Cornerstones of Georgia History

3. Trustees and Malcontents: The Colonial Controversy over Slavery and Georgia's Future

3 Trustees andMalcontents: The ColonialControversy over Slavery and Georgia's Future The Spanish maintained a presence in Guale until the i68os, when Englishmen and Indians from South Carolina invaded. At the time the Carolinians were strong enough to expel the Spanish, but not strong enough to replace them; so Georgia became "the debatable land" for half a century, with the English, French, and Spanish casting covetous eyes on the area. Ultimately, an English humanitarian named James Edward Oglethorpe ended the debate. A soldier of fortune and member of Parliament, Oglethorpe joined in 1732with twenty friends and associates to receive from King George II a charter for a new colony. Georgia's initial purpose was spelled out in the opening lines of that document: George the Second, by the Grace of God, To all To whom these Presents shall come: Greeting. Whereas wee are Credibly Informed that many of our Poor 2 5 Subjects are, through misfortunes and want of Employment, reduced to great necessities insomuch as by their labour they are not able to provide a maintenance for themselves and Families and, ifthey had means to defray the Charge of Passage and other Expenses incident to new Settlements, they would be Glad to be Settled in any of our Provinces in America, whereby Cultivating the lands at present vast and desolate, they might not only gain a Comfortable Subsistence forthemselves and families, but also Strengthen our Colonies and Encrease the trade, Navigation, and wealth of these our Realms. And whereas our Provinces in North America have been frequentlyRavaged by Indian Enemies , more especially that of South Carolina, which in the late war1 by the neighboring Savages was laid wast with Fire and Sword and great numbers of English Inhabitants miserably Massacred, and our Loving Subjects who now Inhabit these by reason of the Smallness of their numbers will in case of any new war be Exposed to the like Calamities in as much astheir whole Southern Frontier continueth unsettled and lieth open to the said Savages, and whereas wee think it highly becoming Our Crown and Royal Dignity to protect all our Loving Subjects. . . . Know yee therefore, that [the twenty-one individuals and their successors] shall be one Body Politick and Corporate, in Deed and in name, by the name of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America. . . .2 To carry out their mandate, the trustees granted fifty acres of land to persons settling in the New World at the colony's expense and as much as five hundred acres to those paying their own way and bringing at least ten white servants. The inhabitants, however, were denied the privilege of selling, leasing, or willing away their property to anyone but their eldest son. Having rescued the unfortunate from a life of poverty, the trustees felt justified in playing the role of loving father, leading irresponsible children not into temptation. If the people could not make easy profits from their land, neither could they lose it. Georgia was to be a place of hardworking small farmers, contentedly tending their own fields with no thought of the riches that might come to those who could buy and sell. Moreover, the beneficiaries of the trustees' largess were to defend the colony, providing a buffer for provinces to the north. Thus, for reasons of defense, farms needed to remain small and close together, with an arms-bearingman on each. To Oglethorpe and his companions, Georgia's military and humanitarian purposes dovetailed nicely. Concerned that the colony remain true to its mission, Oglethorpe persuaded the trustees in 1735 to pass two laws that were highly unusual in the eighteenth century. One outlawed strong liquor, the other slavery. No other American colony had such laws. The preamble to the first lawargued that rum and brandy 26 & C O R N E R S T O N E S OF G E O R G I A H I S T O R Y made people sick and created problems with the Indians, frustrating the king's "good and fatherly Intentions" toward his subjects. The exclusion of slavery was explained in the title: "an Act for rendering the Colony of Georgia more Defencible by Prohibiting the Importation and use of Black Slaves or Negroes in the same." The preamble went on to argue that the importation of slaves discouraged the migration of free whites who "alone can in case of a War be relyed...