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EPILOGUE Revolution? "This is a frontier Province, bordering upon the Indian, and too near the Spanish Settlements, both ofwhich 'erelong, maybe our declared Enemies," predicted the members of Georgia's Council of Safety (the body that contested royal rule and sought to mobilize Revolutionaries in the province) in a letter to Gov. James Wright on 8August 1775."It is extensive without Populous habitation , and a dreadful Enemywithin its Bosom; and an Assault from either of them might be excitement to the others, and would reduce the Inhabitants to the Miserable alternative, either of being Sacrificed, or of Evacuatingthe Province ."1 Theywerenot far wrong. The impact ofthe American Revolution upon the society and economy of Georgia, and more specifically the war that accompanied it in the South between 1779 and 1782,was devastating. As the youngest colony/state at the time of Revolution, Georgia contained more than its fair share of Tories, those loyal to the Crown, a situation that eventually prompted the British to concentrate on the lowcountry asa military foothold. Wright and his councilmen, who had been gently overthrown by moderate Patriots in 1776, returned to the province after British troops successfully invaded Savannah in December 1778. Though the self-proclaimed objective of the British army was the "pacification" of the South, its arrival in fact signaled the breakdown ofjustice , escalation of violence, and complete stagnation of the economies of Georgia and, later, South Carolina.2 Raids from eastern Florida, the Creek Nation, and the sea (byboth pirates and enemy naval detachments) accounted for substantial disruption of the plantation routine and the forcible impressment of slaves. Partisan warfare in the backcountry was fierce and retaliatory: plunderers carried off anything movable and frequently damaged or destroyed buildings and growing crops. Abandonment and neglect ravaged and ruined many lowcountry plantations, especially the irrigation systems so necessary to rice planting. Roads and bridges were damaged, trading paths severed, and in parts of the province steady immigration changed to headlong emigration. The physical redistribution of Georgia's human population and material goods had the potential to radically change the social as well as the political character of the province. One does not have to amble too far down a counterfactual path to see imagined alternative outcomes in the aftermath of revolution . Even if we take for granted, in time, a successful regime overthrow and 179 ISO • EPILOGUE the institution of republican government (which was by no means a certain eventuality), the late colonial elite had been irrevocably split by its ideological differences, with many of its members fighting for,and leavingwith, the British Crown. From the top down, new directions in government, and new directions from government, could have aided the construction of a new cultural web,just as they had in the 17508 and 17608. From the bottom up, the sands of society had also shifted dramatically. The Revolutionary War sawthe backcountry assume a greater significancein the province's fortunes, while in the tidewater thousands of slaves seized the opportunity to run away. Yetfor all this constitutional and physical upheaval, in 1790,when a national censuswas first conducted, Georgia bore a damning, bloated resemblance to the Georgia of 1770.According to the census returns, the province now contained 82,548 people, including 29,264 slaves (35 percent) and 25,739 white females (now virtually equal in proportion to white males).Demography,society, and economy would recover with astonishing speed from the whirlwind of revolution—nursed by familiar remedies like slave trading and land granting. Crucially, for all the short-term upheaval, the web would hold fast. During the American Revolution, as during the trusteeship, the practical significance of women's roles was impossible to conceal beneath a veneer of gendered suppression—though it left little impression upon the extant sources. Although many members of the elite were able to move wives and families to comparatively safe havens to the north (or across the Atlantic), most women were forced to deal with the circumstances in Georgia, and their assumption of greater economic responsibility, as well as sole familialpredominance in the absence ofhusbands and fathers, belied the perception offeminine fragility that had been constructed during the decades before the Revolution.3 Civil and military authorities, particularly those at the top, tried desperately to ignore women as passive victims of the war but were repeatedly forced to recognize their myriad agency. On 4 January 1781 the Royal Georgia Gazette (which had been published under this name since 1779)gave notice ofan exodus of slaves from...

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