Georgia Historical Society

Pre-Revolution Slavery

The first encounters between Georgia’s European inhabitants and enslaved African-Americans occurred very soon after settlement.  Despite the Trustee’s policy prohibiting slave ownership, the colonists had no qualms about borrowing slaves from South Carolina and often did so.  South Carolina’s Governor Robert Johnson and Assembly Speaker Paul Jenys, for example, loaned black sawyers to help clear Savannah and Ebenezer for settlement.

 An Account Shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, 1742, Rare Pamphlet Collection F289.T78 1742.This section is Ebenezer’s response to the Malcontents’ call for slavery in Georgia.

Exchanges among Georgia’s inhabitants became heated as a group of “malcontents,” led in large part by Lowland Scots who settled in Savannah, demanded that the ban on slavery be lifted because of the poor economic conditions.  The Trustee’s supporters, led by Boltzius at Ebenezer and the Highland Scots at Darien, objected and fought against lifting the ban.  In England, the Trustee’s held Ebenezer up as an example of the success of hard working white families without the use of slaves.  The malcontents countered that these supporters and success stories were only of those groups that continued to receive substantial funding from the Trustees or religious entities in Europe.  Meanwhile, rice planters from South Carolina foresaw a collapse of Georgia and hoped it would be integrated into South Carolina.  Many of these speculators began to grab rice-growing land and some brought slaves in illegally to begin working the land. 

An Account Shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, 1742, Rare Pamphlet Collection F289.T78 1742. This section is Darien’s response to the Malcontents’ call for slavery in Georgia.

The argument for slavery won out, and the “peculiar institution” went into effect 1 January 1751.  With the addition of slavery, and with the Trusteeship giving way to royal control in 1752, Georgia finally became the typical colony of the British empire found throughout the world, and as such it lured more merchants, speculators, and planters than it had been able to do without slaves.

Few, if any, slaves came directly from Africa during the first fifteen years of legalized slavery in Georgia.  Many were “seasoned” slaves from the West Indies, but most of the slaves came via South Carolina slave traders or were brought down by South Carolina planters operating in Georgia.  Georgian planters came to believe that slaves from Carolina or Caribbean locations were slaves found to be unacceptable elsewhere and that Georgia might be little more than a last resort for slavers to dump undesirables.  By 1765, however, Georgian planters established their own direct links to Africa, the Windward Coast at first, and for the next one hundred years African slaves and their offspring formed an unwilling, unfortunate labor force that became essential to the growth and development of Georgia.

Teaching Tips
1. Divide students into teams representing the various communities of early Georgia – the Germans at Ebenezer or the Malcontents, for example – and have them debate the issue of establishing slavery in 1750 Georgia.
2. Use tables, charts, and graphs as visual aids.  Below are tables from the summer 1984 edition of the Georgia Historical Quarterly displaying information regarding the early years of slavery in Georgia.  Use these tables in conjunction with maps and timelines to help students “see” history:
 

  3. Provide blank maps of the areas listed in the above charts and ask students to label them with the information provided.

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