USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 5
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Georgia, therefore, occupies a unique place among all the English colonies because of the philanthropie impulse which underlay her estab- lishment and for the additional reason that it was the first time in the world's history that a colony had ever been formed to relieve pauper- ism .* But philanthropy alone, in an age of commercial enterprise, did not offer an inducement sufficiently attractive within itself to enlist practical men of means. Consequently, when a charter was obtained from the king, as we shall see later, it set forth three distinet grounds for establishing a new colony in America: (1) the relief of poor sub- jeets who, through misfortune or want of employment, were reduced to great necessity; (2) the increase of England's trade, navigation and wealth; (3) the establishment of a barrier for the defense of South Caro- lina against the ravages of the Indians. Without stopping to discuss the relative strength of these arguments or to ascertain which fur- nished the predominating motive for popular assistance it is enough to say, at this point, that Georgia's settlement enlisted greater support and aroused deeper interest than did the settlement of any other colony planted by England in America.t
Oglethorpe, the revered founder of Georgia, whether we view him as a humanitarian or as a soldier, was one of the towering landmarks of his time, and, beyond any shadow of doubt, was the most illustrious Englishman to cross the sea during the whole period of American coloni- zation. The men who served Georgia as trustees were men of eminence, of piety, and of learning; not a few of them were members of the noble orders, including dukes, viseounts and earls; some were members of Parliament ; some were ministers of the gospel ; some were authors of note; but all of them were men of unblemished character, whose names throughout England were synonyms for integrity, for devotion to high ideals, for world-wide sympathy with the unfortunate, and for an abid- ing interest in the gentle humanities.
Though it was to furnish an asylum for indigent debtors that Georgia was founded. it was not the shiftless, the idle, or the dishonest insolvent who was to enjoy its privileges but debtors who, in a special sense, were deemed worthy of its peculiar privileges; who were carefully selected by the trustees; and to whom no taint of wrong-doing attached. Georgia was also to be a haven of refuge for oppressed humanity
* R. P. Brooks, in "History of Georgia, " p. 30.
t "The Executive in Proprietary Georgia," James Ross MeCain, pp. 7-15.
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in all lands: for the gentle Salzburgers, for the pious Moravians, for the thrifty Jews. In no sense of the word, therefore, was Georgia a colony of jail-birds but a colony of choice spirits gathered from every part of Europe, a colony whose population was, so to speak, sifted through a fine sieve and safeguarded in every way from the contami- nating influence of vicious elements. Indeed, there was no other colony to whose choice of members the selective process was more rigorously applied. These debtor colonists, to quote an eminent authority, were "not the depraved who were suffering confinement as a punishment for crime ; not felons who awaited the approach of darker days when graver sentences were to be endured; not the dishonest, who hoped by submis- sion to temporary imprisonment to weary ont creditors and emerge with fraudulently acquired gains still concealed; but the honestly unfortu- nate." # Better protected, therefore, from contaminating contact with vicious characters, better circumstanced than any other colony for the upbuilding of a commonwealth committed to high, unselfish and noble ends, was the colony founded by Oglethorpe.
These great ontstanding facts of Georgia's history will be more fully discussed in succeeding chapters. Here, they are detached from the strictly logical connection in which they belong and are placed conspicu- ously in the foreground of this work for the mere sake of emphasis. Fundamental to much of what will follow, we enumerate them here, so that when other facts, relatively much less important, are elsewhere stressed, these will not be dwarfed in comparison but will be kept vividly in mind by the reader.
The authentic history of Georgia begins with Oglethorpe's humane enterprise to found an asylum in the new world for oppressed debtors. But traditions point to European visitors who came at least two cen- turies earlier. Some of these only skirted the shores of Georgia, while others penetrated far into the wilderness. Before we begin to deal with established facts, let us linger for a brief season in this border land of legend and see what matters of curious interest are disclosed in its dim twilights. Granting how prone the mind is to invest distant times and remote localities with fanciful creations, there may nevertheless be a world of truth in the unwritten lore which has come down to us from prehistoric days. At least, there is much to enchain the interest, to regale the imagination and to heguile the tedium of dull hours. Back of the musty chronicles of England, lies a realm of myth, peopled by the valiant knights of King Arthur; and behind the historie records of Greece we find the heroes of Homer. Some of the legends which have drifted down to us from prehistoric times in Georgia will compare in fascinating elements of romance with any of these : so let us not shrink, therefore, from an age of fable, even though the historian's task be ours; but entering boldly into this areadian realm let us seek to aseer- tain what light it can throw upon the true history to which it forms an introduction.
When Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands in 1492 he was
"Ilistory of Georgia, " Chas. C. Jones, Jr., Vol. I, p. 85.
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almost in sight of the shores of Georgia. His voyage of discovery, as every school-boy well knows, had been taken for the purpose of finding a more direct route to India by sailing in a westerly direction around the globe; and, under the delusion that he had reached his goal, he called the natives of this new world "Indians."# But the renowned Genoese navigator did not bestow his name upon the great hemisphere which he had been the first to discover. Amerigo Vespucci (latinized into Ameri- cus Vespucius), a Florentine merchant and traveler, who followed in his wake, was destined to deprive him of this honor, if we can rely upon an accepted tradition. Vespucci, on returning home, wrote a letter in which he described in glowing colors and with much extravagance of detail this new world beyond the Atlantic; and, having put it into litera- ture, people came to know it as the land of Amerigo: hence the name America.t Ex-Governor Joseph M. Brown, an archeologist of established reputation, disputes the authenticity of this account. In the first place, he directs attention to the manifest impropriety of calling a hemisphere after a man's first name; and, in the second place, he states that the word America existed among the aboriginal tribes of this continent in more than a dozen modified forms.}
England's right to colonize the mainland of North America was based upon discoveries made by the Cabots. The first of these, John Cabot, seems to have landed at Cape Breton, on the coast of Labrador, in 1497. Cabot was a native of Venice (Giovanni Caboto), then living at Bristol, England. To find a northwest passage to Asia he was given a com- mission by Henry VII and it was on this voyage of discovery that he reached the shores of Labrador. Claiming the new found territory for the king of England, he erected thereon the royal cross of St. George. But like a true Venetian he entwined with it the emblem of his birth- place, the banner of St. Mark. On his second voyage he met with tragic disaster and what became of him is one of the unsolved problems of history. There is no evidence to show that his son, Sebastian Cabot, accompanied him on either of these expeditions, though at a later period he, too, reached the headlands of Labrador. It is not likely that he explored the mainland of North America for a distance further south than Cape Hatteras. Nor were any permanent settlements made by England in the new world until more than a century had elapsed.
The explorations made by the renowned Spaniards, Juan Ponce de Leon and Hernando de Soto, the former in 1513 and the latter in 1539, are sufficiently important to constitute a separate chapter and for the present we omit any further mention of these adventurous knights of Spain.
Seven years after Ponce de Leon had given to the whole southeastern part of North America the name of Florida, a wealthy Spaniard, Lucas
*"' History of the United States, " George Bancroft, Vol. 1, p. 1.
t In 1507 a young German professor living at St. Die, in the Vosges mountains, published a little volume on geography and with it some letters of Vespucius and suggested that inasmuch as a fourth of the earth had been discovered by Americus it be called America-"History of the American Nation," A. C. MeLaughlin, pp. 20-21.
# "Astyanax, a Romance of Ilion, Atlantis, and Amaraca," Joseph M. Brown, Int. VI-VIII.
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Vasquez de Ayllon, dispatched from the Island of San Domingo, in 1520, an expedition which landed upon the coast of what is now South Caro- lina, at a point not far from the present site of Port Royal. Given a friendly reception by the Indians, Spanish treachery took advantage of the credulous savages, a number of whom were enticed on ship- board only to find themselves prisoners. It was the purpose of these cruel captors to sell the Indians into slavery ; but when the expedition returned home De Ayllon promptly released the prisoners and admin- istered to the captain a well merited rebuke. Four years later two other vessels were dispatched to the newly discovered mainland under com- mand of Pedro de Quexos, who, regaining the confidence of the natives, explored the coast for a number of miles and probably touched the shores of Georgia. It is more than likely that, entering the Savannah, he pro- ceeded for some distance up this stream. To confirm such a belief there are any number of traditions pointing to a European explorer before the time of DeSoto. As the result of these expeditions, De Ayllon fancied himself the discoverer of a new continent, wholly distinct from Ponce de Leon's, which was still supposed to be the great island of Bimini.
