Journal of Historical Geography, 9, 1 (1983) 47-62
Millenarism and agricultural settlement in the
Holy Land in the nineteenth century
Ruth Kark
The pioneers of modern agricultural settlement in the Holy Land were Christians.
Foremost among these were several Americans who came in the 1850s and 1860s to
settle-ignoring
warnings from local experts and from representatives of the United
States government. The leaders of the settlers were inspired by millenarist ideas and by
faith in the Return to Zion-rife
among fundamental Protestant sects in the early nineteenth century. The personal accounts of these visionaries provide insights into what
drove them to attempt to migrate to remote and backward Palestine and also throw
light on the economic concepts and practical plans for implementing their schemes.
Despite their failure, these attempts were very important in the history of agricultural
settlement in nineteenth-century
Palestine. The settlers maintained a wide range of
international contacts through letters, pamphlets, sermons and publicity in the press in
America, England, Germany and Palestine. In addition, many people who heard indirectly about these ventures, took an interest in their ideology and practice. Millenarist
schemes influenced early preachers and founders of Jewish societies for agricultural
settlement in Palestine. The Jewish forerunners of the Hovevi Zion and Zionist movements promoted remarkably similar ideas. Millenarist and Jewish visionaries alike
spoke of the hour being propitious for the coming of the Messiah and favourable for
settlement in the land of Israel. Both groups established schools to teach the lore of the
land and to educate youth in agricultural pursuits. Many years after the disappearance
of American settlers from Palestine, their story reverberated in Jewish polemic literature.
The Hebrew seers announce in time
The return of Judah to her prime;
Some Christians deemed it then at hand
Here was an object: Up and On.
With seed and tillage help renewHelp reinstate the Holy Land.
Herman Melville
Introduction
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Palestine was a largely rural, sparselypopulated land, with a population of less than half a million people. The economy
was based on traditional agriculture for subsistence, marketing and limited export
and, in the small towns, on services and crafts. A backward province of the
Ottoman Empire, it was badly governed, providing little security of person or
property.[ll From mid-century, the Holy Land became a magnet for agricultural
settlement by Europeans and Americans. At first, the settlers came as individuals,
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1983 Academic Press Inc. (London) Ltd.
48
R. KARK
or in small groups, but from the end of the 1860s there arrived larger and more
continuous waves of immigrants-German
Templars and Jews impelled by early
Zionist ideology. I shall try to show that the roots of this settlement process can be
traced to contemporary developments in Christian and Jewish religious thinking
in Europe and America.
The pioneers of modern agricultural settlement in the Holy Land were
Christians. Foremost among these were several Americans who came in the 1850s
and 1860s to settle-despite the warnings of local experts and discouragement by
United States Government officials. I shall examine the religious ideology which
inspired these Christian settlers, in particular the Americans. In this context I shall
survey briefly the spread of millenarism and the concept of the Return to Zion in
the Protestant world at the beginning and middle of the nineteenth century.
The personal writings of the leaders of these American settlers provide insights
into what drove them to attempt agricultural settlement in remote and backward
Palestine. I shall examine their practical plans and their concepts of the economics
of these ventures and shall trace their activities and the measures of their success
and failures. I shall also consider the contacts formed by the settlers and their
means of propagating their views among Christians and Jews in Palestine and
throughout the world. Finally I shall try to establish to what extent their ideas and
actions influenced subsequent agricultural settlement in the country.
The rise of millenarism in the mid-nineteenth century
The renewal of agricultural settlement in the land of Israel in the second half of
the nineteenth century was closely connected with the spread of Christian millenarism in Europe and America, and with messianic-and subsequently nationalist
-ideas among Jews in these places.
Millenarism is the cosmology of eschatology, a chronology of future events
compared to a historical record of the past. In the Christian tradition, all
millenial theologies involve the triumph of Christ, the vindication of the
suffering saints, and the eventual reign of Christ on the earth.r21
The central facet in Christian eschatology is the expectation of the Second
Advent of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Accoring to the prophecies of the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John, 20,
1-16, Jesus would establish the kingdom of God on earth; this would last a
thousand years (the Millennium, and hence “Millenarism”). The nature of the
Second Advent, the events that would precede and follow it, and the character of
the millennium have been given different interpretations.[31
Millenarian concepts were current in early Christian thought. However, from
the fifth century on, opposition to this ideology increased, and it remained the
belief of small groups that developed outside the official churches. The ideas
emerged anew in the sixteenth century in certain branches of Protestantism, and
motivated mass movements in medieval Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The French Revolution led to a diffusion of millenarian ideas. The
ensuing political and military events lent an aura of veracity and actuality of the
eschatological aspects of the millenarian belief, strengthening the conviction that
these were the very apocalyptic upheavals that were to precede the End of Days
and the Second Coming of Jesus.r41
In England, millenarism gained momentum in the evangelical movement at the
MILLENARISM
AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
49
end of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. During the first three
decades of the nineteenth century dozens of millenarian books appeared, societies
were formed, conventions were held and millenarian periodicals distributed. The
leading millenarian thinkers of the period were James Bicheno and Charles
Jerram.t51
In Germany, millenarism grew out of the Pietist movement, whose founder
J. A. Bengel predicted in the eighteenth century that the year 1837 would see the
return of Jesus on earth and the inception of the thousand-year kingdom. One of
the leaders of the movement, Schiinherr, saw Napoleon as the Antichrist of
scripture. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the main proponents of
millenarian ideas were Gottlieb Wilhelm Hoffmann from Wiirttemberg and his
son Christoph Hoffmann, the founder of the Templar sect.tsl
In America, millenarian movements arose somewhat later, apparently as a
result of European influence. [‘I The leaders were the Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter Day Saints, founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, and another movement
started by William Miller in 1831, with a clear message that the Second Advent of
Jesus would take place in 1843. Millerism eventually gave rise to the Adventist
movement in America, known as the Seventh Day Adventists.tsl The religious
history of mid-nineteenth century America was characterized, according to
Gaustad, by:
A climate of enthusiasm (the nineteenth century sort), produced novelty in
creed and worship in personal devotion and in communal association.
