CHAPTER XIII.
THE COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA (1732-1755).
115. References.
Bibliographies.—Avery, III. 438-440; Winsor, V. 392-406; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 103.
Historical Maps.—No. 4, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. [4]), MacCoun, and school histories already cited.
General Accounts.—Avery, III. ch. xxiv.; Doyle, Colonies, V. ch. viii.; G. Bancroft, II. 268-291; Greene, Provincial America, ch. xv.; Hildreth, II. 362-377; Lodge, Colonies, ch. ix.; Winsor, V. ch. vi.; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, chs. xi., xii.; W. Wilson, American People, II. 62-68; histories of Georgia by Jones, McCall, and Stevens.
Special Histories.—C. Jones, Dead Towns of Georgia; P. A. Strobel, Salzburgers; J. MacLean, Scotch Highlanders in America, ch. vi.; G. White, Historical Collections of Georgia; lives of Oglethorpe by Bruce, Cooper, Harris, and Wright.
Contemporary Accounts.—Oglethorpe, Account (1732); Martyn, Reasons for Establishing Georgia (1733); Account Showing Progress of Georgia (1741); Impartial Enquiry into State and Utility of Province of Georgia (1741); Cadogan, Impartial Account of Expedition against St. Augustine (1743); Moore, Voyage to Georgia (1744); Egmont, Journal of Trustees for Establishing Colony of Georgia; Candler, Colonial Records.
116. Settlement of Georgia (1732-1735).
Unsettled territory.
The southern boundary of South Carolina was practically the Savannah River; but the English claimed as far south as the St. John's. Just below the St. John's, and one hundred and seventy miles south of the Savannah, lay the old Spanish colony of St. Augustine, founded (page [34]) in 1565. The country between the Savannah and the St. John's was a part of the old Carolina claim; but when the Carolinas became royal provinces the king reserved this unsettled district as crown lands.
Formation of the Georgia Company.
James Oglethorpe had been an army officer; he was a member of parliament, and was prominent in various efforts at domestic reform, particularly in the improvement of the condition of debtors' prisons. Stirred by the terrible revelations of his inquiry, he engaged other wealthy and benevolent men with him, and formed a company (1732) for the settlement of the reserved Carolina tract, which was to be styled Georgia, in honor of the king, George II. The proposed colony was to serve the double purpose of checking the threatened Spanish advance upon the southern colonies in America, and of furnishing a home for members of the debtor class, who would be given a chance to retrieve their fortunes by a fresh start in life. This scheme, half philanthropic and half military, had also in view the extension of the English fur-traffic among the Cherokees, whose trade was now being eagerly sought by the Spanish on the south, and the French on the west.
The charter.
The company was given a charter under the name of "The Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America," its land-grant extending from the Savannah to the Altamaha. There were twenty-one trustees, with full powers of management; they were to appoint the governor and other officials during the first four years,—after that the Crown was to appoint. No member of the company was to hold any salaried colonial office. Never was a colony founded upon motives more disinterested. It was to be, literally, "an asylum for the oppressed." The settlers themselves were not given any political privileges, for it was thought the trustees would be better managers than a class of people who had not heretofore proved their capacity for business affairs. Slavery was prohibited, because it would interfere with free white labor, and a slave population might prove dangerous in case of a frontier war with the Spanish. That immigration might be encouraged, and thus that the colony might be strong from a military point of view, it was ordered that no one should own over five hundred acres of land. It was also ordained that all foreigners should have equal rights with Englishmen, that there was to be complete religious toleration except for Roman Catholics, that none but settlers of steady habits should be admitted, that no rum should be imported, and that the colonists were to practise military drill.
Savannah founded.
In November, 1732, Oglethorpe,—appointed governor and general, without pay,—set out from England with thirty-five selected families, and in February (1733) founded the city of Savannah, on a bluff overlooking Savannah River, some ten miles from the sea. In May he made a firm alliance with the neighboring Creeks, whom he treated with great consideration. The second year (1734) there arrived a number of German Protestants, persecuted exiles from Salzburg, who had been invited to America by the English Society for Propagating the Gospel. |Other settlements.| The Salzburgers proved a desirable acquisition, setting a much-needed example of industry and thrift. The Germans settled the town of Ebenezer; in the same year Augusta was planted, two hundred and thirty miles up the Savannah River, as a fortified trading outpost in the Indian country; while two years later (1736), another armed colony was sent to found Frederica, at the mouth of the Altamaha, on the Spanish frontier.
