USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 22
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But while the Trustees disallowed negroes, they in- stituted a system of white slavery, which was fraught with evil to the servants and to the colony. These
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290
SYSTEM OF WHITE SLAVERY.
were white servants, consisting of Welch, English, or German, males and females -- families and individuals who were indented to individuals or the Trustees, for a period of from four to fourteen years ; work to a cer- tain amount being required of all over the age of six. On arriving in Georgia, their service was sold for the term of indenture, or apportioned to the inhabitants by the magistrates, as their necessities required. The sum which they brought when thus bid off, varied from £2 to £6, besides an annual tax of £1, for five years, to defray the expense of their voyage. On the expiration of their indentures, they received, if they had served their masters faithfully, a small portion of land, and were then thrown upon their own resources. The limited number of these, and their early unwill- ingness to continue in a servile condition, left the grants without the means of efficient cultivation, and the evils of the scheme became speedily apparent. Two years had not elapsed since the landing of Ogle- thorpe, before many complaints originated from this cause ; and in the summer of 1735, a petition, signed by seventeen freeholders, setting forth the unprofitable- ness of white servants, and the necessity for negroes, was carried by Mr. Hugh Sterling to the Trustees, who, however, resented the appeal as an insult to their honour.
In a representation made to the Honourable Trus- tees, on the 1st of September, 1737, by the grand jury, they declare, " that the great want of servants in this town and county doth render the freeholders thereof incapable of proceeding with proper vigour in cultivat- ing their lands;" and three years after, in a paper entitled, " A State of the Province of Georgia, attested upon oath in the Court of Savannah, November 10th,
WELCH AND GERMAN SERVANTS SENT TO GEORGIA. 291
1740," signed by twenty-four of the most respectable settlers, this language is used: " We humbly conceive nothing could be a greater inducement to the cultiva- tion of the land, than that the Honourable Trustees would please to import yearly, so long as they see good, a number of English or Welch servants, such as are used to hard labour in the country, and strangers to London, to be contracted with in England, to serve the Trustees five years." These requests were but par-
tially complied with. Speaking of sixty-one Germans brought over in one vessel, Rev. Mr. Bolzius says : "One-and-twenty grown persons are picked out at Savannah, partly by the magistrates, partly by the people, having paid £6; and the rest, being forty souls, mostly bakers, millers, shoemakers, some wo- men, and ten children, are sent to our place, (Ebene- zer,) where I endeavoured to accommodate them in the best manner I was able. No more than nineteen hus- bandmen could be supplied with servants, each with one servant, and some of these with small families." This is an interesting fact, as it shows that though, numerically, the reinforcement was large, it was, phy- sically, small-but nineteen efficient labourers in a party of sixty-one. Nor would it be a very difficult matter to prove, upon the strict principles of political economy, that such an accession was rather a burden than a benefit. The paucity of even this questionable help, was still further lessened by constant refusals to fulfil the terms of contract, and by desertions ; as many escaped to Carolina, and thus weakened the colony in the available means of agriculture and defence. Even the German servants, so lauded as faithful and efficient assistants, so often pointed to as patterns of industry and sobriety, even these were complained of by Mr.
292
DIFFICULTY OF PLANTING WITH WHITE SERVANTS.
Bolzius and Mr. Meyer, as being "refractory, filled with ideas of liberty, and clandestinely quitting their masters;" who, he says, in many instances, " were com- pelled to resort to corporeal punishment, or other sum- mary methods, to bring them to obedience." The Hon. James Habersham, subsequently President of His Majesty's Council, and, during the absence of Sir James Wright, Governor of the colony, whose high moral integrity gives weight to every remark from his pen, says of the unprofitableness of white servants : "Though the people have been as industrious as possible, they are not able to live ; for I believe there is not an in- stance of one planter in the colony who can support his family with his own produce. Besides, the sun is so extremely hot here in the summer, that no white man can stay in the field the best part of the day. All who come to settle here are put into a wilderness, which they have to clear before they can plant it; which is so intolerably costly, with white hands, that I have heard some affirm, that to clear our good land-which is swamp-effectually with them, would cost almost as much as they could buy land for in some parts of Eng- land." And writing to General Oglethorpe, two years after, in 1741, he remarks: " You are not insensible, honoured sir, that from the great wages of servants and monthly hands, upon the present footing, it is impossi- ble, I think, from experience, to live comfortably," or " to defray the expense; I mean, to pay 25s. per month for a labourer, and to feed him, so that he may be able to do a day's work. Possibly, could we hire servants as farmers do in England, for £4 or £5 per annum, plant- ing might do; but these men and maid-servants are scarce, and not only so, but ignorant and saucy. If I was ever so intent upon settling a farm now, I don't
293
INEFFICIENCY OF THIS MODE.
