An Historical Timeline for Georgia, 1497 – 1803

Georgia-Name-Lists
The following article was written by my friend, William Dollarhide, and is excerpted from his new book, Georgia Name Lists, 1733 – 2010.

For genealogical research in Georgia, the following timeline of events should help any genealogist understand the area with an historical, jurisdictional, and genealogical point of view:

1497-1498. Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), sailing under the commission of Henry VII of England, landed in 1497 on the island of Terra Nova, now called Newfoundland. In 1498, Cabot’s second trip to North America may have included visits along the coast of present North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. However, the historian who made this discovery, Dr. Alwyn Ruddock, died in 2005 after instructions to destroy all of her notes relating to Cabot’s voyages. Since 2009, the Cabot Project is an international and collaborative project to investigate the Bristol discovery voyages, and to reaffirm the revelations made by Dr. Ruddock.

1526. The first European attempt to establish a settlement in what is now the continental United States, was by a party of six ships and some 600 men led by Spaniard Lucas Vazques de Ayllon. The San Miguel de Guadalpe colony, believed to have been located on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, lasted less than three months. The Spanish were later more successful with colonies in Florida, but continued to hold their claims to the coastal areas of present Georgia.

1539-1542. Spaniard Hernando DeSoto, on a quest to find gold and a route to China, landed on Florida’s West Coast in 1539, somewhere between present Cape Coral and Bradenton. He traveled on land towards Tampa Bay and then further north to present-day Tallahassee. In 1540, DeSoto led his party of some 620 men, 400 horses, numerous beef cattle, and over 200 pigs north into Georgia, where he was met unfavorably by the Creek Indians. DeSoto was the first European to travel into the interior of present Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

1629-1641. In 1629, British King Charles I granted a patent to Sir Robert Heath for lands between Latitude 31o and 36o, sea to sea, named “The Province of Carolina,” which including the entire area of present Georgia. However, Heath never established a settlement there. He may have been dissuaded by a Spanish declaration that the area in question was part of La Florida and for the British to stay away or there would be war. But a more likely reason was that the British interest in the Carolina area had faded during the era of the Civil War in England. In 1629, the preferred destination of the purged Puritans so disliked by Charles I was to Massachusetts Bay, not Albemarle Sound. Charles I made up for his Heath debacle in 1641, when he appointed William Berkeley as the Governor of Virginia. Berkeley would transform a moribund colony into a tobacco giant.

1660-1663. After the Cromwell era and the restoration of the throne in 1660, Charles II renewed Britain’s interest in establishing colonies in America, which he did over the next twenty years in Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. His first action on colonies was to transfer the original 1629 Carolina grant to eight prominent loyalists in 1663, who became the real founders of Carolina. The Carolina grant included all of present-day Georgia.

1665-1670. Beginning in 1665, the Spanish started building coastal missions north of St. Augustine well into present Georgia and South Carolina. The 1670 Treaty of Madrid between Spain and England attempted to divide up the eastern half of North America. Spain asserted that the actual possession of land should determine ownership. The boundary created by this treaty was at latitude 32o30”, where the approximate point of the present-day boundary between Georgia and South Carolina begins.

1673. The Spanish built a presidio at Santa Catalina (now St. Catherines Island, Georgia). The fort was attacked by the British in 1680, and the Spanish abandoned it in 1681, moving the garrison to Sapelo Island.

1686. Sir Francis Drake attacked and burned the Spanish presidio at St. Augustine. The Spanish rebuilt the fort and continued to assert their claims to La Florida as their land by possession, including areas well north of present Savannah, Georgia.

1721. The British built Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha River, the southernmost outpost of the British Empire in North America. The fort was built to reinforce the British claims to the region and stop the Spanish from advancing any further north.

1730. The Earl of Egmont (James Edward Oglethorpe), and 19 associates petitioned King George II for a royal charter to establish a colony southwest of the Carolinas.

1732. George II granted the Oglethorpe group a royal charter, specifying that the new colony should be named after himself, and that the land area should be “. . between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers from the Atlantic coast to the headwaters of these streams and thence to the South Seas.” Oglethorpe had argued to the King that there was a need for a British colony between Spanish Florida and South Carolina as a military buffer. Not only did the King agree, he donated a grant of ₤5,000 to the cause.

As a well known prison reformer and philanthropist, Oglethorpe also acquired financial support from some of England’s leading reformers. Oglethorpe’s original plan was to provide a place to salvage Britain’s destitute poor, particularly those in debtor’s prisons, an endeavor he and many of his associates had been involved in as members of Parliament in England. The Georgia colony was set up as a Corporate Trust, with Trustees running the business of the colony from London.

