Late Coming Georgia: The Butterfly Colony
Pine-forested Georgia, with the harbor of Savannah nourishing its chief settlement, was formally founded in 1733. It proved to be the last of the thirteen colonies to be planted-126 years after the first, Virginia, and 52 years after the twelfth, Pennsylvania.
Chronologically Georgia belongs elsewhere, but geographically it may be grouped with its southern neighbors.
The English crown intended Georgia to serve chiefly as a buffer. It would protect the more valu able Carolinas against vengeful Spaniards from Florida and against the hostile French from Louisiana. Georgia indeed suffered much buffeting, especially when wars broke out between Spain and England in the European arena.
As a vital link in imperial defense, the exposed colony received monetary subsidies from the British government at the outset-the only one of the "original thirteen" to enjoy this benefit in its founding stage.
Named in honor of King George II of England, Georgia was launched by a high-minded group of philanthropists. In addition to protecting their neighboring northern colonies and producing silk and wine, they were determined to carve out a haven for wretched souls imprisoned for debt.
They were also determined, at least at first, to keep slavery out of Georgia. The ablest of the founders was the dynamic soldier-statesman James Oglethorpe, who became keenly interested in prison reform after one of his friends died in a debtors' jail.
As a competent military leader, Oglethorpe repelled Spanish A attacks. As an imperialist and a philanthropist, he saved "the Charity Colony" by his energetic leader ship and by heavily mortgaging his own personal fortune.
The hamlet of Savannah, like Charleston, was a melting-pot community. German Lutherans and kilted Scots Highlanders, among others, added color to the pattern. All Christian worshipers except Catho lics enjoyed religious toleration.
Many missionaries armed with Bibles and hope arrived in Savannah to work among debtors and Indians. Prominent among them was young John Wesley, who later returned to England and founded the Methodist Church.
Georgia grew with painful slowness and at the end of the colonial era was perhaps the least popu lous of the colonies. The development of a plantation economy was thwarted by an unhealthy climate, b early restrictions on black slavery, and by demoraliing Spanish attacks.