“Georgia, alone of all the continental American colonies, was sponsored  by men who promised to make no profit from the undertaking.” 

 —Daniel J. Boorstin 

James Edward Oglethorpe and His Philanthropic Utopia 

Chippewa Square in Savannah is beautifully packed with many historic buildings and sights well worth seeing. Take your time in this Square when you visit. Among the sites to take in include the imposing James Oglethorpe Monument that was dedicated here on the day before Thanksgiving in 1910.  

On a gridiron nearby Chippewa Square, and intentionally relocated to Savannah specifically to be part of the festivities celebrating the dedication of this monument, the Georgia Bulldogs played the Auburn Tigers on that Thanksgiving Day — even then a fierce Deep South football rivalry. Georgia lost 26-to-0. 

As the words from Daniel Boorstin remind us, the Colony of Georgia began as a philanthropic enterprise. 

The land between St. Augustine in Florida north to the Savannah River had already become a battleground between France, with its allies among the Native Indian tribes to the west, the Protestant English settlements to the north, and Catholic Spanish settlements in Florida to the south. 

Proposals to form a colony to be named Georgia, in honor of the British monarch, and to be settled by Protestants, were made in the 1720s by Sir Robert Montgomery and Jean-Piere Purry, a Swiss national. 

But it would be the idea of Georgia becoming a haven and fresh start in life for the ‘worthy poor’ that would carry the day. As a member of the House of Commons, James Oglethorpe became concerned about the plight of the poor sent to debtors’ prisons. He was particularly motivated in leading ‘prison reform’ efforts after the death in prison of his friend, Robert Castell, sent there for unpaid debts. 

Oglethorpe would be chosen to lead the initial colonial expedition. As Georgia Southern University professor emeritus Walter J. Fraser, Jr. would write in his excellent history Savannah in the Old South: “In sum, the trustees planned to resettle a group of unemployed or underemployed citizens from the world’s most thickly populated metropolitan area to a rugged, isolated, and desolate frontier where untrained in farming, they would become yeoman farmers. At the very least, it was a utopian scheme.” 

As important as the charitable motivation pitch was to win the colonial Georgia Charter in 1732, by recruiting settlers among those unfortunate souls, no prison debtors actually accompanied Oglethorpe on the ship Anne when it arrived in 1733 at the site that would become Savannah. In the end, perhaps not more than a dozen imprisoned debtors were actually transported to Georgia by the Trustees. 

At the founding of Georgia, Oglethorpe was in his middle 30s and known for his independence streak. 

The problems he and the settlers faced in Georgia, like so many who ventured to unknown parts of the North American continent, were those caused by ignorance. Altruism may have motivated the Trustees when implementing the Georgia Charter, but came in short supply among the actual human beings who came to do it. The system of land ownership and the prohibition of slavery soon met fierce opposition. 

The utopian dreams of the Trustees came with plans that didn’t fit Georgian realities. When met with practical considerations, the plans failed to deliver and settlers facing the actual experience of the new world in Georgia became disillusioned. By 1751, the Trustees returned the Georgia Colony to the Crown.