History of Georgia (U.S. state)

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The History of Georgia ranges from its Pre-Columbian settlement by Native American peoples to its modern status as a rapidly growing part of the United States. In the intervening time, Georgia was a Spanish colony, a British colony, and a member of the Confederate States of America. Georgia has had five "permanent" state capitals: Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta. The legislature has also met in other places temporarily.

Contents

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Prehistory

Before the Cherokee and the Creek, Native American cultures are divided into time periods: Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian

The Mississippian culture was the most advanced prehistoric civilization. It lasted from around 900 A.D to 1500 A.D. The causes of the fall of the Mississippian culture are unknown.

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European exploration

At the time of European colonization of the Americas, Cherokee and Creek Indians lived in what is now Georgia. Though it is unknown exactly who was the first European to sight Georgia, it is possible that Juan Ponce de Leon sailed along the coast during his exploration of Florida. In 1526, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón attempted to establish a colony there, possibly near St. Catherine's Island.

Over the next few decades, a number of Spanish explorers visited the inland region, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. The local moundbuilder culture, described by Hernando de Soto in 1540, had completely disappeared by 1560.

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British Colony

Image:Wpdms georgia colony 1732.png The conflict between Spain and Britain over control of Georgia began in earnest in about 1670, when the British, moving south from their base in present-day South Carolina met the Spanish moving north from their base in Florida. Massive British settlement began in the early 1730s with James Oglethorpe, an Englishman in the British parliament, who promoted the idea that the area be used to settle people from debtor prison. On February 12, 1733, the first settlers landed in HMS Anne at what was to become the city of Savannah. Oglethorpe was granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia on June 9, 1732. [1]

Georgia, wrote Governor Wright in 1766,[Saye p 135} had

"No manufactures of the least consequence: a trifling quan- tity'of coarse homespun cloth, woollen and cotton mixed; amongst the poorer sort of people, for their own use, a few cotton and yarn stockings; shoes for our negroes; and some occasional blacksmith's work. But all our supplies of silk, linens, woollens, shoes, stockings, nails, locks, hinges, and tools of every sort . . . are all imported from and through Great Britain."
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American Revolution

Georgia had reason to stay with the King, for the 18,000 white colonists faced some 10,000 hostile Indians nearby, and London had provided a steady stream of subsidies. Governor Wright was popular. But Georgians read the same political tracts as Bostonians, and developed their own concept of self-government that was violated by British actions imposting a stamp tax, which Georgians denounced in 1765. More fearsome was the British punishment of Boston afte the Boston Tea Party. Many feared they would be next--as indeed they were. In August 1774, at a general meeting in Savannah the people proclaimed. "Protection and allegiance are reciprocal, and under the British Constitution correlative terms; . . . the Constitution admits of no taxation without representation." Georgia had few grievances of its own but ideologically supported the patriot cause and expelled the British. Angered by the news of the battle of Concord, on May 11 1775 the patriots stormed the royal magazine at Savannah and carried off the ammunition stored there. The customary celebration of the King's birthday on June 4th was turned into a wild demonstration against the King; a liberty pole was erected. Within a month the patriots completely defied royal authority and set up their own government. In June and July assemblies at Savannah chose a Council of Safety and a Provincial Congress, to take control of the government and cooperate with the other colonies. They started raising troops and prepared for war. "In short my lord," wrote Wright to Lord Dartmouth on September 16, 1775, "the whole Executive Power is Assumed by them, and the King's Governor remains little Else than Nominally so." In February Wright fled to a British warship and the patriots controlled all of Georgia. The new Congress adopted "Rules and Regulations" April 15, 1776, which can be considered the Constitution of 1776. (There never was a declaration of independence.) Georgia was no longer a colony--it was a state with a weak chief executive, the "President and Commander-in-Chief," who was elected by the Congress for a term of only six months. Archibald Bulloch, President of the two previous Congresses, was elected first President, and he bent his efforts to mobilizing and training the militia. The Constitution of 1777 was a highly democratic document putting power in the hands of the elected House of Assembly, which chose the governor; there was no senate and the franchise was open to nearly all white men.

