Editing Frances Wright (section)

===Nashoba experiment===
{{main|Nashoba Commune}}

In early 1825, after spending time at former President Jefferson's home in Virginia and Robert Owen's utopian settlement at [[New Harmony, Indiana|New Harmony]], Wright began developing her plans for an experimental farming community. By the summer of 1825, she sought advice from Lafayette and Jefferson, among others, to implement her ideas.<ref>Elliott, pp. 147–49.</ref> Owen and Lafayette later became members of her project's board of trustees; however, Jefferson declined to participate.<ref name=Bowman/> Wright also published ''A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States Without Danger of Loss to the Citizens of the South'' (1825),<ref name=C-P236/> a tract that she hoped would persuade the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] to set aside federal land for promoting emancipation. To demonstrate how enslaved people could be emancipated without their owners losing money, Wright established a model farming community in Tennessee where enslaved people could work to earn money to purchase their own freedom and receive an education.<ref>{{cite web|last1=The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica|title=Frances Wright|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frances-Wright|website=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=July 31, 2017}}</ref>

Taking inspiration from the New Harmony community in Indiana, Wright traveled to Tennessee in the fall of 1825 and bought about {{convert|320|acre|hectare}} of land along Wolf River about thirteen miles from [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]]. Wright founded a community at this wilderness site, which she named [[Nashoba Commune|Nashoba]].<ref>James, James, Boyer, eds., p. 677.</ref><ref>Wright later acquired additional land, expanding the property to about {{convert|2000|acre|hectare}}. See: {{cite book | author =Woloch, Nancy | title =Women and the American Experience | publisher =Knopf | year =1984 | location =New York | pages =[https://archive.org/details/womenamericanexp00wolo/page/151 151 and 154] | url =https://archive.org/details/womenamericanexp00wolo/page/151 | isbn =9780394535159 }}</ref> [[Emily Ronalds]] contributed £300 to the scheme.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ronalds |first=B.F. |date=2023 |title=Emily Ronalds (1795-1889) and her Social Reform Work |journal=Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=81–95}}</ref> To demonstrate that her idea was a viable way to abolish slavery, Wright purchased about thirty enslaved people, nearly half of them children, to live in the experimental community. Her plan was for the enslaved people to acquire their freedom through labor on the property gradually. Wright also planned to eventually colonize the newly emancipated slaves to areas outside the United States.<ref>Elliott, pp. 151–52.</ref><ref>Woloch, p. 155.</ref><ref>{{cite journal| author=Bederman, Gail|year=2005|title=Revisiting Nashoba: Slavery, Utopia, and Frances Wright in America, 1818–1826|journal=American Literary History|volume=17|issue=3|pages=438–59|doi=10.1093/alh/aji025|s2cid=144559953}} See also: {{cite web|url=http://peace.maripo.com/m_frances_wright.htm|title=Frances Wright [1795-1852]|website=peace.maripo.com}} Also: {{cite journal|author=Parks, E. W. |year=1932|title=Dreamer's Vision: Frances Wright at Nashoba (1825–1830)|journal=Tennessee Historical Magazine|volume=2 |pages=75–86 }} {{cite journal| author=Emerson, O. B.|year=1947|title=Frances Wright and her Nashoba Experiment|journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly |volume=6|issue=4|pages=291–314 }} {{cite journal| author=Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia
|year=1975|title=The Nashoba Plan for Removing the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829|journal=Harvard Library Bulletin|volume=23|pages=221–51, 429–61 61 }}</ref>

In addition to building cabins and farm buildings, Wright planned to establish a school for black students. However, many abolitionists criticized her idea of gradual emancipation and educational training for formerly enslaved people. Wright joined in the early efforts to clear land and build log cabins for its inhabitants, which included blacks and whites. Nashoba was, however, plagued with difficulties from the start. It was built on mosquito-infested land conducive to [[malaria]] and failed to produce good harvests. Wright contracted malaria in the summer of 1826 and had to leave the property to recover her health in New Harmony, Indiana, and visits to France and England. While she was absent from Nashoba, the community declined. Its interim managers began instituting a policy of harsher punishments toward the black workers. A scandal also erupted over the community's tolerance of "free love" amid publicized accounts of an interracial relationship between James Richardson, a white supervisor of the community, and Josephone Lalotte, the mulatto daughter of a freed African American woman slave who had brought her family to live at Nashoba. Wright returned to Nashoba in 1828 with her friend, [[Frances Milton Trollope|Frances Trollope]], who spent ten days in the community and found it in disarray and on the verge of financial collapse.<ref>Elliott, p. 154.</ref><ref name=Keating124-26>Keating, pp. 124–26.</ref> Trollope's published descriptions of the area criticized its poor weather, lack of scenic beauty, and Nashoba's remoteness and desolation.<ref>Lee, p. 522.</ref>

In 1828, when Nashoba was rapidly declining, the ''New-Harmony Gazette'' published Wright's explanation and defense of the commune and her views on the principles of "human liberty and equality."<ref>{{cite journal| author=Wright, Frances|year=1828|title=Nashoba, Explanitory Notes, &c. Continued|journal=New-Harmony Gazette |location=New Harmony, Indiana| page=17 }}</ref> In January 1830, Wright chartered a ship and accompanied the community's thirty slaves to [[Haiti]], which had achieved independence in 1804,<ref>Harrison, John (2009). ''Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America''. Taylor & Francis, p. 140.</ref> so they could live as free men and women.<ref>Elliott, p. 157.</ref> The failed experiment cost Wright about US$16,000.<ref>Sanders, p. 4.</ref> [[Germantown, Shelby County, Tennessee|Germantown]], [[Tennessee]], a present-day suburb of [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]], was established on the land where Nashoba once stood.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Sampson, Sheree
|year=2000|title=Reclaiming a Historic Landscape: Frances Wright's Nashoba Plantation in Germantown, Tennessee|journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly|volume=59|issue=4|pages=290–303 }}</ref>