Bishop Hill is a village in Henry County, Illinois, United States, along the South Edwards River.

Prior to founding the Bishop Hill Colony, Jansson preached to his followers in Sweden about what he considered to be the abominations of the Lutheran Church and emphasized the doctrine that the faithful were without sin.

As Jansson's ideas became more radical, he began to lose support from many of his sympathizers and was forced to leave Sweden in the midst of growing persecution.

Jansson had previously sent Olof Olsson, a trusted follower, as an emissary to the United States to find a suitable location where the Janssonists could set up a utopian community centered on their religious beliefs.

Many of the first 1000 colonists died from disease on the way to Bishop Hill (named for Eric Jansson's birthplace, Biskopskulla), while others became disillusioned and stayed in New York.

It wasn't uncommon to see hundreds of people working together in the fields or large groups of laborers engaged in other tasks.

After their leader's death, the people of Bishop Hill appointed a group of seven trustees to run the affairs of the colony.

Among the trustees were Jonas Olsson and Olof Johnson, who would become the primary leaders of the colony as they had been two of Jansson's closest aides.

However, despite Bishop Hill's success, in 1857 financial problems arose in the midst of accusations of mismanagement against Olof Johnson.

Letters home from Janssonists to their friends and family, telling of the fertile agricultural land in the interior of North America, stimulated substantial migration for several decades and contributed to the formation of the Swedish-American ethnic community of the American Midwest.