West of the fall line of the many rivers that irrigated tidewater Chesapeake and Carolina lay the back country. This region included the Great Valley of Virginia, the Piedmont, and what became the final English colony, Georgia, founded by a group of London philanthropists in 1733. These men were concerned over the plight of honest persons imprisoned for debt, whom they intended to settle in the New World. (Many Europeans were still beguiled by the prospect of regenerating their society in the colonies. All told, about 50,000 British convicts were “transported” to America in the colonial period, partly to get rid of “undesirables,” but partly for humane reasons.) The government, eager to create a buffer between South Carolina and the hostile Spanish in Florida, readily granted a charter (1732) to the group, whose members agreed to manage the colony without profit to themselves for a period of twenty-one years.
In 1733 their leader, James Oglethorpe, founded Savannah. Oglethorpe was a complicated person— vain, high-handed, and straitlaced, yet idealistic. He hoped to people the colony with sober and industrious yeoman farmers. Land grants were limited to fifty acres and made nontransferable. To ensure sobriety, rum and other “Spirits and Strong Waters” were banned. To guarantee that the colonists would have to work hard, the entry of “any Black. . . Negroe” was prohibited. Trade with Indians was to be strictly regulated in the interest of fair dealing.
Oglethorpe intended that silk, wine, and olive oil would be the main products—none of which, unfortunately, could be profitably produced in Georgia. His noble intentions came to naught. The settlers swiftly found ways to circumvent all restrictions: Rum flowed, slaves were imported, large land holdings amassed. Georgia developed an economy much like South Carolina’s. In 1752 the founders, disillusioned, abandoned their responsibilities. Georgia then became a royal colony.
Now settlers penetrated the rest of the southern back country. So long as cheap land remained available closer to the coast and Indians along the frontier remained a threat, only the most daring and footloose hunters or fur traders lived far inland. But once settlement began, it came with a rush. Chief among those making the trek were Scots-Irish and German immigrants. By 1770 the back country contained about 250,000 settlers, 10 percent of the population of the colonies.
This internal migration did not proceed altogether peacefully. In 1771 frontiersmen in North Carolina calling themselves “Regulators” fought a pitched battle with 1,200 troops dispatched by the
Carolina assembly, which was dominated by low-country interests. The Regulators were protesting their lack of representation in the assembly. They were crushed and their leaders executed. This was neither the last nor the bloodiest sectional conflict in American history.
World History
