In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Golden Isles of Georgia form a barrier against the sea along the state’s nearly 150-mile coastline and include the islands of Ossabaw, St. Catherine’s, Sapelo, St. Simons, Jekyll, and Cumberland.1 Beginning in the sixteenth century , Creek Indians migrating from the mainland to the coast following seasonal patterns of hunting, gathering, and planting experienced invasions by first the Spanish, then the French, and finally the English. General James Oglethorpe, arriving in 1733, established settlements along the coast and founded the city of Savannah. The territory between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers was designated the Colony of Georgia, to be governed for twenty-one years by a board of trustees made up of twenty-one prominent Englishmen, including Oglethorpe . Spanish settlers, missionaries, and soldiers soon abandoned their efforts to colonize the Sea Islands, and the territory between the Altamaha River and the Florida border became known as the Debatable Land.2 St. Simons Island, whose name originated from the mission San Simon, established by Spanish missionaries in the sixteenth century, was chosen as the best strategic site for a fort to defend the colony from the Spaniards, who still owned Florida. On a high point just at the center of the western side of the island, Oglethorpe built Fort Frederica, named in honor of Frederick Prince of Wales, to protect the town within its walls as well as the newly established colony. Frederica ’s inhabitants included artisans and farmers who established a thriving town of tree-lined streets and two-story dwellings of brick and tabby.3 Lands within the town walls and larger tracts within its vicinity were successfully developed and cultivated. The island’s notable citizens included a doctor, a schoolteacher, and a midwife. Charles Wesley along with his brother John, who founded the Wesleyan Methodist faith, preached to the townspeople. A smaller outpost, Fort St. Simons, was established at the southern end of the island and a road was built connecting the two fortifications. When war was declared between England and Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe was ordered to invade Florida. His attempts to defeat the Spanish at St. Augustine proved fruitless, and he returned to St. Simons assured of Spanish retaliation . The 1742 Battle of Bloody Marsh, in which Oglethorpe’s army of 650 men routed 3,000 Spanish invaders, ultimately secured the island and the colIntroduction xix ony for England. By 1743 Oglethorpe had returned to England; his soldiers withdrew, and the English settlers moved inland. Much of Frederica, however, was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. In addition, islanders loyal to the Crown moved to the West Indies to wait out the conflict, but returned to rebuild after it was over. At war’s end, British troops evacuated Savannah, and Georgia became an independent state. Although John McIntosh Mohr, leader of a group of Scots, had petitioned the trustees of the colony in 1739 to ban the introduction of slavery, it had come, as had long staple cotton and the great plantations on which it was grown.4 An influx of planters from South Carolina looking for rich new land, combined with the invention of the cotton gin, enabled coastal Georgia to find its place in the agricultural empire of the Old South. Among the many families who became rich from land and the enslavement of Africans and their descendants were the Pages of South Carolina. Major William Page had been a friend and neighbor of Pierce Butler in the Beaufort District of South Carolina before moving to St. Simons to manage Butler’s plantations there.5 He was paid one thousand dollars annually and instructed to build a wharf and a manager’s house.6 It was Page’s plan, however, to buy his own land, and in 1804 he purchased property at the southwestern tip of the island from Thomas Spalding. Page named his property Retreat and became wealthy growing Sea Island cotton.7 Before long he had established himself as one of the leading citizens of the island and the state. This was an era of great development when newly cultivated soil produced superior crops and captured Africans were delivered straight to the island’s shores. Major Page’s plantation grew around a house rebuilt by Thomas Spalding after the original residence constructed by his father, James, was destroyed in a coastal storm. It was a replica of Orange Hall, James Oglethorpe’s house in Frederica, and was patterned after houses constructed in the West Indies. It...

Share