Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: _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.] LA RÉUNION, a French Settlement in Texas by William J. Hammond, Ph.D. and Margaret F. Hammond, M.A. Royal Publishing Company Dallas, 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