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Introduction By all accounts, James Habersham was an early American success. Arriving in Savannah in 1738, he lived his first year in Georgia at public expense, but at his death in 1775, he had become one of the colony’s most influential and prosperous citizens.1 At the age of twenty-two, he left a promising future as a London merchant and came to Savannah as an inexperienced schoolmaster and zealous missionary. Having been converted to Methodism by George Whitefield, he helped the evangelist establish an orphanage in the new and struggling colony of Georgia. His new home confronted him with many challenges but also afforded him great opportunities, and he took full advantage of them. After serving as superintendent at Bethesda, White- field’s orphan house, Habersham became Georgia’s leading merchant and one of its biggest planters. By the time of his death, he was the third wealthiest person in the colony, earning from his plantations more than two thousand pounds sterling a year, an income that would have placed him comfortably among England’s landed gentry. He also played a leading political role, serving as secretary of Georgia, president of the Council, and, for eighteen tense months in the early 1770s, acting governor. And yet, history has been unkind to Habersham. The problem was, like many of colonial Georgia’s leading men, James Habersham was a Loyalist. Within the charged atmosphere of the American Revolution, Patriots viewed Loyalists with contempt and loathing, and historians have paid him scant notice, a fate shared with others who take the wrong side in great causes. While his Patriot sons have been memorialized as early Georgia heroes, their father has received little attention. This biography is an attempt to tell Habersham’s story, and it does so through the lens of loyalty. While his loyalty to King George III was perhaps misguided, it should not obscure the loyalty he displayed to his fellow Georgians during the struggling colonial period. Far from a vice, loyalty was a virtue in eighteenth-century America; it was essential for neighbors in pioneer communities, for trading partners engaged in transatlantic commerce, and for political allies embattled in struggles for power. James Habersham rose to prominence in large part because he forged powerful connections for getting on in the AngloAmerican world. His story then is very much about loyalty, expressed in his deep attachment to colonial Georgia, his close and enduring personal relations with friends and family, and his firm allegiance to the Crown. Habersham’s deep-seated loyalty to Georgia spanned thirty-seven years. Indeed, his adulthood coincided with most of Georgia’s colonial period, from his arrival in 1738, just five years after James Oglethorpe and the first settlers scrambled up the Savannah bluffs, until the eve of the Revolution itself. Throughout that time Habersham’s name was associated with most of the events that enabled the young, struggling colony to survive. He and business partner Francis Harris pioneered in opening direct trade between London and Savannah, a breakthrough that lowered planters’ shipping costs and broke Georgia’s dependence on Charlestown. His lobbying for slave labor was instrumental in the trustees’ rescinding the ban on slavery, enabling thousands of Georgians to prosper by exploiting the labor of thousands of African Americans. He became a leading planter, exporting hundreds of barrels of rice annually and shipping the first cotton produced in the colony. And as secretary of Georgia and president of the Council, he played a major role in energizing provincial government, especially by promoting economic development. However, when the first royal governor, John Reynolds, sought to bypass the Council, Habersham led the fight to have him recalled. After 1763, when Parliament sought to increase revenues from the colonies and tighten enforcement of trade regulations, Habersham’s loyalties were put to the test. On the one hand, he defended Georgia’s interests by protesting tax measures and trade regulations he deemed both unjust and unconstitutional. But on the other hand, he opposed those Georgians, including his three sons, who agitated for independence. As a Loyalist, he was convinced that it was in Georgia’s best interest to remain connected with Britain. Though he aligned himself with the losing side in the American Revolution, he achieved a remarkable victory by keeping his family together with bonds of love and mutual respect that transcended political differences. Habersham’s story is filled with twists and turns that give his biography color and drama. His early years in...

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