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Founded by charter in 1732, the colony of Georgia served two purposes in its earliest years. The most important of these was to create a land buffer and military outpost between hostile Spanish territory and the rich colony of Carolina.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: Founded by charter in 1732, the colony of Georgia served two purposes in its earliest years. The most important of these was to create a land buffer and military outpost between hostile Spanish territory and the rich colony of Carolina.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: From even before the beginning of their colonization of North America, the English looked with foreboding south along the Atlantic seaboard at the well-established and powerful Spanish settlements in Florida and the Caribbean. The success of Virginia and Carolina made them even more vulnerable to attacks from hostile territory to the South.

The first attempt to settle the area that became Georgia largely failed. Sir Robert Montgomery, a Scottish nobleman whose overseas military service aroused his interest in colonization. Montgomery believed that he and other entrepreneurs could harvest great wealth if they could create a source of raw materials so that Britain would be less dependent on sources of supply from the Continent and the Mediterranean. In 1717, he obtained from the Proprietors of Carolina a land grant from the Savannah to the Altamaha River, but despite his best efforts at fund-raising and promotion the enterprise died aborning.

That did little to address the looming security issue, in fact each year, the rich rice industry and fur trade of Carolina, not to mention the tobacco interest in Virginia, came under increasing threat from the Spanish. By 1721, the Board of Trade wrote that South Carolina was open to attack and that forts as far south as the Altamaha should be built to protect it. This presented a coincidence of interests between the security needs of British North America and a moral crusade for better treatment of prisoners by soldier and Parliamentarian James Edward Oglethorpe. Next time: a new colony.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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