureaux, mother-in-law of Considerant, was author of several books, and also intensely interested in Fourierism. Emile Rémond was a scientific farmer and writer on soils. A recent writer in explaining what Rémond did in Dallas County says,

The clay resources of Dallas County very early attracted the attention of the pioneers, particularly the 93 French, who settled the French town of La Réunion west of Dallas in 1854. Prof. E. Remond (1840-1906) of this colony was particularly active in his investigation and experiments with the clays of the county. He made successfully brick, vitri-brick, and sewer pipe. Prof. Remond was the first to import a plastic brick machine. He was also first to use the lime and shale for making concrete and instigated the founding of the Iola Cement Plant. Remond made brick in South, East, and West Dallas, at Dawdy’s Ferry and Mountain Creek.[13]

Allyre Bureau, a director of the colony, was a trained musician who had been director in the Odeon, a national theater in Paris. He tried to revive the dying colony in 1856, but failed, and started to return to France toward the close of the Civil War in the United States. He contracted yellow fever near Houston and died in a sanitarium located about fifty miles north of that city. Several architects were in the group, among whom may be mentioned Ureidag, Flemish, who submitted plans for the Dallas County Court House, and John B. Louchx, who was later alderman and one of the fourteen bachelors who came to build houses and prepare the ground for the coming of other colonists. Ben Long came from Zurich, Switzerland, and later introduced a group of Swiss colonists in Dallas. Before his death, killed while serving as a Dallas officer, Long served as United States Commissioner, as Mayor of Dallas, and as an officer in the Sheriff’s office.[14]

Texas and Dallas were very fortunate in having a group of men and women possessed of such attainments settle in their midst. Generally speaking, Considerant was correct when he estimated that the French colonists who were planning to come to La Réunion were far ahead in culture and learning of the average Texas settlers in the state at that time.

On February 10, 1855, however, the Texas State Gazette expressed in an editorial a feeling of uneasiness when it announced that

According to a recent letter from Strausburg, which is published in the National Gazette of Switzerland, the Socialist Party in Alsace is about to emigrate en masse to Texas, where one of their chiefs, the well known Victor Considerant, has purchased a large quantity of land. The departure of emigrants is to take place during the ensuing year.[15]

As far as can be determined, there is no roll of the colony in existence, and thus statements of the survivors and descendants of those in the colony must be taken as authority on the number who made up the colony. One writer refers to a roll containing over three hundred names formerly in the possession of the colonists. This roll, however, has been lost and the writer had to depend upon the memory of the colonists and lists given in various articles. Some of the survivors stated that there were as many as 550 people in La Réunion, but it appears, through a process of checking and rechecking, that the above-mentioned roll was perhaps the complete roll of the members, and therefore there were no more than three hundred in the colony at any one time—perhaps that number included all that ever lived in the colony during its existence.[16]

CHAPTER VI
LA RÉUNION, THE COLONY

La Réunion was located three to four miles west of the Dallas county court house near what is generally termed the “Old Fort Worth-Dallas Pike,” on the south bank of the Trinity River. The ground is now occupied by a small settlement, Cement City, and several farms. The soil is poor as compared with other lands surrounding Dallas, but the location is very attractive as to scenery. The hills and valleys are still partly wooded with elm and blackjack, and must have been more so eighty years ago.[1]

The Dallas site was really second choice as the original plan was to settle in Cooke County. However, arriving in Cooke County several months after the first visit, the agents for the colony found all the land already occupied or claimed by speculators, railroad companies, and American colonists. This forced the selection of another location, since the company did not feel justified in paying a large sum for land that could be obtained elsewhere more reasonably. Victor Prosper Considerant, founder of the colony, had spent two weeks near the Dallas location in 1853 in the home of Mr. Gouhenans and was favorably disposed toward accepting it as the site for his future colony. Roger, another leader of the colony, later joined Considerant in insisting on the 96 choice. Allen, Cantagrel, and other members wanted to settle at Fort Worth, at Belknap, and even farther west, but upon the insistence of a few of the colonists, supported by Considerant, the Dallas site was chosen and further search was abandoned.[2]

The ground occupied in Dallas County consisted of various surveys from time to time, but the actual ownership never surpassed a few thousand acres. On January 7, 1855, James Knight of Fort Bend County conveyed to Considerant one league and labor of land, which was probably the first land purchased at the price of one hundred dollars for 320 acres. Finally, during the following year, a map of the proposed La Réunion with a description of its survey was placed on record in the Dallas County courthouse.[3]

This land was at first controlled by Considerant and was listed in Dallas County records as his personal property. Such an arrangement was in full accord with the agreement made between Considerant and the company in Belgium before he came to the United States as an agent with full power, acting for the European-American Colonization Company. In fact, he agreed with the company that any and all purchases of whatever nature made by him while in America would become the property of the company.[4] This was done so that no one would be able to accuse him of using the funds of the company or his official position for his own personal advancement.

There were some advantages in the choice of land, but the disadvantages were far greater than the advantages, the colonists later learned. For water the 97 settlers had to depend largely upon fissure springs coming from the Austin Chalk formation.

In these springs the water which collects along certain of the more porous layers of the chalk rock is permitted to come to the surface along the more or less open fissures between the faulty blocks. Sometimes wells were dug in draws and low drain ways, which wells were often unsanitary as was shown by the number of cases of fever amongst the colonists during their stay in La Réunion.[5]

Savardan hints in several places in his book that Considerant did not want to develop this land—this, however, appears unwarranted. The facts seem to be that the French colonists were not able financially or otherwise to develop the phalanstery or the land as it should have been developed.[6] Inexperience, lack of capital, and the climate all contributed to the lackadaisical policy which was followed.

Considerant had explained in his Au Texas, to those who contemplated investing in the company, that La Réunion was to serve as a center from which would radiate numerous lines leading to other counties, or even to other states. Not only were there to be other colonies growing out of the central foundation, but there was to be continual in-coming and out-pouring of individuals. These individuals, having lived in the colony and having imbibed of its policies, would go out and settle nearby on new ground, but would retain their connection with the establishment in a cultural and commercial way.

In line with such a policy, Considerant began almost immediately to purchase land for such expansion. Savardan severely criticizes him for this, but such action was in full accord with Considerant’s intention as announced 98 in Au Texas. However, Considerant erred greatly, almost criminally, by not waiting until La Réunion, which was to be the center of all activity, was firmly established. The facts are that he never remained at La Réunion a sufficient length of time to establish anything or to become familiar with its problems and possibilities. The first purchase in the expansion move was made, May 17, 1855, which amounted to fifty-one and one-eighth acres near the present city of Houston. This plot was to be used as a way-station, where incoming colonists could rest and become acclimated to the Texas weather.[7]

Some of the prominent leaders at La Réunion wanted to establish several rest camps along the road from Houston to La Réunion, but this was never put in operation. Savardan, the critic, says that A. M. Bussy proposed to establish stores and gardens from which the incoming colonists would receive supplies; Considerant not only opposed this but did not even want a store at La Réunion.[8] On account of the climate and lack of development, this Houston way-station served little good and was soon abandoned. Two men, one of whom was a physician who had been in charge of the camp for a short time, were forced to leave Houston on account of a severe fever epidemic. They arrived at La Réunion weeks later, where Savardan treated the men and brought them to a slow recovery.[9]

The second extension of the central colony was in Uvalde County where a purchase of more than fifty thousand acres was made.[10] Some of the settlers wanted to build the second colony near Fort Belknap. They 99 pointed out that the distance was not more than half of that to Uvalde, and that better land could be secured for less than half the price of Uvalde land. In addition to this, the United States Army would be at hand to protect them from the Indians which would not be the case at Uvalde.[11]

However, Considerant went from Austin, where he had been working with the legislature trying to get a grant of land for his colonists, to San Antonio with a state senator. Considerant was apparently introduced to a land speculator and developer, who borrowed $10,000 from him. Later Considerant was severely criticized for this act but he explained that it was a legitimate business deal. Nevertheless, it appears that he fell into the hands of clever land speculators who had been introduced to him by the senator and that he was stripped of the remaining cash belonging to the company which he had in his possession. The deal caused considerable criticism and disagreement among the men at La Réunion.

Considerant answered the criticism by pointing out the success of the colonists at Castroville, New Braunfels, and Fredericksburg. These colonies had been established about ten years, he claimed, and all were successful. He had visited Belton in 1853, at which time there was no settlement, but in 1855 many stores and brick houses had either been built or were under construction. Hondo also was flourishing and several buildings were under construction there.

Considerant could dream of phalansteries all over Texas, linked together by trade and culture, and talk of a super-race bred from a vigorous and active American people mixed with the cultured French; in fact, he might 100 be classed as a great dreamer and philosopher, but as a manager of commercial affairs or as to meeting the land speculators on even terms, he was a sad failure.[12]

His financial accounts with the company were, apparently, always mixed and his dealings with the individual colonists were never satisfactory. Several men were sent at various times to investigate and audit his accounts, but each time at their departure the old system—rather lack of system—would develop again.

When the colonists reached the location where they expected to find a flourishing colony, buildings, and growing crops and cattle, they were always disappointed in finding everything in confusion and disagreement. This is especially true of those arriving after the first six months; those coming earlier entered the undertaking with faith and hope in the ultimate success of the phalanstery. Both Albert Brisbane and Considerant, chief proponents of the colony, had urged the company agents and prospective colonists not to hurry over until all preparations had been made to receive them. Furthermore, Considerant urged the agents over and over again not to send out men who were not farmers; it was his purpose to form an agricultural colony and introduce industry only as needed. However, both the agents and the people disregarded this advice; no farmers were sent, and the colonists were thrust upon Considerant before any preparations had been made. Becoming discouraged over the prospects, within a few months after the beginning of the establishment, Considerant wrote to France advising that further plans be suspended as the colony would very likely cease operation.[13] Nevertheless, La Réunion was established and those people arriving 101 from Europe set immediately to work constructing houses in which to live. The town which was built on the grounds was nothing like the phalanstery which had been proposed.[14]

The following quotation shows that in addition to the President’s office, in April, 1856, the colony possessed several other important buildings,

... a building for making soap and candles, a laundry, a building for offices, a kitchen, a grocery store, beehives, a chicken house, a smoke house, a forge, a cottage for the Executive Agent, and have begun the construction of two dormitories of eight apartments each, to be given to different households.[15]

Three years later, in 1859, a visitor, after describing the general merchandise store, says, “Réunion contains a fine and commodious store-house, blacksmith shop, hotel, a bootmaker, tailor and mechanic’s shop. Coombs’ steam mill is only one mile distance from La Réunion.”[16] The same writer, in describing the store, said:

We are indebted to the courteous and gentlemanly proprietor of the La Réunion store for a lot of choice cigars and a jar of delicious brandy pears. They have at La Réunion a well selected stock of new and fashionable goods, which they are prepared to sell at unreasonably low prices.[17]

In 1919 a visitor surveying the ruins wrote:

Some distance from this structure, possibly 200 yards, were the remains of a store and concrete building about thirty feet or more square which was the commissary for the colony; thick walls were still several feet high on the four sides. Between this ruin and the residence were outlines of old fence partitions preserved by indigenous shrubs, prickly pear, hoar hound, etc., with now and then a plum tree survival.[18]

These buildings were constructed of wood and stone. Because of lack of knowledge concerning the climate, the colonists did not realize the necessity of good construction for protection against the “northers” and consequently suffered severely from the cold.

