Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, for a special Tuesday-night edition of History for Kossacks – this one done in support of Stephen Camp, a progressive Dem running for the House seat in GA-03. By all means, take off your shoes and set a spell – the history of Georgia goes back a lot further than Scarlet O'Hara and some guy's March to the Sea. Oddly, it's possible that neither of those events would have occurred if folks had stuck to the vision of the colony's founder, James Oglethorpe...
Before we get to discussing Mississippians, Oglethorpes, and Olympicses, a few atlas-type factoids about the topic of tonight's historiorant: the Great State of Georgia is 230 miles wide by 298 miles long, the borders of which enclose an 59,425 square miles. This means that in comparison to other states, Georgia's about dead-center as far as land area goes – 23 states are larger, 26 smaller. In terms of population, Georgia comes in at #9, with a 2007 estimate of 9,544,750 souls. Here's a couple of maps to help put the place in a relative perspective:
Prehistoric Georgia
Georgia might have been named after the British King George II (r. 1727-1760), but it was known and settled land long before the Age of Frilly Collars. The first arrivals in the region were groups of Paleoindians, hunter-gatherer nomads who traipsed about North America around 10,000 years ago, some of whom settled down and took to farming during the Archaic Period (roughly 8000-1000 BCE). The Woodland cultures (roughly 1000 BCE-1000 CE) that followed built upon the foundations of agriculture and economy laid in the archaic period – the transition to woodland culture is generally held to include permanent settlements, specialization of labor, and social stratification, among other traits common to Neolithic civilizations around the world.
And the ancient inhabitants of Georgia were connected to the world – no doubt about that. After 100 BCE, the construction of truncated pyramids, raised earthwork plazas, and elaborate burial practices presaged the later mound-builders, but they also bespake a highly advanced woodland culture with large-scale trading networks that crisscrossed what would someday be the Eastern US. This culture is the one that adopted the bow and arrow over the spear and atlatl (in most places, anyway – De Soto encountered tribes near the mouth of the Mississippi which still preferred the spear), introduced "Three Sisters" (maize, beans, and squash) agriculture, and conducted extensive cultural discourse throughout the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and the southeastern portions of North America.
The culture which built the mounds is called Mississippian, as they predominated throughout the Mississippi River Valley and along its various drainages. While the most famous example of this construction is in Ohio, Georgia has some pretty impressive mounds, as well – the site at Etowah Indian Mounds State Park in the northern part of the state has been impressing visitors since the Spaniards first traipsed through in the 1540s. Mississippian culture thrived from as early as 800 CE – more commonly, tribes made the technological and social transitions from the Woodland culture around 1000 CE – and enjoyed its height between 1200 and 1400, it was in a state of serious decline before the Europeans began arriving in the 16th century. As the power of the mound-centered Chief Priests ebbed, so of the tribes split from the Mississipian network and returned to circumstances somewhat similar to their Woodland ancestors; the Creeks of western Georgia and Alabama may have been among these groups.
Why'd they build the mounds? Though the answers are becoming a little more clear, that's a question folks have been asking for a long, long time:
"It is altogether unknown to us what could have induced the Indians to raise such a heap of earth in this place . . . It is reasonable to suppose, however, that they were to serve some important purpose in those days, as they were public works, and would have required the united labour and attention of a whole nation."
--William Bartram, writer/naturalist, 1775, via NGeorgia.com
Los Conquistadores
Georgia was sighted pretty early on by Spanish explorers – Juan Ponce de Leon may have sailed its coast during his hunt for the Fountain of Youth. Georgia also saw the establishment of the first named settlement to be founded in the (eventual) U.S., when Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón planted the colony of San Miguel de Guadalupe, possibly on an island about 50 miles south of Savannah. It didn't last long (about two months), but the Spanish were in the Sea Islands to stay: the missionaries who followed the conquistadors established churches and settlements among the sometimes-unruly Guale, and by the 1580s, St. Catherine's Island had become the center of Spain's third mission province as well as the hub of most of the proselytizing that went on in coastal Georgia and northern Florida.
Hernando de Soto probably wasn't the first European to set foot in Georgia – the Spanish had been launching expeditions into Florida and conducted slaving operations along the southeastern coast throughout the 1520s – but he's definitely the most well-documented. In May, 1539, the conquistador landed near what's now Tallahassee, Florida, with more than 600 men and 200 horses, prepared to march inland and find themselves the North American equivalent of the Aztecs or the Inca.
De Soto had a bit luck upon his arrival on the coast: a member of the failed expedition of Pedro de Navarez a decade earlier had been captured by Indians in Florida, and had become fluent in their language. The guy – Juan Ortiz – had gone native in other ways, too: even after he was once again in the company of his countrymen, he refused to dress as a Spaniard, and spent more time among the Indians he enlisted as guides along the way than he did with de Soto or the officers.
