WEBVTT NOTE 25. Georgia: The "Humanitarian" Colony 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.760 Volume 2, Chapter 25, Georgia, The Humanitarian Colony 2 00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:14.240 The South Carolinians, in agitating for a shift from proprietary rule, found it advantageous 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.200 to scare the Crown about alleged French and Spanish pressures. This propaganda, as well 4 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:26.920 as the Yamasee War, focused the attention of Great Britain on South Carolina and its 5 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:36.640 The Spanish had settled North Florida in what is now the Georgia coast in the mid-1560s, 6 00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:41.440 with their center at the great port of St. Augustine. Settlement had extended as far 7 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:47.920 north as Santa Alina, now Port Royal, South Carolina, where the Spanish destroyed a recently 8 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:54.100 settled French Huguenot colony. The Spaniards, who concentrated on missionary activities 9 00:00:54.100 --> 00:01:07.100 In the late 19th century, a large number of countries among the Indians, particularly by the Franciscan order, named the Georgia coast the Gualais Mission Province, and established missions and posts on the coast. 10 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:14.100 Attacks by Guale Indians forced abandonment of the Mission Posts at the turn of the 17th century, 11 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:21.100 but the defeat of the Indians opened the way for renewed and expanded Mission Posts during the century. 12 00:01:21.100 --> 00:01:30.100 Attacks by the West Toe Indians in the mid-1650s forced the Spaniards to retreat to below the Savannah River, 13 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:34.100 thus paving the way for the English settlements in South Carolina. 14 00:01:34.100 --> 00:01:42.100 Hardly had settlement begun in the 1670s when the South Carolinians formented trouble among the Indians. 15 00:01:42.100 --> 00:01:48.100 They soon became notorious in the colonies for their zeal in enslaving Indians, 16 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:52.100 while the cattle of white settlers often destroyed Indian crops. 17 00:01:52.100 --> 00:02:00.100 Moreover, the colonists were eager for war against the Indians in order to gain a considerable supply of slaves 18 00:02:00.100 --> 00:02:21.100 The Practice had begun as early as 1671 when the English colonists used a vague charge of conspiracy with the Spaniards as an excuse to make war upon the Cuso Indians and turn them into slaves. 19 00:02:21.100 --> 00:02:28.660 Eager to repeat this success, South Carolina launched a war upon the Westo Indians in 1680, 20 00:02:28.660 --> 00:02:36.040 thereby going against the proprietary policy of peaceful Trade and friendship with the Westos. 21 00:02:36.040 --> 00:02:41.860 The proprietors, however, maintained a monopoly of the Westo trade, so that this furnished 22 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:48.260 an incentive for the disgruntled colonists to make war upon the Westos rather than remain 23 00:02:48.260 --> 00:02:55.100 in Peace. A bloody struggle ensued. After three years, South Carolina, with the help 24 00:02:55.100 --> 00:03:02.020 of the Savannah tribe, annihilated the Westo Indians. The Savannas settled near the Savannah 25 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:09.020 River, replacing the slaughtered Westos. There they and South Carolina made a mutually profitable 26 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:15.140 deal. The whites supplied the Savannas with arms, and the Savannas, in turn, made war 27 00:03:15.140 --> 00:03:25.140 The Spaniards had made one fatal mistake in occupying Guale. They sent missionaries to their Indian allies instead of arms. 28 00:03:25.140 --> 00:03:35.140 Beginning in 1680, South Carolina incited a series of Indian attacks against the unarmed Spanish Indians and mission posts. 29 00:03:35.140 --> 00:03:42.140 By the end of the Westo War, the aggressive policy of South Carolina had driven the Spanish mission stations 30 00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:57.140 The Spanish Indians also fled, and the powerful Yamasee Indians attracted by a winner moved from Florida to South Carolina. 31 00:03:57.140 --> 00:04:07.140 With the crushing of the Yamasees and other Indians in the Yamasee War, the old Guale region was now open for settlement and penetration. 32 00:04:07.140 --> 00:04:19.140 The Carolina Proprietors agreed in 1717 to a fantastic scheme to establish a feudal magravate of Azilia in the Guale region. 33 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:28.140 The Proprietors were to grant the region to the promoters in exchange for quid-rent of a penny per acre occupied. 34 00:04:28.140 --> 00:04:36.140 The main Azilia promoters were Sir Robert Montgomery, a Scottish baronet, and the poet Aaron Hill. 35 00:04:36.140 --> 00:04:44.140 Montgomery and Hill wrote promotional monographs, glowingly puffing the land as Our Future Eden. 36 00:04:44.140 --> 00:04:53.140 A myriad of elaborate townships were projected to be spaced in concentric zones with the Margrave's Palace in the exact center. 37 00:04:53.140 --> 00:05:05.140 But like many other wild schemes, the plan collapsed with the ending in 1720 of the inflationary and speculative South Sea Bubble on the London stock market. 38 00:05:05.140 --> 00:05:18.140 One of the first acts of the new royal government in South Carolina was to build Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha River, the first English establishment in the Georgia region. 39 00:05:18.140 --> 00:05:25.140 The fort was to serve as a standing outpost against the French in the west and the Spanish in the south. 40 00:05:25.140 --> 00:05:31.140 The South Carolina Assembly resented paying for a new garrison, but the new governor, 41 00:05:31.140 --> 00:05:37.220 Francis Nicholson, was able to drive through the sizable appropriations. 42 00:05:37.220 --> 00:05:42.540 Not only was the erection of the fort on former Spanish territory an insult and a threat to 43 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:49.180 Spain, but soon the fort was being used to incite the Indians to raid Spanish settlements 44 00:05:49.180 --> 00:05:50.180 in Florida. 45 00:05:50.180 --> 00:05:55.960 The Spanish ambassador to London charged that the Floridians could not stir out of their 46 00:05:55.960 --> 00:06:01.740 houses to cultivate their lands or turn out their cattle without apparent danger from 47 00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:03.780 the sad Indians. 48 00:06:03.780 --> 00:06:09.420 The Crown sent two letters to Nicholson ordering the end of the aggressive violence against 49 00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:11.540 the Spanish settlements. 