High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Amana Colonies are a group of settlements of radical German Pietists in Iowa, USA, comprising seven villages. Calling themselves the Ebenezer Society or the Community of True Inspiration (German: die Gemeinde der wahren Inspiration), they first settled in New York state near Buffalo in what is now the Town of West Seneca. However, in order to live out their beliefs in more isolated surroundings they moved west, to east-central Iowa (near present-day Iowa City) in 1856. They lived a communal life until the mid-1930s. Due to this, the Amanas are sometimes mistaken for Amish.