Georgia History
In 1732, James Oglethorpe (The Founder of Georgia) was given a charter from King George II to create a new colony which he would name Georgia. This was located between South Carolina and Florida. It had two main purposes: to serve as a place where debtors in prison could go to start a new and improved life and it served as a barrier against the Spanish who were settled in Florida. In 1733, a group of settlers joined Oglethorpe to found Savannah, Georgia. Georgia began with the intention to have little landholding and no slavery. However, when it became a royal colony in 1752, plantations and slavery became a major part of the Georgian economy.
Oglethorpe and the trustees had slavery banned during his first trip to England from the colony of Georgia. While slaves were present in the colony after 1742, they were not legal until George Whitfield and James Habersham requested that William Stevens, then President of Georgia, petition the Trustees to institutionalize (legalize) the practice. Although the petition presented it in light of cost of goods and competition with South Carolina, the simple fact was that it was very difficult to find whites who were willing to do the needed work. The Trustees, in turn, petitioned the king, who granted the request. After its legalization, slaves began to arrive in unbelievable numbers. Rice growers required a huge number, since most would die within a few weeks of their arrival. Cotton, also a coastal crop, required a large number of slaves. By the 1780's, slavery appeared to be dying. The Northwest Territories expressly forbade the practice. In the South, however, Georgia and South Carolina fought every proposal to limit slavery because unlike other colonies, they new it was wrong.
During the 16th Century, Spanish sailors heading north from Florida had overseen an Indian culture living in a land they called Guale (Wah-li). These coastal Indians were the largest group of a tribe that covered much of what is now Present day Southeastern United States, The group was called “The Creek”. The Creek were by far the largest, both in land and population. The term s Confederacy and Commonwealth came into use to describe the relationship of these individual groups. Generally, Creek life centered on a village had a substantial structure to govern. Each village was related to, but politically independent of other nearby villages. Georgia and Creek were friendly to each other but in the 1670's, Dr. Henry Woodward was chosen by the re-organized colony of South Carolina to befriend the Creek and turn them on the Spanish. The Creek who lived along the central and western rivers, and the Cherokee, who lived in the mountains were Large Tribes in Colonial Georgia.