La Réunion, a French Settlement in TexasHammond, William Jackson
History
La Réunion, a French Settlement in Texas
Hammond, William Jackson
French -- Texas; Réunion (Tex.)
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 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, 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]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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