In addition to building cabins and farm buildings, Wright planned to establish a school for black students, although many abolitionists criticized her idea of gradual emancipation and educational training for the former slaves. 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 that was 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" and 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 Trollope, who spent ten days at the community, and found it in disarray an on the verge of financial collapse. Trollope's published descriptions of the area criticized its poor weather, lack of scenic beauty, and Nashoba's remoteness and desolation.