USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 11
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for attaining the objects set forth in the charter. The corporation was to meet annually for an election of officers on the third Thursday in each year.
To transact the ordinary business of the trust a common council was to be appointed, each member of which before entering upon his duties was to take an oath of office, which the president of the corpora- tion was to administer. He, in turn, was to be sworn into office by the chief baron of the exchequer. Lord John, Viscount Percival, was designated as the first president of the corporation and it was made his duty within thirty days from the granting of the charter to convene the trustees for the purpose of perfecting an organization. Edward Digby was named as chairman of the common council, a board to con- sist of fifteen members, eight of whom were named in the charter, as follows: John, Lord Viscount Percival, Edward Digby, George Car- penter, James Oglethorpe, George Heathcote, Thomas Laroche, James Vernon, William Belitha, Esqs., and Stephen Hales, A. M.
Both the president of the corporation and the chairman of the com- mon council were declared competent to vote and to participate in all discussions. Provision was also made for each of these offices to be filled by rotation.
All members of the trust were to serve without salary, fee, perquisite, benefit, or profit whatever. Permission was granted for soliciting and receiving subscriptions ; also for appointing agents to collect moneys and gifts. It was made the duty of the corporation to submit annually in writing an account of all moneys and effects received and expended. Furthermore, the corporation was empowered to frame such rules and regulations for the government of the colony, to prescribe such pains and penalties for infractions, and to establish such methods of enforce- ment as were not repugnant to the statutes and laws of the realm.
Religious freedom was accorded to all except Catholics. Says Mr. Brooks: * "This discrimination was due to historical causes. In 1688 the Catholic monarch, James II, was expelled from England, and it was made the law of the land that no Catholic should ever sit on the throne. Catholics were also excluded from holding any civil or military office or from sitting in Parliament. For many years the exiled family of Stuart schemed to regain the lost throne, usually with the assistance of a powerful party in England and with the sympathy of Catholic France. Only seventeen years before the granting of the charter of Georgia there had been a rising of Catholics in favor of the Stuart Pretender. So it was natural that Englishmen did not care to harbor within the new colony persons whom they regarded as hostile to the English throne and religion."
Georgia's territorial domain, as fixed by the terms of her charter, was to include all the lands embraced between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, reaching back from the headwaters of these streams, in a westerly direction, to the South Seas, an indefinite expression which, at a later period, was construed to mean the Mississippi River. It was to include also the islands of the sea lying opposite the eastern coast, within a distance of twenty leagues therefrom, together with all the
* "History of Georgia," R. P. Brooks, p. 45.
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soils, grounds, havens, ports, gulfs and bays, mines, precious stones, quarries, woods, rivers, waters, fishings, pearls, commodities, jurisdic- tions, royalties, franchises, privileges and preeminences within the said frontiers. However, only an undivided seven-eighths interest in these lands was conveyed to the trustees by King George. It will be remem- bered that all this territory had been granted to eight noblemen called the Lords Proprietors of Carolina; and in ceding the tract thus con- veyed back to the crown only seven of the grantees joined. Lord Car- teret retained his undivided one-eighth interest. But Georgia perfected her title in time by obtaining a deed from Lord Carteret.
Permission was granted for transporting out of the limits of the United Kingdom or from any of the British dominions into the province of Georgia, for settlement there, as many subjects of the Crown as should be willing to go, and also sueh foreigners as should consent to abide there, under the allegiance of the English Crown. These were to be given land rent-free for ten years. Permission was granted also to carry into the province such munitions of war as were requisite for its defense and such clothing, implements, furniture, vietuals, merchandise, cattle, horses and wares as were needed by the colonists either for use or for traffic with the natives. All persons born within the province were to enjoy all the liberties, franchises and immunities of free denizens and natural born citizens and subjects of Great Britain as fully as if born and residing within the Kingdom of England. No grant of land was to exceed five hundred acres; no member of the trust was to be granted lands; and no one holding lands was to be elected to the trust. There was to be an annual quit-rent of four shillings per hundred aeres to be paid by the trustees for all lands granted to others; and all grants, leases, plantings, conveyances, settlements and improvements of any lands, tenements and hereditaments within the province, made by the corpo- ration, were to be registered with the auditor of plantations within one year from the respective dates thereof; otherwise they were to become void. From time to time statements showing the progress of the colony were to be rendered.
