(_Georgia, 1732_)
I
There was a man in England in the first half of the eighteenth century
who became so impressed by the misfortunes of men thrown into prison for
debt that he resolved to do what he could to help them. The man was
James Oglethorpe, and the result of his resolve was the founding of the
colony of Georgia, which in time became one of the original thirteen
colonies of the United States.
To owe money was regarded as a most serious crime in England in those
days, at least four thousand men were sent to prison every year for
inability to pay their debts, and many of these debtors spent their
lives in jail, since it was next to impossible for them to secure any
money while they were imprisoned. The prisons, moreover, were vile dens
of pestilence, where smallpox often raged, jailers treated their
prisoners barbarously, and the man who had stolen a few shillings was
kept in the same pen with the worst of pirates and murderers. A man
named Castell, an architect and writer, was arrested for debt, and
thrown into a prison where smallpox was rife. In spite of his protests
he was kept there, and caught the disease and died. James Oglethorpe
knew Castell, and the story of the architect's imprisonment roused
Oglethorpe to action in aid of others who might be similarly treated.
Oglethorpe was a man of influence in England. He had studied at Oxford,
served in the army, and was a member of Parliament. He had a committee
appointed to investigate the prisons, and, acting as its chairman, he
unearthed so many cases of barbarities and showed that so many of the
jailers were inhuman wretches that Parliament interfered and righted at
least a few of the most crying wrongs. But his plans went farther than
that; he wanted to give men who had the misfortune to be in debt a
chance to start new lives, not simply to stay in jail with no chance to
better their condition, and to this end he looked across the ocean to
the great, unsettled continent of America, and planned his new home for
debtors there.
Oglethorpe succeeded in interesting some of the most prominent men of
England in his plan, and on June 9, 1732, King George II granted them a
charter for a province to be called Georgia, which was to consist of the
country between the Savannah and the Altamaha Rivers and to extend from
the headsprings of these rivers due west to the Pacific Ocean. The seal
of the patrons of the new province bore on one side a group of silkworms
at work, with the motto, "_Non sibi, sed aliis_,"--"Not for themselves,
but for others,"--showing the purpose of the patrons, who had agreed not
to accept any grant of lands or profit from them for themselves. On the
other side of the seal were two figures representing the boundary
rivers, and between them a figure of Georgia, a liberty cap on her head,
a spear in one hand, a horn of plenty in the other. Some of the patrons
were content with the lofty ideals expressed in the seal and the
charter, but James Oglethorpe meant to see the noble project carried
out.
With a commission to act as Colonial Governor of Georgia, Oglethorpe
sailed with about one hundred and twenty emigrants for America in
November, 1732. In fifty-seven days he reached the bar outside
Charleston. There the colonists of South Carolina welcomed the new
arrivals warmly, for they were glad to have a province to their south to
shield them from their Spanish enemies. The governor ordered his pilot
to conduct the ship to Port Royal, some eighty miles to the south, from
whence the emigrants were to go in small boats to the Savannah River.
Oglethorpe meanwhile went to the town of Beaufort and then sailed up the
Savannah to choose a promising site for his new town. The high cliff
known as Yamacraw Bluff caught his eye, and he chose for his site that
high land on which the city of Savannah stands.
Half a mile away dwelt the Indian tribe of the Yamacraws, and their
chief, Tomochichi, sought the white leader and made gifts to him. One
gift was a buffalo skin, painted on the inside with the head and
feathers of an eagle. "Here is a little present," said the chief,
offering the skin. "The feathers of the eagle are soft, and signify
love; the buffalo skin is warm, and is the emblem of protection.
Therefore love and protect our little families." We may be sure that
Oglethorpe promised to live in friendship with them.
On February 12th the colonists reached their new home, and camped on the
edge of the river, glad to escape from their long stay on shipboard.
Four tents were set up, and men cut trees to provide bowers for their
immediate needs. Four pines sheltered the tent of Oglethorpe, and here
he lived for a year, while men laid out streets and built houses and his
city of Savannah began to take shape.
Much good counsel the leader gave his people in those first days,
warning them often against the drinking of rum, which would not only
harm themselves, but would corrupt their Indian neighbors. "It is my
hope," said he, "that, through your good example, the settlement of
Georgia may prove a blessing and not a curse to the native inhabitants."