Revivalists and Millenialists, communitarians and utopians, spiritualists and
prophesiers, celibates and polygamists, perfectionists and transcendentalists
. . . were all there.rsl
Millenarism and the return to Zion
In the half-century, 1790-1840, the idea of Israel’s return to the Holy Land
gained currency in England. Many people believed that such a step was imminent.
This belief arose out of a system of interpreting the scriptures and dovetailed with
the religious revival of the eighteenth century. It fitted in with millenarian tendencies that had taken root at the turn of the new century. Occasionally, the fulfilment
of prophecies of the End of Days involved a return of the Jews to the land of their
fathers.[lOl
The connection between Christian millenarian ideas and the restoration of
Israel also developed in Francet”] and in Germany among the Wiirttemberg
Pietists, especially in the faction of the Templar sect led by Christoph Hoffmann.
Hoffmann believed that the fate of the world reflected the words of the prophets,
and that the events of the period demanded the ingathering of the People of God
in order to save the world from a new “Babylon”. From 1853, Hoffmann made the
ingathering of the “People of God” in Jerusalem the central theme of his teachings.[121 From the inception of their movement, the Templars, who regarded
themselves as the “People of God”, believed that along with their own ingathering
in Jerusalem, the Jews were to do the same. Special tasks were to be performed by
the latter . [131
The Holy Land theme formed part of American religious thinking as early as
the seventeenth century, with the first European immigrants. The biblical concept
of the Holy Land evoked an image of peace and agricultural plentitude.[l*l In midnineteenth century religious thinking, concepts of Israel’s return to its land also
50
R. KARK
found special currency. Influenced by British millenarians, the sermons of important clergymen exuded the certainty that the Jews would convert to Christianity
and that the prophecies touching upon their restoration would be realized.[ljl
These beliefs found expression in the press (both Christian and Jewish) as well as
secular American papers: Christian Observer, Weekly Register, The Whig, The
New York Tribune, The Free Presbyterian, The Occident and American Jewish
Advocate and The Israelite.[16J
Ideas relating to the return of Jews to the land of Israel can also be found in the
travel literature of the period as well as in American prose and poetry-especially
in the writings of Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant and Herman Melville. Melville even borrowed money in order to go to Palestine, where, in 1856-57,
he wrote his Journal of a visit to Europe and the Levant. From impressions of this
journey emerged a long, spiritual poem: Clarel: apoem andpilgrimage in the Holy
Land . ~‘1
The connection of the millenarian idea with the restoration of the Jews to their
land, occupied in particular the Millerites, who discussed it at their conventions in
1842 and 1843.tlsl The Mormons established their New Jerusalem and Zion in
America, but always believed that the Children of Israel must return to their land.
This belief tied in with the hope that when the return came about, the Israelites
would recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and that the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple would herald the Second Coming of Jesus. The Mormons
gave this idea emotional and ceremonial expression by dispatching their emissary,
Orson Hyde, to Jerusalem in 1841, to dedicate Palestine to the Jews in festive
prayer.[lsl
American leaders in Palestine
Against the background of these religious trends should be seen the activities of
several American Christian personalities, whose religious development drove them
to the Holy Land. In the 184Os, 1850s and 1860s they attempted to put their religious beliefs into practice by founding agricultural settlements in Palestine. Outstanding among them were Warder Cresson, Clorinda S. Minor and George J.
Adams. Each of them planned and attempted to set up farming settlements of
Christians and Jews in Palestine (Fig. 1). They also proposed establishing agricultural schools and model farms in order to teach farming to the local settlersJews in particular. They succeeded in forming wide contacts and to gather around
themselves large or small groups of settlers, with the help of Christian and Jewish
circles that supported the idea and contributed funds. In order to understand their
motivation we will trace the religious and personal stories of each one of these
individuals.
Warder Cresson - Michael Boaz Israel, 1798-1860
Warder Cresson was born to a Quaker family in Philadelphia, where he later
married and had six children. Among other enterprises, he bought two derelict
farmsteads near Philadelphia, rehabilitated them and turned them into flourishing
gardensI
Cresson took his religion very seriously, engaged passionately in
religious controversy, sometimes preaching in the streets and at church doors, and
went through intense periods of soul-searching. A contemporary American paper
wrote about him in 1851 that, “He is undoubtedly somewhat visionary in his ideas
about religion.“t211
MILLENARISM
American
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AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
51
settlement
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Figure 1. Location
of the first American, Templar and Jewish colonies.
