The Province of Georgia

It’s 1732 and you live in the British colonies in North America. You just found out that a new colony has been established called Georgia, and it’s apparently supposed to be a safe haven for debtors. That is really good news for you since you are in huge debt. So you decide to pack up and head south.

In this paper I will be talking about the Province of Georgia and its development.

In April of 1732 General James Oglethorpe received a charter from King George II to start a new colony. Then in June, Oglethorpe established a colony and he called it Georgia. He got the name for the colony from his King’s name which is George. Oglethorpe originally started the colony as a safe haven for debtors.

When he was still in England, Oglethorpe’s best friend was put in jail because he couldn’t pay his debts. Oglethorpe’s friend was put in a jail cell with someone who had smallpox and he eventually died from that disease. This angered Oglethorpe and he was determined to change the English jails. He became known nation wide and eventually, with the help of his friends, went to King George II to ask to start a new colony with a lot of the debtors that were in jail, they received a charter for this new colony in 1732. Thus the story of how Georgia came to be. 

Oglethorpe and his friends decided that their new colony needed to have strict laws to keep everyone from being crazy. Oglethorpe’s colony started to grow but very slowly. The strict laws that he put in place didn’t settle well with the  people. These were some of his laws: No alcohol, no slaves, and Oglethorpe also didn’t want people to have big plantations like the colonies farther north did. When he realized that his strict laws were hindering the growth of his colony, Oglethorpe lifted those laws and his colony started to grow.

Another reason Georgia was established is because King George II wanted a barrier between the Spanish colonized Florida and the French colonized Louisiana and the rest of the British colonies. So Georgia was like the defender of the colonies from the Spanish or French trying to invade the colonies.

This came in handy because in 1739 Spain and England started a conflict called the War of Jenkins Ear. This led Oglethorpe to invade Florida. After he didn’t succeed in defeating the Spanish, the Spanish leader in Florida drew up plans to invade Georgia. It was the perfect time to invade because after Oglethorpe’s defeat he was going to need reinforcements. But there was no way he could get reinforcements before Spain would invade. So it was a perfect plan. In the first battle or skirmish the Spanish were routed and had to retreat. In the next battle the Brits took the Spanish by complete surprise and won that battle as well. Eventually Spain withdrew and went home to Florida.  When the War of Jenkins Ear ended in 1748, James Oglethorpe had left never to return and William Stevens became Governor or President.

Georgia was a very strong Royalist colony. Meaning they were strong followers of the King. But during the Revolutionary War era they turned on England and the King and joined the other 12 colonies to form the U.S.A.                               

                                                                                                                           Georgia in 1732

                                          

                                                 Georgia in 1764.                      

                                             

                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                Georgia when it became a state in 1788