50 00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:18.660 The great hope of Nicholson and South Carolina was to use Fort King George during the hoped-for 51 00:06:18.660 --> 00:06:25.860 for Next Round of Wars as a Base to Seize St. Augustine. To the Spanish insistence that 52 00:06:25.860 --> 00:06:32.580 the fort be dismantled, South Carolina, irrelevantly, kept turning to demands that runaway negro 53 00:06:32.580 --> 00:06:38.140 slaves be forcibly returned by Spain. No one was more unhappy about maintaining the 54 00:06:38.140 --> 00:06:46.240 fort than its own garrison. From 1725 to 1727 the soldiers disgruntled with a malarial 55 00:06:46.240 --> 00:07:16.240 In the 1720s, while swamp and, with poor food, mutinied several times. A dozen soldiers defected to St. Augustine, and the garrison allowed a fire almost to destroy the fort. During the 1720s, the proprietors kept title to Carolina, including Georgia, lands, and insisted on keeping all new lands closed to settlement, while demanding collection of quit-rents or restoration of their own rule before they would consent to open the land. 56 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:28.240 In 1727, Spain launched a dulcetory siege of the British port of Gibraltar. During the short-lived war between England and Spain, the Carolinians withdrew from the exposed Fort King George. 57 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:35.240 Indeed, Indian tribes allied to Spain now raided frontier Carolina settlements. 58 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:41.700 The Carolinians withdrew from the exposed Fort King George. Indeed, Indian tribes allied 59 00:07:41.700 --> 00:07:49.320 to Spain now raided frontier Carolina settlements. The Yamasee remnants, though reduced to three 60 00:07:49.320 --> 00:07:55.400 villages near St. Augustine, eagerly sought revenge by leading these border raids, and 61 00:07:55.400 --> 00:08:01.500 they were joined by Creeks and by runaway Negroes, anxious to exact some revenge for 62 00:08:01.500 --> 00:08:07.820 for their years in slavery. The South Carolinians, for their part, took the occasion to launch 63 00:08:07.820 --> 00:08:14.940 an expedition and to annihilate the Yemisee remnant. Going by sea, the South Carolinians 64 00:08:14.940 --> 00:08:21.220 led by Colonel John Palmer, a member of the assembly, devastated and burned the Yemisee 65 00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:28.520 towns, including the Catholic chapel near St. Augustine, and killed a number of Indians. 66 00:08:28.520 --> 00:08:34.960 Some of the Yemisees found refuge in the great fort of St. Augustine, but the Yemisee prestige 67 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:38.280 had been irreparably injured. 68 00:08:38.280 --> 00:08:43.120 So long as the proprietors who had closed off the unsettled land still held title to 69 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:49.520 Carolina and Georgia, the Crown could not open up the Georgia land to settlement. 70 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:56.080 But with the end of the proprietary claims in 1729, the crushing of the Yemisees and 71 00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:03.440 At the end of the brief Anglo-Spanish War the path to settlement was now wide open. Furthermore, 72 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:08.740 the royal authorities were particularly anxious to encourage settlement in Georgia as a buffer 73 00:09:08.740 --> 00:09:16.060 against the French, Spanish and Indians. It was at this time that the Guale region was 74 00:09:16.060 --> 00:09:23.300 organized and settled on a unique basis. Here was neither a proprietary nor chartered company 75 00:09:23.300 --> 00:09:53.100 The major founder of the new philanthropic colony was Colonel James E. Oglethorpe, a 76 00:09:53.100 --> 00:10:23.100 The most widely trumpeted aim of the new colony was humanitarianism. Englishmen were called upon to contribute, with no hope of personal reward, to a new colony in Gwalei, to be called Georgia, in honor of King George II, which would colonize and help the poor and needy of England. Indeed, because of its humanitarian reputation, Georgia 77 00:10:23.100 --> 00:10:28.980 received tremendous publicity in the English press. Meetings of the trustees were reported 78 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:34.780 in detail and Oglethorpe was welcomed as a hero, replete with odes from leading poets 79 00:10:34.780 --> 00:10:41.780 such as Alexander Pope upon his return from trips to the new colony. Even on its face 80 00:10:41.780 --> 00:10:48.660 it is a wonder that no one called the humanitarianism of this scheme into question. If one is so 81 00:10:48.660 --> 00:10:56.020 Eager to Help the English Poor? Is it so humanitarian to ship them to a new and unsettled land bordered 82 00:10:56.020 --> 00:11:02.060 by potential enemies? But apart from this, the workings of the new experiment revealed 83 00:11:02.060 --> 00:11:12.120 the logical consequences of outright altruism. For if A is to act as his brother's keeper, 84 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:19.000 If he is to be in a position to do good to his fellow man, then he must be his brother's 85 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:21.680 keeper in more than one sense. 86 00:11:21.680 --> 00:11:30.680 For how can A be truly responsible for, that is, keep, B, unless he be given power to tell 87 00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:39.960 B what to do and what not to do, that is, B his keeper in the unpleasant sense of jailer? 88 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:45.780 On the simplest level, for example, how can A be responsible for B's health unless he 89 00:11:45.780 --> 00:11:53.580 is in a position to dictate B's food consumption and to force him to wear rubbers in the rain? 90 00:11:53.580 --> 00:12:01.740 To do good to another, the recipient must be made to sit still and accept the largesse. 91 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:08.700 And to be responsible for another, the humanitarian must have power over him. 92 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:13.860 This is why in the stark but telling phrase of the brilliant but neglected 20th century 93 00:12:13.860 --> 00:12:21.000 political thinker Isabel Patterson, the humanitarian sets up the guillotine. 94 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:26.260 More fully, Patterson points out that the humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in 95 00:12:26.260 --> 00:12:28.220 the lives of others. 96 00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:34.380 He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order by which men have the power to keep 97 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:36.060 themselves. 98 00:12:36.060 --> 00:12:42.460 The Humanitarian puts himself in the place of God, but he is confronted by two awkward 99 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:43.460 facts. 100 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:50.000 First, that the competent do not need his assistance, and second, that the majority 101 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:58.940 of people, if un-perverted, positively do not want to be done good by the Humanitarians. 102 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:05.300 Shall A do what he thinks is good for B, and B do what he thinks is good for A? 103 00:13:05.300 --> 00:13:10.140 Or shall A accept only what he thinks is good for B and vice versa? 104 00:13:10.140 --> 00:13:12.740 But that is absurd. 105 00:13:12.740 --> 00:13:19.760 Of course, what the humanitarian actually proposes is that he shall do what he thinks 106 00:13:19.760 --> 00:13:21.820 is good for everybody. 107 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:28.800 It is at this point that the humanitarian sets up the guillotine. 108 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:36.560 If then one is to set up a humanitarian colony for the poor and unemployed, and as a corollary 109 00:13:36.560 --> 00:13:43.000 the colony is not to be run by the supposedly evil motives of profit-making, then what are 110 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:45.120 the consequences? 111 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:52.380 The supposedly cold and impersonal motives of profit furnish a potent check-rain on irresponsible 112 00:13:52.380 --> 00:13:53.900 actions. 113 00:13:53.900 --> 00:13:58.620 To make profits, one's production must be economic. 114 00:13:58.620 --> 00:14:05.820 Specifically, to build up a profitable colony, it is necessary to induce settlers to come 115 00:14:05.820 --> 00:14:10.720 to that colony and to be productive and economic. 116 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:17.100 But the rejection of profit-making as a motive gave the proprietors almost unlimited reign 117 00:14:17.100 --> 00:14:22.760 to exercise irresponsible and arbitrary power over their charges. 118 00:14:22.760 --> 00:14:28.040 also gave them a chance to indulge in general and vague motives, the outcome of which might 119 00:14:28.040 --> 00:14:34.000 be truly reprehensible, despite their superficial attraction for many people. 120 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:41.200 James Oglethorpe and his associates received a charter from King George II in 1732 for 121 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:47.680 a colony of Georgia with jurisdiction between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, now 122 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:55.720 by the Charter, the proprietors were a group of 21 trustees, the Georgia Trust, none of 123 00:14:55.720 --> 00:15:01.600 whom was to be allowed to reap personal gain or profit from the colony. The Trust was to 124 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:08.160 run the colony for 21 years, after which the land would revert to the Crown. All laws of 125 00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:13.160 Georgia were to be subject to the King's approval. Religious freedom was to be enjoyed 126 00:15:13.160 --> 00:15:19.000 in the Colony by all except Catholics, who apparently did not come under any sort of 127 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:26.500 humanitarian jurisdiction. The conjunction of altruism and absolute power could be discerned 128 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:32.760 very early. The common council, a committee of trustees, was to have absolute power to 129 00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:39.760 decree laws and regulations for the inhabitants of Georgia. From its very inception, here 130 00:15:39.760 --> 00:15:46.840 Here was the only colony where the citizens had no representative assembly whatever, and 131 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:51.640 indeed little say over their own lives and actions. 132 00:15:51.640 --> 00:15:58.120 Two myths soon surrounded the inception of the Georgia Colony, myths that were convenient 133 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:01.760 for Oglethorpe and the trustees to foster. 134 00:16:01.760 --> 00:16:08.480 One was that the humanitarianism was virtually permeated with religion, and second, that 135 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:21.920 The first myth stems from the fact that the Georgia Trust grew out of a foundation called 136 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:28.320 the Associates of Dr. Bray, which consisted of those who had been followers of the aggressive 137 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:35.100 Anglican missionary and philanthropist, the Reverend Thomas Bray. Dr. Bray had been interested 138 00:16:35.100 --> 00:16:42.180 in a humanitarian colony in Georgia but died in 1730, and religious influence proved to 139 00:16:42.180 --> 00:16:49.220 be virtually non-existent in the colony. In fact, Thomas Coram, a close friend of Bray's, 140 00:16:49.220 --> 00:16:55.900 soon broke with the Georgia experiment because of the absence of any religious influence. 141 00:16:55.900 --> 00:17:01.660 The second myth arose because the bulk of Olgothorp's associates among the trustees 142 00:17:01.660 --> 00:17:07.140 has been connected with him in parliamentary jail committees on the state of debtors and 143 00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:09.020 others in prison. 144 00:17:09.020 --> 00:17:14.220 But the historian Albert B. Say has shown that hardly any formerly imprisoned debtors 145 00:17:14.220 --> 00:17:17.740 were among the early settlers of Georgia. 146 00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:23.520 In fact, there were other motives than humanitarian ones in establishing Georgia. 147 00:17:23.520 --> 00:17:28.600 These may be summed up in the advancement of the interests of the British ruling classes, 148 00:17:28.600 --> 00:17:34.000 That is, the imperial bureaucracy and the merchants and manufacturers subsidized and 149 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.240 privileged by the state. 150 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:43.160 In short, it was a typically mercantilist venture, despite its unconventional trappings. 151 00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:49.600 Specifically, the trustees and the Crown decided to people the Georgia frontier to serve as 152 00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:56.800 a military buffer and striking point against the Indians and other European colonies. 