Introduction to History of Georgia
Prehistoric Indians came to what is now Georgia some 12,000 years ago, probably following herds of large game. When these herds were depleted around 5000 B.C., the Indians turned to fishing and hunting small game. Agriculture was begun around 1000 B.C. About 900 A.D., Indians who were mound builders entered Georgia. The Creeks and the Cherokees were the major tribes in Georgia when Europeans began to explore the area.
Important dates in Georgia1540 The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto passed through what is now Georgia.1566 Spanish priests founded the first missions on the Georgia coast.1732 King George II of England granted a 21-year charter to establish the Georgia colony.1733 James Oglethorpe brought the first English settlers to Georgia.1742 The Georgia colonists defeated a Spanish landing force on St. Simons Island.1754 Georgia became a British royal province.1777 Georgia adopted its first Constitution.1778 British troops captured Savannah during the Revolutionary War.1788 Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 2 and became the fourth state.1793 Eli Whitney invented his cotton gin near Savannah.1838 The last Indians in Georgia, the Cherokee, were forced to leave the state.1861 Georgia seceded from the Union.1863 Confederate troops defeated Union forces in the Battle of Chickamauga.1864 After burning Atlanta, General William T. Sherman led Union troops on a destructive march through Georgia.1870 Georgia was permanently readmitted as a state in the Union.1920's and 1930's Georgia suffered an economic depression.1943 Georgia became the first state to allow 18-year-olds to vote.1962 Georgia abolished its county-unit voting system.1977-1981 Former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter served as the 39th president of the United States.1994 Floods caused 31 deaths and much property damage in central and southern Georgia.2002 Voters elected Sonny Perdue as governor. He became the state's first Republican governor since 1872.Colonial Period
The territory included in Georgia was first claimed by the Spanish. Juan Ponce de León may have reached the coast as early as 1513. Hernando de Soto explored the interior during his 1540 expedition. In 1566, Spanish soldiers from Florida, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, established a fort on St. Catherines Island. Later, Franciscan priests were sent from Spain to found missions along the coast; the first was built on Cumberland Island in 1566. In 1663, England also laid claim to the territory. The Spanish abandoned the region in the late 17th century because of raids by Indians, French and English pirates, and English settlers from the Carolinas.
The first English settlement in the territory, Fort King George, was built at the mouth of the Altamaha River in 1721. In 1732, King George II signed a charter giving James Edward Oglethorpe, an English philanthropist, and his business associates control over the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. The following year, Oglethorpe brought more than 100 settlers from Britain to establish a colony at Yamacraw Bluff (the site of what is now Savannah). Oglethorpe's motive was to establish a haven for the poor and persecuted, while his backers were interested in Georgia's economic potential. The British government supported colonization in order to discourage the Spanish from reentering the area. In 1735 Augusta was founded.
During the War of Jenkins' Ear, which began in 1739, the Georgia-Florida border was the scene of clashes between the British and Spanish. Oglethorpe, who had been named commander-in-chief of British forces in South Carolina and Georgia, led the fight against the Spanish. In 1742, the Spaniards were defeated at the battle of Bloody Marsh. Soon after, Oglethorpe returned permanently to England, and the colony made a transition from the military government that originally had been established to a civil government.
The colonists who settled in Georgia were predominantly poor people from Great Britain and Protestants from the Continent who had fled religious persecution. At first slavery was prohibited, but the restriction was lifted in 1749 to increase the number of agricultural laborers. The trustees who financed the settlement expected to make money from the production of silk, wine, and spices to be sold in England. Georgia did not prosper however, because the attempt to produce silk and wine was a failure. Although some 4,000 settlers had been brought to Georgia following 1732, only about 2,000 whites and 1,000 blacks remained in the colony in 1750.
Considering the venture unsuccessful, the trustees gave up their charter and the colony to King George in 1752. In 1754, Georgia became a royal province under control of the British government, with a governor, a council, and an elected house of commons. Savannah was named the capital. Eventually, the colonists began growing crops more suitable to the region, such as rice, indigo, and wheat, and making wood products. Georgia's economy flourished. New land was acquired through cession from the Creeks and Cherokees, and population increased dramatically, reaching about 50,000 (almost half slaves) on the eve of the Revolutionary War.
Independence and Statehood
Because of the influence of a powerful group loyal to the British Crown, Georgia did not officially join the Revolutionary cause until 1775. The loyalists were led by Governor John Wright and included longtime residents, recent arrivals from Britain, and Anglicans, who were members of the colony's established church. The radical group. which took issue with British rule, was headed by Savannah merchants and artisans and was composed predominantly of persons born in America. Among the radical group were many Congregationalists, who opposed the established church. Backcountry settlers, who depended on the royal government to help protect against the Indians, at first were reluctant to oppose Britain but later sided with the revolutionaries.
