DIDNT CONVICTS GO TO GEORGIA? NO, They went mainly to Virgina and Maryland. The colony of Georgia was originally the brainchild of James Edward Oglethorpe, who was moved to action when he witnessed the abuses carried out on inmates by the keepers and jailers of debtor prisons. Oglethorpe came up with the idea of founding a colony in America where the poor and destitute could start anew and at the same time help England by producing wines, silks, and spices that normally were imported from foreign countries. In 1732, Oglethorpe secured a charter to found what would eventually become Georgia (named after George II, who granted the charter). One year later Oglethorpe brought his first group of settlers across the Atlantic with him and founded Savannah. Unfortunately, the people who originally came with Oglethorpe did not supply the kind of industrious work needed to start a colony, and the trustees of the colony quickly agreed in 1734 to abandon the idea of populating the colony with debtors, contending that as many of the poor who had been useless in England were inclined to be useless likewise in Georgia. The second wave of settlers to Georgia came from the Jewish community in London, including 20 families of Portuguese Jews and 12 families of German Jews. While the former group quickly became independent, the latter group continued to rely on Oglethorpes charity in America, which again greatly displeased the trustees of the colony. Georgia never ended up serving as a penal colony, nor did any of the other American colonies. Most likely, confusion over Oglethorpes original intention to set up Georgia as a debtors colony for those who were serving time in prison for their financial mismanagement eventually led to the misplaced popular belief that it was originally an American penal colony. - James Edward Oglethorpe, A New and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South-Carolina and Georgia (London: Printed forJ. Worrall, 1732; Database: ECCO); Benjamin Marlyn, An Account Shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia in America from Its First Establishment (London: 1741; Database: ECCO); George Hendricks and Louis De Vorsey, United States of America: Georgia. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. Philip W. Goetz, 15thed., vol. 29 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1991), 322; Oglethorpe, James Edward, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. Philip W. Goetz, 15th ed., vol. 8 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1991), 886. - An Account Shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, 20; George, 153-154. - The early settlement of Savannah, Georgia. (Source: Wikipedia Commons, http:/ jcommons.wikimedia.org)
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 11:45:29 +0000
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