153 00:17:56.800 --> 00:18:02.320 In addition, it was expected that the settlers would supply the manufacturers of the mother 154 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:09.800 country with a plentiful and hence cheap source of hemp, flax, timber and even silk. 155 00:18:09.800 --> 00:18:16.960 Thus, Oglethorpe, in the days of the inception of the Georgia scheme, told his chief ally, 156 00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:24.360 Viscount Percival, that the Georgia plan was that the colonists should be settled altogether 157 00:18:24.360 --> 00:18:54.360 and be subject to subordinate rulers, who should inspect their behavior and labor under one chief head, that in time they, with their families, would increase so fast as to become a security and defense of our possessions against the French and Indians of those parts, that they should be employed in cultivating flax and hemp, which being allowed to make into yarn will be returned to England, Ireland and greatly promoted. 158 00:18:54.360 --> 00:19:01.360 The Promotional Literature of the Trustees also pointed out how the Roman Empire had 159 00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:07.760 sent settlers to their frontiers. It was by this policy that they elbowed all the nations 160 00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:14.840 around them. In short, the recipients of humanitarian law guess the very needy who needed to be 161 00:19:14.840 --> 00:19:20.840 done good too were to be shipped to Georgia to live and work under the absolute power 162 00:19:20.840 --> 00:19:43.840 Dependence upon charity, of course, are far more passive and susceptible to the orders of their masters and keepers than are independent and self-reliant workers and other citizens. 163 00:19:43.840 --> 00:19:51.840 The liniments of power were becoming clearly discernible under the attractive trappings of altruism. 164 00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:59.840 One interesting revelation of the trustees' intent was their policy in selecting colonists to emigrate to the new land. 165 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:05.840 An inescapable factor of nature is that largesse cannot be unlimited. 166 00:20:05.840 --> 00:20:11.840 Hence, anyone who proposes such gifts must needs select and choose their recipients. 167 00:20:11.840 --> 00:20:19.460 What were the trustees' criteria of selection? First, they were careful to select only the 168 00:20:19.460 --> 00:20:24.860 needy. Clearly, those already earning their living at home would hardly prove docile or 169 00:20:24.860 --> 00:20:31.520 grateful workers or soldiers. Another frankly expressed reason for this criterion was to 170 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:38.400 get some of the growing number of unsightly and annoying poor off the streets of London. 171 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:43.480 to carry off the numbers of poor that pester the streets of London. 172 00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:49.760 However, far from concentrating on distressed debtors, the trustees made sure that the applicants 173 00:20:49.760 --> 00:20:56.680 were virtuous and industrious, and detailed investigations were made of their moral character. 174 00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:02.400 It would not do, obviously, to have an unruly and unproductive group settle in the colony. 175 00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:09.360 Moreover, the trustees insisted that the populace be generally sturdy and able-bodied. 176 00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:14.560 Here were not alms to the truly needy, but a careful insistence that the Georgians be 177 00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:19.900 fit for the tasks to which the trustees meant to assign them. 178 00:21:19.900 --> 00:21:25.480 One of the loudly proclaimed purposes of the new colony was to provide a haven for German 179 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:31.720 and other Protestant refugees, a commendable humanitarian aim, to be sure. 180 00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:39.360 But we find that the trustees distrusted intensely religious refugees and agreed to accept only 181 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:43.660 applicants checked for their industry and sobriety. 182 00:21:43.660 --> 00:21:51.960 The first colonist, numbering over 100, arrived in Georgia in early 1733, led by Oglethorpe 183 00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:57.680 himself, and founded the city of Savannah at the mouth of the Savannah River. 184 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:04.400 Four colonists soon arrived, including Lutheran refugees from Salzburg in Austria, who founded 185 00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:07.200 the town of Ebenezer. 186 00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:14.880 The absolute dictatorship of humanitarians in power over their charges soon became manifest. 187 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:22.040 The trustees laid down a genuinely totalitarian system of planning, of rules and regulations 188 00:22:22.040 --> 00:22:23.840 for the colonists. 189 00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:30.160 The crucial regulations were imposed over land and ensured that no one had even a semblance 190 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:37.560 of private property in land. The size of individual holdings was strictly and arbitrarily limited 191 00:22:37.560 --> 00:22:44.240 to a maximum of 500 acres, depending on the number of servants the settler brought over. 192 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:52.400 Each family was given 50 acres, which it was not allowed to sell, rent or divide. The larger 193 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:58.080 Their acreage allowed for servants and brought a rather wealthier element to the colony. 194 00:22:58.080 --> 00:23:03.160 All settlers, however, including servants, were carefully selected and regulated by the 195 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:05.160 trustees. 196 00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:10.320 Servitude proved impracticable in Georgia since the servants persisted in rebelling 197 00:23:10.320 --> 00:23:16.200 against their masters, committing passive and active sabotage and running away to South 198 00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:18.200 Carolina. 199 00:23:18.200 --> 00:23:27.000 Each family only owned land in tail mail. The land could be inherited only by a son, 200 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:33.460 and then only if the son continued to work the land himself. If both of these conditions 201 00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:40.480 did not obtain, the land then automatically reverted to the trustees. But 50 acres could 202 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:48.160 hardly support a family on Georgia land. Furthermore, since the land could not be sold or exchanged, 203 00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:54.480 Which settler was frozen on a particular parcel of land, no matter how uneconomic or infertile 204 00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:00.360 it proved to be? And why should a settler, without a son willing to keep working on the 205 00:24:00.360 --> 00:24:07.360 particular assigned acres, have any incentive to improve or even maintain land that would 206 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:14.480 inevitably revert to the trustee government? Typical of the destructive nature of the trustee's 207 00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:21.480 Oglothorp replied that if the people were allowed to move to better land, this would put dark desires in the hearts of all the people in the town. 208 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:36.480 The citizens of the town in 1738 complained that their assigned land was infertile pine land and petitioned to the trustees, who had complete charge of such matters, for better land in exchange. 209 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:48.480 But Oglethorpe replied that if the people were allowed to move to better land, this would put dark desires in the hearts of all their fellow Georgians to move to better land themselves. 210 00:24:49.480 --> 00:25:00.480 The compulsory egalitarianism of placing a maximum limit on everyone's acreage was even more destructive than the practice of monopolizing land grants in other colonies. 211 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:08.840 The settlers soon saw and complained that there was no incentive to try to better their condition. 212 00:25:08.840 --> 00:25:14.960 As one of the trustees' agents reported, there being many lazy fellows in the number and 213 00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:21.960 others not able to work, those who work stoutly think it unreasonable the others should enjoy 214 00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:27.520 the fruits of their labor, and when the land is cleared, have an equal share in chance 215 00:25:27.520 --> 00:25:49.520 Another important grievance was the high quit-rent charged by the trustees. Yet, Oglethorpe stubbornly claimed that the complaints only came from the selfish and shiftless and from those stirred up by subversive land speculators from South Carolina. 216 00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:55.840 Since the funds all came philanthropically to Georgia from abroad, the citizens paid 217 00:25:55.840 --> 00:26:02.840 no taxes and had no right to protest. The trustees employed storekeepers in the colony, 218 00:26:03.560 --> 00:26:09.480 and the storekeepers were instructed to dole out precisely fixed and detailed rations to 219 00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:16.480 each of the settlers. The precisely detailed doles, as Professor Borsten comments, have 220 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:23.480 was more the ring of a well-run jail than of a colony of free men seeking their fortune in a new world. 221 00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:30.480 Totalitarian regulation, of course, encompassed the sphere of alleged morality as well. 222 00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:35.480 To preserve their charges against the evils of luxury and indolence, 223 00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:40.480 the trustees prohibited the importation of any whiskey into Georgia. 224 00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:48.480 All liquor found in the colony would be publicly destroyed and the sale of alcoholic beverages condemned as a crime. 225 00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:56.480 The prohibition on rum imports, however, crippled trade with the West Indies, an important market for Georgia timber. 226 00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:04.480 Slavery was also prohibited in the colony, but not at all from any humanitarian considerations toward the Negro. 227 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:11.980 On the contrary, free Negroes, as well as slaves, were barred from the colony, and the 228 00:27:11.980 --> 00:27:17.260 main reason was the fear that Negroes would be the natural allies of possible Spanish 229 00:27:17.260 --> 00:27:18.920 or French invaders. 230 00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:25.440 Indeed, the humanitarian Oglethorpe himself owned a slave plantation in South Carolina 231 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:29.920 and invested heavily in the African slave trade. 232 00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:34.620 If the trustees could not profit personally from their absolute power over the people 233 00:27:34.620 --> 00:27:41.440 of Georgia, their agents could and did, for their agents were empowered with the crucial 234 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:47.040 right to distribute all the subsidized stores in the colony. 235 00:27:47.040 --> 00:27:53.020 Whenever there is monopoly privilege to distribute, it is almost an historical or sociological 236 00:27:53.020 --> 00:27:58.360 law that the distributor will take steps to sell that privilege. 237 00:27:58.360 --> 00:28:04.620 Thomas Costin, for example, the official storekeeper of the colony, had absolute power over all 238 00:28:04.620 --> 00:28:12.320 supplies and hence virtually of life and death in the colony. In this capacity, he naturally 239 00:28:12.320 --> 00:28:19.000 became the most hated man in Georgia. Once he trumpeted publicly that the Georgian had 240 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:25.120 neither lands, rights or possessions that the trustees gave and that the trustees could 241 00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:32.160 and, of course, everyone knew that Costin himself was the trustees surrogate in the 242 00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:33.160 colony. 243 00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:40.680 And Costin sold the privileges at his disposal, engaging in profiteering, bribery, short and 244 00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.800 spoiled rations, and so forth. 245 00:28:43.800 --> 00:28:51.760 As agent of the trustees, Costin was the government, and thus immune to legal prosecution. 246 00:28:51.760 --> 00:28:57.000 The proudest and most cherished of the trustees' plans was the promotion of the expensive growth 247 00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.320 of silk in the Georgia colony. The projectors had high hopes, totally ungrounded in economic 248 00:29:03.320 --> 00:29:09.880 reality, of Georgia becoming a center of silk culture. For one thing, the trustees had not 249 00:29:09.880 --> 00:29:16.480 yet realized that the mulberry trees of Georgia were completely unsuited for silk culture. 