Étienne Cabet
Encyclopedia
Étienne Cabet was a French philosopher
French philosophy
French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern philosophy by René Descartes, to 20th century...

 and utopian socialist. He was the founder of the Icarian movement
Icarians
The Icarians were a French utopian movement, founded by Étienne Cabet, who led his followers to America where they established a group of egalitarian communes during the period from 1848 through 1898.-European roots:Étienne Cabet was born in France in 1788...

and led a group of emigrants to found a new society in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Biography

He was educated as a lawyer, and became a government official, procureur-général, in Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

, representing the government of Louis Philippe
Louis Philippe
Louis Philippe may refer to:*Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, last King of France*Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, called King Louis Philippe II by some factions*Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans*Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans...

, after having headed an insurrectionary committee and participated actively in the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...

 of 1830. However he was dismissed from this position for his attack upon the conservatism of the government in his Histoire de la révolution de 1830. In 1831, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies
Chamber of Deputies of France
Chamber of Deputies was the name given to several parliamentary bodies in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:* 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the Lower chamber of the French Parliament, elected by census suffrage.*...

 in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 as the representative of Côte d'Or. He sat with the extreme radicals.

Due to his bitter attacks on the government he was accused of treason in 1834 and fled to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, seeking political asylum. Influenced by Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...

, he wrote Voyage et aventures de lord William Carisdall en Icarie ("Travel and Adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria") (1840), which depicted a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

 in which an elected government
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 controlled all economic activity and supervised social affairs
Social life
Social life may refer to:* an individual's Interpersonal relationships* Social relation * Social Life, an album by Koufax* Social Life, the indie/punk band from Greensboro, North Carolina....

, the family remaining the only other independent unit. Icaria is the name of the fictional country
Fictional country
A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....

 and ideal society he describes. The success of this book prompted him to take steps to realize his Utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

.

In 1839, Cabet returned to France to advocate a communitarian social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....

, for which he invented the term communisme. Cabet's notion of a communal society influenced other socialist writers and philosophers, notably Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...

. Some of these other writers ignored Cabet's Christian influences
Christian philosophy
Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.- Origins of Christian philosophy :...

, as described in his book Le vrai christianisme suivant Jésus Christ (The real Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 according to Jesus Christ
, in five volumes). This book described Christ's mission to be to establish social equality, and contrasted primitive Christianity with the ecclesiasticism of Cabet's time to the disparagement of the latter. It also contained a popular history of the French Revolutions from 1789 to 1830.

In 1841 he revived the Populaire (originally founded by him in 1833), which was widely read by French workingmen, and from 1843 to 1847 he printed an Icarian almanac, a number of controversial pamphlets and the book on Christianity mentioned above. There were probably 400,000 adherents of the Icarian school.

In 1848, Cabet gave up on the notion of reforming French society
French society
French Society may refer to:* Société Honoraire de Français, The National French Honor Society* Pi Delta Phi, The National French Honor Society* The Western Society for French History* The Society for French Historical Studies...

. A group of followers from across France went to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to organize an Icarian community. They entered into a social contract, making Cabet the director-in-chief for the first ten years, and embarked from Havre
Havre
Havre may refer to:* Havre, Montana* Havre de Grace, Maryland* Havre , Norway* Havre-Aubert, Magdalen Islands, Quebec, Canada* Havre Boucher, Nova Scotia, Canada...

, February 3, 1848, to take up land on the Red River
Red River
-Canada:* Red River, Nova Scotia a community* Red River of the North, a river flowing north through Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba into Lake Winnipeg** Red River Cereal, a flax-based hot breakfast cereal* Arctic Red River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River...

 in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. Cabet came later at the head of a second and smaller band. Texas did not prove to be the Utopia looked for, and, ravaged by disease, about one-third of the colonists returned to France.

The remainder moved to Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. Although the population was just 1,063 at the 2000 census, and despite being difficult to reach due to its location in a remote corner of Illinois, Nauvoo attracts large numbers of visitors for its historic importance and its...

, to a site recently vacated by the Mormons. A new colony was established in "Icaria, Iowa" (near what is now Corning, Iowa
Corning, Iowa
As of the census of 2000, there were 1,783 people, 803 households, and 452 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,132.3 people per square mile . There were 880 housing units at an average density of 558.9 per square mile...

). After disputes within the Nauvoo community, Cabet was expelled and he went to St. Louis, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, in 1855, where he died the following year. The last Icarian colony at Corning disbanded in 1898.

External links

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