It was a lovely country, and the emigrants, harassed by debts and
misfortunes in Europe, were delighted with the groves of live-oak, bay,
cypress, sweet-gum, and myrtle, and the many flowers that grew profusely
in the wilderness. While they worked gladly in their new fields
Oglethorpe, knowing their security depended in part on their neighbors,
did his best to make friends of the red men. He invited the chiefs of
the Muskohgees to make an alliance with him, and they came down the
river and through the woods to his tent. Long King, chief of the Oconas,
spoke for the others. "The Great Spirit, who dwells everywhere around,
and gives breath to all men," said he, "sends the English to instruct
us." He bade the strangers welcome to the land that his tribe did not
use, and as token of friendship, laid eight bundles of buckskins at
Oglethorpe's feet. "Tomochichi," he said, "though banished from his
nation, has yet been a great warrior; and, for his wisdom and courage,
the exiles chose him their king." Then Tomochichi expressed his
friendship for the white men. The chief of Coweta rose and said, "We are
come twenty-five days' journey to see you. I was never willing to go
down to Charleston, lest I should die on the way; but when I heard you
were come, and that you are good men, I came down, that I might hear
good things." A treaty of peace was then signed, by which the English
claimed title over the land of the Creeks as far as the St. Johns River,
and the chiefs departed with many presents.
Later a Cherokee came to the settlement. "Fear nothing," said
Oglethorpe, "but speak freely." The red man from the mountains answered
proudly, "I always speak freely. Why should I fear? I am now among
friends; I never feared even among my enemies." Friends were then made
of the Cherokees.
In July Red Shoes, a Choctaw chief, arrived to make a treaty. "We came a
great way," said he, "and we are a great nation. The French are building
forts about us, against our liking. We have long traded with them, but
they are poor in goods; we desire that a trade may be opened between us
and you."
Other people than the poor debtors of England soon came to the province.
The Archbishop of Salzburg by his cruel persecutions drove scores of
Lutherans from his country, and many of these prepared to cross the
ocean to the new settlement on the Savannah River. They traveled from
their Salzburg home through part of Germany, past cities that were
closed against them, through country districts where they were made
welcome. From Rotterdam they sailed to Dover, and from there set forth
in January, 1734, for their new home in the land across the Atlantic.
The sea was a strange experience to the Lutheran families of Salzburg;
when it was calm they delighted in its beauty, when it was swept by
storms they prayed and sang the songs of their faith. They reached the
port of Charleston on March 18, 1734, and Oglethorpe welcomed them
there, not forgetting to have supplies of fresh provisions and
vegetables from his Georgia gardens for the people who had been so long
without them.
A few days later the colonists from Salzburg sailed up the Savannah
River and were met by the earlier colonists. A feast of welcome had been
prepared. Then Governor Oglethorpe gave the strangers permission to
select their home in any part of the province. The country was most of
it still an untraversed wilderness, and so Oglethorpe supplied horses
and traveled with his new colonists. With the aid of Indian guides they
made their way through morasses, they camped at night around fires in
the primeval forest. At last they reached a green valley, watered by
several brooks, and this they chose for their settlement and named it
Ebenezer in thankfulness to their God for having brought them safely
through great dangers into a land of rest. Oglethorpe had his own
carpenters help them build their houses and aided them in planning their
new town.
That the land about Ebenezer was very fruitful is shown by a letter
written by the pastor of the Lutheran colonists. Said he, "Some time ago
I wrote to an honored friend in Europe that the land in this country, if
well managed and labored, brings forth by the blessing of God not only
one hundredfold, but one thousandfold, and I this day was confirmed
therein. A woman having two years ago picked out of Indian corn no more
than three grains of rye, and planting them at Ebenezer, one of the
grains produced an hundred and seventy stalks and ears, and the three
grains yielded to her a bag of corn as large as a coat pocket--the
grains whereof were good and full grown, and she desired me to send part
of them to a kind benefactor in Europe."
His colony now well started, Oglethorpe sailed back to England in April,
1734, taking with him the Indian Tomochichi and several other chiefs, in
order that they might see the country from which so many of their new
neighbors were coming, and also that his English friends might learn how
friendly the Indians were to the settlers. He was received in London
with expressions of the highest praise. His experiment in founding a
colony for poor debtors and for those persecuted for their religion was
declared to be a wonderful success. Missionaries volunteered to go to
Georgia to work among the Indians. One of the rules of the province
forbade the importing of slaves into its borders, and this was regarded
in England with the greatest favor. Yet a little later people in
Savannah were petitioning the trustees of the province to allow them to
have slaves, and many an influential man in England argued in favor of
the slave-trade.
To such an attractive colony many new colonists went. A company of one
hundred and thirty Scotchmen with their families sailed for Savannah,
and settled on the shore of the Altamaha, founding the town of New
Inverness, a name afterward changed to Darien. A small band of Moravians
was led across the Atlantic by their pastor to the new province, and
this youngest of the English colonies quickly gave promise of becoming
one of the most prosperous.
Oglethorpe wanted still more colonists, and at length succeeded in
embarking three hundred persons on three ships in December, 1735. On
February 4th the cry of land was heard from the lookout, and two days
later the fleet anchored near Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah
River. Landing, Oglethorpe gave thanks for their safe arrival, and
showing them how to dig a well and make other arrangements for their
comfort he went on by small-boat to Savannah, where the colonists
saluted him with twenty-one guns from the fort.
Three years before the land beside the river had been a wilderness.
Oglethorpe now found a town of two hundred dwellings, with beautiful
public gardens, and every sign of prosperous industry. The gardens
especially pleased the governor; on the colder side were planted apples,
pears, and plums, while to the south were olives, figs, pomegranates,
and many kinds of vines. There were also coffee and cotton, and a large
space planted with white mulberry trees, making a nursery from which the
people were to be supplied in their culture of silkworms.
The governor went back to see the new colonists at Tybee, and when he
found that some disgruntled traders had been making trouble by spreading
reports that all settlers who went south would be massacred by Spaniards
and Indians, he assured them that such stories were altogether false.
The Spaniards were at peace with them, and they had treaties of
alliance with the Indians. He wanted, however, to make the outlying
settlements as secure as he could, and so sent fifty rangers and one
hundred workmen under Captain McPherson to help the Scotch at Darien,
had men inspect the country with a view to opening a highroad, and
supplied them with Indian guides and plenty of packhorses for their
provisions.
While Oglethorpe was at Tybee the Indian chief Tomochichi, with his wife
and nephew, came to visit the ships there. The chief brought presents of
venison, honey, and milk. When he was introduced to the missionaries who
had come with the latest colonists, Tomochichi said, "I am glad you are
come. When I was in England I desired that some one would speak the
great Word to me. I will go up and speak to the wise men of our nation,
and I hope they will hear. But we would not be made Christians as these
Spaniards make Christians; we would be taught before we are baptized."
The chief's wife then gave the missionaries two large jars, one of honey
and one of milk, and invited them to go to Yamacraw to teach the
children, saying the milk represented food for the children and the
honey their good wishes.
He now wanted to transport the new settlers to their homes as soon as
possible; but the mates of the English ships were afraid to risk
navigating Jekyll Sound. So Oglethorpe bought one of the sloops, put
thirty old colonists, well armed, on board, and told them to sail to St.
Simons. He himself, with a white crew and a few Indians, set out for the
same place in a scout boat and traveled night and day. The Indians
showed the white men their way of rowing, a short stroke and a long
stroke alternately, what they called the "Yamasee stroke." Taking turns
at the oars the party reached St. Simons after two days' journey. They
found the sloop already there, and the governor gave a large reward to
the captain for being the first to enter that port.
All hands now set to work to build a booth for the stores. They threw up
earth for a bank, and raised poles on it to support a roof. The booth
was thickly covered with palmetto leaves. Cabins were then built for the
families, and a fort, with ditches and ramparts, was begun.
Next Oglethorpe went to Darien, dressing in Highland costume out of
compliment to the Scotchmen there. The Highlanders, clad in kilts, with
broadswords, targets, and firearms, gave him a royal welcome. Their
captain invited the governor to sleep in his tent on a soft bed with
sheets and curtains, a great luxury in the wilderness, but Oglethorpe
preferred to sleep in his plaid at the guard fire, sharing everything,
according to his custom, with his men.
He found that the Scotch at Darien had already built a fort, defended by
four cannon, a chapel, a guard-house, and a store. They were on the
friendliest terms with their Indian neighbors, and hunted buffalo
through the Georgia woods with them like members of their own tribe.
