Foreword to the Reissue

Eighteenth-century documents shock the modern reader. The embedded assumptions about anyone not rich, not white, and not male in James Oglethorpe’s pamphlet capture the essence of a patriarchal white supremacy that is no longer acceptable to voice. When we consider that Oglethorpe was one of the more enlightened of his time, a man dedicated to philanthropy, to easing the plight of England’s poor, to prohibiting slavery, and to treating Native Americans with respect and justice, his words disturb us even more. We must bear in mind his intended audience as we read. Oglethorpe wrote this appeal in 1732, hoping to persuade the wealthy English to donate money to make his Georgia project, a new colony for the poor of England, a reality. Oglethorpe understands his class, and this pamphlet reveals its members, at least as much as it tells us about the as yet imaginary colony of Georgia.

He appeals to their sense of superiority at first, flattering them with allusions to Homer and Hannibal, reminders of the classical education only they would have received in an era before free public schools. Also citing Sir Walter Raleigh, Oglethorpe encourages his readers to be part of this global expansion. He allows them to believe they are creating a new Roman Empire, an England bolstered by conquests and colonies abroad. Benefactors may see themselves as Julius Caesar. In the era of “Rule Britannia!” the island nation was poised to launch its empire on a broader scale, taking on France and Spain in North America and expanding into Asia. If the Spanish ruled the sixteenth and the Dutch the seventeenth century, now came Britannia’s moment to rule the waves. With the Georgia project, they chose to invade territory claimed by the Spanish. New settlers would have to build fortifications immediately and be willing to defend the colony against any “Enemy” (36). But Oglethorpe shows no real concern, as a man with global military experience. Those involved with his enterprise can expect to inherit the power and fame of ancient Greece. The pamphlet also reminds us that English patriotism remained tied to religion, two hundred years after Luther. He assures them that Protestant England will triumph over Catholic Spain and France. While competition between branches of Christianity might seem absurd in the modern world, we might observe that national identity has not entirely broken free of a religious element.

He appeals to their snobbery, too, through descriptions of those who will receive their largesse—the unfortunate poor and the idle poor. The first category, people who through chance ended up in debtors’ prison, need just a little hand up to avoid resorting to crime. As for the second sort, Oglethorpe remarks “the disposing of whom may be considered not only as a Charity to them, but a benefit to ourselves” (13). What a relief for the rich to be rid of them, what a terrific investment in their own comfort—thus tempting the less philanthropic to contribute too.

These potential benefactors are asked for a onetime contribution. They will love “the unutterable pleasure and satisfaction which every good and generous Mind receives in its being conscious of having performed a great, a virtuous, or a charitable action” (42)—without any longtime commitment. Oglethorpe lays out a scheme whereby the colony can sustain itself, through “a perpetual Fund” (25). Income generated by the public lands, on which every man will work in lieu of rent or mortgage, will be paid forward to cover the costs of the next set of poor European immigrants. Laying out the math in a ledger format with investment and returns to show how the poor will be transformed into consumers of the readers’ manufacturing interests, Oglethorpe’s Some Account explains to the English industrialist that he need not fear his cheap labor moving across the Atlantic. It shows us capitalism taking shape, and economic historians will find these insights invaluable.

The primitive accumulation stage, completed in England, will begin afresh in America. Here, however, peasants will not be stripped of their land by enclosure and then led to the factory floor; rather, land will be violently expropriated from Native peoples already devastated by disease. Naturally, Oglethorpe does not spell this out. Instead, he depicts limitless empty American land. He does refer to the recent Yamassee war in South Carolina and how the Carolinian settlers suffered for corrupt traders’ dealings with Indians. Yet the powerful Creek nation is mostly erased from his narrative. He does not enumerate the high cost of purchasing their goodwill.