When a sufficiently large group had settled at La Réunion, the people met to form a society which they called “The Society of Réunion.”[19] Objectives of this Society were: acquisition of the domains of La Réunion, Dallas County, the development of agriculture, the construction of industrial establishments, and the formation of a council for making public decisions. The operating or social fund of the society was fixed at $600,000 representing 4800 actions at $125. The Society of Réunion was to act as a local office or clearing house for the business of the colony and to deal directly with the European Colonization Society of Texas. It was not to replace or to usurp the prerogatives of the parent society.

In addition to possessions in the form of buildings, the Society put into cultivation 430 acres of land; purchased 500 head of cattle, some sheep, pigs, and fowls; dug wells, built a few short, shallow canals; bought mowing, reaping, and threshing machines; and secured two half-sections of land near the settlement. A very large garden was planted and developed, one that did not justify the funds invested but excited the curiosity of all who visited the colony.[20]

At first the store was successful and apparently did a very good business, as one report shows an average of $330 a month business, with profits ranging from twenty to thirty per cent. This trade came largely from 103 outside the colony, and seems to have been due to the fact that the store was stocked with better goods more reasonably priced than those in stores farther from the surrounding settlers.

There was a co-operative kitchen in which the majority of the colonists had their meals. During Cantagrel’s directorship the colony had four long tables in the dining room. On each table was a large bowl of pottage and one of meat which were passed around in family style. Quite often, according to Savardan, the bowls reached the last two or three people completely empty, and there was no more food to replenish the dish. The men paid twenty-two sous each day for board; the women eighteen sous; and children from six to twelve paid twelve sous; while children under six paid six sous. Savardan was opposed to the communistic arrangement at the table for he said such arrangements gave privileges and thus made “nobilities of the great eaters and head waiters, while the small eaters had to take what was left.” He suggested a return to the restaurant as the most democratic plan, for then each fellow would get what he paid for. The hotel, or “family style,” serving proved unsatisfactory, and six members were appointed as a commission to investigate the comparative cost of hotel meals and restaurant serving. Cantagrel presided at the meeting. This commission found that the “family style” was not paying expenses, so they decided to establish a sort of cafeteria in which each was given the same portion. However, this arrangement could not be instituted until May 10, 1856, because Considerant would not surrender his house for the purpose. During the first three months of operation the new plan was very successful and was able to improve the meals by serving 104 various foods such as chicken, beef, pork, and mutton. But when Cantagrel left and was succeeded by Dethoya the project disintegrated because the chief waiter or cashier began to steal the money and serve poorer food. When so much trouble arose, Dethoya had twenty people to sign a proof of his honesty. Madame Considerant also sided with him against Guillmet.[21]

The co-operative kitchen broke up into dozens of small ones, one of which was able to have good food at twenty-five sous per day. People withdrew into separate institutions and planted small gardens. Slaves brought them fish for which they paid twenty-five cents for ten or fifteen pounds. Savardan’s group lived there for six months after the breakup of the general colony.

For a time the colonists were not interested in stocking the land or planting crops. Most of them came fairly well supplied with money and did not find it necessary to work for their daily living until their reserve funds began to dwindle. Then, according to one report, sheep, cows, hogs, and chickens were purchased, even against the advice of Considerant. The cattle numbered about six hundred when the final survey of affairs was made.[22]

It is exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the system of work carried on in La Réunion. In one place it is said that the laborer received one-third of the products of his labor; in another statement it was said that each worker was paid a stipulated sum and that near riots occurred in an attempt to get higher wages. Toward the end of the colony’s existence the “reserves” were apportioned to each man according to his deserts. Just how these reserves were accumulated is not clear; however, they appear to have consisted of money or goods stored up in 105 excess of the actual demands of the colony. In some cases the reserve accumulated from contributions made by incoming colonists and in other instances it was formed from excess production.[23]

Nevertheless, there was some order and plan even in this chaos. There was to be a council of six men, in addition to Considerant, which was to govern locally all of La Réunion. Then, there was the Council of Workmen, supported by all workers, which elected two workers to be added to the council of six. This Council of Workmen was formed by organized groups of laborers who elected one member from each trade group. For example, Mr. Louckx was committeeman of the workers in wood. Dailly was head of metal workers, and other trades were similarly organized.[24]

Men were assigned to certain work; quite often they were changed day by day. This led to waste and inefficiency. On one job six men were employed in marking cattle, and because of their ignorance they often burned the cattle severely, marking only about twenty-five each day. However, in May, 1856, a young veterinarian, M. Louis, took charge of this trade and marked as many as seventy a day. Dr. Savardan tells how he, a trained physician, and several professional men were set to cutting wood. Considerant, noticing that they were destroying the younger trees, called their attention to it, whereupon two of the woodcutters became very angry and contended with him. These same men also built fences, dug wells, and did other odd jobs about the place. In spite of the apparent universality of labor, there was some complaint that all were not showing returns from their labors, and contention arose as to whether all should produce something of general value.

106

“En réalité, depius l’expérience malheureuse du Texas—et mème bien avant—on ne pouvait plus dire que Victor Considerant était un représentant authentique du socilisme etopique at pacifique.”

Translation

“In reality since his unhappy experience in Texas—and even before—one is able to say only that Victor Considerant was an authentic representative of Utopian and pacific socialism.”

Maurice Dommanget, Victor Considerant, sa Vie, son Oeuvre, p. 218.

CHAPTER VII
THE BREAKUP

La Réunion was a failure from the moment it started; it was never a success. Of course, a historian cannot predict what would have happened under certain given conditions, but it seems reasonable to believe that any other type of colony formed by the same people under the same conditions would also have been a failure.