250 00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:22.840 The trustees proceeded blithely to force and cajole silk production. On the one hand, they 251 00:29:22.840 --> 00:29:29.280 established a guaranteed inflated buying price for all silk grown, as well as subsidies and 252 00:29:29.280 --> 00:29:35.600 prizes for silk exported to England. On the other, they required each hapless settler, 253 00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:41.620 as a necessary condition of his claim, to plant at least fifty mulberry trees on every 254 00:29:41.620 --> 00:29:51.340 The Silk Scheme proved to be a fiasco in economic planning, despite large-scale propaganda campaigns 255 00:29:51.340 --> 00:29:58.220 in behalf of Georgia's silk. Silk worms could not flourish there, and it was uneconomic 256 00:29:58.220 --> 00:30:05.820 for labor to be applied to this commodity. The humanitarian trustees had absolute confidence 257 00:30:05.820 --> 00:30:11.540 in the Merits of Their Dictatorial Power. The Board itself will always do what is right 258 00:30:11.540 --> 00:30:18.040 – it had the gall to resolve unanimously in 1735 – and the people should have confidence 259 00:30:18.040 --> 00:30:24.720 in us. But somehow the settlers proved to be ingrates and continually complained of 260 00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:31.120 their food, land and equipment. Since they were placed in a position of forced dependence 261 00:30:31.120 --> 00:30:53.480 One contemporary writer explained that, as it is the nature of mankind in general, and 262 00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:59.480 of the common sort in particular, more eagerly to desire, and more immoderately to use those 263 00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:05.480 and other things which are most restrained from them, such was the case with respect to RUM in Georgia. 264 00:31:05.480 --> 00:31:14.480 As early as 1738, the trustees were beginning to realize that the whole experiment was proving to be an abject failure. 265 00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:20.480 Their plans were going awry, the colony was stagnant rather than expanding, 266 00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:25.480 and only rising complaints and protests were greeting their unselfish benevolence. 267 00:31:25.480 --> 00:31:38.480 Their humanitarianism strained to the breaking point, the trustees soon concluded that the poor, who had been useless in England, were inclined to be useless in Georgia likewise. 268 00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:47.480 Slowly, grudgingly, the trustees began to relax their power and their fixed dictatorial plans for the colonists. 269 00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:53.480 In 1738, they commenced lessening their absurd land regulations. 270 00:31:53.480 --> 00:32:19.480 Females were now permitted to inherit land. In the succeeding years childless farmers were permitted to bequeath their lands. Leases were allowed and the maximum size of holdings was increased to 2,000 acres. Furthermore, quit rents were reduced and soon abolished and free exchange of land began to be allowed. 271 00:32:19.480 --> 00:32:27.760 But complete private property in land, including complete freedom to exchange or bequeath, 272 00:32:27.760 --> 00:32:34.480 was not permitted until 1750, when the trustees were preparing to abandon the colony. 273 00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:40.480 To the last, Oglethorpe insisted on the wisdom of the land regulations. 274 00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:48.820 Similarly, in 1742, the trustees, recognizing reality, managed to repeal the prohibition 275 00:32:48.820 --> 00:33:05.820 In 1750, the trustees submitted to popular pressure, in turn stimulated by South Carolina slave traders, and permitted Negro slavery in the colony. 276 00:33:05.820 --> 00:33:10.820 But the trustees persisted in their silk folly virtually to the end. 277 00:33:10.820 --> 00:33:15.820 In 1751, the trustees at last allowed a representative assembly, 278 00:33:15.820 --> 00:33:42.820 But only to make suggestions to the trustees, and promptly required that no one could serve on the assembly who did not have at least 100 mulberry trees on every 50 acres of his land, and at least one female member of his family instructing others in silk reeling, or who did not produce at least 15 pounds of silk on each of his 50 acres. 279 00:33:42.820 --> 00:33:51.820 Also, every slave owner was required to own at least one negros skilled in silk raising to every four male negros. 280 00:33:51.820 --> 00:34:01.820 The trustees mounting concessions to the people's rights did not, however, still the tide of petitions and protests in Georgia. 281 00:34:01.820 --> 00:34:08.820 Furthermore, many Georgians were deserting the colony for the far freer atmosphere and opportunities 282 00:34:08.820 --> 00:34:12.820 of the Carolinas and the other American colonies. 283 00:34:12.820 --> 00:34:17.820 Over against the rising and unquenchable tide of popular protest, 284 00:34:17.820 --> 00:34:21.820 English philanthropic support was dwindling steadily. 285 00:34:21.820 --> 00:34:25.820 At first, the English public contributed handsome sums 286 00:34:25.820 --> 00:34:28.820 for the supposed Georgia charity. 287 00:34:28.820 --> 00:34:33.820 In the first eight years, voluntary subscriptions totaled 18,000 pounds. 288 00:34:33.820 --> 00:34:37.820 But the great bulk of contributions came from Parliament. 289 00:34:37.820 --> 00:34:45.820 The government contributing over 130,000 pounds in the years of the Georgia Proprietary. 290 00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:52.620 By the end of the 1740s, English interest was dwindling rapidly, and Oglethorpe, the 291 00:34:52.620 --> 00:34:56.460 sole of the Proprietary, was in disgrace. 292 00:34:56.460 --> 00:35:03.860 Finally, in 1751, the trustees announced their intention to relinquish Georgia a bit 293 00:35:03.860 --> 00:35:10.500 and the transfer of Georgia to the Crown was effected the following year. 294 00:35:10.500 --> 00:35:15.460 But the trustees did not, as one might have hoped, learn the lesson of the disastrous 295 00:35:15.460 --> 00:35:18.100 failure of the humanitarian in power. 296 00:35:18.100 --> 00:35:24.220 On the contrary, they remained smugly self-righteous to the last, Lord Percival complaining that 297 00:35:24.220 --> 00:35:32.340 it is a melancholy thing to see how zeal for a good thing abates when the novelty is over. 298 00:35:32.340 --> 00:35:37.940 And they drew from the silk fiasco only the lament that they did not have more money to 299 00:35:37.940 --> 00:35:41.540 pour into silk culture in Georgia. 