In 1829 he wrote a book, Babylon the Great is falling. The MORNING STAR OR
LIGHT FROM HIGH written in defense of the Rights of the poor & oppressed, Phila-
delphia, 1830, in which he included warnings based on the prophecies of the Book
of Daniel and the Book of Revelations.tz21 According to his own testimony, in his
youth he “partially” joined two millenarist groups (probably Campbellites or
Irvingites, and Millerites).tz31 In 1844 he published another tract, Jerusalem, the
Centre and Joy of the Whole Earth, and the Jew the Recipient of the Glory of God,
52
R. KARK
in which he claimed that the Jews were the medium through which God would
realize his promises in our world, and to this end he would gather them again.lzal
In the same year, under the spell of religious inspiration and the desire to “Walk
of faith” and pursue “Truth and with truth I desired Strength and Rest”, he left
all that was dear to him and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. During the four
years he stayed in Jerusalem, he became convinced that Judaism was the true
faith, and in 1848, before returning to Philadelphia, converted, was circumcised
and adopted the name of Michael Boaz Israel.[251
When Cresson returned to his family in Philadelphia in September 1848, he met
with hostility because of his conversion. His family took him to court on grounds
of insanity in an attempt to obtain what remained of his property. The trial was a
sensation of the times, becoming a test case of the principles of civil and religious
liberty. Cresson’s winning of the case was considered in 1851 as “a landmark in
American growth to religious equality”. [261After the trial, he published a treatise,
Civil and Religious Liberty, a Landmark in American Growth to Religious Equality,
and also a booklet publicizing his legal victory: The Key of David. David the True
Messiah, . . . Also Reasons for Becoming a Jew: With a Revision of the Late Lawsuit
for Lunacy on That Account (1852). Apart from many autobiographical details,
this set forth his views after his conversion and before his immigration to Jerusalem. Once there for good, he continued his activities for agricultural settlement near Jerusalem and Jaffa, until his death in 1860 in the bosom of his new
family.t271
Since Cresson’s search for religious truth led him to Judaism, he came out
against views current at the time in America of identifying various Christian sects
as the “True Israel”:
It is a most remarkable fact, that Quakers, Shakers, Joanna Southcoatians,
Christian Israelites, Millerites, and Presbiterians, all are continually endeavouring to IDENTIFY themselves with the literal Israel of God, by saying
that “WE ARETHETRUE ISRAELITES”,
see the Rev. Wm. Miller’s Judaism and
Presbiterianism IdentiJied.c28j
Cresson believed that since God never changed, and the Jewish people had
maintained their identity during 2000 years, “they must still remain the SAME
CHOSEN PEOPLEOF GoD”.[~OI He also attacked the Catholics, who, according to
him, would be subjected to suffering and oppression. Only then would they
remember what the books of Daniel and Revelations said about the return from
Babylon. Out of the idea of the departure from Babylonia and denying the
identity of Christians with Israel, Cresson came to believe in the return of Israel
and the restoration of Jerusalem.r301
For religious reasons (and not so much from his personal experience as a
farmer, as he later claimed), Cresson became convinced that the return of Israel
could not be based on charity and alms, and that agriculture was the correct
solution for the Jewish people. Referring to the Talmud, he proclaimed that “All
the study of the law without handicraft will ultimately be futile and end in evil.“[311
Working the land he regarded as “holding intercourse and communion with God
through the works of his”, and success in raising crops was to him a measure of
God’s recompense for keeping his commands, as stated in Deuteronomy 11,
13-15.r321In “Promotion of agricultural pursuits” he saw the physical redemption
that precedes spiritual redemption :
MILLENARISM
AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
53
I can assure you for myself at my age of life I do not wish to leave Jerusalem,
but perhaps if we move right in the fear of God, it may be the beginning of
our physical redemption, and our “spiritual” or rather moral, must follow
and not precede it as our good Christians erroneously declare.[331
Clorinda S. Minor, 1808-1855
Minor too came from Philadelphia. Her religious thinking was influenced by
her mother who died when Clorinda was quite young. From autobiographical
details in her book, we learn that she belonged to a “Congregational Church of a
Puritan ancestry”. She avowed that she “had entire confidence in the Scriptures,
and received their most literal and definite sense in regard to present, practical
duty, and future promise” .[34JMinor underwent much soul-searching regarding
her religious direction, in a search for spiritual salvation, out of a feeling of the
great degeneracy of our common profession of religion, in its general falling away,
coldness of love, and weakness of spiritual life. In a spiritual state of prayer,
fasting, tears and soul-searching, she became a Millerite in 1842, writing, “I first
heard the Gospel, of ‘the kingdom of God at hand’, and the pre-millenial advent
of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” She started to believe in the
“nearness of the the of his coming”.[351
At first she was convinced, as were the other followers of Miller, of the imminence
of the heavenly kingdom, but when Miller’s prophecies did not materialize she
realized that “the day of his preparation must precede His coming, and in this
TIME of the END many shall be purified, and made white, and tried”.[3sl Even
after this disappointment she continued in religious devotions of sacrifice, spiritual
anguish and mortification of body and soul in order “to KNOW and obey the
Lord”.[371 This affected her family and material life and, after several years, she
sensed that God directed her to go to Jerusalem. After collecting contributions
from fellow believers, she set out accompanied by a friend on a pilgrimage to
Palestine and Jerusalem in May 1849. In the journal she kept during the trip,
Minor emphasizes several times that her travels were guided by God and not by
her own wi11.[3*1
She claimed to have detected various signs directing her and
helping her and her companion to overcome all obstacles along the way. After
fulfilling her mission, she returned to Philadelphia in April 1850.
In the course of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land she saw several heavenly
visions in which appeared the motif of Israel returning to its land. Israel to Minor
was the Jew-although in her vision they would turn Christian:
I saw that His time to favor Zion is come, and that He will now set His hand
a second time, to recover Israel; for He has “visited the Gentiles, to take out
of them a people for His name”, “as is written, after this I will return, and
WILL BUILD AGAIN the tabernacle of David, which ISfallen down, and I will
build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up so that the residue of men
might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is
called. . . . But was this all a dream?” Are there no sleepers in Machpelah’s
Cave? Will they not rise again, and soon walk forth in the sweet glory of
eternal youth, when their now desert land “shall blossom as the rose and
become like the garden of the Lord”.[3g1
In several other places in the introduction to her journal, Minor emphasizes the
view that God will return along with the return to its land of Israel, who are
54
R. KARK
considered His natural seed (as opposed to the Christians who are His spiritual
seed) :
and then we fell upon our knees, and plead . . . that for the name of
His alone-begotten, and for His kingdom’s sake, and for Jehovah’s
name, and truth, and promise sake, that He would bring again the long
captivity of Israel, and build again His house of prayer, and set on Zion’s hill,
the King of Righteousness.[401
. . .
