Other small elements were incorporated easily in the Nordic population of the State, but the loss to the colony was heavy when the Loyalists left after the Revolution. On the 13th and 14th of December, 1782, 300 ships set sail from Charleston carrying not merely the soldiery but more than 9000 civilians and slaves. Half of these went to the West Indies, and most of the others to Florida where such of them as had not subsequently removed were presumably reincorporated into the United States a generation later. On the other hand, hundreds of Hessian deserters stayed in the community, as also occurred in others of the colonies, thus introducing the first noticeable immigration of Nordic Germans into the State. As previously noted, most of the so-called Palatine immigration of Germans in the eighteenth century was Alpine, in sharp contrast to the North German Nordics, who came to this country in large numbers in the middle of the nineteenth century after the futile revolutions of 1848.
Georgia was the last of the thirteen colonies to be settled. Even at the Revolution it was so weak that it was regarded by many of the Colonial leaders as more of a liability than an asset to the confederation. Its establishment in 1732 by Oglethorpe was on a basis appealing more to sentiment than to practical views. As in the case of some other similar schemes in contemporary times, Parliament was persuaded to appropriate nearly a hundred thousand pounds to aid the oppressed of all countries. Most of the few thousand persons who were settled by the original trustees were English, and were selected with as much care as possible from among those who were apparently "down on their luck," and who might prosper if relieved of their debts and put back on land. Many of these insolvent debtors were doubtless victims of political and economic changes, but it soon transpired that in too many cases the man who did not have sufficient capacity to make a living in England, likewise lacked sufficient capacity to make a living in the newer and more difficult conditions of Georgia.
In addition to these English debtors, Oglethorpe enlisted on the Continent small bodies of oppressed Protestants and established several other little settlements. Waldenses from Piedmont in Italy were settled in one place, a colony of Scots in another, German Moravians at still a third point, and a few French families elsewhere, as well as a colony from Salzburg, made up of a pre-dominantly Alpine stock that had suffered for its religious principles enough to deserve all the sympathy it received. The hardy Nordics (Scotch Presbyterian Highlanders) who had been settled on the southern frontier, to afford protection for Georgia from the Spaniards and Indians, were almost exterminated by the Spaniards and of all these various undertakings Savannah was the only one that prospered.
It was necessary to abandon the attempt to create a prosperous colony by means of establishing a refuge for the oppressed. Unfortunately the change was accompanied by the introduction of Negro slavery. Nevertheless, when Georgia became open to outside settlers, there was a valuable accession from colonies to the north, one of the most interesting of the groups being the Dorchester Society, which came in 1752. This Protestant congregation had left England in 1630 and founded Dorchester in Massachusetts. In 1695 a part of them had moved to South Carolina and, two generations later, some of these went still farther south to midland Georgia.
Their example was followed, or perhaps indeed preceded, by many other Carolina planters, so that the influx from this source became a real element of strength to the more southerly colony. Shortly thereafter the flood of Ulster Scots, rolling along the Piedmont, began to reach the uplands of Georgia and assured its future.
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES