If it wasn’t for a monthly sojourn I’m obligated to make for work, I would have never heard of this place. Located just off of US Route 34, south of Kewanee and north of Galesburg, my interest in this quaint little locale was piqued when I discovered that its history goes back to its founding as a utopian community.
According to the Acorn Guide to Northwest Illinois, written by veteran travel writer, Don Davenport, “Bishop Hill’s founders were Swedes whose religious beliefs conflicted with the state church of Sweden. Led by Erik Janson, a charismatic preacher whom they considered to be a second Christ, 400 immigrants set sail from Sweden in the spring of 1846. From New York, they made their way to Chicago by way of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. Preceded by Janson, who went ahead to pick a site for resettlement, the immigrants walked the final 160 miles to Henry County (!).
“By the time they arrived, in late September, Janson had built two log cabins and cut a handful of dugouts into the banks of a ravine. Naming their new home Biskopskulla (Bishop Hill), after a Janson’s birthplace in Sweden, the colonists hurried to add more rough cabins and another dozen dugouts. Barely 18 by 30 feet, with a log front, a sod roof and a fireplace fot heat and cooking, each dank dugout was home to between 25 and 30 people.
“That first winter in Bishop Hill was anything but utopian. Ninety-six of the original colonists died because of inadequate food and shelter.
“The following spring, the survivors began building their version of paradise. Under Janson’s supervision, Bishop Hill flourished. As more immigrants arrived — more than 1,000 in all — massive structures of hand-hewn timbers and handmade bricks were built. The colonists ate and lived together in communal settings, with separate dormitory-style quarters for unmarried men and women. One apartment building known as ‘Big Brick’ contained 96 rooms and two dining halls, where 1,000 people could eat at one time. At the time of its construction (1848–1851), it was the largest building west of Chicago.
“Despite Janson’s murder by a former colonist in 1850, Bishop Hill Colony continued to prosper. Managed by a seven-member board of trustees, the colony produced and marketed linen, furniture, wagons, brooms and farm products. Twenty large commercial and residential buildings grew up around a village green. The colony farms surrounding Bishop Hill covered 12,000 acres. From 1848 to 1861, Bishop Hill was the major commercial center between Rock Island and Peoria.
“It’s recognized today that the early success of the Bishop Hill Colony, described in letters written back home to Sweden, was a significant force in later immigration of Swedes and other Scandinavians to the United States.
“But utopia was short-lived,” according to Davenport. He says that “religious unity declined,” and that “many members left.” By 1861, the charter was dissolved, assets and property divided up among members, and the formerly bustling colony “began a century-long slide into obscurity.”
I find it interesting that Davenport cites religious disunity as the primary contributing factor in mapping the colony’s failure. Failing another revolution, it’s been my contention that the last best hope for the continuation of Christian culture was the founding of pockets of resistance, utopian communities, if you will, that defied secular trends favoring globalization and homogeneity, and instead sought refuge via secession. By opting out, like-souled folks could then begin the struggle to redefine what living communally truly meant. And given the failures of “counter-cultural” models of recent vintage such as the Hippies (non-religious) and the Branch Davidians (religious), along with older examples such as the one detailed here, it goes without saying that a stronger sort of glue is needed to not only bond members to one another, but to secure the means by which the new community is defended, either from the coercive powers of the state, or the corrosive forces of the marketplace. No mean feat, to say the least.
If nothing else, an examination of the shortcomings of the likes of Bishop Hill — or the success of, say, the Amish — provides the remaining hopeful glimpse of what can be done as Babylon collapses all around us.
In the eighties, my working as the manager of the New World resource Center in Chicago, along with being a politically active punk rocker, put me in contact with some very interesting organizations. And individuals that peopled them. One such organization was the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee https://citylights.com/open-media-series/no-fascist-usathe-john-brown-anti-klan/
As evinced by their name, the John Browners worked the race issue primarily, some might argue recklessly, often directly engaging in pitched battles with the likes of neo-Nazis and racist skinheads. One such battle occurred in 1986 while I was doing my part fending off an invasion by C.A.S.H. (Chicago Area Skin Heads) of our local punk scene. Adult activists and a punk/anti-racist skin coalition confronted a larger group of mostly pro-KKK types demonstrating against a Gay Pride Parade. Things turned violent in a hurry, with objects being thrown and placard posts being brandished as spears. A bunch of people were injured, even a few cops, who had stepped in to prevent the situation from turning into a full-scale riot.
