In 1825, Scottish-born Frances Wright purchased 1,940 acres of land on this site to establish a utopian colony called Nashoba, an experiment to end slavery. General Lafayette, the French Revolutionary War hero, her host on her voyage to America and an admirer of her reformist writings, worked with former Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, as well as Andrew Jackson, a Memphis founder and later President, to find suitable land for her colony. West Tennessee was regarded as the best place for emancipation. Public feeling here was judged more favorable to abolition than other Southern locations. Her plan offered hope for slaves preparing to become free, self-supporting citizens. It also sought to save the South from the sudden loss of investment dollars. Frances Wright acquired 11 slaves from Nashville and was joined by her sister Camilla and other supporters with strong moral convictions and experience in utopian community living. Physical labor exhausted their strength, however, and exposed them to fevers of the river bottoms. Frances Wright's health broke. She contracted malaria and in 1827 was encouraged to seek the milder climate in Ohio. During her absence Nashoba drifted from its original course of emancipation. She traveled to Europe for her health, returning here in January, 1828. Fighting criticism, waning support and poor health, she left Nashoba to work in New Harmony, another utopian community in Indiana. In January, 1830, she returned. Ending the experiment, she escorted the Nashoba slaves to New Orleans by flatboat, then sailed with them to Haiti where under Haiti's President they would be given their own land to work.