In the first place, Considerant was not a suitable man to head such an enterprise. His theory of colonization as propounded in Au Texas is reasonable enough and, if followed, could probably succeed under favorable conditions. However, his weaknesses were his personal attitude and his lack of administrative ability. Savardan says that Considerant was a great organizer and promoter but did not possess a sense of continuity or of development. He easily became discouraged and soon lost interest in proposed plans and procedures. When he arrived in New York in 1854 on his return to Texas, he was met by the denunciation of the Know-Nothing Party (American Party.) Tirades against foreigners made by leaders of the party were diplomatically and ably answered by Considerant’s pamphlet, European Colonization in America, but in spite of his confident tone exhibited in this pamphlet, he became discouraged from that moment. His absolute faith in the sense of 108 justice of the American people, as stated in Au Texas, vanished and he was forced to realize the absurd servility of people who will subject themselves to demagogues in time of national hysteria. Considerant never exhibited any sign of vigor, initiative, or enthusiasm after the publication of his address to the American people.

When he joined Savardan’s party in Galveston, a change in his attitude was evident. He was sullen, withdrawn, and sensitive to criticism. Instead of going with the party from Houston to Dallas, he went to Austin and then to La Réunion. However, there is no indication in the records of any initiative on his part to put the colony in shape, or of any plan of unity of development worked out. The moment he reached La Réunion he began to think of leaving it. In a conversation between Cantagrel and Savardan in April, 1856, before all the colonists had arrived, Savardan understood that Considerant had come to the conclusion to disband the colony, to parcel out the land to colonists and others, and to break up the community affairs. Savardan states that not more than ten per cent of the colonists wanted to divide up the land, that most of them felt that they could not exist independently.[1]

Considerant, leader of the whole undertaking, was never in the colony for any length of time. He was alternately at Austin, San Antonio, or Uvalde, and consequently, when he was at La Réunion, he could not make any decision because he was unacquainted with the workings of the organization. Apparently, refusal of the state legislature to grant the lands which Considerant had expected to obtain for the colonists completely destroyed what hope he had left; it was after this refusal 109 that he wrote to France advising that no more colonists be sent.[2] Finally, after an absence of five months, he returned to the colony from a trip into Southwest Texas, and being convinced that the colony was doomed, appointed a successor to himself and suddenly, on July 7, 1856, departed in secret.[3]

Considerant, in his pamphlet Du Texas, assumes all blame for the failure of the La Réunion experiment and confesses that he had a serious lack of confidence in himself. After his plans failed, he became a despairing and broken man, often planning to end all by self-destruction.[4] It is certainly true that this lack of self-confidence prevented success of the colony.

The second reason for its failure was the mismanagement of financial affairs. Considerant reported about 1857 that “During two years, the greater part of the disposable funds were wasted under my own eyes.”[5] But Savardan gives a different story: he lists several funds which he claims Considerant, himself, wasted. His evidence is as follows:

a. $3,000 wasted by an inefficient gardener who, Considerant insisted, should be at the head of the agricultural work.

b. That Considerant paid double price for meat when it could have been raised on the farms of La Réunion. There were no sheep or pigs—$300.

c. That he bought carriages and horses for himself which he did not need, at least they were better than were required, for which he charged the society under the head of personal expense—$300.

110

d. That he built for himself and family a cottage instead of living in the commodious buildings of the colony with the remainder of the colonists and charged the cost to personal expenses—$1,000.

e. The horses that were lost by theft or death unnecessarily and the carriages and other equipment which soon depreciated in value because of lack of sheds, etc., the poorly constructed houses and other buildings, which would soon have to be replaced—$10,000.

f. The failure of Considerant to pay his own passage and transportation as other colonists had done—$100.

g. Numerous trips from San Antonio to Uvalde for the purchase of land when one or two trips would have been sufficient.

While the above does not convict Considerant of serious mismanagement, it does indicate a lack of system. However, in another place he is charged with using funds without giving any account to the directors, and of entrusting the financial affairs of the colony to dishonest men.[6]

Even though the society owned all its tools, cattle, and other property, there was apparently no method used to check the use of this property until toward the close of 1856, nearly two years after the organization was started. Bussy, who had charge of the equipment, became disgusted and resigned; then Savardan took over the work. He listed all equipment and tools on cards and then numbered each object so he could keep up with all the property belonging to the company. The records of this checking were kept in a large book which he left at La Réunion on his departure therefrom. All the cattle, hogs, and other livestock were also numbered, and a 111 proposal was made that even the colonists themselves should be assigned a number by which their accounts could be checked. All property loaned and assigned to members of the colony had to be checked out and a record of it kept by a young man appointed as caretaker. This scheme apparently worked well and the serious loss of materials which had occurred previously was checked. However, a minor reform such as Savardan made could not revitalize the faulty financial system.[7]

In addition to mismanagement there was downright dishonesty and misapplication of funds. This was especially true in the mismanagement of the restaurant and in the keeping of accounts with individuals of the colony. Savardan stated that Cousin took $98.00 from him which he deposited with the treasurer of the colony for safe-keeping. Others had the same experience. Apparently some one applied to the courts in Dallas for redress, for on July 16, 1857, the Dallas court made inquiry as to the administration. Considerant refused even to attempt a settlement of the accounts and the company sent a Mr. Simonin to La Réunion from New York to audit the accounts. He spent three months in the colony and investigated more than 200 accounts, arranged them satisfactorily, and then turned the business over to another man also sent from New York.

A third reason for the failure of La Réunion was the failure of the Americans to participate in its promotion and settlement. Both Brisbane and Considerant had planned to have as many Americans as Frenchmen in the colony, but there were never more than twenty and perhaps less than a dozen. One colonist tells about Pendleton and Newton, two American carpenters, who joined the colony. They knew nothing about Fourierism 112 and had merely heard about socialism. Their wives wore bloomers, being followers of Mrs. Blummer who advocated freedom of women’s dress. Savardan said that he had no objections to bloomers as they were an improvement over the old “hoop skirt” which flew up every time a woman sat down in a carriage. In addition to these four Americans there were only a few others, all of whom had left the colony by September, 1857.