JESUS,
The image of the Restoration as it is drawn in Minor’s writings is an agricultural
one, based on the description of the land of Israel in scripture:
But the promise to bless and restore this land, will as surely be fulfilled, when
“instead of the thorn, shall come up the fig tree; and instead of the brier shall
come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign, that shall not be cut off”.t411
Out of desire to achieve self-realization, Minor returned to the Holy Land, in
November 1851, with her son and a small group of about ten believers, and
worked at developing farming in Palestine until her death in 1855.[421According
to one of the early students of modern settlement in Palestine, Minor believed that:
“Verily she, and no other, was the true antitype of the Biblical Esther, and as such
she was to go before the King and become God’s instrument to make ready the
land of Israel for the King’s return.“[431
George Washington Joshua Adams, 1813-1888
Adams was born in Oxford, New Jersey, becoming a Methodist lay preacher in
his youth. In the late 1830s he abandoned Methodism to go to Boston as an actor
in a theatre and as an evangelical preacher. In 1840, after hearing a Mormon
sermon in New York, he joined the Church of the Latter-Day Saints and was
active in at least three Mormon sects during ten years-until he was expelled on
accusations of drunkenness, immorality and embezzlement. During the 1850s he
again worked as an actor and as a preacher without being affiliated to any defined
sect. At the end of the decade he appeared as a Campbellite preacher in Vermont. [441
In 1862, at the height of the Civil War, he moved about in several Maine towns,
as well as in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, calling for the establishment of a
new religious sect which he named the Church of the Messiah. Adams criticized
all other churches, claiming their faith to be inadequate and asserting that they did
not carry out the will of God in its completeness. In September of that year, with
the assistance of his admirers, the prophet of this new church began to publish a
monthly paper, The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace.[451
Adams’ quest was undoubtedly influenced by the religious atmosphere of the
period, by the widespread fundamentalist faith in the scriptures, and the millenarist beliefs current in America during the 1840s and 1850s. In 1859, he claimed
to have been called by God to work for the revival of the Holy Land, because the
Second Coming of Jesus to rule the world and the return of the Jews to their land,
Canaan, were imminent. Since conditions in the Holy Land at the time were not
fit for the return of the Messiah and of the Jews, it was incumbent upon him and
upon members of the new church he had founded, to prepare the land for this
return by going there themselves, establishing large and sumptuous institutions,
and introducing modern mechanized farming. lrsl The following excerpt from one
MILLENARISM
AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
55
of Adams’ sermons reveals much of his ideals and of his attitude to the Return of
Israel :
But alas, alas for them-Israel-and
alas for us, children of the Gentiles,
whose millenium must await their millenium, because it cannot commence so
long as we tread them down, and our times are not fulfilled, and Antichrist
has not reigned and passed away, and the tribulations inflicted upon the
Jews, as a re-gathered nation, by his persecutions have not ceased. For
when the Millenium comes at last, it will come to all, both Jew and Gentile.t4’1
The sermon goes on to state that after Judgment Day, the Jews will admit their
error and will accept Jesus as the Messiah and their new king.
After religious activities and commanding the support of his followers for
several years, Adams decided to implement his beliefs. In 1865, together with an
assistant, he set forth on an exploratory tour to Palestine, and returned to America
to organize a group of settlers. In September 1866, together with 43 families (157
souls) he set out for Jaffa. The group followed him mainly because of glowing
reports from his first visit in which he described propitious conditions for settlement in Palestine.r4*l The reasons for bringing a group to Palestine are set down,
one by one, in Adams’ paper:
We believe that we as a church and people, (that is, the Church of the
Messiah) have been raised up, and called out of Babylon, by our Lord, in
His providence and mercy, as a distant and separate people from all “isms”,
and confusion of the age, for the special purpose of becoming pioneers and
founders of the “dispensation of the fulness of times”, and commencing the
great work of restitution; and for this purpose we are preparing to move
with our families, our houses, our agricultural implements, also our mechanical implements and our furniture, to the once glorious land). We are going
there to become practical benefactors of the land and people; to take the
lead in developing its greatest resources. We are not going there as religious,
proselytising bigots, we have no purpose to interfere with the religion or laws
of the country. We shall treat the seed of Abraham as our true brothers,
whether they believe our faith or not; we shall strive to instruct them in all the
arts of mechanism and agriculture, whether they are Jews, Christians, or
Mahommedans. We shall never rail at them about their religious faith, or slur
them because they don’t think as we do . . . We are going there because God
has put into our minds to help fulfil the testimony of the prophets; and last,
but not least, we are going there to help prepare a place for the bride, the
Lamb’s wife, to go too at the time when the cry is made, “Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.” We hope, we believe, and we expect
that our first vessel will sail for the glorious land about the middle of next July. [4gl
Settlement programmes and outcomes
Having traced briefly the special character and the incentives for settlement expressed by different American religious leaders who emmigrated to the Holy Land,
we must now ask whether they were visionaries and religious utopists, or had also
workable programmes for putting their ideologies into practice.
We do not have many details of Warder Cresson’s plans, but from information
gathered from contemporary newspapers, parts of the picture may be recon-
56
R. KARK
strutted. On leavingPhiladelphiafor the Holy Land, Cressondeclaredhis intention to establishan extensivefarm outsideJerusalemin the valley of Rephaim[501
(Fig. 1). On his way he stoppedin London wherehe publisheda Circular Zetterfor
the promotion of agricultural pursuits: and also, for the establishmentof a souphousefor the destituteJewsin Jerusalem.In this tract he againmentionsthe idea of
establishinga “model farm” in order “to introduce an improved systemof
Englishand Americanfarming in Palestine”.[511
Cressonbelievedthat the Ottoman sultanwould be interestedin sucha project,and shouldbestowhis protection
and land on this initiative since it was to improve farming methodsand the
increasedcropswould be a sourceof greaterincometo the Porte.