The thing that bugged me about the JBAKC — besides their communal lack of a sense of humor — was their stance regarding racial prejudices. Baldly stated, its members believed that it was impossible for blacks or other racial minorities to be racially prejudiced/racist. This philosophy (ideology: “white skin privilege”) colored every aspect of its activist work, including how white and black activists appeared together in public, along with how work was facilitated. No time for the minutest of details; but let’s just say that extreme deferentialism was the order of the day, which, to my mind, barely camouflaged a form of extreme white guilt, along with a very high level of condescension and patronizing that could not have escaped notice by blacks; and, moreover, was very often exploited by them, much to the consternation of young white punks like me who would have none of it.
I met Mr. Lumumba back then. He attended a few meetings or events that JBAKC sponsored and held at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. It was part of an effort to build support for his “Republic of New Afrika,” along with exploring solidarity efforts with Puerto Rican nationalists. Both groupings held controversial views regarding the origin and spread of U.S. imperialism, along with what was to be done to combat it.
With all due respect for the dead, Chokwe, sorry to say, struck me as a bit of a pompous ass who hadn’t bothered to either admit or examine the inherent contradictions of pairing black nationalism with socialism. The idea that nationalism was somehow a necessary stepping stone for formerly colonized/exploited peoples on their inevitable route to socialism had never borne itself out historically. Nor were there any signs of it bearing fruit anywhere in the world then, or now for that matter. It was, and still is, a dead end in the battle for hearts and minds, seemingly torn between joining the forces of McWorld or an international/multicultural jihad.
***I just recently discovered some documents regarding my political activist work with JBAKC at a website called “The Freedom Archives” that folks of a similar political or philosophical ilk might find interesting.***
Two of three juvenile red-tailed hawks that I helped rescue, raise and release
Yesterday, my brother-in-law, a good friend and I visited a friend/fellow bird rescuer living in Moline, IL. She has increasing mobility issues and asked if I could help with a few household chores, yard work and with bird care. We’re not well-acquainted or close friends but I was aware of the fact that she was a hoarder and that the birds in her care were in need of serious assistance. Beaks and nails, for example, were overgrown and in dire need of trimming.
Well, after a brief detour that took us to an incorrect address that was a probable drug house, we arrived at my friend’s to discover that a friend of hers was waiting for us. She took us in to meet my friend and to go over what work needed to be done. My brother-in-law and friend took charge of the outdoor labor requirements while I helped in the bird room — which was nothing short of a pitiful disaster that nearly made me cry. My friend’s own living quarters weren’t terrible; more badly cluttered and grimy than filthy; the birds’, on the other hand, were about as bad as I’d feared. Literally inches of bird droppings on the floor, all over walls and cages, and with no windows uncovered to allow in light, or opened to allow in fresh air. It was just miserable. Unhealthy in every respect for her and for the sixty or so able-bodied and disabled birds living in a small bedroom.
She wanted me to focus on capturing the birds, so she could examine them, trim nails and beaks, and to address any injuries. Since a little less than half or so were permanently caged, I had to net or catch about thirty birds, in a small room filled with obstacles, poor air circulation — even after I opened windows — and a slippery floor. About four hours later, I had managed to capture and secure all of the birds requiring attention, many of which were in awful physical condition; did some vacuuming, scraping/scrubbing and hole-filling.
I’ve heard of hoarder situations like my friend’s but had never experienced one firsthand, where the hoarding mentality had crossed over into including the animal or pet realm. Clearly, this woman has a mental problem. Not only does she insist that none of the birds are releasable (wrong) but that she would not even trust her best friend to help take any of them off of her hands. These are “her babies.” And she even firmly told me that she would rather die with them than live without them.
There’s so much to write about this and I probably will. I believe my friend’s biggest problem, however, is a lack of anything resembling a life of happiness absent the birds. Her disability is limiting; her job sucks; and she is at odds with family members over the hoarding issue. Even the friend we met seemed at her wit’s end. Nonetheless, I don’t think animals of any species, or people for that matter, should become a crutch for someone. Especially when in doing so, the lives you claim to love are put into jeopardy, as those of these birds clearly and unfortunately are.
I am going to do all that I can for my friend BUT I’m not going to be an enabler for her either. The odds are pretty good, unfortunately, that I’ll have to report her. Not sure as to whom yet. And until I do, I will, as compassionately as possible, encourage her to release the birds that can be and find other rehabbers to assume care for many if not most of the disabled ones that are languishing in truly horrible conditions.
Anyone who knows me KNOWS that I take this stuff very seriously. Animals are one of the dearest things to my heart and soul. And because of this I can’t help but feel incredibly empathetic towards my friend. I can’t deny that she is doing good to a great degree for the birds that she’s saved from being killed. But there’s also no denying that the good is being overshadowed by her mental illness that is preventing her from seeing — let alone understanding — the bad.
