Province of Georgia

“ The United States contended, that the country west of the Chatahoochee, and south of a parallel of latitude which should intersect the mouth of the Yazoo River, never constituted a part of Georgia—that it was within the limits of the province of West Florida, from which being severed by the peace of 1783, it became vested in the Confederacy, and not in the State to which it happened to be contiguous. ”

“ Such was the simple beginning of Frederica. [46] Near the town Mr. Oglethorpe fixed the only home he ever owned in the Province. In its defence were enlisted his best energies, military skill, and valor. Brave are the memories of St. Simon’s island. None prouder belong to the colonial history of Georgia.
Three days afterwards arrived from Savannah a periagua with workmen, provisions, and cannon, for the new settlement. ”

“ The Revolutionists were known as Whigs, Rebels, and Patriots. Many Loyalists who had fled from the Carolinas and Georgia secured a retreat in East Florida whence, having associated with themselves parties of Indians, under the name of Florida Rangers, they indulged in predatory incursions into Georgia to the great loss and disquietude of the southern portions of the Province. ”

“ The appeal was again renewed by the next king of Georgia, George XIII., in 1798, and in the following year he renounced his crown in favour of the tsar, and in 1801 Georgia was converted into a Russian province. The state of Guria submitted to Russia in 1829. (J. T. Be.)
Ethnology.—Of the three main groups into which the Caucasian races are now usually divided, the Georgian is in every respect the most important and interesting. It has accordingly largely occupied the attention of Orientalists almost incessantly from the days of Klaproth. ”

“ Homes were growing up in Vermont. In the same manner population extended westward beyond the Alleganies, as soon as the Indian disturbances were allayed in that direction. The go-a-head principle was ever active in British America. The population of Georgia was beginning to increase greatly, and in 1763 the first newspaper of that colony was published, called the “Georgia Gazette.” A vital principle was operating also in the new province of East Florida, now that she ranked among the British possessions. ”

“ The climate is rather cold in the mountains, but warm in the plains. The country produces in abundance every kind of corn, with some rice, cotton, silk, and tobacco. Numerous flocks graze on the rich pastures. The population, according to the official returns of 1832, amounts to 46,094 males, who are Mohammedans. Kooba, the capital, and the only town of the province, contains about 650 wretched houses, built in an irregular manner.
Derbend has already been described. [DERBEND.]
All the above-mentioned provinces are governed by Russian military commanders. ”

“ In 1778 the British seized Savannah, which they held until 1782, meanwhile reviving the British civil administration, and in 1779 they captured Augusta and Sunbury; but after 1780 the Revolutionary forces were generally successful. Civil affairs also fell into confusion. In 1777 a state constitution was adopted, but two factions soon appeared in the government, led by the governor and the executive council respectively, and harmony was not secured until 1781.
Georgia’s policy in the formation of the United States government was strongly national. ”

“ As was natural, the political development of Georgia was much more rapid than its industrial progress. In January, 1783, Lyman Hall was elected governor. He was distinguished for the patriotic stand he took at the very beginning of the controversy between the Colony and the King. The Legislature met in Savannah after the evacuation of the town by the British; but it was so far from the central and upper portions of the State, and there was so much dissatisfaction among the people on this account, that in May Augusta was made the capital. In that town the General Assembly met July 8, 1783. ”

“ Accordingly a charter was granted, and the men most prominent in the scheme of benevolence were incorporated under the name of "The Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America." Georgia in America was, under the terms of the charter, a pretty large slice of America. It embraced all that part of the continent lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, and extending westly from the heads of these rivers in direct lines to the South Seas; so that the original territory of Georgia extended from ocean to ocean. ”

“ During the war Georgia furnished about 80,000 soldiers for the Confederate armies. She emerged from it with her industries prostrated, her treasury empty, her social and political system revolutionized, her most flourishing cities in ruins. Her great natural resources are fast advancing her to a commanding position among her sister States; and these resources are developing in the hands of a free people with greater rapidity and advantage than when half the population was enslaved. Texas possibly excepted, no southern State has a greater future than Georgia. ”

“ In ten years, from 1790 to 1800, the population in Georgia had increased more than eighty thousand. During the next ten years the increase in the population was more than ninety thousand. This increase meant a still greater demand for farm lands. Westward the Territory of Georgia extended to the Mississippi River. The agitation which began over this rich possession when the Yazoo Fraud was attempted, was kept up until 1800, when Georgia appointed four of her most prominent citizens to meet with commissioners appointed by the United States ”

“ The lower classes are very laborious, and remarkable for their physical strength. Many of them go to Tillis to gain a livelihood by their labour. The government is vested in a Russian general, who commands the military force stationed in Imiretia, Mingrelia, Gooria, and Abkhazia, and who is dependent on the governor-general of Georgia He presides over the civil department, which is composed of three Russian and two native magistrates, called Divan Begs. ”

“ Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, against; Maryland divided. It may be thought surprising, sir, that Georgia, a state now small, and comparatively trifling, in the Union, should advocate this system of unequal representation, giving up her present equality in the federal government, and sinking herself almost to total insignificance in the scale; but, sir, it must be considered that Georgia has the most extensive territory in the Union, being larger than the whole island of Great Britain, and thirty times as large as Connecticut. ”

“ It contains about 800 square versts. The country very hilly, and covered with large forests, containing excellent timber for ship-building. The soil is exceedingly fertile, the products are the same as those of Imiretia and Mingreila. The population, which consists of Georgians, and some Armenians, amounts to 36,700 souls. The population is divided into classes of princes, nobles, &c., as in Georgia. ”

