American Colony
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The American Colony was a Christian utopian society that formed in Jerusalem in 1881.
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[edit] Overview
Moved by a series of tragic losses, Chicago natives Anna and Horatio Spafford led a small American contingent in 1881 to Jerusalem to form a Christian utopian society known as the "American Colony." Colony members, later joined by Swedish Christians, engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives--thereby gaining the trust of the local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. During and immediately after World War I, the American Colony played a critical role in supporting these communities through the great suffering and deprivations of the eastern front by running soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable ventures. In addition, members of the Colony were permitted to photograph behind Turkish lines to create a truly unique record of life under the constraints of war.
Although the American Colony ceased to exist as a religious community in the late 1940s, individual members continued to be active in the daily life of Jerusalem. Towards the end of the 1950s, Colony quarters opened to the public as the American Colony Hotel. The hotel is an integral part of the Jerusalem landscape where members of all communities in Jerusalem still meet. In 1992 representatives from the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel met in the hotel where they began talks that led to the historic 1993 Oslo Peace Accord.
[edit] Tragic birth
In 1871, Horatio Spafford, a prosperous lawyer and devout Presbyterian church elder and his wife, Anna, were living comfortably with their four young daughters in Chicago. In that year the great fire broke out and devastated the entire city. Two years later the family decided to vacation with friends in Europe. At the last moment Horatio was detained by business, and Anna and the girls went on ahead, sailing on the ocean liner S.S. Ville de Havre. On November 21, 1873, the liner was rammed amid ship by a British vessel and sank within minutes. Anna was picked up unconscious on a floating spar, but the four children had drowned. Horatio received the tragic news in a short telegram from Anna, which read "Saved alone. What shall I do?". After receiving Anna's telegram, Horatio immediately left Chicago to bring his wife home.
The Spaffords did their best to put together their shattered lives back in Chicago. In 1878, a daughter, Bertha, was born and, two years later, a son Horatio. After an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out and their baby son died, it seemed that the Spaffords were doomed to unhappiness. Rumors ran rampant through their church. Horatio left the Fullerton Presbyterian Church, which he had helped to build. In solidarity a group of Spafford's friends also abandoned the Chicago church and together decided to seek solace and God's guidance in the holy city of Jerusalem. Delaying only until the birth of their daughter, Grace, in August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem with a band of thirteen adults and three children.
[edit] In Jerusalem
In a rented house in the Old City, the group quickly adapted to their new surroundings. Because they had no interest in proselytizing, they were warmly received by the local community, among whom they soon began philanthropic work. Called the "American Colony" by their neighbors, they sought to live a communal life on the model of the early Christian church. Horatio continued to search the Bible for guidance and for signs of the end of time when Jesus would reappear in Jerusalem. Although the Colony was criticized and harassed by several of the American consuls in Jerusalem for their seemingly unorthodox religious life, the Colony survived and thrived as a religious community.
Although Horatio Spafford died of malaria in 1888, the community grew over the years. Visiting Chicago in 1894, Anna Spafford made contact with Olaf Henrik Larsson, the leader of the Swedish Evangelical Church. Inspired by Anna's words and full of messianic fervor, the Swedes from Chicago decided to join Anna on her trip back to Jerusalem. Larsson also exhorted his relations and friends in Nas, Sweden, to go immediately to Jerusalem. As a result, 38 adults and seventeen children sold all their possessions and set off for the Holy Land to join the Colony, arriving there in July 1896.
The Colony, now numbering 150, moved to the large house of a wealthy Arab landowner outside the city walls. The extensive land attached to the house was quickly put to use for the Colony's support. Part of the building was used as a hostel for their frequent visitors from Europe and America. A small farm developed with cows and pigs, a butchery, a dairy, a bakery, a carpenter's shop, and a smithy. The American Colony Store provided additional support through the sale of images, souvenirs, artifacts and archaeological objects worldwide.
[edit] Plague of locusts
From March to October 1915, a plague of locusts stripped areas in and around Palestine of almost all vegetation. This invasion of biblical proportions seriously compromised the already depleted food supply of the region and sharpened the misery of all Jerusalemites. Djemal Pasha, Supreme Commander of Syria and Arabia, who mounted a campaign to limit the devastation, asked the American Colony photographers to document the progress of the locust hordes.
[edit] World War I
When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I as an ally of Germany in November 1914, Jerusalem and Palestine became a battleground between the Allied and the Central powers. The Allied forces from Egypt, under the leadership of the British, engaged the German, Austrian and Turkish forces in fierce battles for control of Palestine. During this time the American Colony assumed a more crucial role in supporting the local populace through the deprivations and hardships of the war. Because the Turkish military commanders governing Jerusalem trusted the Colony, they asked its photographers to record the course of the war in Palestine.
The Colony was permitted to continue its relief efforts even after the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in the spring of 1917. As the German and Turkish armies retreated before the advancing Allied forces, the American Colony took charge of the overcrowded Turkish military hospitals, which were inundated by the wounded.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought great suffering to the country. All young men were conscripted into the army, while the older men were drafted into work brigades. Food supplies dwindled as the Allies sustained a blockade of the Palestinian coast, and the Turkish army confiscated provisions. Weakened by malnutrition, people died of typhus and other epidemics. As famine, disease, and death ravaged the people of Jerusalem, the Colony, struggling for their own survival, engaged in relief work. With money from friends in the United States, the American Colony ran a soup kitchen that fed thousands during these desperate times. When the British Allied commander, General Allenby, entered Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, the Colony offered their philanthropic services to the new rulers of Palestine and continued to serve their fellow Jerusalemites.
[edit] After the war
The Colony also administered an orphanage to provide refuge for the many children torn from their parents during World War I. The charitable work begun by the Spaffords continues today in the original Colony house abutting the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Spafford Children's Center provides medical treatment and outreach programs for Arab children and their families in Jerusalem.
Inner tensions within the American Colony led to the final demise of this utopian Christian community in the 1950s. Since then the second home of the American Colony, outside the city's walls, has functioned as a hotel.
[edit] External links
- Library of Congress Exhibition
- Collection of Several Thousand photographs made by the American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem (Later known as Matson Photo Service)
