The Colony of
Georgia

By Kelly

Before Georgia

        Before Georgia was a part of Colonial America, it was home to Native Americans. Cherokee Indians lived as hunters and farmers in Georgia. Creek Indians raised families for many generations in the southern part of Georgia. Then many different kinds of people started moving into these Native American homelands in Georgia. The first colonists came from Spain in the 1500’s, then the French came in the 1600’s and the English came in the 1700’s.

New Colony, New Ideas

       There were twelve English colonies in America by the early 1700’s. A writer named Sir Robert Montgomery had a new idea for a new kind of colony. He wanted it to be a perfect place. People who had troubles in England could go there to start a new life. Instead of going to jail in England they could go to a colony in America.

A Colony Named for a King

       King George 11 gave a charter to James Oglethorpe in 1732 to start his new colony. This new colony was named Georgia, after King George. This charter had allowed English people to live in Georgia. The first people who came from England were given money to start farms. King George had hoped that the people would produce things such as wine and silk, which would be sold in England. The king also hoped that the new colony would protect England’s other colonies from battles with Spain. 

A Man with a Mission

      James Oglethorpe led 114 colonists to Georgia in 1733. Some of the colonists were debtors and some of them were just looking for an adventure. Oglethorpe had hoped that they would make Georgia a perfect place just like Sir Montgomery wanted it to be.  Oglethorpe had made different laws that were not like the other laws in the different English colonies. He thought that drinking alcohol would cause people to be lazy and make people fight each other. So he made a law in Georgia that they couldn’t buy or sell liquor. Also Oglethorpe didn’t let the colonists own slaves. He thought it was wrong for one person to own another. That law had made Georgia different from all of the southern colonies and some of the northern ones too.

The First Settlers

        In 1733, when Oglethorpe arrived in Georgia, he chose a beautiful place for his new town. It was by a river that had flowed into the Atlantic Ocean.  The colonists who lived in Georgia built the new town on a bluff above this river. They named the town and river Savannah. James Oglethorpe set up Savannah, which was Georgia’s first capital, very carefully. Its streets were laid out in an orderly way around a series of squares.

Life in Early Georgia

       The colonists who came with Oglethorpe had a lot to get used to in their new land. Men, women, and children had built houses that looked like the houses they had lived in while still in England. The colonists also planted food that they grew in their gardens. But unfortunately they had a hard time growing many of their foods they had eaten back in England. They learned to like new foods, like sweet potatoes and corn, which they had never tasted in England. It was their first time to taste those foods in America.

Oglethorpe’s Dreams Are Lost

       Most of Georgia’s early colonists were yeoman farmers. These people and their families ran small farms with not much help. Some colonists wanted big plantations and slaves to work for them and do their hard work. Some Georgians wanted to change Georgia’s rules so that they could drink and sell alcohol. In 1750 the colonists created a law that made it so they could own slaves. The slaves were from Africa and worked on the big plantations. Then the colonists began to sell and drink alcohol. Georgia wasn’t turning out how Oglethorpe had hoped it would be like. 

The Plantation South

      Oglethorpe gave up on all his ideas in 1752 and Georgia became a royal colony. Like most royal colonies, Georgia had a royal governor, who was chosen by the king and not by the colonists. Georgia became like all the other southern colonies. Large plantations took over small farms. Although Georgia was not a good place for growing corn, it’s flat land was perfect for growing rice!

Georgia and the Revolution

      In 1776 Georgia joined the other colonies in the Revolutionary War as they rebelled against their old country that they used to live in, England. A lot of important battles were fought in Georgia because it was the most southern colony and easy to get to by sea. After the colonies won the war, America was born!  Georgia was the last colony, but it was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution. The ideals that Oglethorpe had wanted for his new colony soon became the ideals that the colonists wanted for their new country, the United States. For this new country, they decided to make their own rules, which was the United States Constitution.

Oglethorpe Remembered

      Now Savannah isn’t the capital of Georgia anymore. Georgia’s capital is now Atlanta, which would be the largest city in the south. But Georgia’s history of the old colony was never forgotten along with the heroes of Georgia. In Savannah’s Chippewa Square, a bronze monument stands of James Oglethorpe. The statue has been standing since 1910. Some of Oglethorpe’s ideas are still part of Georgia even today!

Resource for Retelling: The Colony of Georgia by Brooke Coleman

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Last Updated: 03/14/06