James Nov-Dec 2023 web - Flipbook - Page 49
eorgia was founded by James Oglethorpe— a
British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist and Georgia’s first “governor”— and
it was on February 12, 1733 when the British colony
was envisioned as a unique economic development and
social welfare experiment. Administered by 21 original
trustees, the “Georgia Plan” offered England’s “worthy poor” an opportunity to achieve financial security
by exporting goods produced on small farms. Most
significantly, Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees were
convinced that economic vitality could not be achieved
through the exploitation of enslaved black laborers.
Due primarily to Oglethorpe’s strident advocacy, Georgia was the only British American colony to
prohibit chattel slavery prior to the American Revolutionary War. Oglethorpe later asserted that the colony’s
trustees prohibited slavery because it was “against the
Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England.”
(Along with slavery, the idealistic trustees also banned
lawyers and rum!)
The genesis of Oglethorpe’s anti-slavery advocacy
can be traced to a letter written by a young African
Muslim named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. In February
1730, Mandinka warriors captured Diallo near the
mouth of Africa’s Gambia River and sold him to British
slave traders. He survived the harrowing “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean and was enslaved by a
Maryland colony tobacco plantation owner. Following a
failed escape attempt, Diallo’s enslaver allowed the educated young man to write a letter to his father detailing
his dire circumstances.
Written in Arabic, the letter passed through the
hands of several white men until it was placed in
the possession of Oglethorpe. (By the way, prior to
the founding of the Georgia colony, Oglethorpe was
a member of the British Parliament, chairman of the
Associates of Dr. Bray, an Anglican evangelical society
and deputy governor of the Royal African Company, a
British slave trading enterprise.)
After having Diallo’s letter translated, Oglethorpe
entered into an agreement with the Maryland slaveholder to purchase the enslaved young man and pay for
his passage to England. And it was on December 21,
1732 when Diallo’s benefactor severed official ties with
the slaving corporation. According to a 19th century
Georgia historian, Diallo’s “history” had a profound
effect on Oglethorpe’s “ideas” regarding slavery.
During the spring of 1733 while Oglethorpe was in
North America, Diallo arrived in London, assumed a new
Using meticulous research
and fresh historical analysis,
Michael L. Thurmond
rewrites the prehistory of
American abolitionism and
adds an important new
chapter to Georgia’s
origin story.
James Oglethorpe
father of georgia
a founder’s journey from slave trader to abolitionist
Michael L. Thurmond
hb: $29.95 | 9780820366043
university of georgia press
N OV EM B E R /D EC E M BER 2023
49
ugapress.org