The Founding of Georgia 1733
Below Charleston in South Carolina, below Cape Fear, below Port
Royal, a great river called the Savannah poured into the sea. Below
the Savannah, past the Ogeechee, sailing south between the sandy
islands and the main, ships came to the mouth of the river Altamaha.
Thus far was Carolina. But below Altamaha the coast and the country
inland became debatable, probably Florida and Spanish, liable at any
rate to be claimed as such, and certainly open to attack from
Spanish St. Augustine.
Here lay a stretch of seacoast and country within hailing distance
of semi-tropical lands. It was low and sandy, with innumerable
slow-flowing watercourses, creeks, and inlets from the sea. The back
country, running up to hills and even mountains stuffed with ores,
was not known -- though indeed Spanish adventurers had wandered
there and mined for gold. But the lowlands were warm and dense with
trees and wild life. The Huguenot Ribault, making report of this
region years and years before, called it "a fayre coast stretching
of a great length, covered with an infinite number of high and fayre
trees," and he described the land as the "fairest, fruitfullest, and
pleasantest of all the world, abounding in hony, venison, wilde
fowle, forests, woods of all sorts, Palm-trees, Cypresse and Cedars,
Bayes ye highest and greatest; with also the fayrest vines in all
the world . . . . And the sight of the faire medows is a pleasure
not able to be expressed with tongue; full of Hernes, Curlues,
Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Woodcocks, and all other kind of small
birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buckes, wilde Swine, and all other kindes
of wilde beastes, as we perceived well, both by their footing there
and . . . their crie and roaring in the night." (Winsor's
Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. V, p. 357.) This
is the country of the liveoak and the magnolia, the gray, swinging
moss and the yellow jessamine, the chameleon and the mockingbird.
The Savannah and Altamaha rivers and the wide and deep lands between
fell in that grant of Charles II's to the eight Lords Proprietors of
Carolina -- Albemarle, Clarendon, and the rest. But this region
remained as yet unpeopled save by copperhued folk. True, after the
"American Treaty" of 1670 between England and Spain, the English
built a small fort upon Cumberland Island, south of the Altamaha,
and presently another Fort George -- to the northwest of the first,
at the confluence of the rivers Oconee and Oemulgee. There were,
however, no true colonists between the Savannah and the Altamaha.
In the year 1717 -- the year after Spotswood's Expedition -- the
Carolina Proprietaries granted to one Sir Robert Mountgomery all the
land between the rivers Savannah and Altamaha, "with proper
jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, and franchises." The
arrangement was feudal enough. The new province was to be called the
Margravate of Azilia. Mountgomery, as Margrave, was to render to the
Lords of Carolina an annual quitrent and one-fourth part of all gold
and silver found in Azilia. He must govern in accordance with the
laws of England, must uphold the established religion of England,
and provide by taxation for the maintenance of the clergy. In three
years' time the new Margrave must colonize his Margravate, and if he
failed to do so, all his rights would disappear and Azilia would
again dissolve into Carolina.
This was what happened. For whatever reason, Mountgomery could not
obtain his colonists. Azilia remained a paper land. The years went
by. The country, unsettled yet, lapsed into the Carolina from which
so tentatively it had been parted. Over its spaces the Indian still
roved, the tall forests still lifted their green crowns, and no axe
was heard nor any English voice.
In the decade that followed, the Lords Proprietors of Carolina
ceased to be Lords Proprietors. Their government had been, save at
exceptional moments, confused, oppressive, now absent-minded, and
now mistaken and arbitrary. They had meant very well, but their
knowledge was not exact, and now virtual revolution in South
Carolina assisted their demise. After lengthy negotiations, at last,
in 1729, all except Lord Granville surrendered to the Crown, for a
considerable sum, their rights and interests. Carolina, South and
North, thereupon became royal colonies.
Back to: Virginia and the Southern Colonies
