The Labadists of Colonial Maryland (1683-1722)

two men entered what is now the state of Maryland on an extraordinary mission.Traveling under aliases to obscure their true connection with a European religious sect called the Labadists, Peter Sluyter and Jasper Danckaerts had been sent to America to secure land for colonization. 1Their efforts were eventually successful and led to the founding of the first significant European communal Utopian society in the New World. 2 A portion of land was purchased from a much larger manorial grant known as Bohemia Manor, located between the Elk and Sassafras Rivers in present-day Cecil County, Maryland.By 1683 the colony had been established.Though never numbering more than one hundred and meeting with little success in proselytizing, the community survived until at least 1722 as a distinct religious sect.The ascetic lifestyle of the Labadists reappeared in other mid-Atlantic communal