CHAPTER VII.
NASHOBA.[ToC]
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 coöperation 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 reïterated 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.