8/12/2023 0 Comments Kemp battle slaves![]() The crux of their argument was that the Trustees’ economic design for Georgia was impractical. They also wrote pamphlets in which they set out their case in more detail. They and their band of supporters bombarded the Trustees with letters and petitions demanding that slavery be permitted in Georgia. Its two most important leaders were a Lowland Scot named Patrick Tailfer and Thomas Stephens, the son of William Stephens, the Trustees’ secretary in Georgia. Georgians’ campaign to overturn the parliamentary ban on slavery was soon under way and grew in intensity during the late 1730s. In 1735, two years after the first settlers arrived, the House of Commons passed legislation prohibiting slavery in Georgia. The influential Trustees easily persuaded the House of Commons that their intentions for Georgia, and the colony’s very survival in the face of the Spanish threat, depended upon the exclusion of enslaved Africans. Oglethorpe soon persuaded the other Trustees that the ban on slavery had to be backed by the authority of the British government. Many South Carolinians, who wanted to expand their planting interests into Georgia, encouraged this line of thinking. Some settlers began to grumble that they would never make money unless they were allowed to employ enslaved Africans. Oglethorpe realized, however, that many settlers were reluctant to work. Initially the Trustees believed the settlers would follow their wishes and not use enslaved workers. The Trustees believed that the silk and other Mediterranean-type commodities they envisaged for Georgia did not require the labor of enslaved Africans but could be easily produced by Europeans. They would obtain this living by working for themselves rather than being dependent upon the work of others. ![]() The Trustees wished to guarantee the early settlers a comfortable living rather than the prospect of the enormous personal wealth associated with the plantation economies elsewhere in British America. Georgia Trustees Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
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