know where I could purchase, or hire, at any reason- able rate, one servant, of either sex. Alas! honoured sir, what must a poor friendless man do, with his wife and children settled upon fifty acres of land, perhaps pine-barren, but suppose it the best, without either servants to help clear, or steers to plough the ground ?"
The views entertained by this accurate observer, were corroborated by a publication entitled, " A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia," published in 1741, in which it is stated that the clear- ing and cultivation of new lands originated fevers and diseases of various kinds, "which brought on to many cessation both from work and life." And so general were these disorders, that during the hot season, which lasts from March till October, hardly one-half of the servants or working people were even able to do their masters or themselves the least service ; and the yearly sickness of each servant, generally speaking, cost his master as much as would have maintained a negro for four years."
One of the most estimable of the Georgia clergy, the Rev. Mr. Zouberbuhler, thus expresses his views, in 1748: " I cannot learn, nor do I know any planters who have employed servants in cultivating lands, that have found them advantageous. On the contrary, I have heard frequent complaints that servants so em- ployed have rather been an expense than a benefit."
This system, inefficient as it was, was not a new one to the colonies. In Virginia it had existed from its foundation. Men and women brought up in Eng- land, were taken over to Virginia, and sold for the term of indenture, sometimes even as high as £60. To supply the emptiness of their exchequer, the company of Patentees, in 1621-2, sent over on speculation one
29
STATE PRISONERS SOLD IN AMERICA.
1
hundred and fifty women, young, handsome, and well recommended for their virtuous education and de- meanour, who were sold as wives to the planters, fetching from one hundred and twenty to three hun- dred and fifty pounds of tobacco, i. e., from £18 to £52 sterling,6 and this traffic continued for many years. The battles consequent on the civil wars of the king- dom, furnished large material for this trade in British slaves; and Scots taken at Dunbar, and two hundred and seventy of the royalist prisoners taken by Crom- well in the battle of Worcester, were landed for sale in New England, in 1652; and the insurrectionists of Penruddock, Roman Catholics from Ireland, and nearly one thousand state prisoners engaged in the Monmouth rebellion, were shipped to America to supply hands to the colonial freeholders. Yet while this scheme of white servitude was pursued in Geor- gia, one of its Trustees declared from the pulpit, "The name of slavery is here unheard, and every inhabi- tant is free from unchosen masters and oppression." It had not then, indeed, developed its evil effects ; but could they have foreseen the shrivelled and attenuated state of the colony in consequence of this misguided legislation, they would not have vaunted the humanity which substituted for the negro, the free-born Briton and the persecuted German ; nor while they sold the indentures of servants in the white slave-market of Savannah, would they have boasted that "Slavery, the misfortune if not the dishonour of other plantations, is absolutely proscribed."
The plan for substituting white for black labour, failed through the sparseness of the supply, and the refractoriness of the servants. As a consequence of
6 Stith's Virginia, 197.
295
EVILS OF THE SYSTEM APPARENT.
the inability of the settlers to procure adequate help, the lands granted them remained uncleared, and even those which the temporary industry of the first occu- pants prepared, remained uncultivated ; for the people, leaving their unfurrowed fields, clustered about the town, eking out a beggarly subsistence by such handicraft as they were partially acquainted with, or else living upon the Trustees' stores. The silk and wine which were to have been the staple productions of the colony, failed through want of encouragement ; the planting of indigo was mostly abandoned; the preparing lumber for exportation became impossible, because, say the freeholders in a representation made to the Trustees, December 9th, 1738, " We cannot manufacture it for a foreign market but at double the expense of other colonies, as, for instance, the river of May, which is but twenty miles from us, where, with the allowance of negroes, vessels load with that com- modity at one-half the price that we can do." Every profitable employment, therefore, which would have lengthened the cords and strengthened the stakes of the colony, was neglected ; discontent supplied the place of labour, and rebellion well nigh followed. For these reasons there accumulated on the Trustees' hands, a body of idle, clamourous, mischief-making men, who employed their time in declaiming against' the very government whose charity both fed and clothed them. So great was this evil, that, in 1739,; the Trustees gave orders for "striking off the store all such as, having had time to cultivate their lands, had neglected them;" a measure which strengthened still more the popular indignation against this cor- poration. Writing in 1739, Mr. Habersham says : " Now a word for the poor people of Savannah.
296
DEPOPULATION OF THE COLONY.
They are really, some of them, in want, and must, I believe, leave the colony. Everything appears worse and worse, rather than any tokens of amendment. If this sore chastisement only starves the idlers away, it will be a matter of joy ; but I am afraid the industrious must suffer, the torrent bearing so very hard against us that they cannot stem it. Captain Thompson has carried away near thirty souls, men, women, and children, to Charleston and England. He sailed last night." And again he remarks : " The colony, with- out some proper remedies, must dwindle away into nothing, or at least become a mere garrison. Many are already gone to other provinces to seek their bread, and those who remain have laid out their all." In a communication made to the Trustees on the 10th of August, 1740, by David Douglass, William Sterling, and Thomas Baillie, they state, that "the colony is reduced to one-sixth of its former number," and that " the few who remain were in a starving and despica- ble condition." Nor can I believe, from the most diligent research, that this was much exaggerated ; the strong feelings under which they laboured might have slightly tinged, but did not deeply colour their re- monstrance ; and the private letters of Mr. Habersham, who was ever faithful to the interests of the Trustees, and who signed neither of the early petitions, confirm this de- scription of the weak and languishing condition of the province. In one of his letters to General Oglethorpe, remarking upon the difficulty of poor people obtaining a subsistence without labourers to help them, he adds : " They droop under these difficulties, grow weary of the colony, get into idle and refractory company ; from thence naturally to drinking, and which perhaps ends in the total ruin of themselves and families.
297
ITS VERY LOW CONDITION.
Honoured sir, this is no chimera of my own. I have seen too many sad instances to confirm me in the truth of it." Writing to Governor Belcher of Massa- chusetts, in 1741, he further says : "This colony, which has made so much talk abroad, is almost left deso- late." Mark the following strong language which he employs in a letter dated September 25th, 1747 : " The few remaining inhabitants here are so dispirited and heart-broken, that, supposing any real encourage- ment could be proposed, I almost reckon it an impos- sibility to persuade them that anything of this nature can be done, and he that would attempt it would be looked upon rather as their enemy than their friend ; and I must confess that things have had such a dread- ful appearance for some time past, that, rather than see the colony deserted and brought to desolation, and the inhabitants reduced to want and beggary, I really, with the Trustees, would have consented to the use of negroes, and was sorry to hear that they had written so warmly against them." What can more strikingly illustrate the utter wretchedness of the colonists than that sentence of the above extract which shows that " he who would propose anything for their encouragement, would be looked upon rather as an enemy than a friend ?" And how deplorable must those be, when even hope, which, " like Heav- en's own sunbeam, smiles on all," does not send one ray of comfort into the thick gloom of their desolate condition ! In a document sent to the Trustees on the 9th of December, 1738, and signed by one hun- dred and seventeen freeholders, it is said: “ Your Honours, we imagine, are not insensible of the num- ber which have left this province, not being able to support themselves or families any longer ; and upon
298
THE DECLINE OF THE WHOLE PROVINCE.
