By 1760, only 5 percent of white Georgians owned even a singleslave, while a handful of families possessed them in the hundreds. JonathanBryan was the perfect embodiment of the “Slave Merchants” whoOglethorpe had warned would dominate the colony.59

In the largerscheme of things, his reform philosophy recognized that weak anddesperate men could be led to choose a path that dictated against their owninterests. A man might sell his land for a glass of rum; debt and idlenesswere always a temptation.52

ProslaveryGeorgians were not above accusing Oglethorpe of running a prisoncolony.50

trustees: “to relieve the distressed.” Instead of offering a sanctuary forhonest laborers, Georgia would become an oppressive regime, promoting“the misery of thousands in Africa” by permitting a “free people” to be“sold into perpetual Slavery.”48

Slavery, however, could not be kept apart from future projections inGeorgia. After allowing South Carolina to send over slaves to fell trees andclear the land for the town of Savannah, Oglethorpe came to regret thedecision. He made a brief trip to Charles Town, and returned to discoverthat in the interim the white settlers had grown “impatient of Labour andDiscipline.” Some had sold good food for rum punch. With drunkenesscame disease. And so, Oglethorpe wrote, the “Negroes who sawed for us”and encouraged white “Idleness” were sent back.46

Oglethorpe felt the disadvantaged could bereclaimed if they were given a fair chance.

He marveled at how the SouthCarolinians deluded themselves in believing they were safe, burdened asthey were with a large slave population—“stupid security,” he called it.

Having foughtas an officer under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Austro–Turkish War of1716–18, he understood military discipline. This was how he came to trustin the power of emulation; he believed that people could be conditioned todo the right thing by observing good leaders. He shared food with thosewho were ill or deprived. Visiting a Scottish community north of Savannah,he refused a soft bed and slept outside on the hard ground with the men.More than any other colonial founder, Oglethorpe made himself one of thepeople, promoting collective effort.43

Conservative land policies limited individual settlers to a maximum offive hundred acres, thus discouraging the growth of a large-scale plantationeconomy and slave-based oligarchy such as existed in neighboring SouthCarolina. North Carolina squatters would not be found here either. Poorsettlers coming from England, Scotland, and other parts of Europe weregranted fifty acres of land, free of charge, plus a home and a garden.Distinct from its neighbors to the north, Georgia experimented with a socialorder that neither exploited the lower classes nor favored the rich. Itsfounders deliberately sought to convert the territory into a haven forhardworking families. They aimed to do something completelyunprecedented: to build a “free labor” colony.