Georgia (state)

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Founding of the Colony

As England’s power grew, the countries of Scotland and Wales were united under the English king in a nation called Great Britain, which continued the policy of granting proprietary colonies in America. In 1732 Great Britain’s king, George II, granted to James E. Oglethorpe, John Perceval, and others a charter for a colony to be called Georgia. Georgia was to include all the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, extending west to the Pacific Ocean. Oglethorpe and his associates, who were called the “trustees” of Georgia, planned to found a refuge for the poor, especially those in debtors’ prisons, and the victims of religious persecution in Europe. In addition, the king wanted a buffer colony to protect the Carolinas from the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana. It was also hoped that the colony would produce silk, wine, and other goods for the British market.

Early in 1733, Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River and landed at Yamacraw Bluff, 27 km (17 mi) upstream. There he met the Yamacraw people, a friendly Native American band of outlaw Creek, who ceded the site to him. On February 12, 1733, he returned with more than 100 colonists and laid out the town of Savannah, the first permanent European settlement in Georgia. In 1736 Oglethorpe founded Augusta at the Fall Line, the southern end of the Piedmont Plateau, 320 km (200 mi) up the Savannah River. Next Oglethorpe journeyed to the southern border, where he built Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island to defend against the Spanish in Florida.

In 1739 the War of Jenkins’s Ear broke out between Great Britain and Spain, and there was skirmishing on the southern frontier. In 1742 a Spanish force invaded Georgia. In the subsequent Battle of Bloody Marsh, near Fort Frederica, Oglethorpe and his troops defeated the invaders. This ended Spanish attempts to capture Georgia.

Over the next two decades the colonists were joined by German Lutherans and members of other persecuted religious groups from central Europe, as well as by Scots, Welsh, northern Italians, and Swiss. Oglethorpe hoped to create a model society, where none would be rich or poor. Those sent to Georgia at the trustees’ expense received 20.2 hectares (50 acres) of land and supplies to get them started. Individuals paying their own way received up to 202 hectares (500 acres). But no family was allowed to sell, lease, or even will the land away. They were expected to support themselves off the land through their own labor. To ensure that everyone was a sober, hard worker, the trustees in 1735 prohibited strong drink and outlawed slavery. Georgia was the only British colony in North America to have such laws. Although many of Georgia’s first settlers were poor or otherwise unfortunate, few of them came from debtors’ prisons.

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Change to a Royal Colony

The objectives of the trustees were soon called into question. The settlers were less interested in the security the trustees provided than in the opportunity to grow rich. “Clamorous malcontents” maintained that the colony would never grow until people could buy and sell all the land they wanted and have slaves to work the fields. They asserted they could not compete successfully against other colonies because wage labor cost the farm owner much more than slave labor. The trustees countered that the presence of slavery would make free workers lazy and would make defense more difficult. A few who sided with Oglethorpe also raised the issue of human rights, declaring it “shocking to human Nature, that any Race of Mankind, and their Posterity, should be sentenced to perpetual Slavery.”

In the end the malcontents won and the trustees had to abandon their plans. By 1750 slavery was legal, land could be transferred, liquor could be made and sold, and Georgia had lost the features that made it unique. In 1752 the trustees surrendered their charter to the king, and two years later Georgia became a royal colony. The government now consisted of a governor and royal council, appointed by the king, and a legislature elected by the colonists.

The colony began to prosper. A profitable plantation economy developed, based on slavery. Rice, indigo, and wheat were cultivated, and cattle and hogs were raised. The fur trade with the Native Americans flourished, lumber was cut, and naval stores (pitch and tar) were produced. Georgia exported food and other goods to Great Britain in return for British manufactures and for slaves, sugar, rum, and molasses from the West Indies. The settler population, which was less than 5,000 in 1752, grew rapidly after the French and Indian War ended in 1763.

After that war, which ended French competition in North America and transferred Florida to British control, Georgia’s western limit was set at the Mississippi River; its southern boundary with Florida was extended to the Saint Marys River. However, only the eastern part of the colony was settled. All the area west of the Appalachians was set aside by the king’s proclamation as a Native American reservation. By 1776 Georgia’s settler population was about 40,000, half of them black slaves.