Lack of interest on the part of the Americans might be explained on the grounds of the intense American nationalism of the time, the sad experiences of Peter’s Colony, and the “law of reserve” which had caused a very sudden rise in the price of land in the vicinity of La Réunion. After Brisbane’s visit and the first flush of excitement and investment, very little attention was paid by Americans to the experiment. The attitude of the Texas newspapers and the total lack of interest, even hostility, of the state legislature, certainly contributed to the failure.

The climate might be cited as a fourth reason for the breakup of the colony. The years 1855-1857 seem to have been unusual years judging from reports of the colonists themselves and of other Texas settlers living in various parts of the state. Considerant reports that the winter 1856-1857 was a very cold one, and was considered by old settlers to have been the coldest in their memory. Another colonist says that there were twenty-three days of ice in January and from February 7 to March 2 the temperature measured an average of fifteen degrees above zero inside the cabins. This statement is supported by Bureau who arrived in La Réunion January 17, 1857, and found the temperature fifteen degrees below zero. The cold brought great suffering 113 to the settlers, especially to women and children living in the poorly built cabins.

When spring came there was no relief. Drought took the place of cold. Springs dried up and the obtaining of water became a serious problem. Crops came up only to wither and die under the blast of dry winds. Cattle had to be driven to the river for water, but there was no water available for the gardens. The farmers found it difficult to raise anything, especially since they refused to follow instructions of the scientific farmers in the colony. Thus, cold weather, drought, and discouragement undermined the morale of the group and one by one the settlers began to disperse.

Nevertheless, after these things are taken into consideration, and all due allowances are made for these factors, there remains the pertinent fact that the colonists could never agree. There were racial divisions, Belgians vs. French, and conflicts arising between individual members. The most severe disagreements were between the leaders rather than in the rank and file. Savardan, the most garrulous and troublesome of the whole group, tells numerous stories about these misunderstandings. He states that Considerant, Rogers, and Raizant made every effort in their power to prevent colonists from coming to La Réunion. Barclay, a Swiss, came to the colony in 1855 with twenty others, all healthy and strong, intending to become permanent settlers. However, because of the attitude of the colonists, especially of Considerant, all except one soon left and established themselves elsewhere. He also wrote about the coming of Santerre and his family. Santerre sold his farm in France and with seven children started to America. They were dumped on the shore near a 114 Houston farm without anyone to guide them, finally reaching the farm after much trouble. There Raizant did everything he could to prevent them from continuing their journey to La Réunion, but without success. When the family did arrive at La Réunion, Cousin tried to make them leave by the use of sarcasm.[8]

Once when Savardan accused Cousin of forgery of a document which placed him in control of the colony, Cousin threatened to place Savardan in prison, whereupon Savardan immediately withdrew into the house and challenged Cousin to enter, at the same time reminding him of the American law which gave a man the right to protect his own home. After considerable trouble the two men were quieted and the incident passed without any serious results.

Several times, near riots occurred when the men of the colony met to discuss various complaints, those concerning wages especially. Sometimes these disturbances would be ended by the appointment of a committee to consider the matter, after which very little was done—in fact, nothing could be done, as the company had no resources with which to pay nor to make good losses which had occurred. These continual bickerings would have destroyed the colony had nothing else entered the situation to hasten the end. Finally, no socialistic experiment could have been a success under frontier conditions in Texas. The doctrine of Utopian Socialism is a system which deals with industrial conditions and could hardly be applicable to the agrarian frontier. In addition, the capitalistic system had greater rewards to offer individual efforts than did the Utopian social dream.

Thus, a fantastic plan of a French socialist colony came to an end, wrecked upon the individualistic tendencies and weaknesses of its membership. Texas has been made richer culturally by the attempts of these dreamers to better conditions and transform the society in which they lived, even though no economic gain came to these individuals.

APPENDIX

A. Partial List of Settlers

This list has been compiled from all the bibliographical data used in this research, including the census report of 1850 and 1860. There are doubtless duplications since no effort has been made to check transfer of a son or daughter from a family list to a new family by marriage, etc. American reporters of that time and writers of a later date were not accurate in spelling French names. A careful check of names has been made on tombstones in the Old French Cemetery. Many times names were found such as “Dumirel” with no first name and no further appearance. In this case the name was listed just as it appeared. This list is not complete but it contains more names than any other list known at this time. The symbol (S) has been used where the spelling or listing is different but evidently of the same family. The most helpful list and the most complete is by Eloise Santerre contained in her thesis, Réunion ... with a Biographical Dictionary of the Settlers. She also identifies each settler wherever possible.

B. PLAN OF THE PHALANSTERY

B. PLAN OF THE PHALANSTERY

C. ACTS INCORPORATING THE COLONY

CHAPTER CCCX

An Act to Incorporate the European and American Colonization Society in Texas

Whereas, A company under the name of the European and American Colonization Society in Texas has been formed in Brussels between Victor Prosper Considerant, Allyre Bureau, Charles Francois Guillon, Jean Baptiste Andre, Goden Lemaire and their associates, on the 26th day of September, A.D. 1854, as appeared by an act deposited at the office of Mr. Hedweld, Notary in said city, and duly legalized and certified on the 20th day of January, AD. 1855, by the Consul of the United States at Antwerp, the nature and object of which said company consists in the Union of intended colonists creating a joint stock, and constituting an agency to enable its shareholders to emigrate to Texas to colonize, to improve lands, to transfer hither their manufactories, to introduce new culture and new branches of industry. And whereas, the objects of said association are calculated to develop the resources and add to the population and wealth of this State. Therefore, Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas,

