NASHOBA.
Macdonald erects a magniloquent monument over the remains of Nashoba,
the experiment of Frances Wright. This woman, little known to the
present generation, was really the spiritual helpmate and better-half
of the Owens, in the socialistic revival of 1826. Our impression is,
not only that she was the leading woman in the communistic movement of
that period, but that she had a very important agency in starting two
other movements, that have had far greater success, and are at this
moment strong in public favor: viz., Anti-Slavery and Woman's Rights.
If justice were done, we are confident her name would figure high with
those of Lundy, Garrison, and John Brown on the one hand, and with
those of Abby Kelly, Lucy Stone and Anna Dickinson on the other. She
was indeed the pioneer of the "strong-minded women." We copy the most
important parts of Macdonald's memoir of Nashoba:
"This experiment was made in Shelby Co., Tennessee, by the celebrated
Frances Wright. The objects were, to form a Community in which the
negro slave should be educated and upraised to a level with the
whites, and thus prepared for freedom; and to set an example, which,
if carried out, would eventually abolish slavery in the Southern
States; also to make a home for good and great men and women of all
countries, who might there sympathize with each other in their love
and labor for humanity. She invited congenial minds from every quarter
of the globe to unite with her in the search for truth and the pursuit
of rational happiness. Herself a native of Scotland, she became imbued
with these philanthropic views through a knowledge of the sufferings
of a great portion of mankind in many countries, and of the condition
of the negro in the United States in particular.
"She traveled extensively in the Southern States, and explained her
views to many of the planters. It was during these travels that she
visited the German settlement of Rappites at Harmony, on the Wabash
river, and after examining the wonderful industry of that Community,
she was struck with the appropriateness of their system of cooperation
to the carrying out of her aspirations. She also visited some of the
Shaker establishments then existing in the United States, but she
thought unfavorably of them. She renewed her visits of the Rappites,
and was present on the occasion of their removal from Harmony to
Economy on the Ohio, where she continued her acquaintance with them,
receiving valuable knowledge from their experience, and, as it were,
witnessing a new village, with its fields, orchards, gardens,
vineyards, flouring-mills and manufactories, rise out of the earth,
beneath the hands of some eight hundred trained laborers."
Here is another indication of the important part the Rappites played
in the early history of Owenism. As they cleared the 30,000 acres and
built the village which was the theatre of Owen's great experiment, so
it is evident from the above account and from other hints, that their
Communistic ideas and manner of living were systematically studied by
the Owen school, before and after the purchase of New Harmony. Indeed
it is more than intimated in a passage from the _New Moral World_
quoted in our 5th chapter, that Owen depended on their assistance in
commencing his Community, and attributed his failure to their
premature removal. On the whole we may conclude that Owen learned all
he really knew about practical Communism, and more than he was able to
imitate, from the Rappites. They learned Communism from the New
Testament and the day of Pentecost.
"In the autumn of 1825 [when New Harmony was under full sail in the
absence of Mr. Owen], Frances Wright purchased 2,000 acres of good and
pleasant woodland, lying on both sides of the Wolf river in west
Tennessee, about thirteen miles above Memphis. She then purchased
several negro families, comprising fifteen able hands, and commenced
her practical experiment."
Her plan in brief was, to take slaves in large numbers from time to
time (either by purchase, or by inducing benevolent planters to donate
their negroes to the institution), and to prepare them for liberty by
education, giving them half of what they produced, and making them pay
their way and purchase their emancipation, if necessary, by their
labor. The working of the negroes and the general management of the
Community was to be in the hands of the philanthropic and wealthy
whites associated with the lady-founder. The theory was benevolent;
but practically the institution must have been a two-story
commonwealth, somewhat like the old Grecian States which founded
liberty on Helotism. Or we might define it as a Brook Farm _plus_ a
negro basis. The trouble at Brook Farm, according to Hawthorne, was,
that the amateurs who took part in that 'pic-nic,' did not like to
serve as 'chambermaids to the cows.' This difficulty was provided
against at Nashoba.
"We are informed that Frances Wright found in her new occupation
intense and ever-increasing interest. But ere long she was seized by
severe and reiterated sickness, which compelled her to make a voyage
to Europe for the recovery of her health. 'During her absence,' says
her biographer, 'an intriguing individual had disorganized every thing
on the estate, and effected the removal of persons of confidence. All
her serious difficulties proceeded from her white assistants, and not
from the blacks.'"