Officers to serve the colony including governors, judges, magistrates, also military and naval officers, were to be commissioned by the common council, eight members of which body were to constitute a quorum for the transaction of business, but the right to be reserved by the Crown to select all officers concerned in the collection of revenues for the gen- eral government. Commissions were to be issued by the trust under the common seal. The appointment of a colonial governor was to be ap- proved by the crown and said officer was to take such oath as was required of governors in the other colonies and give bond for an observ- ance of the various acts of Parliament relating to trade and navigation and for obedience to all orders issued to him by the home government. There was also to be a secretary and a treasurer for the colony, neither of whom could be a member of the corporation.
The charter made adequate provision for a defense of the colony in the event of hostilities. To this end, the trustees were empowered to establish a militia; and in an emergency, all who were competent to bear arms were to be assembled, to repulse, whether on land or at sea, any enemy, either within or without the province, and in all fitting ways to
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destroy or conquer any who, in a hostile manner, might attempt the invasion, detriment, annoyance or destruction of the plantation. Mar- tial law was to be declared in the event of hostilities. The trustees were furthermore empowered to erect forts, to fortify towns, to establish garrisons, and to take such other precautionary measures as were req- uisite to protect both the coast and the frontier from the incursions of marauders, pirates, savages, or enemies. Though a proprietary govern- ment, its militia was to remain in the hands of the king, and the domin- ion of the Crown was to prevail .* Free importation and exportation of all goods and prodnets was authorized. In conclusion, the life of the corporation was to continue for twenty-one years, and at the expiration of this time such a form of government was to be adopted as the Crown should ordain.
Mr. J. R. McCain, a recognized authority on Georgia's colonial period, has given us the following critical estimate of her charter. . Says he: t "The granting of such a charter was in a measure a rever- sion to type. It has been noted that more than a hundred years had elapsed since a corporation resident in England had been chartered for the purpose of colonization, but it was through corporations in the nature of trading companies that British colonization was first success- fully achieved within the present limits of the United States. Virginia, the first of the colonies, was the proprietary province of a corporation just as was Georgia, the last of the thirteen to be settled. Only two other corporations had been formed for the purpose of colonizing America, and they, like the London company, were organized prior to 1630. In- dividual proprietorships had been established, and in the case of Caro- lina eight men had been associated for the purpose of founding a colony ; but apparently the interest in colonization had not been widespread enough in England from 1630 to 1730 to call for the organization of a company or corporation. The settlement of Georgia enlisted the inter- est and the aid of a larger number of people than that of any other British colony.
"Since the charter was granted fifty years later than that of any other British colony, it is interesting to note the effect of experiments with the colonies on the terms of the Georgia charter. Since the estab- lishment of Pennsylvania in 1681, there had been marked efforts on the part of the British government to increase imperial control in America, and there was a strong tendency to substitute royal provinces for those of proprietary or corporate nature. In its first report, the Board of Trade showed several tendencies in this direction. The land was not granted outright to the petitioners, but they were to be tenants of so much as they might occupy, paying therefor to the King the rather heavy quitrent of four shillings proclamation money per hundred acres. Care- ful registers were to be kept to ascertain the King's rights in the mat- ter. Of greater importance, was the provision in the report requiring that officers be approved by the King, and that all laws be submitted to him for approval. Moreover, a great deal of imperial control was se- cured by the requirement that officials in the new colony must take
* J. R. McCain, "The Executive in Proprietary Georgia," p. 13.
t Ibid., pp. 14-16.
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and receive instructions such as were given to the royal governors in the American provinces.