He also proposedthe immigration of Jewsto settlein Palestine,especiallyto
work in agriculture.To this end, agricultural schoolswould be founded for
differentagegroups.In order to further theseobjectivesand to collectfundsfrom
adherentsof various religiousgroups,committeeswould be appointedin Jerusalem,the United States,England,France,and Germany.A committeewould also
be setup to gatherinformationon the physicaland spiritual conditionof Jewsin
the Holy Land and on the resourcesof the country.[52J
It seemsthat after Cressonarrivedin Jerusalemand setup a local agricultural
committee,he alteredhis original plans somewhatand proposedthat the settlement to be foundedbe dividedup into smallfamily units: everyhomesteadwasto
operateindependentlyand only rely upon othersfor protectionand defence.This
was obviouslyinfluencedby the Americanmodel of farming with which Cresson
wasfamiliar. He proposedcontributinghis advice“in relationto the bestand most
the expectationthat the Presieconomicalsystemof farming”, and alsoexpressed
dent and governmentof the United Statestake the projectundertheir wing.r5a
During the two yearsof his first stayin Jerusalem,and after his return, Cresson
followed and kept abreastof other agriculturalsettlementattemptsby Jewsand
Christiansin Palestine.On the recommendation
of IsaacLesser,the editor of the
Philadelphiapaper The Occident,he co-optedMoshe Sacks,the presidentof the
“Jaffa Agricultural Committee” to his JerusalemCommittee. Sacks asked
AmericanJewsto help found a small agriculturalcolony near Jaffa.Cressonalso
madecontactwith a Germanwho owneda gardennear Jaffa and who converted
to Judaismas David Clossen.He eventried to opposethe activitiesof Clorinda
Minor and her assistantsDickson,Jonesand Saunders,regardingtheir effortsas
part of a missionaryproject.[541
From his lettersat the end of 1854,it appearsthat Cressonbecameevenmore
firmly convincedthat the meansand funds (and especiallythosecomingin from
the Philadelphia“Committee for PropagatingAgriculturein the Land of Israel”)
be directedto farming-but the most suitableplacefor this was now no longer
Jerusalem,but the vicinity of Jaffa.Near Jaffawerewideplains,runningwaterand
a mild climatewhichwereespeciallysuitedfor agricultureand for raisingmulberry
treesand silkworms,grapevines,olives,jasmineand other crops.As a first stage
he intendedleasingClossen’sgardenfrom June 1855,and openingan agricultural
schooltherefor Jewsof Palestine,where10-15youngpeoplecould learnfarming.
The cropsgrown at the schoolwould help coverthe rent.r551
Severalmonthslater
he describedin detail, in The Occident,the agriculturalmethodshe proposedcorrect ploughing,the types of crops to be grown, the seasonsof planting and
other techniques,etc. Among innovationsthat he suggested
wereintroductionsof
new crops suchas bananas,sugarcane,and pineapples.[561
This was the peak of
Cresson’sactivities.He failed to attract additionalcolonists.From now on, prob-
Figure 4. A housein the Adam’s colony prefabricatedin Maine and shippedto Jaffa. Photo-
graphedby Ruth Kark, 1977.
Figure 5. Construction details of the same building-wooden planks roughenedto assist
adherenceof plaster.Photographedby Ruth Kark, 1977.
Figure 2. The German Templar colony near Jaffa in 1898,establishedon the site of Adam’s
American colony. The original housesof the American colony are on the left. Source:Central
Zionist Archives.
Figure 3. An American colony house built by Adam’s group in 1866/67,seenon far left of
Fig. 2. Photographedby Ruth Kark, 1977.
MILLENARISM
AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
57
ably because he came to realize his inability to marshal the finances and manpower
necessary for his project, and because of the urgent need to solve the problems of
Jerusalem’s Jews, he resumed a life of religious meditation and lived on the remains of his means until his death in 1860.[571
As soon as Minor returned from her pilgrimage to the Holy Land she began to
act energetically for the establishment of a Manual Labor School of Agriculture
for Jews in the Holy Land. She planned to cooperate with a converted Jerusalem
Jew, John Meshullam, who had established a flourishing farm in Artas, a village
near Bethlehem (Fig. 1). Until her second trip to Palestine she was busy, with the
help of her son Charles, propagating her ideas and collecting funds. Her activities
were widely reported in the press-including the Jewish press-of the period, and
she established contacts with groups and individuals who shared her views in
America, England and Scotland-as well as with the Templars in Germany.r58J
With the help of Meshullam she planned to set up the school on leased land at
Artas. By personal example, together with several Sabbath-observing Americans
(who, according to her son, were not connected with any organized sect) she was
to teach the Jews to work in agriculture. During the year Minor spent in Philadelphia, she sent Meshullam a flour mill, farm implements, seeds, ploughs, books
and medicines. In a plea to contributors, Charles Minor published a list of required items in April 1851, about two months before the group left for Palestine:
. . . seeds, agricultural tools, implements, and fixtures, and a small assortment
of common mechanical tools, to meet the exigencies of a new residence in a
destitute land. They will also need common dry groceries and provisions for
the first few months; also saddles and bridles, tents, and their furniture, etc.
It will be also necessary that they should have a few cotton goods to clothe
the destitute, and a small fund to employ the suffering applicants . . .[5gl
At the beginning of November 1851, Minor, her son and several supporters
arrived in Artas. For two years they worked there while trying to make contact
with the Jews of Jerusalem. In the winter of 1853, after a dispute broke out between them and Meshullam, they moved the centre of their activities to Jaffa.r601
At first they were forced to lease various gardens, but it seems that they succeeded
in attracting several Jerusalem Jews to their group and even to establish friendly
contacts with the Rabbi of Jaffa.t61J
According to Minor’s reports, work in Jaffa was carried out on a small scale,
but was very successful in growing winter crops, vegetables, citrus and other fruit
trees. Shortly before her death in 1855, she bought a large garden plot near Jaffa
which she called Mount Hope and there she was buried.r621Apparently after her
death, some of her people returned to America. Her son remained a while longer,
but when Herman Melville visited the place at the beginning of 1857, he found
that the Prussian, John Steinbeck, Minor’s helper (who married Dickson’s
daughter) continued to run Mount Hope. Dickson and his son-in-law Frederick
(John’s brother), cultivated an additional large garden nearby. At this point Jews
no longer worked in Dickson’s garden.[631The project came to an end with a cruel
attack by Arabs on Walter Dickson’s house in January 1858. The women were
raped and Frederick Steinbeck was murdered. This outrage was widely reported
and almost caused an international incident. The Dicksons returned to America,
and, in 1869, Mount Hope was acquired by settlers belonging to the German
Templar sect who settled in Jaffa.ts41
As related above, Adams came for his first visit to Palestine, not as a pilgrim as
58
R. KARK
did his two predecessors, but (after having founded an emigration society in New
England) in order to establish a suitable site for settlement, to test local conditions,
to establish contacts and to prepare land for the arrival of settlers.[ejl The environs
of Jaffa seemed to Adams and his companion McKenzie a most suitable area
economically and agriculturally (with a large measure ofjustice, as it now appears),
and they tried to obtain land as well as legal permission from the Ottoman authorities to establish their colony.[661
On their return to Maine, enthusiastic members of his church began practical
preparations. A steamship was hired, a sum of $43,000 was collected and prefabricated wooden houses were prepared for loading. These were to be erected
into residential houses, a church, school, store and sawmill. Rosin was prepared
to serve as shellac, barrels of kerosene, building materials, furniture, household
equipment and tools were taken aboard. Special emphasis was placed on taking
machines, tools, seeds and animals that could further modern farming methods.
These Americans were the first to introduce to Palestine machines such as
“Johnson’s patent shifting mold-board and gang plough, Smith’s double back
action drill, and a wonderful combined self adjusting reaping, threshing, sacking,
grinding and bolting machine”. ~‘1The settlers, with Adams at their head, not only
went to the Holy Land with a religious mission but also to take advantage of the
supposedly wonderful economic prospects-the
chance to obtain thousands of
acres at low rental and to become rich almost without working by leasing land to
local tenant farmers. Living expenses were supposed to be extremely low, the climate
healthy and their life was to be one of ease and luxury. Jaffa, so they thought, was
a good place to amass wealth not only from agriculture. Cotton, wool and sugar
industries could be set up, modern flour mills and oil presses could be erected, a
small fleet of little steamboats and tugs could serve the port, and road services
could be provided for tourists and pilgrims. At that time there were neither hotels
nor travelling carriages in the country.r’jsl
During the one year that the colony existed, from their arrival in Jaffa in
September 1866 until it was dismantled in 1867, reality proved different from the
picture the settlers had brought with them. In the first two months, 13 people died.
The settlers met with many hardships that stemmed, on the one hand, from unfamiliarity with the climate, the surroundings and farming conditions and, on the
other hand, from various administrative difficulties with their official representative-the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem and the Vice-consul in Jaffa. The shock of
disillusionment and the daily difficulties of making a living gave rise to quarrels
among the settlers. Some blamed Adams and his domineering wife for their misfortune. In December 1866, several families demanded to return to America, and
their number increased in the following months. t6glUnder these pressures, another
facet of Adam’s personality was revealed-he began to drink and to borrow
money for which he had neither collateral nor any prospects of repayment. At this
very time, Abe McKenzie, Adam’s assistant who had remained in Maine, continued to organize a second group of settlers which was to leave for Jaffa in
August 1867-in the same way as the first-by renting a ship and loading it with
lumber, farm machines and furniture.[701 When it became clear that the colony had
failed even before it was firmly established, the second group abandoned this
scheme. In June and July, the economic, social and spiritual situation of the
settlers worsened and most of them wanted to return to America. Since they were
left without means, funds had to be raised for them. Except for a few families,
most of the settlers returned to New England.r”l Adams and his wife left Jaffa in
MTLLENARISM AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
59
June 1868 “with the intention of collecting money to strengthen and rehabilitate
colonization”.~721
Summary and conclusions
The leaders of the American settlers in Palestine, and those who were pulled
along with them were a mid-nineteenth century by-product of religious millenarian
ideas that were current at the time in Europe and America. In their attempts to
implement their beliefs, these Christians and converts to Judaism from America
and Germany preceded the Templars and the Jews who succeeded in establishing
agricultural settlements in Palestine in the last third of the last century.
The different American groups that attempted to realize these ideas showed
many similarities-the
sources of inspiration, the ideologies, the attempts at
realization-and
the total failures. Spiritually they imbibed the atmosphere of
religious ferment in America, and sought their own paths in religious belief
stemming from the Millerite movement or from Mormonism. These ideologies
were permeated by millenarian ideas and by a belief in the Return to Zion in its
Christian and Jewish versions, by working the land and physical labour. The
millenarists’ attempts at implementing their ideas were characterized by a desire to
overcome the gap between their vision and reality and by attempts to work out
rational plans. For this reason all three finally fixed on Jaffa, the main port of
Palestine at the time, as the most suitable place for settlement. Their decisive
failures were distinctly anticlimactic in the light of their beliefs.