In the Georgia woods there was plenty of game, rabbits, squirrels,
partridges, wild turkeys, pheasants and roebuck. There were also
rattlesnakes and alligators, and the alligators so frightened the
settlers at first that Oglethorpe had one of them caught and brought to
Savannah, so the people might grow familiar with it and lose their fear
of it.
He wanted now to mark out his boundaries with the Indians, and also to
learn what had become of Mr. Dempsey, a commissioner he had sent to
confer with the Spanish governor of Florida, who had not been heard
from. In two scout boats, with forty Indians, he rowed across Jekyll
Sound, sleeping one night in a grove of pines, and the second day
reached an island formerly called Wisso or Sassafras, but which
Tomochichi had now christened Cumberland in honor of the young English
prince he had met in London. Here Oglethorpe marked out a fort to be
called St. Andrews, and left a few white men to carry out its building.
The governor rowed on through the marshes, and came to an island covered
with orange-trees in blossom. The Spaniards had called this Santa Maria,
but Oglethorpe changed its name to Amelia, in honor of an English
princess. They also changed the name of the next island they reached
from the Spanish San Juan to Georgia. Here was an old fort supposed to
have been built by Sir Francis Drake, and Oglethorpe sent one of his
captains to repair it.
They climbed some heights and Tomochichi pointed out the St. Johns
River, the boundary line of Spanish territory. A Spanish guard-house
stood on the other side. "All on this side the river we hunt," said
Tomochichi. "It is our ground. All on the other side they hunt, but they
have lately hurt some of our people, and we shall drive them away. We
will stay until night behind these rocks, where they cannot see us; then
we will fall upon them."
Oglethorpe tried to persuade them not to attack the Spaniards, and got
them to stay near Amelia Island while he went in one of the scout boats
to the guard-house to find out what had happened to Mr. Dempsey, the
agent he had sent to St. Augustine. He found no one in the guard-house
and so returned to the camp, where all his party were except Tomochichi,
who had gone scouting.
That night the governor's sentry challenged a boat. Four Indians jumped
out, all of them in a rage. They said to Oglethorpe, "Tomochichi has
seen enemies, and has sent us to tell you and to help you."
"Why didn't Tomochichi come back?" asked the governor.
"Tomochichi is an old warrior," the Indians answered, "and will not come
away from his enemies till he has seen them so near as to count them.
He saw their fires, and before daylight will be revenged for the men
whom they killed while he was away; but we shall have no honor, for we
shall not be there."
Oglethorpe asked if there were many of them, and the messengers
answered, "Yes, a great many, for they had a large fire on high ground,
and Indians never make large fires except when so strong as to defy all
resistance."
This didn't suit Oglethorpe at all, and he immediately ordered all his
men into their boats, and rowed to the Indian chief's hiding-place, some
four miles away. He found the chief and his men and urged them not to
attack the Spaniards that night. Tomochichi was for going on, however.
"Then," said the governor, "you go to kill your enemies in the night
because you are afraid of them by the day. Now I do not fear them at any
time. Therefore wait until day, and I will go with you and see who they
are."
Tomochichi reluctantly agreed to wait. "We do not fear them by day,"
said he, "but if we do not kill them to-night they will kill you
to-morrow."
At daylight the whole party started toward the foe. Soon they saw a
white flag flying on the shore and white men near it. But, to
Oglethorpe's delight, the men turned out not to be Spaniards, but one of
his own officers, Major Richards, with Mr. Dempsey and his mates, back
from Florida.
The agent reported that his party had had many adventures, but had
finally reached St. Augustine, where Don Francisco, the governor, had
welcomed them and given them letters for Oglethorpe, asking for an
answer in three weeks.
The expedition returned to Frederica, where the governor read his men
the contents of the Spaniard's letters. These were full of flattering
phrases, but there was also complaint that the Creeks had attacked
Spaniards, and requests that Oglethorpe should restrain his Indian
allies. The governor suspected that these requests were only a blind to
hide a future attack by the Spaniards on the English colonists, but he
was very anxious to avoid such trouble if it was possible, so he sent a
boat of twenty oars, fitted out with swivel-guns, to patrol the St.