"As the charter was finally issued, there were numerous provisions also for imperial control. The most remarkable one was that limiting the powers of government bestowed on the founders of Georgia to a period of twenty-one years. The petitioners had sought greater powers of appointing and removing officers and of establishing courts, and the request was granted only on the condition of this time limitation. Formal laws must be approved by the King, but regulations and orders to fit special occasions could be given without approval. The power of making laws was also limited to a period of twenty-one years, and no law could become effective until actually approved. Even in the mat- ter of appointing officers, there were two restrictions in favor of royal control. The Crown reserved the right to appoint all those who should be chosen to collect the King's revenue. Moreover, the person appointed to be governor in the colony must have the approval of the King, and must qualify himself properly by taking oaths and giving security to obey the acts of Parliament relating to trade and navigation and to obey instructions sent him pursuant to said acts. He was not bound, however, to obey general instructions. The supervision of the British govern- ment over the financial management of the colony was secured by the requirements that an annual account of all moneys received and ex- pended be presented in writing to two officials of the home government. It was further stipulated that from time to time accounts of the progress of the colony should be given to the secretaries of state and to the Board of Trade."
On July 20, 1732, the trustees named by the king met in London * to perfect an organization under the new charter whose terms and pro- visions were, at this first meeting, formally accepted. Lord John, Vis- count Percival, after exhibiting a certificate from the lord chief baron of the exchequer to the effect that he had taken the required oath, was thereupon duly installed in office as president of the corporation, fol- lowing which he proceeded to administer the prescribed oath to his colleagues of the trust.
The Bank of England was designated as custodian of all moneys to be contributed to the trust for Georgia's colonization. Benjamin Mar- tyn was elected secretary, while the following gentlemen formed the first common council: Anthony, Earl of Shaftsbury; John, Lord Vis- count Percival; John, Lord Viscount Tyrconnel; James, Lord Viscount Limerick; George, Lord Carpenter; Edward Digby, Esq., James Ogle- thorpe, Esq., George Heathcote, Esq., Thomas Tower, Esq., Robert Moor, Esq., Robert Hucks, Esq., Roger Holland, Esq., William Sloper, Esq., Francis Eyles, Esq., John Laroche, Esq., James Vernon, Esq., Stephen Hales, A. M., Richard Chandler, Esq., Thomas Frederick, Esq .. Henry L'Apostre, Esq., William Heathcote, Esq., John White, Esq., Robert Kendal, Esq., aldermen, and Richard Bundy, D. D.
Most of the business of the trust was transacted by the common coun- cil, subject, however, to final review at the hands of the corporation. Its first chairman, as designated in the charter, was Hon. Edward Digby.
* Palace Court, in Old Court Yard, Westminster.
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Without dealing with the business of particular meetings, we merely give results.
First, it was necessary to adopt a corporate seal. The design selected for its two faces was as follows: "That for the authentication of legis- lative acts, deeds and commissions contained this device: two figures resting upon urns, from which flowed streams typifying the two rivers, viz., the Savannah and the Altamaha, which formed the northern and southern boundaries of the province. In their hands were spades, sug- gesting agriculture as the chief employment of the settlers. Above and in the center was seated the genius of the colony, a spear in her right hand, the left placed upon a cornucopia, and a liberty cap upon her head. Behind, upon a gentle eminence stood a tree, and above was engraven this legend: 'COLONIA GEORGIA, AUG.' On the other face- which formed the common seal to be affixed to grants, orders, and cer- tificates-were seen silk-worms in the various stages of their labor, and the appropriate motto: 'NON SIBI SED ALOOS.' This inscription not only proclaimed the disinterested motives and intentions of the trustees, but suggested that the production of silk was to be reckoned among the chief employments of the colonists."