Section 1. That Victor Prosper Considerant, Allyre Bureau, Charles Francois Guillion, Jean Baptiste Andre, Godin Lemaire and their associates, successors be, and they are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate, by the name of the European and American Colonization Society in Texas, with power and authority in said corporate name to have succession, to make contracts, to have and use a seal, to acquire by purchase, donation or 128 otherwise, and to own, manage and alienate property real, mixed and personal, to sue and be sued, to plead and be impleaded in law and equity in like manner and as fully as natural persons, to carry on, conduct and manage any kind of manufacturing, mechanical or agricultural business, to issue shares and negotiate them, to borrow money by mortgage on its property or otherwise; to have a President, Directors, Secretaries and Treasurers, and all such officers and agents as the company may deem necessary, and to prescribe their powers and duties; to make such by-laws, rules and regulations, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of this State or of the United States, as they may deem necessary and proper for the government of said company and the management of its affairs and interests, and to possess generally all the powers, rights, immunities and privileges necessary to carry into effect the provisions and objects of the said association.

Provided, that a majority of the Directors of said Company and the President thereof shall be residents of Texas, and that the principal office shall be kept in this State, where all writs and citations shall be served. And further provided, that this act shall not be so construed as to entitle said company to the benefits of any law granting lands or money to any railroad, manufacturing or colonization company, nor shall it authorize said company to prohibit slavery in any Territory occupied by it.

Section 2. The capital stock issued by the said Company shall not exceed one million dollars, to be divided into shares of such values and entitling the share holders thereof to vote in such manner as shall be prescribed by 129 the by-laws of said company; the duration of which shall not exceed twenty years from the passage of this act.

Section 3. That the shareholders or corporators of the company, by this act incorporated, shall be liable for all debts and obligations of said company in the same manner and to the same extent as general partners are by law now liable.

Passed, September 1st, 1856.

Special Laws of the Sixth Legislature of the State of Texas passed at its adjourned session convened July 7, 1856 (Austin 1856) 216-217, in H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, Vol. IV (Austin, 1898), pp. 762-763.

CHAPTER 32

An Act amendatory of an act entitled an act to incorporate the European and American Colonization Society in Texas.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That the third section of the above entitled act be so amended that the same shall hereafter read as follows: That the Shareholders or Corporators of the Company shall be liable for all debts and obligations of said Company, to the extent of the Capital Stock subscribed or owned by each.

Section 2. That this act take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Approved, January 6th, 1858.

Special Laws of Seventh Legislature of the State of Texas (Austin, 1858), 26, ibid., p. 1204.

D. LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION

Permit me to introduce to you my friend Mr. F. Cantagrel of France—He is a gentleman of high standing and acquirements and goes to Texas to see the country and may perhaps establish himself there for life—Being a stranger, he will be thankful for any advice, aid or consel you may extend to him, will be regarded a personal favor by me and duly reciprocated by us both.[1]

Although not acquainted with your Excellency, yet as the diplomatic representative of our country I take 131 the liberty of addressing you this note for the purpose of introducing to your acquaintance and attention the distinguished Republican, Mons. Victor Considerant of France; who is about leaving Europe with a number of his Countrymen to settle and establish a Colony in your state. Mons. Considerant is an ardent republican and has not escaped the persecution usually attendant upon the advocates of these opinions in Europe. Our Countrymen, I trust, will receive him the more cordially. He is a gentleman of means education and intelligence, and will be a most valuable acquisition to your state. Under these circumstances it is not necessary to commend him both good office and kind consideration of the governor of the free and chivalrous state of Texas.

I have the honor to be, Sir, with very great respect your Countryman & old Servant.[2]

Witness my hand and scrawl for seal this 7th Jany A D 1855.[3]

REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A selective bibliography is given here, listing only items important to the development of the Colony. Other items will be found in footnotes, especially for introduction and Chapter I.

Adair, W. S., “Old French Settlement Near Dallas,” Dallas Morning News, March 26, 1922.

Boyer, Louise, “The Story of Old French Colony,” in Dallas Morning News, June 15, 1924.

Bougle, C., “Victor Considerant,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. IV, New York, 1931.

Brisbane, Albert, A Mental Biography, with a Character Study by His Wife Redelia Brisbane, Boston, 1893.

Social Destiny of Man: or, Associations and Reorganization of Industry, Philadelphia, 1840.

Brown, John Henry, History of Dallas County, Texas, from 1837-1887, Dallas, 1887.

Bryan, Louise Estelle, Considerant and His Texas Utopia (M.A. Thesis) Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 1924.

Coignet, Madame C., Victor Considerant, sa Vie, son Oeuvre, Paris, France, 1895.

Collard, P., Victor Considerant, sa Vie, ses Idees, Dijon, 1910. (not cited).

Considerant, Victor Prosper, A Petition to the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Texas, Austin, December 10, 1855.

Au Texas, la premiere rapport a mes amis, Paris, 1954.

Au Texas! Ou Exposé fidèle des hauts faits de science sociale, exécutés par les grands hommes de la Phanage et de la Démocratie pacifique dans le Nouveaux Monde, Paris, 1856.

Au Texas, Rapport a mes amis; Bases et status de la Sociéte de Colonization Europeo-Americaine, au Texas; Les bases d’un premier establissement societaire, 2nd edition, 1855, Bruxelles.

Contre M. Argo Reclamation addressee a la chambre Des deputes par les Redacteurs du Feuilleton de la Phalange. Suivi de la Théorie Droit de Propriete. Paris, 1840.

Destinée Sociale, 3 Vols., Paris, 1834-1844.

