USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 21
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275
RESULTS OF SILK CULTURE.
pound. And they also offered, if delivered at the fila- ture, for best cocoons, 3s. 6d .; for middling, 1s. 8d .; and for inferior, 1s. 1d .- a series of prices truly aston- ishing, when we reflect that the real merchantable worth of a pound of cocoons is scarcely ever 6d.
Mr. Camuse, son, and daughter, who, it appears, gave the commissioners no little trouble by their perverse conduct, returned to Savannah, and were engaged to labour at the filature, at three shillings per day ; at which Mr. Habersham exclaims, " Monstrous wages !" The reelers now advanced with much proficiency ; and five of them, on the 10th of May, wound off eleven pounds of cocoons each.
Thus, at an expense-including passages of servants, provisions from public store, bounty on cocoons, sala- ries, machines, basins, and filatures-of nearly £1,500, the Trustees had succeeded in raising, up to the date of their surrender of the charter, not one thousand pounds of raw silk ; a most costly experiment for so poor a colony, showing the airiness of that dream in which they expected to save £500,000 to England, and employ 40,000 of her subjects. " They looked for much, and lo! it came to little."
Nor were they more fortunate in relieving the mother country of her surplus indigent population. They did not, it is true, entertain the extravagant speculations of the Earl of Eglinton, who subsequently proposed to the king to introduce a hundred thousand settlers into Geor- gia and the Floridas; but they expected soon to locate twenty thousand persons in their territory, and build it up at once into a great commercial colony. It was estimated at the time,9 that, at a very small calculation, four thousand individuals were annually imprisoned for
9 Geo. Hist. Col., i. 216.
276
THE NUMBER SENT TO GEORGIA.
debt in England; and though the scheme looked direct- ly to the melioration and relief of this unfortunate class, yet what paltry result, compared with such magnificent promises !
During the first eight years, the Trustees sent over on their bounty only nine hundred and fifteen British subjects ; and the entire number transplanted to Georgia by their benefactions during their corporate existence, did not exceed twelve hundred British, and one thou- sand foreign Protestants ; and yet, in this time, they had received from private benefactions over £17,600, and from Parliamentary grants, over £136,600. Of those sent over by the charity of the Trustees, two-thirds left the colony, and but a very few proved worthy of their benefactions. Thus, one by one, all the grand hopes of the Trustees came to naught ; every high ex- pectation was laid low ; and they were taught by a dear- bought experience, that however easy it was to plan a colony, it was quite another thing to carry it out into successful execution.
But not only were the Trustees destined to behold the blasting of their agricultural and commercial views ; they were also made to feel the ill effects of their well-designed, but badly-adjusted scheme of colonial legislation. They began wrong, when they resolved to make the tenure of their lands a grant in tail male. Instead of stepping forth in advance of their age, as they might have done, they retired behind it, going back to the middle ages, to feudal times, and drew thence, from the laws of the Salian Franks, this rule, as repugnant to reason as to justice. In sup- port of this principle, the Trustees urged, that "as the military strength of the province was particularly to be taken care of, it seemed necessary to estab-
277
TENURE OF LAND.
lish such tenures of lands as might most effectually preserve the number of planters, or soldiers, equal to the number of lots of land; and therefore, each lot of land was to be considered as a military fief, and to con- tain so much in quantity as would support such planter and his family. Fifty acres were judged sufficient, and not too much, for that purpose; and provision was made to prevent an accumulation of several lots into one hand, lest the garrison should be lessened; and likewise to prevent a division of those lots into smaller parcels, lest that which was no more than sufficient for one planter should, if divided amongst several, be too scanty for their subsistence.
" And in the infancy of the colony, the lands were granted in tail male, preferable to any other tenure, as the most likely to answer these purposes ; for if the grants were to be made in tail-general, it was thought that the strength of each township would soon be diminished, inasmuch as every female heir in tail, who was unmarried, would have been entitled to one lot, and consequently, several lots might have been united into one ; and if such tenant in tail-general had had several daughters, his lot must have been divided equally amongst them all, as co-partners."