The new state's exposed position made it a tempting target for the British Navy. Savannah was captured by British and Loyalist forces in 1778, along with some of its hinterland. The patriots moved to Augusta. At the Siege of Savannah in 1779, American and French troops (the latter including a company of free blacks from Haiti) fought unsuccessfully to retake the city. During the final years of the American Revolution, Georgia had a functioning Loyalist colonial government along the coast, and remained the last Loyalist bastion along with New York City. An earlky historian reported: [Charles C. Jones (1883) quoted in Saye p 195]

"For forty-two long months had she been a prey to rapine, op- pression, fratricidal strife, and poverty. Fear, unrest, the brand, the sword, the tomahawk, had been her portion. In the abstraction [removal] of negro slaves, by the burning of dwellings, in the obliteration of plantations, by the destruction of agricultural implements, and by theft of domestic animals and personal effects, it is estimated that at least one half of the available property of the inhabitants had, during this period, been completely swept away. Real estate had depreciated in value. Agriculture was at a stand-still, and there was no money with which to repair these losses and inaugurate a new era of prosperity. The lamen- tation of widows and orphans, too, were heard in the land. These not only bemoaned their dead, but cried aloud for food. Amid the general depression there was, nevertheless, a deal of gladness in the hearts of the people, a radiant joy, an inspiring hope. Independence had been won."


Georgia ratified the Constitution on January 2, 1788.

The original eight counties of Georgia were Burke, Camden, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Richmond and Wilkes. Before these counties were created in 1777, Georgia was split into twelve parishes.

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Antebellum period

In 1829, gold was discovered in the north Georgia mountains, prompting a gold rush. A Federal mint was established in Dahlonega, Georgia and continued to operate until 1861. An influx of white settlers pressured the U.S. government to take the land away from the Cherokee Indians, who owned the land, operated their own government, and did not recognize the authority of the state of Georgia . This dispute culminated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under which all eastern tribes were sent west to Indian reservations in present-day Oklahoma. Cotton became a major crop in Georgia in the 1810s. Slaves worked the fields in large cotton plantations, and the economy of the state became dependent on the institution of slavery.

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Civil War

On January 18, 1861 Georgia joined the Confederacy. During the war Georgia sent thousands of soldiers to battle, mostly to the armies in Virginia. The state switched from cotton to food production, but severe transportation difficulties restricted supplies. Thinking the state safe from invasion, the Confederates built small munitions factories. Their largest prisoner of war camp, at Andersonville National Historic Site: Andersonville proved a death camp because of severe lack of supplies, food and medicine.

The first major battle in Georgia was a Confederate victory at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863--it was the last major Confederate victory in the west. In 1864, William T. Sherman's armies invaded Georgia as part of the Atlanta Campaign. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston fought a series of delaying battles, the largest being the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, as he tried to delay as long as possible by retreating toward Atlanta. Johnston's replacement, Gen. John Bell Hood attempted several unsuccessful counterattacks at the Battle of Peachtree Creek and the Battle of Atlanta, but Sherman captured the city on September 2, 1864. After burning Atlanta to the ground, Sherman embarked on his March to the Sea on November 15, en route to Milledgeville, the state capital, which he reached on November 23, and the port city of Savannah, which he entered on December 22. A swath of land about 60 miles across was destroyed in this campaign, less than 10% of the state. Once Sherman's army passed through the confederates regained control. The March is a major part of the state's folk history, and is the setting for Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the subsequent 1939 film. One of the last land battles of the Civil War, the Battle of Columbus, was fought on the Georgia-Alabama border.

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Reconstruction

After the Civil War, Union troops under General John Pope occupied Georgia to enforce the Reconstruction Era. At the time, Georgia had more than 400,000 Freedmen. On July 15, 1870 Georgia became the last former Confederate state to be readmitted Congress under the terms of Reconstruction.

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Twentieth Century

In the early 1900s, Georgia's manufacturing and agriculture grew. The boll weevil destroyed some of Georgia's cotton crop in the 1920's, contributing to the economic hardships of the Great Depression. Wartime factory production during World War II helped boost Georgia's economy out of recession.

Georgia was a battleground in the American Civil Rights Movement. Georgia governor Marvin Griffin pledged to defend racial segregation "come hell or high water". On the other side, Georgians such as Martin Luther King and Ralph McGill worked to end segregation in Georgia. In 1969, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state to finally integrate the public schools.

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References

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Surveys

  • New Georgia Encyclopedia (2005). Scholarly resource covering all topics.
  • Andy Ambrose. Atlanta: An Illustrated History Hill Street Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58818-086-7, 200+ photographs
  • Bartley, Numan V. The Creation of Modern Georgia (1990). Scholary history 1865-1990.
  • Coleman, Kenneth. ed. A History of Georgia (1991). Survey by scholars.
  • Coulter, E. Merton. A Short History of Georgia (1933)
  • Franklin Miller Garrett. Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (1969), 2 vol.
  • Steve Goodson. Highbrows, Hillbillies, and Hellfire: Public Entertainment in Atlanta, 1880-1930 University of Georgia Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8203-2319-5.)
  • Donald L. Grant. The Way It Was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia 1993
  • London, Bonta Bullard. (1999) Georgia: The History of an American State Montgomery, Alabama: Clairmont Press ISBN 1-56733-994-8. A middle school textbook.
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Scholarly studies to 1900