Encouraged by Sir Thomas Lombe to believe that a superior quality of silk could be produced in Georgia, to whose soil mulberry trees were indigenous, the trustees decided to engage Italian experts to accompany the colonists to Georgia and to teach them the best methods of feeding silk-worms, how to obtain the thread from the cocoons and how to manu- facture the silk into fabrics. Oglethorpe himself became quite an en- thusiast on the subject. In fact, he came to believe that vast sums annually spent in the purchase of foreign silks might be saved to the nation. Moreover, in the culture of grapes for the manufacture of wines, it was contemplated that a rich revenue would accrue to the Crown.
Some of the regulations adopted by the trustees require notice in this connection. Since Georgia was to be an agricultural colony, organ- ized upon a military basis, each male inhabitant was to be regarded both as a planter and as a soldier .* Together with tools and implements for industrial use, he was to be provided with weapons for defending the settlement. He was also to be instructed in the manual of arms. Forts were to be erected at strategie points on the exposed ocean front and on the endangered frontier. Each town was to be a sort of citadel, containing its garrison of troops, its arsenal, etc .; and whatever lands were allotted to the colonists were to be in the neighborhood of these fortified towns, so that instantly the inhabitants, on the first signal of alarm, might betake themselves thereto for protection, without loss of time and without great personal hazard. Besides the likelihood of a Spanish invasion, there was the ever present dread of an Indian out- break.
It was for the purpose of strengthening Georgia as a military prov- ince designed to protect not only South Carolina but all of the colonies to the north that a system of land tenure was adopted which in after
* An Account Showing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia in America from its First Establishment, London, 1741; "Colonial Records," Vol. I.
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years gave rise to much complaint. Fifty acres of land-to define the system briefly-were deemed sufficient for each family's support. Con- sequently, to each able-bodied colonist was allotted this amount of land, to be held, however, not in fee simple but as a military fief; and on this land he was to plant 100 white mulberry trees to every ten acres. It was feared that if the lots were otherwise conveyed, it would tend to en- feeble the garrison by giving rise to an accumulation of lots in one own- ership; and to prevent such a result it was planned that for each lot there should be an occupant to cultivate the ground and to bear arms.
Since women were not expected to act as soldiers, it was not contem- plated, except in certain contingencies that they should be landholders. Consequently, grants were to be made in tail male rather than in tail general. To give to a female the portion of a soldier would be to dimin- ish the strength of the settlement. Moreover, by intermarriage several lots might be merged into one ownership; and inasmuch as women were not supposed to serve on juries or to perform military duties, these bur- densome obligations, in the event she were given a soldier's portion, would devolve more frequently upon the men.
There were numerous reasons to justify the trustees in refusing to sanction alienations in fee. To begin with, the right of sale was neces- sarily inherent in such an estate; and immediately following an investi- ture of title a grantee, if he saw fit to do so, might sell, mortgage or alien his lands. Most of the colonists to be transported to Georgia were indi- gent; and, having failed as managers at home, it was not deemed prudent at the outset to entrust them with the ownership of property which in a short while might be squandered. Again, the colony was surrounded by Papists, French to the west and Spaniards to the south; and it was thought unsafe, therefore, to grant estates in fee because it might be the means of introducing Catholics into the colony of Georgia. Though religious persecution had become less rigorous, there still existed in Eng- land a feeling of bitter hostility toward all non-Protestants.
The charter forbade a grant of more than 500 acres of land to any one person ; but if titles were conveyed in fee simple it would not be long before thrifty individuals would acquire a concentrated ownership of lots, thus contravening the charter's manifest intent. Moreover, since the trustees were defraying the passage of these settlers, maintaining them on the voyage, giving them tools, weapons, seeds, etc., with which to begin life anew in the colony, and agreeing furthermore to support them for a season from the general stores, all this in addition to having compromised with creditors for sums due them by these debtors, it might. therefore, be well argued that the public had purchased from these settlers, for an adequate consideration, whatever they could give in the way of just equivalent. Consequently there seemed to be no alter- native, save to grant estates in tail male, if Georgia's character as a mili- tary province was to be maintained.