They announced that they did not grant estates in tail-general, or in fee-simple, for the following reasons : Because, "the persons sent over were poor, indigent people, who had for the most part so indiscreetly man- aged what they had been masters of here, that it did not seem safe to trust so absolute a property in their hands, at least in the infancy of the colony, and before they had, by a careful and industrious behaviour, given
10 An Account Showing the Prog- don, 1742. Georgia Historical Collec- ress of the Colony of Georgia, etc., Lon- tions, ii. 276.
278
REASONS FOR THESE RESTRICTIONS.
some reason to believe they would prove better mana- gers for the future :" Because, "they were sent over to inhabit, cultivate, and secure, by a personal resi- dence, the lands granted to them within the province, and they voluntarily engaged so to do; and in expec- tation that they would perform those engagements, they were maintained at the expense of the public during their voyage, and their passage was paid for them, and they were provided with tools, arms, seeds, and other necessaries, and supported from the public store, many of them at least for four years together, from their first landing; in which respect the public may be said to have purchased those people for a valua- ble consideration, their personal residence, and all the industry and labour they could bestow in the cultiva- tion of this province, and to have given them even pay for the hazard they might run in the defence of it:" Because, " it was thought unsafe to grant them such an estate as might be the means of introducing such sort of people as might defeat what the Trustees had always at heart, viz., the preservation of the Protestant religion in that province, which was necessary to be taken care of, both on a political and religious account-the French lying to the west, and the Spaniards to the south, of the province of Georgia :" Because, " a monopoly of seve- ral lots into one hand would necessarily have been the consequence of a free liberty of buying and selling lands within the province; which would have been directly contrary to the intent of the charter, whereby the grant of lands to any one person is limited not to exceed five hundred acres."
Other onerous provisions of the grant were : "That no person should alien his land, or any part of it, or grant any term estate or interest therein to any other person,
279
FREEHOLDERS PETITION TRUSTEES.
without a special license from the Trustees;" and that, " if any of the lands should not be planted, cleared, and fenced within the space of ten years from the date of the grant, every part thereof not planted, cleared, and fenced, should revert to the Trustees."11
These feudal restrictions subjected the emigrants to a kind of villanage galling to their minds, and incon- sistent with their promised freedom; for they had been told that " every man who transports himself thither is to enjoy all the privileges of a free-born subject." In December, 1738, one hundred and sev- enteen settlers and freeholders presented a represen- tation to the Trustees,12 setting forth some of their grievances, and among others, mentioning " the want of a free title or fee-simple to our land." To this appeal, the Trustees replied,13 (June 20th, 1739,) " that they should deem themselves very unfit for the trust reposed in them by His Majesty on their behalf, if they could be prevailed upon by such an irrational attempt to give up a constitution framed with the greatest caution for the preservation of liberty and prosperity."
The petition, in a rhetorical peroration, had spoken of the sounding praises which posterity would award them " to all future ages," if their desires were grant- ed, and of the condemnation which it would give " as the cause and authors of all their misfortunes and calamities," should the sought-for privileges be de- nied." The Trustees replied that they " readily join issue with them in their appeal to posterity, who shall judge between them who were their best friends,
11 An Account showing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, London, 1742, 277-8.
12 Ib. 220.
13 Ib. 232.
280
SOME RELIEF AFFORDED.
those who endeavoured to preserve for them a prop- erty in their lands by tying up the hands of their unthrifty progenitors, or they who wanted a power to mortgage or alien them." This reply of the Trus- tees was prompted, it should be observed, rather by a sense of insulted authority and of conscious honesty of purpose, than by an examination of the real merits of the case. Before this representation, however, was received by the Trustees, they had themselves begun to move in the matter, so far as the tenure of lands was concerned, and at their anniversary meeting in the vestry room of St. Bride's Church,14 (March 15th, 1739,) had appointed three gentlemen, learned in the law, among the Trustees, to prepare a law that the legal possessors for the time being of lands in Geor- gia, being tenants in tail male only, shall be empow- ered, in default of such issue male, by any deed in writing, or by their last will and testament, attested by two or more credible witnesses (to be registered within - time, in - court to be appointed for that purpose,) to appoint any daughter as his suc- cessor, to hold to her and the heirs male of her body ; and in case he shall have no daughters, to appoint any one male or female relation, and the heirs male of his or her body, as his successor."