  • Bass, James Horace. "The Attack upon the Confederate Administration in Georgia in the Spring of 1864." Georgia Historical Quarterly 18 (1934): 228-247.
  • Bass, James Horace. "The Georgia Gubernatorial Elections of 1861 and 1863." Georgia Historical Quarterly 17 (1935): 167-188
  • Bryan, T. Conn. Confederate Georgia University of Georgia Press, 1953.
  • Coleman, Kenneth. Confederate Athens, 1861-1865 University of Georgia Press, 1967.
  • Charles L. Flynn Jr., White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia (LSU Press 1983)
  • William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson; Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860 Oxford University Press, 1992
  • Hahn Steven. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. Oxford University Press, 1983.
  • Hamilton, Peter Joseph. The Reconstruction Period (1906), full length history of era; Dunning School approach; 570 pp; ch 12 on Georgia
  • Miles, Jim To the Sea: A History and Tour Guide of the War in the West: Shermans March Across Georgia, 1864 Cumberland House Publishing (2002)
  • Clarence L. Mohr. On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia (1986)
  • Parks, Joseph H. Joseph E. Brown of Georgia. Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
  • Parks, Joseph H. "State Rights in a Crisis: Governor Joseph E. Brown versus President Jefferson Davis." Journal of Southern History 32 (1966): 3-24. online at JSTOR
  • Darden Asbury Pyron; ed. Recasting: Gone with the Wind in American Culture University Press of Florida. (1983)
  • Joseph P. Reidy; From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880 University of North Carolina Press, (1992)
  • Saye, Albert B. New Viewpoints in Georgia History 1943.
  • Schott, Thomas E. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
  • Thompson, William Y. Robert Toombs of Georgia. Louisiana State University Press, 1966.
  • Wallenstein; Peter. From Slave South to New South: Public Policy in Nineteenth-Century Georgia University of North Carolina Press, 1987
  • Werner, Randolph D. "The New South Creed and the Limits of Radicalism: Augusta, Georgia, before the 1890s" Journal of Southern History v 57 #3 2001. pp 573+.
  • Woodward, C. Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (1938)
  • Woolley; Edwin C. The Reconstruction of Georgia (1901 )Dunning School
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Since 1900

  • Karen Ferguson; Black Politics in New Deal Atlanta University of North Carolina Press, 2002
  • Gary M. Fink; Prelude to the Presidency: The Political Character and Legislative Leadership Style of Governor Jimmy Carter Greenwood Press, 1980
  • Gilbert C. Fite; Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia University of North Carolina Press, 1991
  • Douglas Flamming; Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984 University of North Carolina Press, 1992
  • William Warren Rogers. Transition to the Twentieth Century: Thomas County, Georgia, 1900-1920 2002. vol 4 of comprehensive history of one county.
  • Peirce, Neal R. The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States (1974). Reporting on politics and economics 1960-72
  • Thomas Allan Scott. Cobb County, Georgia, and the Origin of the Suburban South: A Twentieth Century History (2003).
  • Mel Steely. The Gentleman from Georgia: The Biography of Newt Gingrich Mercer University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-86554-671-1.
  • Stephen G. N. Tuck. Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 .University of Georgia Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8203-2265-2.)
  • C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (1938)
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Primary sources

  • Scott, Thomas Allan ed. Cornerstones of Georgia History: Documents That Formed the State (1995). Collection of primary sources.
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Primary sources

  • BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIALS OF JAMES OGLETHORPE, by Thaddeus Mason Harris, 1841
  • A BRIEF DESCRIPTION AND STATISTICAL SKETCH OF GEORGIA, United States of America: developing its immense agricultural, mining and manufacturing advantages, with remarks on emigration. Accompanied with a map & description of lands for sale in Irwin County, By Richard Keily, 1849.
  • ESSAY ON THE GEORGIA GOLD MINES, by William Phillips, 1833 (Excerpt from: American Journal of Science and Arts. New Haven, 1833. Vol. XXIV, No. i, First Series, April (Jan.-March), 1833, pp. 1-18.)
  • AN EXTRACT OF JOHN WESLEY'S JOURNAL, from his embarking for Georgia to his return to London, 1739. The journal extends from October 14, 1735, to February 1, 1738.
  • GEORGIA SCENES, characters, incidents, &c. in the first half century of the Republic, by Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1840, 2nd ed)
  • REPORT ON THE BRUNSWICK CANAL AND RAIL ROAD, Glynn County, Georgia. With an appendix containing the charter and commissioners's report, by Loammi Baldwn, 1837
  • SOCIETY, A journal devoted to society, art, literature, and fashion, published in Atlanta, Georgia [Society Pub. Co.], 1890-
  • VIEWS OF ATLANTA, and The Cotton State and International Exposition, 1895
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External links

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