Du Texas; premier rapport a mes amis, Paris, Librairie Societaire, 1857.

European Colonization in Texas; An Address to the American People, New York, 1855.

Mexique: Quatre Lettres au Maréchal Bazaine, Bruxelles, 1868.

The Great West; A New Social and Industrial Life in its Fertile Regions, New York, 1854.

Théorie du Droit de Propriete, et du droit au travail, 1848, N.P. (Bound with Contre M. Argo in Texas University Library.)

Three Hundred Millions of Dollars saved in Specie by the Meaning of a Word: Letter to Secretary McCulloch from Victor Considerant (La Conception, Texas). New York, 1867.

Dallas County Deeds Record, Courthouse, Dallas, Texas. (Examined files only from 1852-1870.)

Dallas Herald, Dallas, Texas.

Newspaper published in Dallas, not connected with the present paper bearing the same name. Investigated incomplete files, at the University of Texas, covering the period from July 3, 1855, to June 20, 1860.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, (Examined files only from 1915-1931.)

Democratie Pacifique, Paris, France, July 30, 1843.

Newspaper published by the Fourieristes immediately after Fourier’s death. Not used in the preparation of this account.

Engels, Friedrick, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, tr. by Edward Aveling ... with a special introduction by the author, Chicago, 1900.

Fourniere, Eugene, Le Reigne de Louis-Philippe, 1830-1848, in the Histoire Socialiste, 1789-1900, 12 Vols., edited by Jean Jaures, Paris, 1901-1908.

Galveston News, Galveston, Texas.

Gammel, H. P. N., The Laws of Texas 1822-1897, Vol. V., Austin, 1898.

Geiser, Samuel Wood, “Naturalists of the Frontier; Julian Reverchon” in Southwest Review, XIV (October, 1928, July, 1929), 231-342.

Grandin, A., Bibliographie Générale des Sciences Juridiques Politiques, Economiques et Sociales de 1800 a 1925, 3 Vols., Paris, 1926, also supplement for 1926, 1927 and 1928.

Laidler, Harry W., Socialism in Thought and Action, New York, 1920.

“Letters of the Governors” (Manuscripts), State Archives, Austin, Texas.

Lindsey, Philip, A History of Greater Dallas and Vicinity, 2 Vols., Chicago, 1909.

Louis, Paul, Histoire du Socialism en France de la Revolution a Nos Jours, Paris, 1925.

Lutz, Esubia, “Almost Utopia,” in Southwest Review (October, 1928-July, 1929), Vol. XIV, No. 3, 321-330.

Madison, Charles A., Critics and Crusaders, New York, 1948.

Markham, S. F., A History of Socialism, London, 1930.

New York Tribune, Jan. 1, 1853-1855. New York.

Nordhoff, C., Communistic Societies of the United States, New York, 1875.

Standard, Clarksville, Texas. Scattered files and a few bound numbers are in the Texas University Library. This paper is sometimes known as the Northern Standard.

Olmsted, Frederick Law, A Journey Through Texas; or, a Saddletrip on the Southwestern Frontier, with a statistical appendix and map, New York, 1857.

Parker, W. B., Notes taken during the Expedition Commanded by Capt. R. B. Marcy, U.S.A., through unexplored Texas in the fall of 1854, Philadelphia, 1856.

Pigon, A. C., Socialism versus Capitalism, London, 1938.

Raines, Cadwell Walton, A Bibliography of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1896.

Revue des Deux Mondes, Paris, France.

Rosengarten, J. G., French Colonists and Exiles in the United States, Philadelphia, 1907.

Santerre, George H., White Cliffs of Dallas, the story of La Réunion, the Old French Colony, Dallas, 1955.

Santerre, Eloise, Réunion, a Translation of Dr. Savardan’s Un Naufrage au Texas, with an Introduction to Reunion and a Biographical Dictionary of the Settlers (M.A. Thesis). Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 1936.

Savardan, Dr. Augustin, Un Naufrage au Texas, Observations et Impressions et a Travers Les Etas-Unis d’Amerique, Paris, 1858, Garnier Freres, Libraires-Editeurs.

Shuler, Ellis W., “The Geology of Dallas County,” in University of Texas Bulletin, No. 1818, March 25, 1918.

Sneed, Preston, “Letter Signed by Napoleon is in Dallas” in the Dallas Morning News, Feature section, Sunday, May 8, 1927.

State Gazette, Austin, Texas.

Studer, Hermann, Auswanderung nach hoch—Texas, Was wir in Texas wollen; andeutungen ueber Organization der Arbeit, Zurich, 1855.

Texas—issued by the Houston and Texas as Central Railway Co. Land Department. N.P.N.D.

Texas Land Office, Records, State Archives, Austin, Texas.

Texas State Gazette, Austin, Texas.

Texas State Times, Austin, Texas.

Vincent, Louella Styles, “The Story of Old French Town,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 23, 1919.

INDEX

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Q X Y Z

A

Abolitionists, 76, 77

Adair, W., 82

Aims of the colony, 49

Allen, John, 33, 37, 68, 96

Allgemeine Zeitung, 25

Austin, 44, 99, 108

Austin State Gazette (Texas State Gazette), 67, 69, 71-72, 76-78, 83, 94

Azores, 88

B

Belgium, 23, 25, 44, 52, 62, 96

Blanc, Louis, 9

Blummer, 112

Bourland and Manion, letter of recommendation, 40

Brisbane, Albert, 17, 25, 29-33, 54, 85, 100, 111

Brussels, 85, 87, 91

Bryan, 84, 88

Bureau, Allyre, 93

Bussy, A. M., 98, 108-110

C

Cantagrel, Francçois, 85-86, 96, 103, 104, 108

Capitalism, definition, 11, 55-56, 58

Carcassonne, 87

Castroville, 99

Cement City, 95

Chapelle-Guagain, 87

Chateau-Renault, 87

Choctaw Agency, 39

Cincinnati, 38, 86, 95

Colonists, 85-86, 89-94

Communism, 28, 48, 58

Considerant, Victor Prosper, birth and life, 21;

escape, 25;

contributions, 25-29;

first trip to U.S.A., 35ff.;

trip to Texas, ii;

ideas concerning Texas, 40-44;

return to Europe, 44;

ideas on colonization, iii;

leading attacks, 64-66;

attitude toward slavery, 77-78;

plans suicide, 109;

departed in secret, 109.