In addition to this, the common council (May 2, 1739) instructed15 this committee to go a step further, and in case of no issue, male or female, to empower the proprietor of any lot to appoint any other person (not possessing the errors of the Church of Rome) as his successor. This committee reported, on the 8th of August, 1739, several resolutions16 for releasing the
14 Journal of Trustees, ii. 113.
15 Minutes of Com. Council, ii. 208.
16 Ib. 255.
281
FURTHER PRIVILEGES GRANTED.
proviso of the grants heretofore made, by which the lands in Georgia reverted to the Trust on failure of male issue, and for granting leave to freeholders to name their successors. At their next meeting, 28th of August, the Trustees, in common council, adopted these resolutions, by which the old tail-male tenure was abolished, and more liberal terms made the basis of their grants. Widows of tenants, "not having done or suffered any act, matter, or thing, whereby his estate therein may be forfeited or determined," should hold and enjoy the house, garden, and if children, one moiety of lands during her life ; if a widow, without children, to possess all; if again married, the person marrying her to give security for the keeping in order the said premises, and if no security given, to enure to such person or persons as would be heirs if the widow was naturally dead.
Daughters were permitted to inherit with or with- out will, in default of male issue, to the extent of five hundred acres. Every future grantee had right, power, and lawful authority, to give and devise his lands by his or her last will and testament in writing, duly executed. These concessions of the Trust, fol- lowing so speedily upon their reply to the Savannah representation, showed that they legislated for no private ends, but cheerfully granted privileges where they saw their advantage and propriety. Yet the release had not the full effect which they expect- ed, owing to the perverse conduct of their agents in Georgia.
In May, 1750, they still further enlarged the tenures of their grants already made, so as to make them " an absolute inheritance," and all future grants of lands
282
RUM PROHIBITED IN GEORGIA.
were also to be " of an absolute inheritance to the grantees, their heirs and assigns."17
Another subject upon which the Trustees legis- lated, was the prohibition of rum in Georgia. The experience of other colonies taught them that ardent spirits was the bane of all social and domestic institu- tions; they had seen its workings in the northern provinces, and Oglethorpe, in his first letters from Sa- vannah, had told them of its evil effects, even under his own eye, attributing the death of some and the disturbances of others to this source. The Trustees, on reading Oglethorpe's letter in the common coun- cil, promptly ordered, " that the drinking of rum in Georgia be absolutely prohibited ; and that all which shall be brought there be staved ;"18 and prepared and passed an act entitled " An act to prevent the importation and use of rum and brandies in the prov- ince of Georgia, or any kind of spirits or strong waters whatsoever." At the same time they sent over fifteen tuns of " the best strong beer," " molasses for brewing beer, and Madeira wines, which the people might purchase at reasonable rates, and which would be more refreshing and wholesome for them." Ale-houses were licensed, but with the strictest prohibition of selling, or even having, ardent spirits. It was de- signed to be a temperance colony, although no tem- perance movement had roused up the nations to the guilt and woe of drunkenness. The Trustees acted upon their own knowledge as to what ill effects rum had produced, causing the people to be disorderly, un- healthy, and less vigorous, and the good effects which they witnessed in Ebenezer, and at first in Frederica,
17 Journal of Trustees, iii. 124.
18 Minutes of Com. Council, i. 80.
283
MAGISTRATES STAVE RUM IN THE RIVER.
where this article had been prohibited. The motives therefore for enacting this law, were based on sound morals and sound policy ; and though the idea of establishing a colony on temperance principles, was a novel one, it was nevertheless attempted and vigor- ously sustained. In this effort they were much coun- tenanced by the Rev. Doctor Hales, one of the Trus- tees, who wrote thus early " A Friendly Admonition to the Drinkers of Gin, Brandy, and other Spirituous Liquors," two hundred copies of which were sent over in 1733 to Georgia.
