“We have never been, in Europe, the abettors of disturbance, or the creators of disorder. We have there been diligent laborers in the good cause, the devoted soldiers of the interests of humanity. America! Free and Republican! was it a crime in us to have wished for Liberty and a Republic for Europe? And would it not be monstrous, should she repel us because we have been, at home, the martyrs of the very cause of which she bears the glorious banner in the face of the world?”
Victor Considerant, European Colonization in Texas, p. 27.
CHAPTER III
THE SOCIETY
The over enthusiastic praise of Texas, its lands, its climate, and its opportunities in an economic sense should stamp Considerant as a promoter, if it were not for the caution with which he approached the formation of the colony. After serious investigation, it will appear to anyone that he was effusive by nature and his praise was sincere; no flattering statement was made by him to induce people to part with their money, or to participate in the Texas adventure. In fact, his first appeal to the French socialists to immigrate in mass to Texas contains a warning to those who contemplated investing money in the venture. He said that he had always with obstinate sincerity exposed the illusion of attributing to a first scientific experimental establishment the character of a profitable investment.[1]
Furthermore, he warned that: first, the establishment must be considered as a costly experiment; second, that little or no returns on the money invested could be expected; and third, it would require very extensive co-operation to avoid compromising individual fortunes.[2] All colonization, he declares, develops itself at the expense of those involved and at the risk of each individual participating in the act. However, colonization requires a collective principle at its emergence, as an individualistic principle is altogether too feeble to establish a new home and new economic system in a difficult and distant state. Communism, he says, has failed, except in rare cases where the effort was supported by energetic religious faith, largely because of false theory or poor conduct in the establishment of the colony. Therefore, any effort that the Fourierists should put forth should be worked out completely in theory before the undertaking is started.
The first necessity for successful establishment, Considerant thought, was the creation of an agency to direct colonization. This agency was to have two functions: first, to acquire lands on which the first settlements were to be made; second, to prepare these lands to receive the first immigrants. Preparation was to involve the purchasing of grain, foods, live stock, implements, and the erection of houses sufficient to care for the first groups to arrive. After the advance guards of the immigrants had been established, they were in turn to choose other grounds and construct other houses for the next or succeeding wave of newcomers. This method would be continued indefinitely, much like the Wakefield method proposed in England, until the available lands were taken. Of course, the difference between the Wakefield method and the one proposed by Considerant is that Wakefield would have colonization carried on by the government on money which had been obtained by the sale of government lands, while Considerant’s scheme provided for collectivism, sanctioned and supported by private individuals, either as participants in the act of colonization or as interested observers.
Considerant was an experimenter, and intended the colony in Texas to be purely an experiment. He definitely states:
Although Phalansterians take the initiative in the work proposed, its object is not exclusively to realize their ideas, it is more general, it affords the opportunity of experiment and of practical verification to every other progressive doctrine, at its own cost, risk and responsibility.
Let us found in Texas a colony characterized by its progressive social faith, which shall, first of all, improve the fruitful resources of a friendly Nature....
We shall not seek to employ, as a means of effecting the colonization, our own ulterior and definite method of Social organization.[3]
Thus, again, he firmly states that it is an ideal of betterment of humanity that he is seeking and not the bolstering up of his own pet ideas. If by experiment another way could be established that would prove more acceptable than the one he already had under consideration, he would be willing immediately to adopt the other plan. Seemingly, Considerant planned the whole movement as an experiment and investigation into the social phases of life. He had an idea of social betterment, which he admitted was no more than a mere theory, and by means of this colony in Texas, placed under the most favorable conditions, he could test the theory.[4]
The aims of the colony as far as settlement is concerned were, to purchase lands in Texas, to bring a nucleus of colonists to the new location, and to prepare the ground for reception of the members of the colony. Of the latter, Considerant says,
To bring ... European colonists upon a virgin soil, without preliminary arrangements, results, in most cases, simply in the dispersion of its elements and frequently in other disasters. In Texas, it is true, that the dispersion of our colonists would not be their ruin: they could easily derive advantages from their new position, but the collective enterprise and its aim would not the least be missed.[5]