The fur-trade.
Augusta, which in 1741 numbered but forty-seven permanent inhabitants, in addition to a small garrison, was the chief seat of the Georgia and South Carolina fur-traffic. It was the eastern key to the Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee hunting-grounds. In 1741, it was estimated that about one hundred and twenty-five white men—traders, pack-horse men, servants, and townsmen—depended for their livelihood upon the traffic centring at the Augusta station; another estimate, made in the same year, placed the number of horses engaged at five hundred, and the annual value of skins at fifty thousand pounds. The profits were great, and would have been larger but for sharp competition in the far-away camps of the barbarians; there the Georgians and Carolinians met Frenchmen, who had wandered from far Louisiana by devious ways, part water, and part land, and Virginians, who found their way to the southwest through the parallel valley system, thus escaping the necessity of climbing the mountain wall.
117. Slow development of Georgia (1735-1755).
Dissatisfaction of the colonists.
The trustees perceived at last that men who had failed at home were not likely to be successful as colonists, and they sent over a party of Scotch Highlanders and yet more German Protestants. The colony now proved a success. Savannah was well built, courts were established, the land-system was well arranged, and Salzburgers, Moravians, and Highlanders soon came out in considerable numbers (1735-1736). Yet there was no lack of discontent. The very class for whom the colony was founded formed its most undesirable inhabitants; hardly a regulation originally established for their supposed benefit was to their taste, idle and worthless fellows were numerous, and some of them, finding their complaints unheeded, fled to the Carolinas or to join the rough borderers. Among the settlers were three enthusiastic sectaries, Charles Wesley, secretary to Oglethorpe, his brother John, a missionary to the Indians, and George Whitefield, who succeeded the latter after he returned to England. Whitefield in later years deeply stirred the American colonists, from Florida to New England, in his efforts to arouse in them a strong religious conviction (page [190].)
Expedition against Spanish Florida.
In 1736, Oglethorpe made an expedition to the south as far as the English claim extended, and planted several forts. At the same time he made a treaty with the Chickasaws, and thus strengthened the southern line. Three years later (1739), war broke out between Spain and England. Fearing that he might not be able to withstand an attack from the Spaniards, Oglethorpe took the offensive (1740), and marching into Florida planted himself before St. Augustine, which had a garrison of two thousand men, well supplied with artillery. Troops from Carolina soon came up. Sickness breaking out in the camp, and many of the Carolinians deserting, the siege, which had been gallantly conducted, was at last abandoned.
The Spaniards unsuccessfully retaliate.
Up to this time the Spaniards had been obliged to stand on the defensive; Cuba was threatened by a large English squadron,—but the attack there proved a failure, and opportunity was given for concentrating Spanish troops in Florida. In 1742 a heavy assault by land and sea was made on Frederica. By a combination of bravery and superior stratagem, Oglethorpe succeeded in holding the place until the enemy's fleet was frightened off by the arrival of English vessels, and Georgia was henceforth free from Spanish invasion.
A change of policy.
Oglethorpe returned to England the following year (1743), never to return to the colony. The trustees now placed the government in charge of a president and four assistants. But after the departure of its gallant and public-spirited founder the colony no longer flourished, and in a vain attempt to remove causes for dissatisfaction the company made matters worse. Slavery was introduced (1749), free traffic in rum was permitted, and restrictions on the acquisition of land were removed. Discontent grew apace among the original settlers, who were always hard to suit; only the Highlanders and Germans remained satisfied.
A royal province.
In 1752, the charter was surrendered by the disappointed proprietors, and Georgia became a royal province, with a government similar to that of South Carolina. The change wrought improvement in many ways.
Characteristics of Georgia.
Georgia was the last of the thirteen colonies to be founded, and remained one of the weakest until long after the Revolution. Its history is a proof that the robust growth of a colony depends, not upon the character and aims of its founders, but upon the slow accretion of public sentiment and public spirit.