Thus did temperance strive with her sister charity to lay pure foundations, and build up a spotless super- structure of colonial virtue ; but it was a movement too much in advance of the age, and too much opposed to the already settled habits of the colonists, to meet with the success it merited; and the faithlessness of some of their officials, who, with the law in their hands, bought, drank, and sold it, rendered nugatory their well-meant designs. But while the magistrates were violating this law themselves, they resolved that it should be infringed by no one else. In carrying out the Trustees' act, Mr. Causton and the bailiffs arrogated to themselves the jurisdiction of the waters of the Savannah, and undertook to stop and examine all boats passing up either branch of the river before the town. In one instance they stopped two boats laden with dry goods and rum, proceeding from Charleston to New Windsor on the Carolina side ; the packages in which were opened, and three hogsheads and ten kegs of rum staved, and the men of the boats imprisoned. This high-handed measure called for redress ; and at the next meeting of the assembly, three gentlemen, John Hammerton, Charles Pinckney,
284
RUM ACT REPEALED.
and Othiel Beale, were appointed a committee to pro- ceed to Georgia, and confer with Oglethorpe, relative to the condition of the Indian trade. They were kindly received by the General, " who told them he would send orders to his agents and officers in the Indian nations, not to molest or seize the traders of that province, and that the navigation up the river should be settled."
The matter was subsequently brought into Parlia- ment, and the Trustees, by a vote of the House of Commons, were directed to repeal the Rum Act, which they accordingly did, July 14th, 1742.
The colonists early manifesting a disposition to be extravagant in their dress and furniture beyond their means, and the Trustees believing that the effect would not only be evil to the persons themselves, but also prejudicial as an example to the other settlers, resolved, April 23d, 1735, to prepare a sumptuary law, to prevent the use of gold and silver in apparel, furni- ture, and equipage in Georgia. But such legislation was scarcely needed, for the poverty of the settlers, and their harassed condition, were the best sumptuary law, and the surest preventive of personal and do- mestic extravagance.
CHAPTER IX.
ORIGIN OF SLAVE LABOUR IN GEORGIA.
ANOTHER obnoxious but fundamental regulation of the Trustees, was the prohibition of negroes within Georgia. "Every one of the colonies received slaves from Africa in its borders ;"1 and it is important to the right settling of the question which the Trustees orig- inated, that the condition of this institution, as it then existed, should be known. Begun, as the trade was, by Sir John Hawkins in 1563, patronized by Queen Elizabeth, maintained by repeated acts of Parliament, and openly countenanced by the Dutch in their municipal, charter, and corporate societies, slavery was forced upon the American colonies. In nearly every instance the earliest legislation in each colony was directed to putting down such a species of labour. Virginia early discouraged it, and, during her colonial existence, passed twenty-three acts2 imposing duties on slaves imported into the colony, thus virtually pro- hibiting them ; and Madison truly said, that " the Brit- ish government constantly checked the attempts of
1 Bancroft's History of the United States, ii. 171.
2 Tucker's Blackstone, vol. i., part ii., 49-51, Appendix.
286
SLAVERY FORCED UPON THE COLONIES.
Virginia to put a stop to this infernal traffic."3 South Carolina soon passed a law prohibiting their further importation. It was rejected by the king in council, who declared the trade " beneficial and necessary to the mother country." Massachusetts, the first State in America which directly participated in the slave- trade, and that, too, though a member of one of the Boston churches earnestly rebuked the traffic, imposed duties upon negroes imported, and aimed at other efforts ; but as late as 1774, when the assembly of Massachusetts passed an act " to prevent the importa- tion of negroes and others as slaves," Governor Hutch- inson refused his assent, and dissolved the assembly ; because to sanction it would have violated his instruc- tions. The royal orders to Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, directed him not to give his assent to, or pass, any law imposing duties on negroes imported into New Hampshire. Slaves were introduced into Pennsylvania by William Penn ; and though before he died he did somewhat to meliorate their condition, " he died a slaveholder."
But what could the remonstrances of colonies, or the labour of individual philanthropy accomplish, when kings and queens, and cabinets, and cities, and parliaments, and associations, for two hundred years, were the patrons and participants in this evil traffic ? The treaty of Utrecht, in 1711, constituted Her Brit- annic Majesty, Queen Anne, and His Catholic Majesty, Philip V., the crowned slave merchants of North Amer- ica ; the queen agreeing, in the space of thirty years, to bring into the Spanish West Indies one hundred and forty-four thousand negroes, to the exclusion of every other slave-trader ; and in her speech to Par-
3 Madison Papers, iii. 1390. Walsh's Appeal, 327.
287
1
REASONS WHY DISALLOWED IN GEORGIA.
liament the following year, she boasted of her plan in thus obtaining for English subjects a new slave-market in the Spanish West Indies.