300 00:35:41.540 --> 00:35:47.340 At the end of two decades of humanitarianism and central planning, Georgia, the settlers 301 00:35:47.340 --> 00:35:53.940 charged saw her original settlers scattered over the face of the earth, her plantations 302 00:35:53.940 --> 00:36:01.380 a wild, her towns a desert, her villages in rubbish, her improvements a byword, and her 303 00:36:01.380 --> 00:36:08.380 Liberties, a jest. If the trustees failed dismally in their plans for the Georgia colony, 304 00:36:08.580 --> 00:36:14.360 they did manage to pursue energetically the policy of using Georgia as a military and 305 00:36:14.360 --> 00:36:20.820 border weapon against foreign colonies. As soon as Oglethorpe arrived, he began to sink 306 00:36:20.820 --> 00:36:27.060 funds in a series of military posts. In Parliament, Oglethorpe had persistently called for a more 307 00:36:27.060 --> 00:36:34.060 War-like policy towards Spain. Now he exalted in daring to build a chain of forts south 308 00:36:34.620 --> 00:36:41.020 of the Altamaha boundary. This brazen encroachment on Spanish territory centered on the Fort 309 00:36:41.020 --> 00:36:47.860 of Frederica, just south of the Altamaha, and extended as far south as Fort St. George 310 00:36:47.860 --> 00:36:53.460 on the St. John's River in Florida. Naturally, the Spanish government bitterly protested 311 00:36:53.460 --> 00:36:59.460 and also demanded the recall of Oglethorpe, but to no avail. 312 00:36:59.460 --> 00:37:11.460 Instead, the English prepared for war, and Oglethorpe in 1737 was named Commander-in-Chief of all the royal forces in Georgia and South Carolina. 313 00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:16.460 Oglethorpe also acted to bolster alliances among the Indians. 314 00:37:16.460 --> 00:37:23.260 He had already constructed Fort Augusta, upriver on the savanna, to promote trade and alliance 315 00:37:23.260 --> 00:37:25.480 with the natives. 316 00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:32.340 In the fall of 1739, England launched an aggressive war against Spain, and this was all the signal 317 00:37:32.340 --> 00:37:38.260 needed by Georgia, or the Spaniards, eager to repulse the Oglethorpe thrust. 318 00:37:38.260 --> 00:37:44.540 Characteristically, the first mass attack was launched in 1740 by General Oglethorpe, 319 00:37:44.540 --> 00:37:50.900 in an attempt to conquer the chief Spanish fort of St. Augustine. Commanding South Carolinian 320 00:37:50.900 --> 00:37:59.900 and Indian forces and bolstered by the huge cash subsidy of £120,000 granted by South 321 00:37:59.900 --> 00:38:06.900 Carolina, Oglethorpe besieged St. Augustine by land and sea. The siege, however, failed 322 00:38:06.900 --> 00:38:13.360 completely and Oglethorpe ungratefully and characteristically sought to use South Carolina 323 00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:19.760 As a scapegoat for his own failure, Oglethorpe's bitter charges naturally provoked retaliation 324 00:38:19.760 --> 00:38:26.840 in South Carolina and Carolinian charges of incompetence hit far closer to the mark. 325 00:38:26.840 --> 00:38:32.040 Two years later, the Spaniards retaliated and landed in expedition of several thousand 326 00:38:32.040 --> 00:38:38.720 men against Frederica, but were repulsed in a cleverly executed ambush by the heavily 327 00:38:38.720 --> 00:38:44.420 outnumbered Oglethorpe. But the result of this battle of Bloody Marsh was owing far 328 00:38:44.420 --> 00:38:51.100 more to Spanish incompetence than to the excellence of Oglethorpe's defense. For his part, after 329 00:38:51.100 --> 00:38:57.520 failing to gain English aid by arousing hysteria in England about the supposedly imminent attack 330 00:38:57.520 --> 00:39:05.020 from Florida, Oglethorpe struck out on his own in the spring of 1743 to try once again 331 00:39:05.020 --> 00:39:11.420 to Capture St. Augustine, but the Spanish repulsed the attack. The new result of the 332 00:39:11.420 --> 00:39:17.500 various military clashes between Georgia and Florida was a stalemate and a maintenance 333 00:39:17.500 --> 00:39:23.700 of the status quo. With the aggressive Oglethorpe having returned to England, the war with Spanish 334 00:39:23.700 --> 00:39:30.580 Florida was now at an end. The humanitarian Oglethorpe had been most anxious to use his 335 00:39:30.580 --> 00:39:36.820 George's charges for military fodder, stringent military training and discipline had, from 336 00:39:36.820 --> 00:39:42.520 the beginning, been imposed upon the colonists. Among the hundreds of German immigrants to 337 00:39:42.520 --> 00:39:49.520 Georgia was a group of Protestant Moravians. This pacifist sect resisted military training 338 00:39:50.540 --> 00:39:57.180 and non-exemption from such conscription. When the war with Spain began, Georgia renewed 339 00:39:57.180 --> 00:40:03.540 it's demand upon the Moravians who courageously replied that they could not in conscience 340 00:40:03.540 --> 00:40:10.180 fight and if expected to do so they must leave the country. This they promptly proceeded 341 00:40:10.180 --> 00:40:16.880 to do and migrated to the far more hospitable valley of Pennsylvania. Another religious 342 00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:22.360 group that arrived during the trustee period were several scores of Jews who landed in 343 00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:30.960 in July 1733. Three of the wealthiest Shephardic Jews of Spanish-Portuguese descent in London 344 00:40:30.960 --> 00:40:38.040 were hired as fundraisers to collect charitable sums for the Georgia Project. The three agents 345 00:40:38.040 --> 00:40:44.520 were, of course, supposed to turn over the funds to the trustees. Instead, they blithely 346 00:40:44.520 --> 00:40:51.320 used the money to finance the emigration of two groups of Jews to Georgia. The more notable 347 00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:58.320 The federal group consisted of 40 Shepardic Jews, while the other party was made up of much poorer folk from Germany. 348 00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:07.320 The trustees were understandably embittered at this chicanery and ordered Oglethorpe to eject the Jews from the colony. 349 00:41:07.320 --> 00:41:17.320 Particularly bitter and alarmed was the religiously-oriented Thomas Corm, who warned the trustees that Georgia would soon become a Jewish colony, 350 00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:25.320 with only Christian laborers, those whom the Jews find most necessary and useful, allowed to remain in the country. 351 00:41:25.320 --> 00:41:33.320 Oglethorpe, however, was greatly impressed with the way that a Jewish physician, Dr. Samuel Nunez-Riverio, 352 00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:38.320 was able to stop a severe epidemic and allowed them to stay. 353 00:41:38.320 --> 00:41:44.320 The Jews settled in Savannah, but in a few years the bulk of them had migrated to Charleston. 354 00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:50.720 The handful of Jews in the colonies, largely Sephardim and merchants, were concentrated 355 00:41:50.720 --> 00:41:57.280 in the cities of Newport, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. 356 00:41:57.280 --> 00:42:03.880 After a royal government replaced the hated proprietary in 1752, Georgia swiftly became 357 00:42:03.880 --> 00:42:07.620 very much like the other royal colonies in America. 