Oglethorpe was the leader of the colony, but his titles were military rather than civilian. He arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in late 1732 on the ship “Anne” with a party of about 120 passengers, and settled near the present site of Savannah, Georgia in February 1733. Although he never got many debtors-prisoners to Georgia, he did encourage many of the “worthy poor” to come. In a more practical plan, English and Scottish tradesmen, artisans, and religious refugees from Switzerland, France, and Germany were welcomed. The Royal Charter provided for acceptance of all religions except Roman Catholicism and Judaism. But when a group of refugee Jews showed up in Savannah, Oglethorpe let them stay. Oglethorpe also set a tone for the new colony’s moral and cultural beginnings. While he was the leader for ten years, there was no slavery, no legal sale of rum, and no lawyers allowed.

1736. James Oglethorpe went back to England to convince the King to send troops to ward off the Spanish incursions into Georgia. He returned to Georgia with 600 soldiers and more colonists. Now a Colonel in the British Army, he established a settlement on St. Simons Island, called Fort Frederica. Meanwhile, William Stephens of Savannah was named the Secretary of the colony by the Trustees.

1741. Convinced that the city and town court systems were not working, the Georgia Trustees established two counties, dividing the colony into Savannah County and Frederica County. But, Frederica was revoked in 1743, leaving the colony with one county.

1743-1749. James Oglethorpe returned to England for the last time in 1743 (as a General), and the Georgia ban on Slavery was not lifted until 1749. After Oglethorpe’s departure, Trustee Georgia’s government consisted of a body of associates who essentially ran the business of the colony as a committee, with William Stephens (now President) in charge in Savannah.

1752. The 1732 grant to the Oglethorpe party had a life of 21 years. A year before its expiration, the trustees of the colony of Georgia relinquished their charter to the British government and became a Royal Colony. Until a royal governor could be appointed and installed in the colony, Patrick Graham was appointed as President.

1754. John Reynolds was named the first royal governor of Georgia. A Royal Navy man, he brought joy to the colonists because they believed Georgia’s economy needed more industry, slavery, and trade, which Reynolds promised to deliver. But Reynolds quit after two years, replaced by Henry Ellis.

1755. As Trustee Georgia, the colony could only recommend laws for passage by Parliament in London. Becoming a Royal Colony meant some self government and the right to issue their own laws, but still under the control of the English monarch. In 1755, Georgia’s first General Assembly met at Savannah. The first law dealt with the punishment for anyone questioning the decisions of the Assembly.

1758. As a royal colony, Georgia was required to adopt the Church of England as the established church of Georgia. By an act of the Georgia General Assembly, this was formally done in 1758. Several districts and divisions of the province were divided into eight parishes. The parish system used in England was installed in which the Church of England worship divisions and activities were administered under a parish vestry. A vestry was empowered to assess rates (taxes) for the repair of churches, the relief of the poor, and other parochial services. The original eight parishes replaced the single county, Savannah, and were all between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers, the area of the original Royal Grant.

1760. Georgia’s third and final Royal Governor, James Wright, was appointed by the King in 1760. soon after taking office, a proclamation by Governor Wright increased the coastal land area of the colony from the Altamaha River to the St. Marys River. In 1760, King George III began a reign that would last over 60 years. He was the British monarch who lost the American colonies.

1763. When George III took the throne, the British were still at war with France. In colonial American it was called the French and Indian War, and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. To deal with the lands east of the Mississippi River acquired from France in that treaty, by declaration, George III redefined the royal charters of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, all to end at the Mississippi River. He then issued the Proclamation Line of 1763, in which Indian Reserves were established west of the Appalachian Mountains, limiting western migrations by all of the British colonies.

1763-1764 British Florida. In the 1763 treaty negotiations concluding the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War), France ceded to Britain the areas east of the Mississippi River, notably excluding New Orleans, and including all of Florida. The British immediately divided the area into East Florida, with a capital at St. Augustine and West Florida, with a capital at Pensacola, both areas with a northern border at Latitude 31O. In 1764, the British extended the boundaries of West Florida to include all lands north of Latitude 31o to the mouth of the Yazoo River on the Mississippi, approximately Latitude 32o 30’, and running on that line to the Chattahoochee River, the current boundary between Georgia and Alabama. That extended area was to become a matter of dispute when the U.S. met with Britain, France, and Spain at the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

1764. The Sugar Act was passed by the British Parliament to raise revenues from the colonies. Georgia was one of the leading sugar producers of the thirteen colonies, and was heavily impacted by the new tax. The sugar tax was one of the first serious disputes between the colonies and Great Britain.

