Frances Wright had founded the Nashoba Commune in 1825 intending to educate enslaved people to prepare them for freedom.

Wright had hoped to build a self-sustaining multiracial community comprised of slaves, free blacks, and whites.

Nashoba (now the modern-day city of Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis) had been partially based on Owen's New Harmony settlement in Indiana, and had lasted until Wright became ill with malaria and moved back to Europe to recover.

The interim management of Nashoba had been appalled by Wright's benevolent approach to the slaves living in Nashoba; rumors had spread of interracial marriage and the Commune had fallen into financial difficulty, which had eventually led to its demise.

Wright moves in 1829 to New Harmony.