It is not difficult to explain their failures against the background of local
conditions, but these failures can also be seen in another way as, for example, in
the attempt to found an American colony in Jaffa in 1866. In retrospect, it may be
said that Adams erred in his vision and failed in his personal behaviour as a leader.
But, intuitively, his approach was rational: a pilot tour, choosing the most suitable
site for settlement, and preparing a reserve group to reinforce the first group.
Moreover, he understood that only by introducing modern agricultural methods
could advanced farming be achieved and economic success assured. What he did
not foresee were the legal and administrative difficulties he came up against, the
hostility of the local population and the need for much greater financial backing
than the means at the disposal of his group. Nor did he visualize his own reactions
and those of his companions under tension. It is a fact that, in the very same place,
the Templars who came to Jaffa in the late 1860s succeeded in settling and thriving.
What significance had these unsuccessful ventures for later settlement schemes?
Despite their failure, they were very important in the history of agricultural
settlement in nineteenth-century Palestine. The settlers we have discussed maintained a wide range of international contacts during the period of their activitythrough sermons and through reports in the press in America, England, Germany
and Palestine; they issued pamphlets, wrote letters and met many personalities. In
addition, many people who heard indirectly about these undertakings took an
interest in them. Their ideological and practical pioneering attempts at settlement
contributed much to the discussions held at the time in Jewish and Protestant
circles regarding the possibilities of settling in Palestine.
These early settlement attempts appear to have stimulated the early preachers
and founders of the first Jewish societies for agricultural settlement in Palestine
(such as Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, Rabbi Eliyahu
Guttmacher, Dr Haim Luria and Shimon Berman). This is clear from many
R. KARK
references in their writings to the American settlement experience. It is surprising
how similar were the ideas of the Hovevei Zion and the precursors of the Zionist
movements to those of American Christian sectarians. Jewish visionaries, like
their predecessors,
spoke of the hour being propitious for the coming of the
Messiah, for settlement in the land of Israel, and for the establishment of schools
for teaching the lore of the land and for educating Jewish youth to agricultural
pursuits.[731 Many years after the failures and the disappearance of the American
settlers from Palestine, their story reverberated
in Jewish polemic literature
advocating settlement on the land as examples to be, or not to be, followed.[741
Other than their ideological influence on Jewish settlement, it is clear that their
introduction
of new technologies in the sphere of agriculture, the building trades,
crafts, transportation
and road services left an imprint.[751
Department of Geography
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Notes
[l] N. Gross, Economic changes in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period Cuthedra 2
(1976) 11l-25 (Hebrew)
[2] E. R. Sandeen, Millenialism, pp. 104-05 of E. S. Gaustad (Ed.), The rise of Adventism (New
York 1974)
[3] Y. Malachy, American Fundamentalism and Israel (Jerusalem 1978) 1-31; M. VeretB, The
restoration of the Jews in English Protestant thought 1790-1840 Middle Eastern Studies 8
(1972) 3-6; R. J. Z. Werblowsky, Messianic movement Encyclopaedia Hebruica 24 (1972)
619
[4] VeretB, op. cit.; Malachy, op. cit. ; S. J. Case, The Millenial hope (Chicago 1918) 197-8
[S] Ibid.
[6] A. Carmel, German settlement in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period (Jeruslaem
1973) 4-5 (Hebrew); Case, op. cit.
[7] A. L. Tibawi, American interests in Syria 1800-1901 a study of education, literary and
religious work (Oxford 1966) 4; C. Minor, Meshulam! or, tidings from Jerusalem, from a
journal of a believer recently returned from the Holy Land (Philadelphia 1851) VII
[8] Sandeen, op. cit.; Case, op. cit.; E. R. Sandeen, The roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago 1970)
l-102
[9] Gaustad, op. cit. XV
[lo] Veretb, op. cit.
[ll] S. L. Zitron, The history of “Hibat Zion” Part 1 (Odessa 1914) 5-8 (Hebrew)
[12] Carmel, op. cit. 6-7
[13] Hoffmann, Hardegg and Lange in B. Z. Kedar, Templars and Jews--two colonization
projects in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period (unpub. thesis, the Hebrew University 1965) 52 (Hebrew)
[14] M. Davis (Ed.), With eyes toward Zion-scholars’
colloquium on American-Holy Land
studies (New York 1977) 20
[15] Tibawi, op. cit. 9
[16] M. Plesur, The American press and Jewish restoration during the nineteenth century,
pp. 55-76 of I. S. Meyer (Ed.), Ear& history of Zionism in America (New York 1958)
[17] S. H. Levine, Palestine in the literature of the United States to 1867, pp. 29-38 of Meyer,
ibid. See also: Herman Melville in Jerusalem Commentary 23 (1957) 167-72; M. Baker and
R. Miller, The promised coasts of New Cena’an Keshet 18 (1976) 124-35 (Hebrew)
[18] D. T. Arthur, Millerism, p. 160 of Gaustad, op. cit.
[19] D. Pluser, Mormons Encyclopuediu Hebraica 22 (1970) 836-65
[20] W. Cresson, The key of David, David the true Messiah, or the annointed of the God of Jacob.
The two women who came to king Solomon. Were designed, in the greatest depth of wisdom,
to represent the true and false Churches and the living and dead child, or Messiah, also,
MILLENARISM
AND AGRICULTURAL
SETTLEMENT
reasons for becoming a Jew; with a revision of the late lawsuit for Iunacy on that account.
Together with an appendix (Philadelphia 5612 (1852) 211-12, 220, 226
[21] Ibid. 228; F. Fox, Quaker, Shaker, Rabbi: Warder Cresson, the story of a Philadelphia
mystic The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 95 (1971) 160
[22] Cresson, op. cit. 215, 222
[23] Ibid. 213
[24] A. J. Karp, The Zionism of Warder Cresson, pp. 2, 16 of Meyer, op. cit.