1765. The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament, credited as the start of the American rebellion, and the cry of “no taxation without representation.”

1776. The Declaration of Independence included Georgia as one of the original thirteen colonies in rebellion.

1777. As part of the Georgia Constitution of 1777, Georgia converted all parishes into eight counties: Burke, Camden, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Richmond, and Wilkes.

1780-1783. During the Revolutionary War, the British hold on West Florida and East Florida came to an end. With the Spanish as allies of the French, the British lost West Florida to Spanish forces, who captured Mobile in 1780 and Pensacola in 1781.

Soon after the British loss of West Florida, Georgia reasserted its claim to all lands west of the Altamaha and St. Marys Rivers to the Mississippi River; from the Florida line (Latitude 31o) up to the North Carolina/Tennessee line (Latitude 35o). This was Georgia’s original Royal Charter plus the 1763 declaration in which King George III had expanded Georgia’s Royal Charter to the Mississippi River. Georgia determined that the western lands were all up for grabs after the Spanish defeat of the British, and the loss of Florida to Spain. There were some flamboyant land speculations in the western areas during the 1780s, but no new settlements by Georgia were ever established, as most of the region was still under treaty with the five civilized tribes.

Early in 1783, the British returned East Florida to Spain, causing many American loyalists from Georgia who had fled the Revolutionary War to St. Augustine to flee again, this time heading for the Bahamas or West Indies.

The treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the Revolutionary War with Britain, and the United States of America became an independent nation. Although the U.S. recognized Georgia’s claim to the area from Latitude 31o to 35o, the language of the treaty left out of the U.S. the area from 31o to 32o 30’.

The U.S. claimed the area based on Georgia’s claim (and because of Britain’s inclusion of the area in 1763). Spain claimed the area because they felt that Britain had extended their claim in West Florida illegally back in 1763. Now claimed by both the U.S. and Spain, that area was left out of the U.S. at the Treaty of 1783, requiring both the Spanish and Americans to survey the land and come up with a plan separate from the main treaty. As a result, the area remained in dispute, belonging to no one until 1796.

1788. January 2. Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution to become the 4th state.

1789-1803. Georgia’s claim to huge tracts of western land, extending across both present-day Alabama and Mississippi to the Mississippi River, was to be the scene of some extraordinary and flamboyant land trading schemes. Two notorious land scandals emerged during this period: 1) From 1789 to 1796, three Governors of Georgia made gifts of land covering more than three times as much land as Georgia contained. Mostly centered in Montgomery County, Georgia, the Pine Barrens Speculation was the basis for a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1810, the first time the Supreme Court ruled a state law unconstitutional. 2) The 1794-1803 Yazoo Land Scandal involved the Governor and other Georgia state officials accepting bribes in return for land sales to speculators in the region of present-day Mississippi’s Yazoo River area, land that was later ceded by Georgia to the U.S. Public Domain.

1795-1798. In the October 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo (also called Pinckney’s Treaty), the U.S. settled the Spanish-U.S. Disputed Area, which was ratified by Congress in August 1796. The lands above West Florida (Latitude 31o up to 32o30’) became U.S. territory. In April 1798, Congress created Mississippi Territory in the area, the first Public Domain land south of the Ohio River. The same Mississippi Territory act signed by President John Adams also authorized him to begin negotiations with Georgia over the cession of its western lands.

1798-1803. After the notorious Yazoo Land Scandal, and the Pine Barrens Speculation, and after losing its claim to the U.S./Spanish Disputed Area, Georgia was now being asked to cede its remaining western lands to the U.S. Public Domain. President Adams had received authorization from Congress to negotiate with Georgia for the western lands, and he had hoped that Georgia would cede the land without further demands. All other landed states had ceded their western lands by 1790, and without compensation. But, Georgia held out, and refused to give the land away until the U.S. Government paid them for it. An amount of 1.25 million dollars was finally negotiated in 1802. The area of land ceded by Georgia ran from its present western boundary west to the Mississippi River, and north from Latitude 32o 30” to 35o. In 1803, Georgia’s ceded area was added to Mississippi Territory. After the cession of its western lands, Georgia’s boundaries have not changed since.

Check out the Georgia Name Lists book. See:

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