Official Savannah Georgia Guide - Savannah: In The Beginning

History
Savannah: In The Beginning

James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of the Colony of Georgia, was born in London, England on December 22, 1696. He attended Eton College and Corpus Christi College in Oxford, joined the military, and in 1722 was elected to the English Parliament.

After a good friend, Robert Castell, died in a debtors prison, Oglethorpe headed a committee investigating prison
conditions. During the course of the investigation Oglethorpe learned that many honest and honorable men whose businesses had failed were jailed solely for their debts. This had a profound effect on him and his committee, many of whom were recruited as the first Georgia Trustees.

England’s reasons for the founding of the colony of Georgia were varied and included the following:

To provide relief to the debtors of England
To help the English poor and unemployed
To remove the poor, so England would not have to support them.
To provide relief to persecuted Protestants such as the Salzburgers.
To act as a buffer to protect South Carolina from Spaniards in Florida.
To strengthen the British Empire by the success of the colony and its population.
To have the colony supply raw products such as wine, hemp, silk, flax, etc. to manufacturers in England.
To establish another market for exported English made products.

The original Georgia Charter was issued on June 8, 1732. In it’s opening statement it names the desperately poor as proper colonists, persons, who “through misfortune and want of employment” were “reduced to great necessity, insomuch that by their labor they are not able to provide a maintenance for themselves and families”. The Charter was twenty one pages long and listed twenty one persons, including James Oglethorpe, as the original Georgia Trustees.

The Charter was to be valid for twenty one years at the end of which Georgia would become a Royal Colony. The charter also specified that:

The land granted was south to the south branch of the Altamaha River, west to the river’s sources and north
to the northern branch of the Savannah River.
No person could own more than 500 acres.
Trustees could never be salaried.
Trustees could own no land individually.
Colonists were to pay Quitrent, a fixed rent, paid to the English crown at a rate of 4 shilling per 100 acres.
Colonists kept their English citizenship including any children born in Georgia

James Edward Oglethorpe and his group of 114 settlers arrived from England on February 12, 1733. They landed in Beaufort, South Carolina, then traveled eighteen miles up the Savannah River to what is now known as the City of Savannah. In one of his first letters to the Georgia Trustees, Oglethorpe wrote that he had chosen a forty foot bluff, high above the river with sandy soil and a spring. He noted that he felt that the area was healthy as the local Indians liked it too, so he decided it would be a good site for his colony. The original city plan accompanied General Oglethorpe to Savannah. The plan provided that the town be laid out in a perfect grid pattern with individual lots given to the colonists and additional space provided for public buildings. Peter Gordon was commissioned to draw a map of the City to show the Georgia Trustees in England the progress of the new colony.