358 00:42:07.620 --> 00:42:13.760 The end of proprietary planning led to rapid growth of the colony, with rice and indigo 359 00:42:43.760 --> 00:43:13.760 In 1758, Georgia joined the other southern 360 00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:26.760 of the Colonies in Establishing the Anglican Church. Dissenters continued to flourish in the colony, but soon attendance at public religious services was made compulsory. 361 00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:40.760 After Oglethorpe's departure, the forts south of the Altamaha were allowed to fall into decay, and the Crown refused to spend money to rebuild what could only serve as a standing challenge to Spain. 362 00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:47.080 Unoccupied and free of the burdens of imposed sovereignty, the region south of the Altamaha 363 00:43:47.080 --> 00:43:54.260 became a truly free land. Like Rhode Island and North Carolina in the mid-17th century, 364 00:43:54.260 --> 00:44:01.360 it became in the 1750s an individualistic haven for those discontented with existing 365 00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:08.420 governments. The most prominent dissident was Edmund Gray, a Quaker from Virginia. Gray 366 00:44:08.420 --> 00:44:14.740 Gray had already become influential in Augusta for openly daring to parcel out land in the 367 00:44:14.740 --> 00:44:20.180 public domain to himself and to his fellow settlers without bothering to worry about 368 00:44:20.180 --> 00:44:27.180 governmental sanction. Running for the first royal assembly, meeting in early 1755, Gray 369 00:44:28.060 --> 00:44:33.940 stirred up the people with eloquent pleas for liberty and economic opportunity, as well 370 00:44:33.940 --> 00:44:40.500 as well as criticism of emerging royal rule. In the election, Gray won the assembly seat 371 00:44:40.500 --> 00:44:46.900 from Augusta, and the head of the Gray forces in Savannah, the lawyer Charles Watson, was 372 00:44:46.900 --> 00:44:52.460 elected from that city. Gray claimed that the defeat of two of his other allies in the 373 00:44:52.460 --> 00:44:59.540 Savannah election was due to fraud. Not only did the assembly reject this claim, but it 374 00:44:59.540 --> 00:45:07.020 It went on to expel two other followers of Gray. This arbitrary act precipitated a boycott 375 00:45:07.020 --> 00:45:12.980 of the lower house by Gray, Watson and six other representatives, constituting almost 376 00:45:12.980 --> 00:45:18.780 half of the total membership of the assembly. The assembly replied by expelling two more 377 00:45:18.780 --> 00:45:25.420 of the absentees, who now issued a circular letter on January 15, to the freeholders of 378 00:45:25.420 --> 00:45:32.420 of Georgia, calling upon all who regard the liberties of your country to flock to Savannah. 379 00:45:33.160 --> 00:45:39.900 John Reynolds, the first royal governor, reacted to this crisis with a hysterical and coercive 380 00:45:39.900 --> 00:45:46.660 crackdown on his opposition. He denounced the sedition, decreed the prohibition of all tumultuous 381 00:45:46.660 --> 00:45:52.860 assemblies in nightly meetings, urged his subjects to defend the imperiled government, 382 00:45:52.860 --> 00:46:00.620 and formed a counter-revolutionary armed association headed by the Council and the Rump Assembly. 383 00:46:00.620 --> 00:46:07.060 Upon this demonstration of force majeure, Gray and Watson fled Savannah, and the Assembly 384 00:46:07.060 --> 00:46:14.020 preemptorily expelled all of its seditious members. Disgusted with Georgia's arbitrary 385 00:46:14.020 --> 00:46:21.220 actions, Gray and several hundred followers left Georgia to settle south of the Altamaha, 386 00:46:51.220 --> 00:46:57.420 These dangerous people must be stamped out, lest their example be followed by others. 387 00:46:57.420 --> 00:47:03.720 Furthermore, governments always abhor a vacuum, and Spain was trying to force Gray and his 388 00:47:03.720 --> 00:47:06.700 followers to come under its jurisdiction. 389 00:47:06.700 --> 00:47:14.500 Consequently, the Crown itself in 1758 ordered these free settlements crushed. 390 00:47:14.500 --> 00:47:19.400 Officials from South Carolina and Georgia traveled there and successfully ordered them 391 00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:25.800 to Disperse and Leave the Territory of No Government. The Haven from Government was 392 00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:32.920 at an end. Gray, however, proved indomitable and re-established New Hanover with over seventy 393 00:47:32.920 --> 00:47:43.760 families on Cumberland Island in 1761. During the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763, Spain 394 00:47:43.760 --> 00:47:50.160 entered the war just long enough to be the loser on France's side. Consequently, at 395 00:47:50.160 --> 00:47:58.320 the peace treaty of 1763, the Spanish were forced to cede all of Florida to England. Florida 396 00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:05.000 was made a royal colony, and the Florida-Georgia border fixed at the St. Mary's River to the 397 00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:11.720 chagrin of Georgia, which demanded the line of the St. John's. But, in any case, Georgia 398 00:48:11.720 --> 00:48:17.440 Governor had now seized jurisdiction over the Trans-Altamaha region, and the land of 399 00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:24.160 no government was finally no more. In the meanwhile, the ruling South Carolina oligarchy 400 00:48:24.160 --> 00:48:32.580 had executed a brazen maneuver, claiming sovereignty over the Trans-Altamaha. Governor Thomas Boone 401 00:48:32.580 --> 00:49:02.580 Eerily granted almost 350,000 acres of its land to the 200 leading planters of his colony including Henry Lawrence and Henry Middleton. Governor James Wright of Georgia promptly protested to the Crown over this arbitrary land grab. The engrossment by land speculators would shut off an expected flow of settlers. The sinew's wealth and strength of an infant 402 00:49:02.580 --> 00:49:09.580 In 1765, Georgia decided, in eminently fair fashion, to confer land grants only to the 403 00:49:09.580 --> 00:49:15.360 and Fatigue of Settling a New Colony. The Crown, however, proved reluctant to dispossess 404 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:21.540 the grantees, and this despite the fact that the peace treaty had granted the Trans-Altamaha 405 00:49:21.540 --> 00:49:28.540 region to Georgia. In 1765, Georgia decided, in eminently fair fashion, to confer land 406 00:49:30.180 --> 00:49:35.940 grants only to the extent that the land was cleared and settled, and the Crown finally 407 00:50:05.940 --> 00:50:11.180 The Creek Indians were rewarded for their faithful alliance with the English against 408 00:50:11.180 --> 00:50:17.180 the dangerous Cherokees by being forced to leave their lands in eastern Georgia.