The Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond by Wilson Thomas D

The Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond by Wilson Thomas D

Author:Wilson, Thomas D. [Wilson, Thomas D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2015-02-11T22:00:00+00:00


The Trustees resisted constant appeals to remove the prohibition on slavery by instructing William Stephens in no uncertain terms that it would never be allowed. With a hope of putting an end permanently to the letters and petitions, they adopted a strongly worded resolution on March 17, 1748, with an instruction to Stephens and his assistants to make it clear that anyone continuing to advocate slavery should vacate Georgia and relocate to another colony where it would be permitted. In their reply to Stephens and his assistants, Martyn conveyed a stern warning: “The Trustees order me to say, that you had sufficient Power . . . [to stop slavery]. They observe at the same time in the Journal, that Negroes have been creeping into the Colony at Augusta, and other Places. And they cannot but wonder that you have not before this put a Stop to such Practices, nor propos’d to them the Means of doing it; but have contented your Selves with seeing it, and complaining of it now.”67

The Malcontents, however, had already begun circumventing the prohibition, bringing slaves across the Savannah River so frequently that a dependency had set in. Stephens and the assistants determined the colony was past the tipping point. In May 1749 they wrote to the Trustees that the prohibition was no longer viable. Large numbers of slaves were working in the colony despite their best efforts. They maintained that to enforce the prohibition after such a dependency had developed would depopulate the colony.68

Stephens’s appeal to the Trustees followed the death of Percival in May 1748 and Oglethorpe’s withdrawal from active participation as a Trustee by February 1749. Without the resolve of the two visionaries, the Trustees relented and referred the matter to committee to draft language lifting the prohibition on slavery with certain restrictions and regulations. The law prohibiting slavery had been approved by king and council because it lay outside the powers given to the Trustees in the charter. Thus its repeal would also require their approval. A petition for the repeal was forwarded to the king in August. While it was never acted upon, the Trustees ceased all efforts to enforce the prohibition on slavery.

Vernon and Shaftesbury emerged as replacements for Percival and Oglethorpe with new priorities. Vernon was principally concerned with the colony’s religious institutions and religious instruction for enslaved people. Shaftesbury, whose early solidarity with both Egmont and Oglethorpe upheld the principles of agrarian equality, was now older and more pragmatic and concerned principally with colonial administration.

Rebirth of Oglethorpe’s Reform Agenda

The Georgia Colony under the Trustees is often portrayed by historians and Oglethorpe’s biographers as a failed effort. The Trustees have been described as impractical idealists whose “persistence in their vision for Georgia ultimately led to their downfall.” They are said to have “refused to abandon their dreams even when it became obvious that they were only fantasies.”69

Some historians have essentially endorsed slavery and deleterious Indian trade as the proper and inevitable road to prosperity for European settlers. Trustee policies



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