II (5)

In 1847 Cabet made an appeal for the organisation of an Icaria in America. He received numerous offers of service from traders who had goods to dispose of. In January, 1848, he purchased a million acres in Texas, and in February sent out sixty-nine enthusiasts who, on arriving at New Orleans on March 27th, were apprised of the Revolution of 1848, and regretted having left France at such a time. Cabet thought that he had bought a tract of land in a ring fence, but found that he had become possessed of scattered lots. The Icarians reached these lands in the midst of all kinds of difficulties. A second body of ninety-nine went to join them, and having ascertained that it was impossible to live there, they separated into small detachments.

At the end of 1848 and in the beginning of 1849 five hundred fresh Icarians, including Cabet, landed at New Orleans. All they possessed was 17,000 dollars. There being no question of their proceeding to Texas, two hundred went off separately, while about two hundred and forty, with Cabet, found a site ready for them at Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, which the Mormons had been recently obliged to abandon. They were able to take eight hundred acres of land and to purchase a mill, a distillery and several houses. For five or six years the affairs of Icaria prospered. A wooden building was to be seen, fifty yards long, which served as a refectory and place of meeting.

The Icarians adopted a constitution. The election of a president was annual, and Cabet was chosen, but an opposition developed itself which continually increased in violence. Cabet opposed them with equal violence, and in 1856 declined to recognise the election of three members of the administrative council. Not only was Icaria distracted by discussions, libels and denunciations, but people even came to blows. Cabet demanded the revocation of the Charter of Icaria, and was expelled from the community, and in November, 1856, retired to St. Louis with eighty faithful supporters. He died there a week after his arrival.

The majority of his companions were workmen by trade who found work in this city. Two years afterwards one hundred and fifty of them resolved to recommence their common life, and with the assistance of Icarians who had remained in France, and who sent them fifty thousand francs, they purchased the Cheltenham Estate, situated six miles from St. Louis. But from 1859 they split into two parties, the older desiring that the Government should rest with the dictator, the younger desiring an organisation based upon discussion. The latter were overruled and withdrew. They were forty-two in number and represented the most active element. The community continuously decayed, and in 1864 numbered no more than fifteen adults of either sex with a few children.

Their president, Sauva, called them together in a “popular assembly” which declared the community of Cheltenham dissolved. The Icarians who had remained at Nauvoo became involved in debt and, declaring that they were too near civilisation to be able to realise their great dream, they bought a property of three thousand acres in extent in the south-west of the State of Iowa, sixty miles from Missouri. The land was good, but they lacked transport, and were burdened with mortgages. At the time of the War of Secession, which supplied them with resources, they only numbered fifteen, including children; later the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad absorbed their property. Prosperity had succeeded to misery, but they split up into factions. The Icarians lost sight of their original ideal, the younger generation becoming imbued with the doctrines of Marx and forming a new party.

In 1877 they attempted a dissolution, which was refused. They then appealed to the Courts, alleging that the community, which had been registered as an agricultural society in the form of a limited company, had infringed its articles of association by indulging in communistic practices. The circuit court appointed three trustees to liquidate its affairs, and the “young party” remained in possession of the whole village; but it never prospered, and was finally dissolved in 1887. The “old party” received the eastern part of the original property, an indemnity of 1,500 dollars and eight houses. The members composing it struggled on until 1895, when the community finally disappeared.