One of the guides brought on board by Ortiz was a 17-year-old boy named Perico (Pedro), who hailed from the area that is now Georgia. In 1540, de Soto and his small army began marching north from their winter camp on the Florida panhandle, following Perico and a rumor that gold could be found "toward the rising sun." Mentioning "gold" was a surefire way to catch de Soto's attention – he'd served in the force that Francisco Pizarro California had used to conquer the Inca in 1532, and wanted very badly to enjoy the same sort of success that Pizarro had stumbled upon. De Soto was every bit as ruthless as his old general, too:
After wandering to the southern slope of the Appalachian range, marking their course by pillage and bloodshed, and finding the land of gold ever receding before them, they reached the dominions of an Indian queen, who hastened to welcome them, perhaps with the desire of conciliating her dreaded visitors.
Very touching is the account given by the old chroniclers of the meeting between the poor cacica and De Soto. Alighting from the litter in which she had travelled, carried by four of her subjects, the dusky princess came forward with gestures expressive of pleasure at the arrival of her guest, and taking from her own neck a heavy double string of pearls, she hung it on that of the Spaniard. Bowing with courtly grace, De Soto accepted the gift, and for a short time he kept up the semblance of friendship; but having obtained from the queen all the information he wanted, he made her his prisoner, and robbed her and her people of all the valuables they possessed, including large numbers of pearls, found chiefly in the graves of natives of distinction. We are glad to be able to add that the poor queen effected her escape from her guards, taking with her a box of pearls which she had managed to regain and on which De Soto had set especial store.
Hernando De Soto Biography (excerpt from Hubert Bancroft's early 1900s work, The Great Republic by the Master Historians. Worth checking out, if only to note the way perceptions change over a century or so.)
De Soto's image has undergone a bit of a revamping over the past few decades – no longer is he seen the way William H. Powell painted him on the Capitol Rotunda in 1847:
And the rather glowing obits from back in the days when historians described entire civilizations with words like "savages:"
De Soto, who was now himself either attacked by disease or broken down by all he had undergone, determined at least to die like a man, and, calling the survivors of his once gallant company about him, he asked pardon for the evils he had brought upon those who had trusted in him, and named Luis Moscoso de Alvaredo as his successor.
On the following day, May 21, 1542, the unfortunate hero breathed his last, and was almost immediately buried secretly without the gates of the camp, Alvaredo fearing an immediate onslaught from the natives should the death of the hero who had claimed immortality be discovered. The newly-made grave, however, excited suspicion, and, finding it impossible to prevent it from being rifled by the inquisitive savages, Alvaredo had the corpse of his predecessor removed from it in the night, wrapped in cloths made heavy with sand, and dropped from a boat into the Mississippi.
ibid.
De Soto's mucking about in internal Indian affairs, not to mention the diseases he and his men transmitted to their hosts, wreaked havoc on a Mississippian culture already on the decline. In the end, he'd traveled over 3700 miles through what would eventually be parts of 16 states, "discovered" the Mississippi River, and claimed a whole lot of territory for the king back in Spain. Unfortunately for his legacy, he fell victim to that old maxim about the Age of European Exploration: you can claim stuff all day long – the problem is in making those claims stick.
Everybody Wants Some
Between 1562 and 1564, a group of Huguenots, attempting to escape the deprivations of pre-Edict of Nantes France, tried to establish a colony first in northern Florida, then in Port Royal Sound, South Carolina. That effort, named Charlesfort, failed after a year or so, and many of the French settlers/survivors packed up to try once more in Florida. Establishing themselves near present-day Jacksonville, the French prepared to go head-to-head with the Spanish – but found their rather meager efforts trumped when King Philip II issued urgent orders to Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to found St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. The French obligingly attacked the fort that's gone on to become the oldest European settlement in the U.S., and lost badly. French privateers from the Caribbean would continue to operate along Georgia's coast, but the threat of a fluer-de-lis-flying fort on the southeastern coast was more or less ended for good.
Spanish explorers pressed inland through Georgia, reaching as far as North Carolina and Tennessee over the next few decades. During this same period, the English were setting themselves up in the Carolina Province (modern South Carolina, mostly; the area that became North Carolina was settled by people seeking the freedom of the hinterlands in between the established colonies in northern Virginia and South Carolina), and trappers setting out from Charles Town (Charleston) occasionally ran into either Spanish or Indian groups. In the case of meeting Spaniards, the encounters were often violent; with the Indians, a little less so – the English even established a fort/trading post at Ocmulgee (now a National Monument), near modern-day Macon, where they conducted business with the Lower Creeks.
The late 1600s saw frequent fighting between the Spanish at St. Augustine and the British at Charles Town, with the missionary provinces of Guale and Mocama stuck in the middle. The missions were destroyed in 1704, prompting the British to cajole an allied Indian group, the Yamasee, to occupy the Georgia coast. Not quite a tribe – more like the remnants of several chiefdoms that had banded together – the Yamasee had assisted South Carolina in the Tuscarora War of 1711, but within a few years, fighting among the tribes led to a complicated, messy series of battles in which Indians fought both with and against (mostly against) the British in South Carolina. Much of colonial South Carolina was depopulated as terrified settlers fled for the relative safety of Charles Town, and the colony itself stood on the brink of extinction for a time. In some respects, the Yamasee War was even more devastating to the early colonies than the oft-cited (but still obscure) King Philip's War of 1675-76.