In 1776, Georgia was declared a state, and the following year a constitution was adopted. British troops captured Savannah in 1778 and went on to occupy much of the state. In 1779, Colonial troops, aided by a French fleet, laid siege to Savannah but failed to free the city. In 1781, the Continental Army recaptured Augusta. The British were forced to withdraw from Georgia in 1782, and Governor John Martin reestablished state government. Augusta was chosen as the new capital in 1785.
In the 1790's, Georgia entered a period of prosperity with the introduction of the cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney while living near Savannah. Georgia's trade was predominantly with Charleston, the British West Indies, and the northern states. Lumber products, naval stores, rice, and tobacco were exported; imports were mainly supplies for plantation operations and some luxury goods.
Georgia claimed territory reaching to the Mississippi River, and speculation in the western lands resulted in a scandal known as the Yazoo Fraud in the mid-1790's. Relations with the Indians deteriorated as the settlers wanted more of the rich Piedmont lands occupied by the Indians. In 1802, Georgia surrendered all claims to lands west of the Chattahoochee River to the federal government, which, in exchange, promised to remove the Indians from Georgia. By the late 1830's, most of the Creeks and Cherokees had been moved to lands west of the Mississippi. Settlement of the former Indian lands and the introduction of cotton cultivation there brought increased prosperity. In 1837, Atlanta was founded as a railroad terminus.
In the mid-19th century, prior to the Civil War, Georgia's economy was supported by the plantation system. Georgia had more large plantations than any other state—some 6,000 planters owned 20 or more slaves. Most farm holdings, however, were small, and their owners generally had no slaves. Cotton and rice were the main cash crops.
Civil War and Reconstruction
As the question of slavery and its expansion in the territories became an issue, Georgia political leaders, such as Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb, and Robert A. Toombs, were among the moderates seeking compromise. After the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860, however, there were demands for secession. Secessionist strength was found in the cities and on the plantations; unionist feelings were strongest in the mountains and in the east-central region known as the“pine barrens,”where there was opposition to both slavery and the social and economic system of the lowlands. On January 19, 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union. Stephens became vice president of the Confederacy; Toombs, secretary of state.
There was little fighting in the state in the early years of the Civil War. However, a major battle was fought at Chickamauga, in September, 1863. In 1864,Atlanta was burned and many areas of the state were devastated as General William T. Sherman led a Union army of some 60,000 troops through Georgia on what became known as the March to the Sea.
Reconstruction after the South's defeat was a time of economic, political, and social disruption for Georgia as it was for other former Confederate states. In 1867, Georgia refused to ratify the 14th Amendment and was placed under military rule. At that time, the capital was moved to Atlanta. Georgia remained under military rule for most of the period until it was readmitted to the Union in 1870.
Following Reconstruction, Georgia was controlled by a faction of the Democratic party called the Bourbons, who were business-oriented and interested in the development of the state's urban areas. They supported reconciliation between North and South in order to facilitate industrialization of the South. They paid little attention to the small farmer and to rural concerns. The major Bourbon leaders during 1876–90 were governors Joseph E. Brown, John B. Gordon, and Alfred H. Colquitt and Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady.
The post-Reconstruction period in Georgia, as in the rest of the nation, was a time of agricultural depression. Discontented farmers supported the Independent party in the 1870's and 1880's and the Populists in the 1890's. The state's most important Populist was Congressman Thomas E. Watson, who dominated Georgia politics into the 20th century, championed the traditional agrarian South and wanted to stop industrialization and urbanization. He also played a major role in fomenting anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish sentiment.
20th Century
By the turn of the century, the diversification of crops and the development of industry had rebuilt Georgia's economy. Atlanta had become a leading Southern metropolis, and the Bourbons had been displaced by populist Democrats.
During the first two decades of the 20th century, government enacted some progressive reforms. Railroads were regulated, and better schools and improved highways were constructed. For the most part, however, Georgia politicians adhered to traditional beliefs in low taxes, a minimum of government services, and white supremacy.
The prosperity fueled by World War I was quickly followed by depression in the 1920's and 1930's. Governor Eugene Talmadge (1933–37) opposed any federal aid or economic regulation, and economic relief was slow to come to the state. Recovery began under Governor Eurith D. Rivers (1937–41). Notable economic, social, and political reforms, including modernizing state government, were made under Governor Ellis G. Arnall (1943–47).
With its large black population, Georgia was deeply involved in the racial problems of the 20th century. In the 1920's, it had been a center of Ku Klux Klan activity. In the 1950's and 1960's, there was much racial strife as blacks struggled to gain civil rights. Martin Luther King, Jr., a native of Atlanta, led civil rights demonstrations in Georgia during the 1960's and became the leader of the modern civil rights movement.
With significant industrial growth, agricultural expansion, and tourism development after World War II, Georgia had become the economic and cultural leader of the South by the 1960's. Racial strife decreased, and in 1970, Jimmy Carter, a political moderate, was elected governor. After leaving office, Carter became the first Georgian to be elected President of the United States; he served 1977–81. During the 1980's, the state's economy grew at a rapid pace, with Atlanta heading the expansion. The city was the site of the Democratic Presidential Convention in 1988 and of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.