February is Black History Month: In 1735, the Georgia Trustees enacted a law to prohibit slavery in the new colony, which had been established in 1733 to enable the worthy poor as well as persecuted European Protestants to have a new start. Slavery was then legal in the other twelve English colonies, and neighboring South Carolina had become particularly dedicated to mass enslavement of an African labor force. The Georgia Trustees wanted to eliminate the risk of slave rebellions and make Georgia better able to defend against attacks from the Spanish to the south, who offered freedom to escaped slaves. James Edward Oglethorpe was the driving force behind the colony, and the only trustee to reside in Georgia. He opposed slavery on moral grounds as well as for pragmatic reasons, and vigorously defended the ban on slavery against fierce opposition from Carolina slave merchants and land speculators. The Protestant Scottish highlanders who settled what is now Darien, Georgia added a moral anti-slavery argument, which was rare at the time, in their 1739 Petition of the Inhabitants of New Inverness. By 1750 Georgia authorized slavery in the state because they had been unable to secure enough indentured servants as laborers, since economic conditions in England began to improve in the first half of the 18th century....it would just get worse from there
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 14:59:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015