Communal Ideals, Worldly Concerns, and the Moravians of North Carolina, 1753-1772

HISTORIANS HAVE LONG interpreted the survival of sectarian communities in America as a function of their withdrawal from the world. 1 According to this interpretation, the "successful" communities have been those that turned their backs on the world to live in a self-imposed isolation, as far away as possible from the sin and corruption of the larger society.They took flight from the world, and sought to "escape to Utopia." 2 By refusing to have truck with the world, such communities managed to keep their ideals alive and their values untainted for a long period of time.Thus the Amish in Pennsylvania, although not strictly speaking a communitarian group, continue to wear plain clothes and drive horses and buggies.A number of Hutterite communities in rural areas of Canada and the northwestern United States similarly thrive while being surrounded by the products and values of a mass society.On the other hand, communities that consented to do business on the world's terms, this same interpretation holds, subtly absorbed the very values they had initially opposed, and ultimately succumbed to the ways of the world.Thus the downfall of the early Puritan communities in New England has often been linked to the growth of trade and mercantile interests. 3