In 1524, Verrazano, an Italian navigator, under a commission from Francis I, of France, seems to have reached the coast of North Carolina, near Cape Fear, but he effected no permanent settlement for his royal patron.
It was a prevalent belief among the early Spanish navigators that Florida was a great island, a supposition based not unnaturally upon the curved shape of the peninsula. Nor was this mistaken impression removed until Stephen Gomez, on an expedition sent out by the king of Spain, probably in 1524 or 1525, discovered proofs to the contrary. Touching Labrador, Gomez turned southward. He explored the whole Atlantic coast, then rounded the peninsula which he found to be not an island but a part of the same mainland which Ponce de Leon had discovered in 1513, calling it Florida, as we shall learn with further particulars in a subsequent chapter. In 1529, from reports made by Gomez, a map of Florida was constructed under orders from the king of Spain. Its author was a Spaniard named Ribero. Though a crude affair, this map is a most precious relic since it records the earliest attempt to trace on paper the indented outlines of Georgia's coast.
It is not at all unlikely that Narvaez, who, in 1527, rambled blindly some eight hundred miles through the wilderness of Florida may have penetrated into what is now the territory of Georgia ; but he left behind him no traces of such a visit. In a work of intense interest to archaeolo- gists an account of this expedition has been preserved by Cabeca de Vaca, one of his companions .*
From an old tradition preserved by the Yamacraw Indians, Sir Walter Raleigh, the renowned explorer and favorite of Queen Eliza- beth, made a visit to Georgia on one of his western voyages and talked with the Indians. There is no documentary proof to confirm this belief but taken in connection with a statement recorded elsewhere that Ogle- thorpe, in ascending the Savannah River, took with him Sir Walter Raleigh's journal, the tradition does not wholly lack corroboration. It
* "Relacion of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca."
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was Oglethorpe's impression that Raleigh had visited this region and had landed at Yamacraw. Its latitude was well within the range of his explorations; and there were landmarks tallying with descriptive ac- counts given by him in this book. Some half mile distant from Yama- craw there was an old grave-mound which the Indians pointed out to Oglethorpe telling him that the king who talked with Raleigh on this visit was there buried. But Colonel Jones, our best authority on the antiquities of Georgia, is somewhat skeptical as to the truth of this tradi- tion. Says he: "It is a pleasant memory and has been repeated for a century and a half, but its truth we seriously question." *
However, there are substantial proofs of a visit made to Georgia as early as 1562 by a colony of French Huguenots under the celebrated Jean Ribault. To find an asylum in America for these victims of re- ligious persecution, Admiral Coligny, then a leader of the Protestant forces in France, sent an expedition to the new world, putting Ribault in command. He seems to have explored the entire shore line from the mouth of the St. John's River to the present site of Port Royal, on the coast of South Carolina. At the latter place he made a settlement and built a rude earthwork which he called Fort Charles (Arx Caro- lana), in honor of his sovereign, Charles IX, of France. This fort, how- ever, was soon abandoned. On returning to France, to bring back a larger colony of Huguenots, Ribault here left twenty-six men. "But," to quote Dr. Henry A. White, "they did not plant corn. They found pleasure in walking about in the great forests of cedar, magnolia and oak. They enjoyed the fragrance of the jessamin and the rose growing upon the banks of the Broad River. They bought corn and deer meat from the Indians and spent much time in looking for silver and pearls. At last the Huguenot settlers became anxious about Ribault. Day after day they looked out over the sea for his ship but he did not return to them. When the supply of corn was nearly gone, the men in the fort determined to build a small boat and sail back to France. Grass and the inner bark of trees were twisted together to make ropes for the new vessel. Bed-clothes and old shirts were made into sails. Then they turned the prow of the boat to the east and a fair wind bore them far out on the Atlantic. Before they reached the middle of the ocean the wind ceased to fill the sails and the little vessel was left floating idly upon the sea. The supply of food and water failed. The boat began to leak, and a storm broke upon them. Some died of hunger. An English ship by chance came that way, picked up those who were still alive, and carried them to England. All these events took place in the year 1562. Later a second company of Huguenots built another Fort Charles on the St. John's River in Florida. Then, in 1565 Captain Ribault brought a third group of colonists to this fort on the St. John's. The Spaniards. however, killed all of the IIugnenot settlers and then built the Town of St. Augustine on the Florida coast, to show that they claimed this entire region." f
In 1563, Captain Ribault published an account of his explo-
* "History of Georgia," Chas. C. Jones, Jr., Vol. I, p. 35.
