Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

226 " GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
small stick, or by putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning such
Slave, every such person shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of
ten pounds sterling.'' *
On visiting the southern confines of the province, Governor Reynolds
found the Town of Frederiea in ruins. The fort was dismantled. Most
of the guns had been taken to Savannah, where they were lying in the
sand; but some twenty cannon still remained. These—some of them
eighteen-pounders—"were all spoiled for want of care." The houses in
the town were in a greatly dilapidated condition; but, in the opinion
of Governor Reynolds, Frederica was the best situation for a garrison
to cover and protect the province from invasion by sea. On a bluff of
the Ogeechee, fourteen miles from its mouth, Governor Reynolds found
an ideal site for a seat of government. Here, on February 4, 1755, a
town had been laid out to which, with the approval of the king's coun
cil, he had given the name of Hardwicke, in honor of a relative, the
lord high chancellor of England. In a letter to the board of trade,
dated May 1, 1755, he thus speaks of the new town: f
"Hardwicke has a charming situation, the winding of the river
making it a peninsula; and it is the only fit place for the capital. There
are many objections to this Town of Savannah being so, besides its being-
situated at the extremity of the province, the shoalness of the river, and
the great height of the land, which is very inconvenient in the loading
and unloading of ships. Many lots have already been granted in Hard
wicke, but only one house is yet built there; and as the province is
unable to be at the expence of erecting the necessary public buildings,
and the annual sum of £500 allowed for erecting and repairing public
works, entertaining Indians, and other incidental expenses being in
sufficient for all those purposes, I am in hopes your Lordships will think
proper to get a sufficient sum allowed for erecting a Court-IIousc, and
Assembly-House, a Church, and a Prison at Hardwicke, which will be'
* COLONIAL SLAVE LAWS.—The following regulations were in force during the
whole or a part of the period in which slavery existed in Colonial Georgia. All negroes
mulattoes, mestizoes, and other persons of color, except Indians in amity with the
colony, were presumed to be slaves unless the contrary could be established. A slave
must not be absent from the town or plantation where he belonged without a ticket
from his master or overseer. "When found violating this law a slave might be pun
ished by any white person. In ease the slave should strike the white person, he might
lawfully be killed. Patrols were organized throughout the province, with the duty
of riding at least one night in each fortnight to visit the several plantations in each
district, and to whip every slave found abroad without a ticket. Slaves might not
buy or sell provisions or similar articles without a ticket.
The following offenses were capital crimes when committed by a slave: Burning
stacks of rice or stores of tar, or destroying similar valuable commodities; insurrec
tion, or the attempt to excite it; rape, or the attempt on a white female; assault on
a white person with a dangerous weapon; maiming a white person; burglary; arson;
murder of a slave or free negro. A slave might be tried for a capital ofiense by two
justices of the peace and three freeholders. Free negroes were included under most
of the slave regulations.
'The earliest law was positively barbarous in some of its provisions, sneh as the
offer of rewards for the scalps of slaves escaped beyond the Florida boundary, and
the fixing of the limit of the legal working day for slaves at sixteen hours. The
harshest provisions of the first laws were not continued longer than 1765.—IJ. B.
Phillips, in '' Georgia and State Eights,'' pp. 152-153.
t "History of Georgia," Jones, I, p. 470.