The transformation of the Bishop Hill Colony from religious sect in Sweden, to fledgling outpost, to prosperous economic engine, and finally to Swedish-American community, marks a unique pattern of Americanization and assimilation. Swanson (1998) has argued that this transformation and Americanization resulted from the degree of interaction between the colonists and the local citizens of Henry County: the colony was not insular, as the many documents held in archives of Bishop Hill demonstrate. The Bishop Hill Colony makes a useful contrast to the Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois and the Amanas in Iowa, both rough contemporaries to Bishop Hill.