“ They think, no doubt, that they have right on their side, but interest had blinded their eyes. Look at Georgia. Though a small state at present, she is actuated by the prospect of soon being a great one. ”

“ The Georgia Southern extends from Dalton to the Ala. State line (portion of Selina, Koine, and Dalton road) ; North-Eastern from Athens to Lulah (39 miles) ; Ocmulgee and Horse Creek (7 miles) ; Rome Railroad, Rome to Kingston (20 miles) .
Government.—The executive power is vested in a governor elected for four years by a majority of the people. If there is no election by the people, the general assembly chooses one of the two receiving the highest number of votes. ”

“ The charter to Georgia professes to be granted for the charitable purpose of enabling poor subjects to gain a comfortable subsistence by cultivating lands in the American provinces, "at present waste and desolate." ”

“ Georgia, as a feeble and opulent frontier state, is peculiarly interested in a general revenue, as tending to support the Confederacy. She is also interested in it somewhat by the creditors of her citizens. In abatements she is also interested, and in a common mass essentially so. In the article of territory, she would make an important sacrifice. ”

“ The Tallapoosa and Coosa, head-waters of the Alabama, and the Hiawassee, one of the sources of the Tennessee, rise in the mountains of Georgia—the last, however, finding its way to the Gulf of Mexico by the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.
Georgia has about 128 miles of sea-coast, but has few good harbours, except within the rivers emptying upon it. St, Brunswick, Darien, and Savannah are the principal. The chain of islands lying off the mainland produces the celebrated Sea-island cotton, but owing to the changes brought about by the secession war it is now little cultivated. ”

“ You are thankful for what He has wrought and chiefly for emancipation. It has opened up to diversified industries these States that were otherwise exclusively agricultural, and made it possible for you not only to raise cotton, but to spin and weave it, and has made Georgia such a State as it could not have been under the old conditions. I am sure we have many common purposes, and as God shall give us power to see truth and right, let us do our duty, and, while exacting all our own rights, let us bravely and generously give every other man his equal rights before the law. [Cheers.] ”

“ On the other hand, should our present embarrassments eventuate in war, I am satisfied that the State of Georgia will zealously emulate her sister States in supporting the government of their choice, and in maintaining the rights and interests of the nation. Our soil, our industry, and our numbers, with the bravery which will be engaged in the cause, can never leave us without resources to maintain such a contest. ”

“ With economy, a moderate talent, and habits of industry, he was well aware that, in those regions, the means of life are with little difficulty attainable by those who are worthy and will adventure. Let us now return to the wayfarer, whom we have left in that wildest region of the then little-settled state of Georgia—doubly wild as forming the debatable land between the savage and the civilized—partaking of the ferocity of the one and the skill, cunning, and cupidity of the other. ”

“ Under such circumstances, Congress, still thinking that the United States had, under the cession of South Carolina, a right to territory in Georgia, passed the act of the 7th April, 1798, for the amicable settlement of limits with the State of Georgia, and authorizing the establishment of a government in the Mississippi Territory. It was done with an express recognition of Georgia's right of soil and jurisdiction in the territory. ”

“ The capital of Clarke county, Georgia, on the W. bank of the Oconee River. It is the seat of the Georgia university, which was founded in 1801, and the central town of a large cotton-growing district. Population in 1870, 4251, of whom 1967 were coloured. ”

“ Northern senators voted in a body to do this great act of justice to Georgia, restrained by no unworthy feeling against the growth and prosperity of a slave State. And thus was carried into effect, after a delay of a quarter of a century, and after great and just complaint on the part of Georgia, the compact between that State and the United States of 1802. Georgia was paid at last for her great cession of territory, and obtained the removal of an Indian community out of her limits, and the use and dominion of all her soil for settlement and jurisdiction. ”

“ Georgia has the largest area of any state east of the Mississippi River, and, in her great sweep of 59,475 square miles, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, exhibits the greatest diversity of soil, climate and physical features, all of which must be conceded to affect negro life and industry. ”

“ Under this agreement, and the Indian treaty based upon it, nearly all of the lands lying between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers were opened up for occupation and cultivation.
All the Territory of Georgia was looked upon by the people as a public domain, belonging to the State for distribution among the citizens. The lands east of the Oconee were divided among the people under the plan known as the "Head Right System." By this system every citizen was allowed to choose, and survey to suit himself, a body of unoccupied land. ”

“ When Georgia had begun to recover its breath, after the difficulties with the Creeks, the people had time to discover that they had a much more serious problem to deal with in the Cherokee nation, which occupied all the northwestern portion of the State. Those who mingled thrift with their benevolence, and had the courage to think about the future of the whites as well as the future of the savages, thought that both ends would be attained by making a permanent settlement for the Indians beyond the Mississippi River. ”

“ Such however is not the character of the Georgians of the country; and indeed a nation which that preserved its religion notwithstanding ages of persecution, and which has seized every opportunity of regaining its independence, has a just claim to some respect. ”

“ Governor Mathews—Indians—Topography of Middle Georgia—A New Country and Its Settlers—Beaux and Belles—Early Training—Jesuit Teachers—A Mother's Influence—The Jews—Homely Sports—The Cotton Gin— Camp-Meetings.
Immediately subsequent to the Revolution, all the country northwest of the Ogeechee River, in the middle portion of the State of Georgia, was divided into two counties, Franklin and Wilkes. It was a wilderness, and contiguous to both the Creek and Cherokee Indian nations. No country in the world was more beautiful in its topography, and few more fertile in soil. ”