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Colonial Women

In the colonial era women had far fewer rights than men and were generally expected to stay out of the public eye. Nonetheless, a few women gained respect for their achievements. Mary Musgrove was a half-Creek, half-English merchant who ran a trading post near Savannah when Oglethorpe arrived. As a broker in the fur trade, she played a major role in preserving the peace between the Native Americans and the colonists. She helped Oglethorpe as an interpreter and negotiator. She also extended supplies on credit to the colonists, and even helped recruit Native American warriors for Oglethorpe’s battles with the Spanish. Musgrove was rewarded when the colony recognized her title to Saint Catherines Island.

One of the wealthiest white settlers was Abigail Minis, a Jewish resident of Savannah, who arrived in 1733 with her husband Abraham. Their son Philip was born a year later, one of the first white babies born in Georgia. Abraham died in 1757 after building a modest fortune from agriculture and trade. His widow lived another 37 years and greatly increased the family holdings. She strongly supported the patriot cause in the American Revolution (1775-1783), assisting the patriots’ Continental Army with provisions and supplies. By the time she died in 1794, she owned 20 slaves and several thousand acres of land spread through at least four counties. In addition to an active involvement in trade, she owned a tavern in Savannah.

Mary Musgrove and Abigail Minis could not vote or hold office and had few civil rights. They were widely respected, however, for the extraordinary talents they employed in service to early Georgia.

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The American Revolution

Before the revolution, Georgia depended more than any of the other 12 rebelling colonies on financial aid and protection from Great Britain. The last royal governor, James Wright, was widely admired as an effective administrator who negotiated Native American treaties in 1763 and 1773, opening 2.4 million hectares (6 million acres) of land to settlement. Thus, many Georgians believed that British rule was to their advantage and were less opposed than other colonials to British taxes and regulations. For example, when Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act tax in 1765, many Americans objected because they had had no voice in the legislative process. In 12 colonies the Sons of Liberty, a secret patriotic society, were so effective in terrorizing British officials that the measure was never enforced. The one exception was Georgia, where for a short time Governor Wright was able to collect the tax.

Due in part to Native American troubles, Georgia was the only colony not to send delegates in 1774 to the First Continental Congress, where the colonies pondered strategies of resistance to Great Britain. However, after resistance turned into battle at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775, pro-independence Georgians seized control of their government and chose delegates to the Second Continental Congress. At the Continental Congress in 1776, Lyman Hall, George Walton, and Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence for Georgia. In the same year, Georgia’s revolutionary government adopted a temporary constitution, the Rules and Regulations, and elected a president, Archibald Bulloch, and a council of safety. Early in 1777 a permanent state constitution was adopted. It provided for a unicameral (single-house) legislature and for a governor and executive council elected by the legislature. John A. Treutlen was elected as the first governor. In 1789 a new constitution changed the legislature to a bicameral (two-house) body.

In 1778 the British captured Savannah, and within a few months they overran most of Georgia and reestablished British rule. The Continental Army failed to dislodge them from Savannah, but bloody guerrilla fighting continued in outlying areas. Augusta was finally liberated in 1781, and the British troops evacuated Savannah in 1782.

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After the Revolution

On January 2, 1788, a state convention meeting at Augusta voted unanimously to adopt the Constitution of the United States; Georgia was the fourth state and the first Southern state to do so. Most Georgians supported a strong, central federal Union to protect them against the Native Americans and the Spanish, who had repossessed Florida in 1783. Within a few years, however, conflicts arose between the state and federal authorities. Georgia became a leading advocate of states’ rights, the doctrine that federal powers over the states are strictly limited. Nevertheless, the state supported the Union.

In the early years of the Union, thousands of settlers from Virginia, North Carolina, and other nearby states migrated to Georgia. Between 1790 and 1810 the state’s population tripled, from 82,548 to 252,433. Most of the newcomers settled north and west of Savannah. In 1783 Augusta succeeded Savannah as the state capital. As settlement pushed westward, the capital was moved west to Louisville in 1796 and to Milledgeville in 1806.

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