Kwakye-Berko 1
Afua Kwakye-Berko
Professor Adam
English 201
April 20, 2017
Annotated Bibliography
Bederman, Gail. “Revisiting Nashoba: Slavery, Utopia, and Frances Wright in America, 1818-
1826.” American Literary History, vol. 17, no. 3, Fall2005, pp. 438-459. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1093/alh/aji025.
This article explores the rise and fall of Frances Wright’s Nashoba – a multiracial
utopian community that was founded in 1852. The article pulls in a distinct quote about
Nashoba from a book called America’s History. In the book, James A. Henretta described
Nashoba as, “a bold plan to set up a utopian community of whites and freed slaves who
would live together in full equality.” Frances Wright never intended for Nashoba to be an
interracial utopia; she intended it to be a utopia of liberty. She designed a financial plan
that would get rid of slavery through universal colonization. Which in turn, would allow
freedom and autonomy reign. In the following pages, the reader learns the history of
Frances Wright’s life, people’s attitudes towards her idea of liberty, and the struggles she
had to go through in creating Nashoba. The article then explains why Nashoba failed.
These reasons include – lack of funding, lack of slave donations, and rumors that Frances
Wright was attempting to trick people into getting free labor on her plantation. Trying to
keep it afloat, Frances Wright decided to change Nashoba from a privately owned farm
into a utopian community and philanthropic trust. However, Nashoba turned out to lack
the characteristic of interracial equality because only whites could be trustees, and the
slaves had to pay for themselves –plus interest– in order to be free. In the summer of
Kwakye-Berko 2
1827, Nashoba’s inhabitants slowly deserted the community, due to a public sex scandal
and severe laws imposed on the slaves by the white trustees.
This is a useful source because it is an example of a non-fictional utopia. I believe
this source is very objective and reliable, and it helps answer my research question of
whether happiness was actually obtained in a utopia. This article does not necessarily say
anything about the attitudes of the people who lived in the society; however, one can
infer that the residents were not happy based on the descriptions of the utopia, and the
fact that the society eventually failed.
Kagay, Donald J. “Icaria: An Aborted Utopia on the Texas Frontier.” Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, vol. 116, no. 4, Apr. 2013, pp. 359-385. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=87292658&site=ehost-
