Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

168 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
for each offense, be fined five pounds. Upon these conditions, formal
acceptance of which was given, a petition signed by twenty-seven per
sons of the highest standing in the province was forwarded to the
trustees asking that slavery be allowed at once; and in response thereto,
on October 26, 1749, tinder the conditions above indicated slaves were
admitted by law into the colony of Georgia.
Without multiplying details, it was only a few months before the
regulations against a sale of rum and other distilled liquors was also
repealed; while on March 25, 1750, the law governing land tenure was
changed so that an owner of property might mortgage or sell his land
at will. Thus fee simple estates were substituted for estates in tail
male. One after another, therefore, the rules which, in the beginning,
had been deemed by the trustees so essential to the welfare of the colony,
had been abrogated. Even the silk-worm industry, of which the trustees
had expected so much, was soon to die a natural death, despite every
effort made by the British government to encourage its development.
Handsome appropriations, liberal premiums, generous gifts, all proved
unavailing. Mulberry trees began to die of neglect, cocoons decreased
in number, filatures fell into ruin, and an industry from vast revenues
were expected to accrue to the Crown of England, perished by slow
degrees until at last its existence became only a dim recollection. The
industrious Salzburgers alone persevered for any length of time in the
spinning of silk; but even these patient Germans became discoiiraged
at last. Thus every reform principle upon which the colony of Georgia
was established by the trustees was in the end abrogated or annulled;
but nothing can be said derogatory to the motives of the high-minded
English gentlemen who were Georgia's earliest sponsors, and who, if
somewhat visionary, were nevertheless noble and generous men.
Oglethorpe's tact in dealing with the Indians, whether we ascribe it
to his far-sighted wisdom or to his strong benevolence of soul, secured
for the province a long immunity from hostile attack. During the
entire period of his residence in Georgia not a drop of English blood
gleamed on an Indian's tomahawk or stained a white man's doorstep;
and for years after his return to England so pervasive was his influ
ence throughout the wilderness, so manifold the deeds of kindness
which he had left behind him in Georgia, so just, humane and tender
the recollections in which his good name was enshrined in the memory
of these loyal friends of an alien race, so powerful the spell which he
still continued to cast upon these savage men from whom he was sepa
rated by 3,000 miles of water, that no serious rupture with the Indians
disturbed the smooth tenor of Georgia's colonial life, and even down to
the close of the Revolution, both the Creeks and the Cherokees, still true
to an old friendship, remained loyal to the flag of England.
But this friendship was at times sorely tested. As early as 1736
a German Jesuit named Christian Priber, in the employ of the French,
had endeavored to alienate the affections of the Cherokee Indians.
Priber was an accomplished linguist. He was also a man of intense
religious zeal and with the courage of a Stoic. The ascendancy which
he acquired over the Cherokees, among whom he made his residence,
was marvelous, and for months all efforts to compass his arrest were
futile. Finally, however, he was brought before Oglethorpe, who was