Johns River and keep any Creek Indians from crossing to attack the
Spaniards. He also stationed scout boats at other places, and asked
Tomochichi to send word to the Creeks that their ally, the governor of
Georgia, requested them not to make raids into Florida, but to keep
guard on the mainland in the neighborhood of the settlement at Darien.
Soon after Oglethorpe returned to Savannah he saw that trouble was
brewing with the Spaniards. He heard that a large troop of soldiers had
lately marched from St. Augustine. He knew that there was a garrison of
three hundred foot-soldiers and fifty horse at St. Augustine, with
reinforcements coming from Havana, and that he had not a single regular
soldier with which to oppose them. Then word came that a fleet of
strange ships had been seen at sea. He ordered his colonists to
strengthen their fort at once, and set out in a boat for St. Andrews to
learn exactly how matters stood.
From Fort St. George he crossed to the Spanish side of the St. Johns
River, and climbing a hill, fastened a white flag to a pole, hoping the
Spaniards would come to a conference with him. None came, however, but
fires were seen on the Florida side that night, and the governor thought
the Spaniards were planning an attack. He ordered two gun-carriages and
two swivel-guns taken into the woods and placed at different points. The
larger guns were to fire seven shots, and the smaller to answer with
five. The latter would sound like a distant ship firing a salute, and
the larger guns would resemble the noise of a battery returning the
salute. In this way Oglethorpe hoped to make the Spaniards think that
reinforcements were coming to the aid of the Georgians.
By this trick Oglethorpe escaped great danger. As a matter of fact the
Spanish governor had arrested Oglethorpe's messengers, and had sent a
strong force to attack the fort on St. Simons Island. The battery there,
however, drove the Spaniards out to sea again, and when they tried to
approach by another inlet they were driven off the second time by the
garrison at St. Andrews. They then decided to attack St. George, but as
they were planning this they heard the booming of the distant cannon,
thought reinforcements must be arriving, as Oglethorpe had figured on
their thinking, and decided not to make the attack at all then.
At the same time Oglethorpe lighted fires in the woods, thereby making
his enemy believe that Creek Indians were coming to join the English.
The Spanish commander, Don Pedro, gave the order to return to the walls
of St. Augustine, and there, by his reports of the numbers of
Oglethorpe's troops, induced the Spanish governor to send back
Oglethorpe's two agents, and with them one of his own officers to urge
the Englishman to keep his Indian allies from invading Florida.
Oglethorpe, however, did not know that Don Pedro had returned to St.
Augustine, and so, with twenty-four men, crossed the St. Johns River to
the Spanish side, hoping to get word of his agents. He saw a Spanish
boat with seventy men on board. The boat headed away at sight of the
English colonists. Then two Spanish horsemen appeared and forbade the
English landing on the soil of the king of Spain. Oglethorpe said that
he would do as they wished, but he invited them to land on English
ground if they desired and offered them wine should they come.
The governor now learned that men in Charleston were selling arms and
ammunition to the Spaniards, regardless of the fact that the latter
meant to use them against the former's own English neighbors. He wrote
to men in South Carolina urging them not to allow this, but in spite of
his protests the men of Florida continued for some time to draw a large
part of their supplies from the colony to the north of Georgia.
Then he returned to Fort St. George, taking with him Tomochichi and his
men in their canoes, a large barge, and two ten-oared boats with fifty
soldiers, cannon, and stores for two months. On the way he heard that
his agents were coming back accompanied by two Spanish officers. He did
not want the Spaniards to learn the strength of his garrison, so he gave
orders that they should be entertained on board his ship the _Hawk_, on
the excuse that the country was full of Indians who might otherwise
attack the Spaniards.
Tents were set up on Jekyll Island, the Scotchmen dressed in their
plaids, the whole garrison assumed its most martial air, and Oglethorpe,
attended by seven officers, embarked for the _Hawk_, his purpose being
to impress the Spaniards with the size of his forces. The Spaniards were
impressed; they promised on their part to right the wrongs that
Oglethorpe's Indian allies complained of, and gained a promise from him
in return that he would do his best to keep the Creeks and other tribes
from molesting the Spanish settlers. Later, on his return to Savannah,
the governor made a treaty with the Spanish governor. More and more
bickering arose, however, between the settlers of the two nations, and
so Oglethorpe sailed for England in November, 1736, hoping to win aid
for his colony from the British government.