[25] Cresson (1852), op. cit. 213
[26] Ibid. and Karp, op. tit, 7-8.
[27] Cresson, op. cit. 203-44, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate 10 (1852) 609-12;
Jewish Chronicle (Feb. 11, 1853) 151
[28] Cresson, ibid. 217-18
[29] Ibid. 215
[30] Quoting Jeremiah 51, 49-50
[31] Cresson’s letter dated Nov. 27, 1854, Jewish Chronicle (Aug. 3, 1855) 263
[32] Karp, op. cit. 14-15; The Occident, lot. cit.
[33] Jewish Chronicle (1854), lot. cit.
[34] Minor, op. cit. V
[35] Ibid. VI
[36] Ibid. VII
[37] Ibid. IX
[38] Ibid. 18, 35, 37, 95
[39] Ibid. 59-60 (her Vision in Hebron in Sept. 24, 1849)
[40] Ibid. 8&l, VII, VIII, IX
[41] Ibid. 71
[42] 2. Vilnay, American-Christian
settlers and the Jews of Eretz-Israel, Moznaim 8 (1939)
69-75 (Hebrew)
[43] J. E. Hanauer, Notes on the history of modern colonization in Palestine, Palestine Expforation Fund Quarterly Statement 32 (1900) 129
[44] P. Amann, Prophet in Zion: the saga of George J. Adams The New England Quarterly 37
(1964) 479-81; In the twenties, thirties and forties Alexander Campbell directed the expansion of the Disciples of Christ (one of the millenarian groups of the period), through
his monthly journal the Millennial Harbinger
[45] S. Idelberg, The American colony in Jaffa Ha-Dour 36 (1947/g) 224-5 (Hebrew). A detailed
story of the Adams’ colony is told in a recently published book by R. M. Holmes, The
forerunners (Independence 1981)
[46] J. F. Swift, Going to Jericho (New York 1868) 200-l
[47] The Sword of Truth and the Harbinger of Peace 4 (June 15, 1867) 57-8
[48] AfBdavits made against Adams by his followers to V. Beauboucher, the American Consul
in Jerusalem in Apr. 13, 1867, National Archives of the United States, Archives of the
American Consulate in Jerusalem, T471/2
[49] Adams, in Jewish Chronicle (July 27, 1866) 8
[50] The Occident 10 (1982) 361
[51] Ibid. 10 (1852) 609-12; Karp, op. cit. 9-11
[52] The Occident 10 (1852) 609-12
[53] The Occident 12 (1854) 351-5
[54] Karp, op. cit. 12; Jewish Chronicle (Aug. 3, 1855) 263, quoting a letter dated Nov. 27, 1854
[55] Jewish Chronicle (Aug. 3, 1855) 263 and (July 5, 1862) 1
[56] The Occident 13 (1855) 133-7, quoting a letter dated Feb. 2, 1855
[57] Ibid. 14 (1856) 128; L. A. Frankl, Nach Jerusalem (Vienna 1858-60, Jerusalem 1973) 73
(Hebrew)
[58] Minor, op. cit. 43-139;E. Robinson and E. Smith, Biblical researches in Palestine and the
a&acent regions: a journal of a travel in the years 1838 and 1852 3 (London 1856) 274-5
[59] Minor, op. cit. 134-9
[60] Smith, the American Consul in Beirut, to J. Firm the British Consul in Jerusalem, dated
June 8, 1853, Israel State Archives, Archives of the British Consulate in Jerusalem,
123-l/9
[61] A letter of the Rabbi of Jaffa Yehudah Halevi, July 28, 1853, Central Zionist Archives,
J33/75; The Occident 12 (1854) 20&6
[62] Ibid. Montefiore’s diary Aug. 27, 1855, Israel National Library, Ms. Var. 21 II
62
R. KARK
[63] Jewish Chronicle (July 25, 1856) 4; H. Melville, Journal of a visit to Europe and the Levant
October 18.56~May 1857, H. C. Horsford (Ed.) (Princeton 1955) 158-9
[64] A report of Gorham the American consul in Jerusalem in Jan. 17, 1858 and Feb. 8, 1858,
National Archives of the U.S. T471/1
[65] V. Beauboucher, the American consul in Jerusalem, to W. Seward, Secretary of State,
Washington Apr. 3, 1867 and July 11, 1867 N.A. of the U.S. T471/2
[66] Ibid. July 17, 1866 and Sept. 26, 1866
[67] Swift, op. cit.; Jewish Chronicle (Nov. 9, 1866) 2, (Feb. 22, 1867) 8, (Apr. 26, 1867) 3
[68] Affidavits submitted to V. Beauboucher, Dec. 20, 1866, N.A. of the U.S. T471/2; Jewish
Chronicle (June 23, 1867) 3
[69] Reports made by V. Beauboucher dated-Dec.
2 and 28,1866, Jan. 28,1867, Mar. 30,1867,
N.A. of the U.S. T471/2
[70] The Sword of Truth and the Harbinger of Peace 4 (June 15, 1867) 63
[71] A cry of help sent by the settlers to Senators Fessenden and Morrill in Maine in July 9,
1867, Israel National Library, V849
[72] L. Johnson, acting consul Jerusalem, to W. Seward, June 7,1868 and Sept. 30,1868, N.A.
of the U.S. T471/2
[73] Zitron, op. cit. 9-15; B. Gat, The Jewish Yishuv in Eretz-Zsrael, 1840-1881 (Jerusalem
1974) 303 (Hebrew)
[74] W. Herzberg, An open letter to Mr Charles Netter, Hamagid (June 21, 1882) no. 24
(Hebrew)
[75] This however is a distinctly separate topic and is currently under investigation