+ "The Making of South Carolina, " Henry A. White, pp. 2-3.
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rations in Florida .* Bishop Stevens doubtless consulted this work in writing his excellent history of Georgia, for he therein gives an account of the expedition telling how the names of French rivers were bestowed upon the streams of this state, giving them the earliest names by which they were known beyond the Atlantic. Says he: t "The expedition sailed from Havre de Grace on February 18, 1562, and in two months reached Florida, at a place which they named Cape Francois. Thence coasting north, they soon entered the mouth of the St. John's which, because discovered on the first day of May, they called the River of May. Here, on a sandy knoll, they erected a pillar of stone, on which was engraved the arms of France. Coasting still northward, they dis- covered the St. Mary's, which Ribault named the Seine, because it was 'like unto the River of Seine in France.' Leaving St. Mary's, they soon cast anchor off the mouth of the Satilla, termed by them the Somme; and manning two boats they rowed up the river to examine its banks and to hold converse with the Indian king. They next discovered the Alta- maha, which they called the Loire; further north, they came to Newport River, emptying into Sapelo Sound, which they termed Charente; next, St. Catharine's Inlet, which they called the Garonne; then Ossabaw Sound, receiving the waters of the Ogeechee River, to which they assigned the name of Gironde; and still further on they entered the broad mouth of the Savannah, styled by them the River Grande; thus bestowing upon the noble streams of Georgia the names of the beautiful rivers of France. Each of these waters was well explored and glowingly described."
But Ribault's colony of Huguenots was doomed to extinction. Two years later, Laudonnier, on visiting Fort Charles, found the settlement deserted. But testifying with a mute eloquence to the character of the early French settlers he found wreathed with garlands a stone pillar inscribed with the arms of France. At the foot of this shrine were offer- ings made by the natives, bespeaking the veneration in which they held this pathetic memorial of the Huguenots. Laudonnier did not attempt to rebuild Fort Charles, deterred no doubt by the hapless fate of his fellow countrymen. But skirting the Georgia coast he landed at the mouth of the St. John's River, then called the River May, where he erected a fort which he called Fort Caroline. In token of the jurisdic- tion of France, he there planted a stone column bearing the royal arms.
With seven vessels, in 1565, Ribault returned to America and took command of the colony at Fort Caroline. But the appearance of a Spanish squadron, dispatched with orders to kill all the Protestants in the settlement, caused him to put to sea with great loss. To explain this unexpected check to the enterprising Huguenots, Spain, having learned of these French settlements on the coast, had commissioned Menendez, with a large force, to settle Florida. He executed the commission by a relentless and thorough massacre of the inhabitants and every vestige of the French settlement was obliterated. Captain Ribault was himself among the slain. Leaving there a Spanish garrison, Menendez moved farther on down the coast, where he constructed a fort; and here, on
* "True and Last Discoverie of Florida made by John Ribault, in the year 1562."
t "History of Georgia, " Wm. Bacon Stevens, Vol. I, pp. 30-38.
3 1833 02401 8357
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September 8, 1565, were laid the foundations of the oldest city on the Continent of North America-St. Augustine.
Without making any attempt to hold the country, a party of French recaptured Fort Caroline, murdered its Spanish oeeupants and with- drew, leaving Spain in undisputed possession of Florida; and for more than a century there were no further hostilities between these two rival powers.
Five years subsequent to the hapless fate of Ribault's colony of Huguenots, Admiral Coligny himself fell in the celebrated massaere of St. Bartholomew.