account of the present establishment, not above two or three persons, except those brought on charity and sent by you, have come here for the space of two years past, either to settle land or encourage trade." By a return made to the Trustees in 1739, there were but one hundred and nine freeholders in Sa- vannah, notwithstanding there had been sent over by the Trustees alone, in the six preceding years, one thousand three hundred and eighty-three persons. In this debilitated state the colony continued for sev- eral years ; its strength daily weakened by the de- sertion of servants and the removal of settlers; its public and private buildings falling into decay ; and its inhabitants clamourous for redress, and irritated by penury. Not only was this decline visible in Savan- nah, but it existed in every part of the province, as is evidenced by the magistrates, who, in a letter to Mr. Martyn, secretary of the Board, state, " that the whole inhabitants of Augusta, who have had negroes among them for some years past, declare that if they cannot obtain that liberty, they will remove to the Carolina side ; and many of late, finding us strenuous to see the Trustees' orders fulfilled, express themselves in the same strain." Thus this colony, once the pride of the philanthropic, the object of so many hopes, and the theme of so much eulogy, was pining in misery, and gasping for vitality, even under the eye of its great founder, and within seven years of its first establishment.
For nearly fifteen years from 1735, the date of the first petition for negroes, and the date of their express law against their importation, the Trustees refused to listen to any similar representations, except to con- demn them ; and the law relating to negroes was, at one period, so rigidly enforced, that every one found
299
INHABITANTS PETITION FOR NEGROES.
in the place, unless speedily claimed, was sold back to Carolina. Stephens, in his journal, mentions two instances of this sale : the first in 1739, who brought £23 5s .; and the second in 1741, for whom only £8 10s. was bid. In December, 1738, nearly all the free- holders united in addressing a communication to the Trustees, setting forth the state of the colony, and the absolute necessity of some change to repair its ruinous condition. One of the remedies proposed was, to use their own language, " the use of negroes, with proper limitations, which, if granted, would both occasion great numbers of white people to come here, and also to render us capable to subsist ourselves, by raising provisions upon our lands, until we could make some produce fit for export, in some measure to balance our importations." In opposition to these tenets, counter petitions were drawn up at Darien and Ebenezer, the former dated January 3d, 1739, the latter March 13th, 1739, strongly disapproving their introduction, and urging the Trustees to persist in their refusal. Ste- phens, in his peculiar language, says : " In this whole affair Darien led up the dance, though there were not wanting others ready to follow them." But these counter petitioners, by whom the Trustees were so much strengthened in their persistence, were a very unfair criterion of judgment.
The Highlanders of Darien derived great subsist- ence from furnishing the garrison and troops at Fred- erica with provisions, &c .; and the Germans at Eben- ezer were not only accustomed to the toils of hus- bandry at home, to which most of the English settlers were strangers, but, as Mr. Habersham says, speaking of the impropriety of adducing them as examples that persons can live comfortably on the present foun-
300
CONVENTION OF LANDHOLDERS.
dation-" it ought to be remembered what great sup- plies they have had, and are frequently receiving ; otherwise I am persuaded they could not have sub- sisted." "I once thought," said he, " it was unlawful to keep negro slaves, but I am now induced to think God may have a higher end in permitting them to be brought to this Christian country, than merely to support their masters. Many of the poor slaves in America have already been made freemen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and possibly a time may come when many thousands may embrace the gospel, and thereby be brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. These, and other considerations, appear to plead strongly for a limited use of negroes ; for, while we can buy provisions in Carolina cheaper than we can here, no one will be induced to plant much." None of these things, however, moved the Trustees, who rigidly adhered to their original design.
