Etienne Cabet
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Etienne Cabot was an interesting and colorful individual. In 1831, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in France, but due to his bitter attacks on the government he was accused of treason in 1834 and fled to England, to look for political asylum but in 1839, Cabet returned to France to advocate a communitarian social movement, for which he invented the term communisme. Cabet’s notion of a communal society influenced other socialist writers and philosophers, notably Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1848, Cabet gave up on the notion of reforming French society. He led a group of followers from across France to the United States to organize an Icarian community. They went first to Texas, then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois to a site recently vacated by the Mormons. A new colony was established in ‘Icaria, Iowa’ (near what is now Corning, Iowa). After disputes within the Nauvoo community, Cabet was expelled and he went to St. Louis, Missouri in 1855, where he died shortly after.
History and constitution of the Icarian Community / | Travels in Icaria /