Before we leave this subject, let us glance for a moment at Captain Ribault's description of the Georgia coast. It is couched in glowing terms, quaintly arehaie; and, with respect to spelling is delightfully reminiscent of Chaueer's old English. He calls the shore line between St. John's River and Port Royal "a fayre eoast, stretehing of a great length and covered with an infinite number of fayre trees." He describes the waters as "boyling and roaring through the multitude of all kinds of fish," and the inhabitants as "all naked and of a goodly stature, mightie and as well shapen and proportioned of body as any people in the world; very gentle, courteous and of a good nature." As for the country itself, he characterized it as "the fayrest, fruitfulest and pleas- antest of all the world, abounding in honey, venison, wilde foule, forests, woods of all sorts, palm trees, eypresse and cedars, bays, ye highest and greatest, with also the fayrest vines iu all the world, with grapes aeeord- ing, which, without natural art and without man's lielpe or trimming, will grow to toppes of okes and other trees that be of a wonderfull great- ness and height." At sight of Georgia's "fayre medowes" he experi- eneed a pleasure not to be expressed with the tongue. These meadows were full of "hernes, Curlues, Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Wood-cocks and all other kinds of small birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buekes, Wilde Swine, and all other kinds of wilde beasts, as we perceived well both by their footing there and also afterwards in other places by their erie and roaring in the night." *
St. Augustine became the seat of Spanish government in America. Nor was it long before mining expeditions were sent by the governors of Florida into the Cherokee country of Georgia to dig gold. The fabulous tales narrated by the returned soldiers of DeSoto's expedition concerning treasures to be found in the rich province of Coea or Coosa, consisting not only of precious metals, like gold and silver, but also of rare pearls, had so inflamed the imagination of the Spaniards that as soon as Florida was settled the initial enterprise of its governors was directed toward the Hills of Gold, in which these treasures were supposed to be embedded.
One of the earliest expeditions of which we have an aeeount-ante- dating the foundation of St. Augustine-was organized in 1559 by Luis de Velaseo who dispatched 300 Spanish soldiers under Tristam de Luna to open communication with the Province of Coosa by way of Pensaeola Bay. These soldiers equipped with mining tools, proceeded up the Chat- tahoochee River into North Georgia, where implements of Spanish manu-
*"'History of Georgia," Charles C. Jones, Jr., Vol. I, p. 35.
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facture have been found in comparatively recent times, telling of these primitive mining operations.
Juan Pardo or Paedo was next sent ont by Aviles, the first Spanish governor of Florida, to establish a fort at the foot of the mountains northwest of St. Augustine, in the province of the chief Coaba. . There is still to be found near the Town of Spring Place, in Murray County, Georgia, the ruins of an old fort supposed to have been built by DeSoto. But there is little probability that the Spanish explorer lingered long enongh in this locality to have built sneh a stronghold. Its origin, there- fore, is no doubt to be referred to the early mining activities of the Spaniards at St. Augustine; nor is it at all unlikely that its builder was Juan Pardo.
Coming down to a much later period, Johannes Lederer, a German traveler, who visited the southern colonies in 1669 and 1670 tells us that at this time the Spaniards were working gold and silver mines in the Appalachee Mountains and he adds this remark: "Had I had with me half a score of resolute youths who would have stuek to me I would have pushed on to the Spanish mines." Consequently, it is not to the expedi- tion of DeSoto that all the relies of a Spanish character found in North Georgia are to be referred. To quote Colonel Jones: # "Thus we are enabled to account with at least some degree of probability for those traces of ancient mining observed and wondered at by the early settlers of upper Georgia-operations of no mean significance, conducted by skilled hands and with metallic tools which cannot properly be referred either to the red race or to the followers of DeSoto."
But we must hasten on. England, as we have already seen, claimed the right to settle North America by virtue of discoveries made by the Cabots, especially Sebastian, who had visited this continent, extending his explorations for several hundred miles along the coast. All of the territory inelnded between the twenty-eighth and the fifty-sixth degrees of north latitude was regarded by England as her rightful possession. Consequently, in 1663, we find Charles II, of England, conveying to eight noblemen called Lords Proprietors all the land lying on the Atlan- tic coast between the twenty-ninth and the thirty-sixth degrees of north latitude, including a large part of the territory claimed by the crown. In 1629 Charles I had made a similar grant to his attorney general, Sir Robert Ileath, but the patent for some reason had lapsed. Within the domain granted to the Lords Proprietors for a colony to be called by the name of ('arolina was included the territory of the present State of Georgia. These noblemen of England who first owned the soil of our state were: Anthony Ashley, Lord Cooper; Sir John Colleton, the Earl of Clarendon, Sir William Berkeley, John, Lord Berkeley, the Duke of Albermarle, the Earl of Craven, and Sir George Carteret.
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