However specious the arguments in support of these regulations might appear to the trustees, human ingenuity could scarcely have devised a system better calculated to defeat their hopes.
The tenure of lands drove the settlers into Carolina where that property might be acquired in fee simple. The prohibition of slavery rendered the task of opening the country, too heavy to be successfully undertaken in that burning climate; and the restriction on their trade to the West Indies, deprived them of the only market for lumber, an article in which they abounded.
1734
Mr. Oglethorpe's first employment was the construction of fortifications for defence. He erected one fort on the Savanna, at Augusta, and another on an island of the Alatamaha, called Frederica, for defence against the Indians and the inhabitants of Florida. The Spaniards remonstrated against them; and a commissioner from the Havanna insisted on the evacuation of the country to the thirty-third degree of north latitude, which he claimed in the name of the King of Spain; but this remonstrance and claim were equally disregarded.
The restrictions imposed by the trustees, on the inhabitants of Georgia, were too oppressive to be endured in silence. They remonstrated, particularly, against the tenure by which their lands were held, and against the prohibition of the introduction of slaves. These complaints, the result of experience, were addressed to persons ignorant of the condition of the petitioners, and were neglected. The colony languished; while South Carolina, not unlike Georgia both in soil and climate, advanced with considerable rapidity. Although emigration was encouraged by paying the passage money of the emigrants, by furnishing them with clothes, arms, ammunition, and implements of husbandry, by maintaining their families for the first year, and, in some instances, by furnishing them with stock; yet the unwise policy, which has been mentioned, more than counterbalanced these advantages; and for ten years, during which time the exports from Carolina more than doubled, the settlers in Georgia could, with difficulty, obtain a scanty subsistence.
1737
The differences between Great Britain and Spain not admitting of adjustment, both nations prepared for war. The Spaniards strengthened East Florida; and the British government ordered a regiment, consisting of six hundred effective men, into Georgia. The command of the troops, both of Georgia and Carolina, was given to major general Oglethorpe, who fixed his headquarters at Frederica.
Before hostilities had commenced, the Spaniards at St. Augustine engaged in criminal intrigues among the blacks of Carolina. Agents had been secretly employed in seducing the slaves of that province to escape to St. Augustine, where liberty was promised them, and where they were formed into a regiment officered by themselves. Hitherto these practices had been attended only with the loss of property; but, about this time, the evil assumed a much more alarming form. Insurrection of the slaves.A large number of slaves assembled at Stono, where they forced a warehouse containing arms and ammunition, murdered the whites in possession of it, and, after choosing a captain, directed their march south westward, with drums beating and colours flying. On their march, they massacred the whites, seized all the arms they could find, and forced such blacks as did not voluntarily join them, to follow their party. Intoxicated with ardent spirits, and with their short lived success, they considered their work as already achieved, and halted in an open field, where the time which might have been employed in promoting their design, was devoted to dancing and exultation. Fortunately, the people of the neighbourhood had assembled on the same day, to attend divine service; and, as was then directed by law, all the men came armed. They marched immediately against the blacks, whom they completely surprised. Many were killed, and the residue dispersed or taken. Thus the insurrection was suppressed on the day of its commencement; and such of its leaders as survived the battle were immediately executed.
During the long repose, which the pacific temper of the duke of Orleans, Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. and the equally pacific temper of sir Robert Walpole, minister of England, gave to their respective countries, the British colonies in America had increased rapidly in population and in wealth. Lands were cheap, and subsistence easily acquired. From New York to Virginia inclusive, no enemy existed to restrain new settlements, and no fears of inability to maintain a family, checked the natural propensity to early marriages. The people were employed in cultivating the earth, and in spreading themselves over the vast regions which were open to them; and, during this period, their history furnishes none of those remarkable events which interest posterity.