Resolved to make one more effort, some of the land- holders and settlers met in Savannah on the 7th of October, 1741, to consider the best mode of securing redress to their many grievances, and resolved to appoint an agent to represent their case to the proper authorities in England, " in order to the effectual set- tling and establishing of the said province, and to re- move all those grievances and hardships we now labour under." The person selected as agent was Thomas Stephens, the son of the President, who had resided about four years in Georgia, and who, it was thought, from his connection with the President, would give great weight to their proceedings. A committee con- sisting of five persons was also appointed to corre- spond with Mr. Stephens, and the whole proceedings were signed by one hundred and twenty-three land-
301
INSTRUCTIONS TO THOMAS STEPHENS.
holders in the province. In the instructions which the committee of correspondence gave to their agent, Mr. Stephens was desired, on his arrival in England, "to apply, petition, and solicit for redress of grievances, in such manner as he should think most advisable, (appli- cation to the Trust only excepted.) He was required to solicit, " that a regular government be established in Georgia, as in other of His Majesty's provinces in America ;" grants of land equal in extent to those in South Carolina; quit-rents to be the same in Georgia as in South Carolina ; negroes to be allowed ; " en- couragement to be given for making potash, silk, wine, oil, indigo, hemp, flax, or other commodities ;" and in the event of his being unsuccessful in these applica- tions, he was to pray, " that the money which may hereafter be granted for the use of the colony may be applied for removing them to some other part of His Majesty's dominions, where they may be able to sup- port themselves and families, and be of use to the public, instead of a burden, as they are now."7
Thus furnished, Mr. Stephens sailed for England, and, on the 26th of March, 1742, presented a petition to the king, representing the deplorable condition of the colony occasioned by the extraordinary laws and government thereof, and by the many arbitrary and ille- gal proceedings which have hindered its progress and defeated His Majesty's intentions of making provision for his poor subjects and others sent thither ; stating that complaints have from time to time been made to the Trustees without any grievance or discouragement being redressed, and therefore humbly imploring His Majesty's protection and encouragement, whereby they may be enabled to proceed effectually in the improve-
Georgia Historical Collections, ii. 155.
302
PETITIONS PARLIAMENT.
ment and preservation of the colony.8 The king referred this petition to a committee of the Lords of Council for Plantation Affairs, who transmitted a copy to the Trustees and desired their answer to its con- tents.
Nearly at the same time Stephens presented a peti- tion to Parliament, in which he animadverted upon the Trustees' management from the date of their char- ter, and charged them with refusing to listen to the representations of the people-with misapplication of the public money-with great delays in discharging debts-" and many abuses in the civil power ; closing with an appeal to the 'Commons,' to grant such redress as to the House shall seem meet."9
The subject was considered of such importance, that it was " Resolved, that this House will upon this day sevennight resolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to consider of the said petition ;" and the mem- bers of the Privy Council were requested to obtain from the king the petition of Stephens to him, and also the answer of the Trustees.
The answer of the Trustees, drawn up by the Earl of Egmont, was read before them on the 3d of May, and received their seal and approval, and was presented to the House of Commons on the 6th. The same day the House passed another resolution, instructing the committee of the whole to "admit counsel to be heard for and against the said petition, if the parties concerned in it think fit."
To give full time for the members to read this peti- tion and reply, which were ordered to lie upon the table for their perusal, the consideration of them was
8 Journal of Trustees, ii. 202.
9 Journal of House of Commons, 1742, xxiv. 191.
303
PARLIAMENT INSTITUTES ENQUIRIES.
postponed a week longer, when it was ordered that Mr. Stephens should then attend, and " bring with him his appointment to be agent for the people in Georgia, as also all written instructions he may have received from them for the discharge of that office."
Determined upon a full investigation, the House also ordered, a few days after, that the Trustees should lay before them " all resolutions which they have at any time agreed upon concerning the tenure of lands in the colony, the petition of the inhabitants for negroes, sent over in 1735, and the remonstrance of the inhabi- tants to the Trustees, in 1740."
On the day appointed, before the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole, it directed that there should be laid before that committee " An Account showing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, in America, from its first establishment to 1740;" a copy of " The Humble Petition and Representation of the Council and Assembly of South Carolina to His Majesty, dated July 26, 1740;" the Memorial of the Trustees to the King; the Petition of Stephens; the Answer of the Trustees; a Letter from Patrick Tailfer, and others, received in August, 1735; the Remonstrance of the In- habitants ; and all the Trust resolutions concerning the tenure of lands in the colony.
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