Georgia (province)

The Province of Georgia is an English colony in North America that existed in the 17th – 18th centuries.

Former UK Crown Colony
Georgia Province
English Province of Georgia
Flag Anthem : God save the Queen! Motto : God and My Right
A country	Great Britain
Capital of the colony	Savannah
Official language	English
Language composition	English
Educated	1732
Abolished	1777
Successor	Georgia
Currency	GBP
Is now part	USA
Portal • Project • Category

On April 21, 1732, King George II granted James Oglethorpe a royal charter for the establishment in North America of lands deserted as a result of the war with Yamashi , a colony named “Georgia” in honor of the king. Oglethorpe wanted to use this territory for the resettlement of the poor as an alternative to crowded debt prisons. Another incentive for the establishment of the colony was the desire to organize a buffer zone covering other British possessions in North America from Spanish Florida . Oglethorpe dreamed that the colony was settled by “strong farmers,” who could take up arms in case of war, so the charter prohibited slavery.

In accordance with the royal charter, a Trust for the Establishment of a Georgia Colony in North America was created in London . The participants in the Trust were supposed to rule Georgia, but had no right to own land there or to hold posts in the colony. The trust elected a Community Council of 15 members, which acted as an executive committee. The 12 members of the Trust gathered for the first meeting on July 20, 1732, to take care of the funds and to communicate with future settlers. Georgia became the only British colony in America, dependent on annual parliamentary subsidies: in 1733, the Trust received from the government 10 thousand pounds, in subsequent years, subsidies became less.

On November 17, 1732, seven members of the Trust escorted Oglethorpe and the first settlers to sail aboard the Anne from Gravesend. On February 12, 1733, it anchored at the Yamakrow Rock at the mouth of the Savannah River . Speaking as a translator, helped negotiate with local leader , and the colonists established a settlement there.

The original royal charter defined the colony of Georgia as the land between the rivers Savannah and Altamaha to their origins, and from there to the west "all the way to the sea." According to the charter of 1633, these lands belonged to the province of Carolina , but South Carolina was not able to develop them, and therefore the royal government decided to entrust their development to the new owners.

Oglethorpe introduced very strict laws in the colony - in particular, he banned alcohol. Instead of developing a plantation economy, as in the more northern British colonies, he relied on small land holdings. In practice, settlements concentrated around the Savannah River, and the west of the colony remained under the control of the Creek Indians until the formation of the United States.

In 1742, during the War for the Jenkins Ear, Spanish troops from Florida . Oglethorpe managed to mobilize the local population and defeat the Spaniards. In the Second Aachen World, Georgia remained with Britain. While Oglethorpe was busy in America, one of the members of the Trust - John Vernon - proposed dividing the colony into two provinces: Savannah and Frederick. The trust appointed William Stephens as governor of the Savannah, but Oglethorpe refused to offer a governor to Frederica, and the magistrates there had to submit to Stephens.

The war dealt a severe blow to the state of the colony, and the Trust decided to partially satisfy the claims of the colonists in order to prevent their flight to South Carolina. In 1742, the ban on alcohol was relaxed in the colony, and from 1750 slavery was allowed. In March 1750, the Trust urged the colonists to elect delegates to the representative assembly, but warned that it would play only an advisory, rather than a legislative, role. On January 14, 1751, 16 elected representatives gathered in Savannah and, having elected Francis Harris as their speaker, began to pass resolutions. The trust tried to suppress further Assembly activity, but after Parliament refused to provide a subsidy for the functioning of the colony in 1751, the Trust began negotiations one year before the expiration of the royal charter to transfer the colony to government. Since 1755, Georgia officially became a crown colony .

The resolution of slavery dramatically changed the development of the colony's economy. Large plantations began to be created here, and the import of slaves from Africa took such proportions that by 1775 there were about 18 thousand, and they made up the majority of the population of the colony. At the same time, the colony practically lacked its own production - in 1766, Governor wrote that the colony imported absolutely everything from Britain, including clothing and shoes.

During the Seven Years' War, Georgia was far from the area of ​​military operations against the French , but after entering Spain in 1762, the threat of invasion from Spanish Florida arose. After the war, the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, causing great outrage in the North American colonies; Georgia was the only colony that managed to put it into effect before its abolition in 1766.

In 1774, in Savannah, residents of Georgia proclaimed, following other North American colonies, that the Constitution does not allow taxes without representation. After the Battle of Concord was reported on May 11, 1775 , a patriotic crowd in Savannah stormed the royal depots and plundered the ammunition contained there. Celebrating the king’s birthday on July 4 was actually an anti-British demonstration. Within a month, the power of the English king in Georgia completely ceased, a government was formed. In June and July, meetings in Savannah elected the Security Council and the provincial provisional Congress, which took over the colony. At the same time preparations were underway for war. In February, Governor James Wright, who was quite popular in the colony before the revolution, fled to a British warship, and Georgia’s entire territory was controlled by rebels.

On April 15, 1776, Congress adopted a document called the “Rules and Regulations” ( English Rules and Regulations ), which actually became the constitution of Georgia. So the colony of Georgia ceased to exist and the state of Georgia appeared. In 1802, the state transferred to the US Congress rights to its western lands, which it did not actually own, and the Mississippi Territory was formed there.