Co-operative kitchen, 103-104

Cousin, M., 87, 114

D

Dallas, 41, 61, 89, 93, 95, 111

Dallas County, 92, 93, 96, 102;

courts, 111.

Dallas Herald, 67, 75

Daly, M. Cesar, 95

Démocratie Pacifique, 23-24, 25

De Morse, Major, 40

Dickson (of Red River), 82

Dwight, John S., 33

E

Engels, Frederic, 10-14

Erie (Lake), 42

European-American Colonization Society in Texas, 82, 84, 96, 102

Evans, W. M., 82

Experiment in Texas, 48

F

Fort Belknap, 98

Fort Graham, 41, 44

Fort Smith, 38, 39

Fort Worth, 41, 42;

soldiers in, 42, 63, 96

Fourier, Charles Francois, photograph 1; 14, 17;

birth and life, 18;

teachings, 19-20;

writings, 18, 21;

idea tested, 22;

death, 22.

Fourierism, 17, 23, 30, 32-33, 111

Free-soilers, 76

G

Galveston, 88, 89, 91

Galveston News, 67, 74

Godain-Lemaire, 52, 54

Goetsel, Philip, proposed colony, 90

Godwin, Parke, 33

Gouhenans, M., 41, 95

Greeley, Horace, 33, 75, 78

Gregg, G. G., 82

Guillon, Charles Francois, 52

H

Harrison County, 82

Houston, 89, 90, 93, 96, 98, 114

J

James, Henry, 33

K

Kingsley, Charles, 10

Knight, James, 96

Know-Nothing Party, 64, 65-66, 107

L

La Reunion, founders, 15, 17, 91, 93;

population, 94, 95, 97;

remains, 101-102

La Salle, Saint Jean-Baptiste, 10

Lechevalier, Jules, 26

Long, Ben, 93

Lowell, James Russell, 33, 36

M

McDade, Senator, 84

Macy, Captain, 37, 63

Marx, Karl, 14

152

Merrill, Major, 42, 62, 63

Muiron, Just, 18, 21, 22, 26

N

Napoleon, 25

Napoleon III, 91

National Intelligencer, 86

New Harmony, 12, 14

New Orleans, 52, 88, 89, 91

Newton, 111

New York City, 35, 38, 44, 52, 107, 111

New York Tribune, 67, 75, 77, 79

Northern Standard, 75

Nuremberg, 88

O

Owen, Robert, 9, 12-14

P

Paget, Amedee, 22

Paris, 28

Pellarin, 22

Pendleton, 111

Phalanstére, 22, 23, 26

Phalansterians, 22, 49, 99

Phlange (phalanx), 19-20, 22, 23, 36

Philippe, Louis, 25

Preston (Texas), 39-40

R

Raizant, M. M., 90, 113

Reforme Industrielle, 23, 26

Remond, Emile, 92

Renaud, 22

Reverchon, Julien, 91-92

Rodbertus, Johann, 10

Roger, 85, 86, 95, 113

S

Saint-Simon, school, 25, 29

San Antonio, 44, 99, 108, 110

Santa Fe, 37, 61

Santerre, François, 92, 113-114

Savardan, 87-88, 90, 91, 98, 114

Shaw, Francis G., 33

Socialism, definition, 10-11;

types, 11-12;

Marxian, 11;

Utopian, 12; 14, 31

Société de colonisation, 52;

articles of incorporation, 53-55;

concerning capital, 56-57;

groups within, 57-58;

cooperation with other societies, 59-60;

center of commerce, 61;

incorporation, 82-84, 96

Standard (Northern Standard), 75

State Gazette (Texas State Gazette) Texas, 40, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49, 54, 63

T

Texas settlers, character, 43-44

Texas State Gazette, see Austin State Gazette

Texas State Times, 67, 73

Trinity River, 33, 41, 95

U

Ureidag, 93

Uvalde County, 98-99; 108

V

Vigoureaux, Mme. Clarisse, 21-22, 92

W

Wakefield method, 48

Washington, D. C., 63, 70

Washington Sentinel, 67, 69, 76

Whittier, John G., 33

Y

Young, Arthur, 23

Z

Zurich (Switzerland), 93

LA REUNION, A French Settlement in Texas, by W. J. and Margaret F. Hammond, is the story of one of the great romantic attempts to settle Texas. It is also the failure of several hundred Europeans to realize their dreams.

This venture was led by Victor Prosper Considerant who headed a group of several hundred colonists that came to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1855 to establish La Reunion a few miles west of Dallas, Texas.

Considerant intended this colony to be an experiment. However, those who joined him thought in terms of actual accomplishments. Most of the colonists were college graduates. Many of them were professional people who were successful in European countries. They knew nothing of Texas Frontier life and were not prepared for the heavy demands the climate would make upon their existence. Even though these factors contributed to the disintegration of the colony and experiment, the chief reason for failure was the contrast of this socialistic dream with an unlimited capitalism.

While La Reunion is a product of historical research, the authors have related the story in an interesting, brisk style. The gathering of all footnotes on specific pages instead of placing them at the bottom of each page will be found to be more convenient in research.

Transcriber’s Notes

• Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
• Corrected a few palpable typos.
• In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.