The war also depopulated Georgia's coast, as most of the Yamasee who weren't killed in battle moved north – those that remained became known as the Yamacraw. This left the area open for settlement, and about 10 years later, an Englishman began making serious plans to plant the British flag in Georgia once and for all.
Enter the Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British aristocrat, the 7th of 9 children of a wealthy family from Surray, England. As a child, he'd lost his father and oldest brother in the War of Spanish Succession (a/k/a Queen Anne's War, 1702-1714), but this didn't deter him from seeking out a career in government service. He attended Oxford, and at the age of 16 received his commission as an ensign. He went on to serve as aide-de-camp to English ambassadors in Sicily and Italy, and through this service came to the attention of some movers and shakers. Prince Eugene of Savoy employed him as a secretary, but Oglethorpe quickly distinguished himself, especially in battle against the Ottoman Turks on the Hungarian frontier.
His career on the continent was cut short when Oglethorpe killed a man in a brawl and was sent back to England to serve a five-month sentence. Since this was the early 1700s, being a convicted murderer was not necessarily an impediment to holding office, and Oglethorpe got himself elect to the House of Commons (representing Haslemere) in 1722. He turned out to be quite the progressive: he opposed all forms of slavery, was a defender of the rights of colonists, and after considerable work on the Prison Discipline Committee, an advocate for debtors. Picking up on an idea he'd read about, Oglethorpe became the driving force behind the establishment of a colony to which England's "worthy poor" could be transported.
Together with a group of trustees (who were expressly forbidden to make money on the venture), Oglethorpe fast-tracked a charter to the King, who signed it in 1732. The charter created the Province of Georgia in the land between the Altamaha and Savannah Rivers, and from the headwaters of these rivers to the "south seas." Oglethorpe promptly sailed out – paying his own way – on the Anne, reaching Charles Town in January, 1733. With a handful of other settlers (no debtors accompanied the initial voyage, as there were plenty of volunteers), Oglethorpe sailed south to the site of present-day Savannah, where he laid the foundations for his new colony. Within a month, he'd returned to South Carolina for the rest of the colonists, and when they arrived, they began construction in earnest of a palisade and a series of forts to protect the approaches to the fledgling town. The following year, he founded what has become the oldest Masonic lodge in the nation, Solomon's Lodge No. 1, F. & A. M.
Weird Historical Sidenote: Despite his original intention, Oglethorpe's colony never did house many debtors – far more numerous were the kilted Scots highlanders, Indians, and English farmers complaining about the lack of booze and how hard they had to work in comparison to their slave-owning cousins in North Carolina.
As hinted at above, Oglethorpe ran a tight ship – he banned rum and slavery, and is often referred to as a "strict disciplinarian." This caused some problems later on – once the colony's population hit 1100 or so (around 1736), Oglethorpe felt compelled to evict some of his more vocal critics to South Carolina. He still had the ear of the rich and famous, though – among his companions on voyages to and from England were Charles Wesley (founder of the Methodist Church) and George Whitefield (Great Awakening preacher extraordinaire), and as things turned out, foreign affairs soon became a much more pressing problem. In 1739, the War of Jenkin's Ear broke out between Spain and Great Britain, and Oglethorpe – who, as "resident trustee," had taken to the nickname "General" – was obligated to defend his flock.
Oglethorpe was believer in a strong offense being a good defense, so he conducted a number of successful raids on Spanish forts, than led his forces toward St. Augustine. He laid siege to the city in May, 1740, but was driven off the next month when a Spanish force attacked one of the forts he'd captured and left only sparsely defended. An uneasy peace held for two years, until Spanish ships appeared at the mouth of the Altamaha River near Savannah. Against sizeable odds, Oglethorpe rallied his men and defeated a much larger Spanish force at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, but the damage to his reputation was already done. He returned to England and faced down a courts-martial, and went on to enjoy a nice, long, mellow retirement. He became friends with other America-favoring Englishmen like Edmund Burke, and even managed to live long enough to greet John Adams when the latter arrived as an ambassador from the newly-formed United States. So it was that before he died in 1785, James Oglethorpe had seen the colony that he'd built with his own two hands become a free and independent member of the United States of America.
Historiorant:
James Oglethorpe left an impression, and a bit of a dichotomy, on Georgia – one that's clearly visible in this year's GA-03 race. On the one hand, there's Lynn Westmoreland (R), who represents the bossy, patronizing side of the colony's founder; on the other, there's Stephen Camp (D), a progressive who shares Oglethorpe's visionary stances and concern for the least among us.
As Kos himself has told us recently, this is a year to crush the spirit of our foe. Virtually every seat in the House is in play, including those like the one currently being defiled by Lynn "Uppity" Westmoreland – and this is the election cycle in which we can make our mark. Please keep Georgia and Stephen Camp on your mind as you think about where to donate those last few dollars you have budgeted for campaigns this cycle – Camp for Congress would much appreciate the help.
PS. And if you do donate, please add $.03 to your amount, so Stephen will know from whence it's coming - every penny that can be tracked back to our website gives us that much more voice.