In December of the following year, she made over the Nashoba estate to
a board of trustees, by a deed commencing thus:
"I, Frances Wright, do give the lands after specified, to General
Lafayette, William Maclure, Robert Owen, Cadwallader Colden,
Richardson Whitby, Robert Jennings, Robert Dale Owen, George Flower,
Camilla Wright, and James Richardson, to be held by them and their
associates and their successors in perpetual trust for the benefit of
the negro race."
By another deed she gave the slaves of Nashoba to the before-mentioned
trustees: and by still another she gave them all her personal
property.
In her appeal to the public in connection with this transfer, she
explains at length her views of reform, and her reasons for choosing
the above-named trustees instead of the Emancipation or Colonization
Societies; and in respect to education says: 'No difference will be
made in the schools between the white children and the children of
color, whether in education or any other advantage.' After further
explanation of her plans she goes on to say:
"'It will be seen that this establishment is founded on the principle
of community property and labor: preserving every advantage to those
desirous, not of accumulating money but of enjoying life and rendering
services to their fellow-creatures; these fellow-creatures, that is,
the blacks here admitted, requiting these services by services equal
or greater, by filling occupations which their habits render easy, and
which, to their guides and assistants, might be difficult or
unpleasing.' [Here is the 'negro basis.']
"'No life of idleness, however, is proposed to the whites. Those who
cannot work must give an equivalent in property. Gardening or other
cultivation of the soil, useful trades practiced in the society or
taught in the school, the teaching of every branch of knowledge,
tending the children, and nursing the sick, will present a choice of
employment sufficiently extensive.'"
In the course of another year trouble had come and Disorganization had
begun.
"In March, 1828, the trustees published a communication in the
_Nashoba Gazette_, explaining the difficulties they had to contend
with, and the causes why the experience of two years had modified the
original plan of Frances Wright. They show the impossibility of a
co-operative Community succeeding without the members composing it are
superior beings; 'for,' say they, 'if there be introduced into such a
society thoughts of evil and unkindness, feelings of intolerance and
words of dissension, it can not prosper. That which produces in the
world only common-place jealousies and every-day squabbles, is
sufficient to destroy a Community.'
"The society has admitted some members to labor, and others as
boarders from whom no labor was required; and in this they confess
their error, and now propose to admit those only who possess the funds
for their support.
"The trustees go on to say that 'they desire to express distinctly
that they have deferred, for the present, the attempt to have a
society of co-operative labor; and they claim for the association only
the title of a Preliminary Social Community.'
"After describing the moral qualifications of members, who may be
admitted without regard to color, they propose that each one shall
yearly throw $100 into the common fund for board alone, to be paid
quarterly in advance. Each one was also to build for himself or
herself a small brick house, with piazza, according to a regular plan,
and upon a spot of ground selected for the purpose, near the center or
the lands of Nashoba."
This communication is signed by Frances Wright, Richardson Whitby,
Camilla Wright Whitby, and Robert Dale Owen, as resident trustee, and
is dated Feb. 1, 1828.
"It is probable that success did not further attend the experiment,
for Francis Wright abandoned it soon after, and in June following
removed to New Harmony, where, in conjunction with William Owen, she
assumed for a short time the management of the _New Harmony Gazette_,
which then had its name altered to the _New Harmony and Nashoba
Gazette or Free Enquirer_.
"Her biographer says that she abandoned, though not without a
struggle, the peaceful shades of Nashoba, leaving the property in the
charge of an individual, who was to hold the negroes ready for
removal to Hayti the year following. In relinquishing her experiment
in favor of the race, she held herself equally pledged to the colored
families under her charge, to the southern state in which she had been
a resident citizen, and to the American community at large, to remove
her dependents to a country free to their color. This she executed a
year after."
This Communistic experiment and failure was nearly simultaneous with
that of New Harmony, and was the immediate antecedent of Frances
Wright's famous lecturing-tour. In December 1828 she was raising
whirlwinds of excitement by her eloquence in Baltimore, Philadelphia
and New York; and soon after the _New Harmony Gazette_, under the
title of _The Free Enquirer_, was removed to the latter city, where it
was ably edited several years by Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen.