Colonists Take Leave

This is a photograph of disillusioned colonists taking leave from Topolobampo. Despite the purported community-building and dramatic alteration of the private sector prevalent in a capitalist society (and widely regarded as the key perpetrator of economic inequality), this picture documents not the triumphs of Owen’s utopia but its shortcomings as people decide to decamp back to the countries from which they came. This inference is supported by the text at the bottom of the photograph which describes the “discouraged” colonists being taken away from Topolobampo Bay by Porfirio Díaz. I don’t believe Díaz is in the photo or had ever personally transported colonists away from the Topolobampo but rather he may have directed people under his command to handle such matters. It should be noted, however, that given the photograph has few accompanying documents which could further contextualize it, the frequency with which people left can only be speculated and conjectured.

The importance of this photograph is significant because a declining retention rate of Topolobampo over its colonists is something that isn’t going to be documented per se for it serves no purpose to Díaz nor Owen nor the colony. There was a concerted effort on the part of Owen to portray his utopia as a work in progress that, if people buy into (literally) and worked earnestly, could come into fruition. One only needs to look at the literature produced by Owen himself which documents Topolobampo Bay in terms of color and grandeur. Despite the countless texts and documents which describe the putative allure Topolobampo, there is a considerable lack of “narrative” which talks of the place’s failures – which, given that we are retroactively looking at Topolobampo – we know existed. Herein lies the scholar’s work: to fill in the gaps and acknowledge the “archival silences.”