Apart from revelations of the English elite, can we learn anything about Georgia from the pamphlet? It is fascinating to see what Oglethorpe predicted correctly and where he went horribly wrong. We know this was a booster pamphlet; even had he known about the level of sickness and death the earliest Georgia settlers would face, he would not have shared such information. Instead he waxes lyrically about how “the Swamps being drained would become Meadow” (20), as if swamp draining was not the fast track to death via malaria and yellow fever. The lengthy quotation from South Carolina’s ex-governor John Archdale, beckoning settlers with a depiction of a bounteous Eden, represents a sales pitch. But other elements can be taken as errors, rather than deliberate deceptions. The long discussion designed to persuade investors how well flax, hemp, and above all silk will grow in the Georgia climate, thwarting the monopoly held by Catholic Europeans, revealed sincere intentions. Major effort would later be devoted to expert sericulturalists (silk farmers) and the import and planting of mulberry trees in Savannah, before their eventual abandonment, resources entirely wasted.

Mary Musgrove’s power as the representative of the Creeks is certainly not foretold. Musgrove, the daughter of a Creek mother and an English trader, moved easily between both cultures. As the foremost intermediary for the Creeks and as a successful entrepreneur, she would challenge both the gender and racial assumptions of the English. Women are essentially baby-making bodies in Some Account for the most part, although Oglethorpe does grasp the importance of social reproduction—how women will keep men from abandoning the colony, will prepare food, and will nurse the ill.

The promise that South Carolina would be friendly and helpful also proved false but perhaps was not a foolish thought; Oglethorpe’s argument that Charleston planters would welcome Georgia settlements as a buffer between South Carolina and Florida initially held true. The colonists in Georgia would keep the vengeful Yamassee, now settled in Florida, from wreaking havoc with raids on frontier Carolinians and perhaps would discourage enslaved people from making their way south to the freedom the Spanish king had recently offered them in Florida. But Oglethorpe lacked any deep understanding of those Charleston planters and their ruthless expansionistic culture. They hungered for Georgia marshlands, so perfect for rice. And they had zero interest in putting the poor of England to work, for they would have to pay them wages. When Oglethorpe stood firm on the prohibition of slavery, South Carolinians relentlessly undermined him. Neither would the enslaved be discouraged from seeking freedom. The 1739 Stono rebels planned to join earlier escapees at Fort Mosa on Florida’s northern border and laugh with them at the ex-enslavers who pled with the Spanish to give them back.

One phrase might make anyone who has studied the Trustee era laugh out loud. “The Leader of the Colony should study to make the Days of labour on the publick Land rather Days of mirth than of toil” (39). The Georgia Trustees never saw any return from the public lands. Sometimes it was because of the trouble with silk, sometimes because of the ever-present illness, and sometimes because Georgia’s sweltering summer heat overwhelmed Englishmen at first. But it was also because the settlers refused to work for free. Oglethorpe shared with his peers a delusion of innate social deference. He even pondered how to create social inequality where none had existed, with his ideas about the development of yeoman and gentry ranks. In the eyes of his readership, there could be no social order without hierarchy of lineage. Wrapped in a blend of capitalism and feudalist noblesse came an instruction to the settlers “to be obedient” (28). But into Savannah stepped John Wesley and George Whitefield in their first foray to the American colonies, carrying a theology of God’s special love for the humble. With Methodist theology undergirding their realization that they had been freed from the rigid class structure of Europe, the poor settlers attempted to shape a particular brand of capitalism, one that embraced democracy, not obedience. In Georgia, the laborers thwarted the English manufacturers and gentry. They accepted the premise of the market; the supply of laborers was limited and should therefore come with a high price. Neither Trustees in England nor planters in South Carolina could stomach such a concept; enslaving the labor force instead pushed such problems aside until the Revolution.

The explicit sexism, the erasure of Creek power and ownership, and the naked racism as Oglethorpe dismisses African people as “dull and careless and not capable” (15) are abhorrent to the modern mind. But in our day of euphemism and spin, his words serve as a reminder of the true foundation of Georgia. For Oglethorpe should certainly be thought of as a founder. He and the elite of England might lose the colonies a few decades later, but they left their mark. This document offers a snapshot of English beliefs and attitudes at the onset of colonialism and capitalism. Historians of many eighteenth-century topics will find in it priceless clues into the mindset of the powerful.

NOELEEN MCILVENNA