Nor were men of means to hold lands under a different tenure. Where a settler defrayed his own expenses and brought ten able-bodied servants, over twenty-one years of age, into the colony, he was to receive 500 acres of land, not an acre of which, however, could be sold; and at his death this land was to descend to his male heirs. He was to pay a rental of 20 shillings a year on each 100 acres but payment was not to
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begin for ten years. Within a month after its execution, the grant was to be registered with the auditor of plantations. The grantee obligated himself to repair at once to Georgia with his servants, there to remain for at least three years, building houses and cultivating his lands. Within ten years from the date of grant he was to have 200 acres under cultivation and 200 white mulberry trees planted. The grantee was not to leave the province without special permission from the authorities. Male servants, when released from contracts, provided they had been four years in the province, were to be given, on application, twenty acres of land in tail male, under certain conditions and restrictions.
But an equally drastic law enacted by the trustees was a law forbid- ding the introduction of slaves into the Colony of Georgia. There was no precedent for such a regulation in any of the other colonies; but a law of this character was deemed essential to a provinee organized on a strictly military basis. Nor were other reasons lacking. In the first place, a great majority of the colonists were wholly without means either to purehase slaves or to support them under the peculiar system of land tenure which the trustees thought it wise to adopt. One of the main sources of weakness, in the case of South Carolina, was due to the pre- ponderating number of slaves. These considerably outnumbered the whites who were powerless, on the one hand, to protect them against the mischievous wiles of the Spaniards or to subdue any insurrectionary spirit among them, on the other. Moreover, South Carolina weakened by an exeessively large slave population was, in a most critical sense, at the merey of the foe, including not only the Spaniards but also the French ; nor was she without frequent visits from the Indians who kept her borders constantly embroidered with crimson. Knowing her en- feebled condition, these enemies especially the Spaniards and the In- dians, were incessantly annoying; and since the design of a new colony was to protect South Carolina it was important to avoid, therefore, what in the latter province had proven an element of weakness.
To state another reason, the average cost of a negro servant at this time was £30, a sum sufficient to defray the passage of a white man, sup- ply him with needed equipment, and support him for a whole year; and to permit slaves, therefore, would only lessen the ability of the trustees to maintain the white settlers. Moreover, on account of the limited funds at the disposal of the trust, every slave sent over would mean a white man displaced or a soldier withdrawn from the garrison. Thus to allow slaves would be to subtract from the fighting strength of the prov- ince; and since Georgia was to be a barrier interposed between South Carolina and her enemies, not only would she fail to give this desired protection but her own security would be endangered, on account of her closer contact with these foes who would show her no quarter.
Furthermore, it was argued that the ownership of slave property would lessen a settler's inclination to perform individual labor; that it would put a badge of servitude upon honest toil; and that, should the head of a family be removed by death or incapacitated by sickness, or should he he temporarily absent from home, his undefended household would be at the negro's merey : a menace serious at least in its possibili- ties. Besides, the Spaniards, when not entieing slaves into Florida would be inciting them to insurrections. South Carolina though some distance
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removed from St. Augustine had nevertheless suffered greatly in bothı of these respects; nor would Georgia prove exempt from such annoy- ances, which in her case, from a closer proximity to the Spaniards, would be even more aggravated. Whatever justification there may have been, therefore, for permitting slaves in South Carolina where extensive rice plantations along the coast required arduous labor, under malarial con- ditions, no such pretext could be urged in the case of Georgia, where the culture of grapes and the production of silk, while calling for greater intelligence, imposed much lighter burdens upon the laborer. Indeed, this work would be of such a mild character that even the women could assist, finding such employment a pastime rather than a hardship.
It was thought wise to deny slaves even to settlers of independent fortune who might wish to settle in the province withont expense to the trust. The ownership of slaves by some would only tend to create a spirit of discontent in others to whom this privilege was denied, would give rise to invidious comparisons, would cause class distinctions to appear, and would lay an undue emphasis upon existing inequalities.
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