In 1729 Parliament, at the recommendation of the king, granted supplies for keeping up the slave-traders' forts in Africa; and in 1745 a British merchant em- bodied the views of the mass of the English people, when he entitled his tract, " The African Slave-Trade, the great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America."
Such then were the views of the king, Parliament, and merchants, respecting negro slavery, when Geor- gia was called into being by the benevolence of Oglethorpe.
Oglethorpe himself was Deputy Governor of the Royal African Company, which alone had the right of planting forts and trading on the coast of Africa ; and the question naturally arises, how was it that in a period so favourable to the slave-trade, and among men for its Trustees who were connected with its legal- ized traffic, a colony was projected from which negroes were excluded ? It was policy and not philanthropy which prohibited slavery; for though one of the Trus- tees, in a sermon to recommend the charity,4 declared, " Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of our own species as our wealth and possessions;" and though Oglethorpe himself, speaking of slavery as against " the gospel as well as the fun- damental law of England," asserted, " we refused, as Trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime ;" yet in the official publications of that body,
4 A Sermon Preached at St. George's Feb. 17, 1733-4, &c., by T. Rundle, Church, Hanover Square, on Sunday, LL.D., London, 1734.
1
288
REASONS WHY PROHIBITED.
its inhibition is based only on political and prudential, and not on humane and liberal grounds; and even Oglethorpe owned a plantation and negroes near Para- chucla in South Carolina, about forty miles above Savan- nah.5 In the Swedish and German colony, which Gustavus Adolphus planted in Delaware, and which in many points resembled the plan of the Trustees, negro servitude was disallowed; yet the motives which actuated the Scandivavian emigrants, "that it was not lawful to buy or keep slaves," did not influ- ence the founders of Georgia. Their design was to provide for poor but honest persons, to erect a barrier between South Carolina and the Spanish settlements, and to establish a wine and silk-growing colony. It was thought by the Trustees that neither of these designs could be secured if slavery was introduced. They reasoned, that nothing but a free white colony could arrest the incursions of the savages and Span- iards ; that plantations of great extent, widely sepa- rated, with a large negro population, and but few whites, would be no effectual obstacle, because the blacks could be easily seduced from their masters, who were too feeble and scattered to resist.
The Governor of St. Augustine, by virtue, as he said, of mandates from Spain, proclaimed freedom and protection to all negroes who should join his stand- ard ; and a regiment was actually formed of runaways, clothed, fed, and equipped like the royal troops, with subaltern and field officers of their own colour. It was known, also, that emissaries from Florida had fre- quently been found tampering with the blacks on the frontier settlements, enticing them to desertion, insur- rection, and blood. From these facts they argued,
5 Stephens's Journal, iii. 281. South Carolina Statutes, ii. 526.
289
FURTHER REASONS FOR PROHIBITION.
that should negroes be introduced into Georgia, that which had taken place at the distance of Carolina, would be still more likely to occur in Georgia ; and therefore, it would be no protection to Carolina on the north, and only peril the existence of their new colony by throwing it, with such internal materials, into the very arms of the Spaniards.
But though they regarded this as a strong argument, they built up a further defence of the prohibition, upon the character of the settlers, and the grants which had been made to them. Their reasons under this general head may be reduced to the following : 1st. Its ex- pense ; which the poor emigrant would be entirely unable to sustain, either in the first cost of a negro, or his subsequent keeping. 2d. Because it would induce idleness, and render labour degrading. 3d. Because the settlers, being freeholders of only fifty-acre lots, requiring but one or two extra hands for their culti- vation, the German servants would be a third more profitable than the blacks. Upon the last original design I have mentioned, in planting this colony, they also based an argument against their admission, viz., that the cultivation of silk and wine, demanding skill and nicety, rather than strength and endurance of fatigue, the whites were better calculated for such labour than the negroes. These were the prominent arguments, drawn from the various considerations of internal and external policy, which influenced the Trustees in making this prohibition. Many of them, however, had but a temporary bearing ; none stood the test of experience.
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