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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 59
years gave rise1 to much complaint. Fifty acres of land—to define the
system briefly—were deemed sufficient for each family's support. Con
sequently, to each able-bodied colonist was allotted this amount of land,
to be held, however, not in fee simple but as a military fief; and on this
land he was to plant 100 white mulberry trees to every ten acres. It
was feared that if the lots were otherwise conveyed, it would tend to en
feeble the garrison by giving rise to an accumulation of lots in one own
ership; and to prevent such a result it was planned that for each lot
there should be an occupant to cultivate the ground and to bear arms.
Since women were not expected to act as soldiers, it was not contem
plated, except in certain contingencies that they should be landholders.
Consequently, grants were to be made in tail male rather than in tail
general. To give to a female the portion of a soldier would be to dimin
ish the strength of the settlement. Moreover, by intermarriage several
lots might be merged into one ownership; and inasmuch as women were
not supposed to serve on juries or to perform military duties, these bur
densome obligations, in the event she were given a soldier's portion,
would devolve more frequently upon the men.
There were numerous reasons to justify the trustees in refusing to
sanction alienations in fee. To begin with, the right of sale was neces
sarily inherent in such an estate; and immediately following an investi
ture of title a grantee, if he saw fit to do so, might sell, mortgage or alien
his lands. Most of the colonists to be transported to Georgia were indi
gent ; and, having failed as managers at home, it was not deemed prudent,
at the outset to entrust them with the ownership of property which in a
short while might be squandered. Again, the colony was surrounded by
Papists, French to the west and Spaniards to the south; and it was
thought unsafe, therefore, to grant estates in fee because it might be the
means of introducing Catholics into the colony of Georgia. Though
religious persecution had become less rigorous, there still existed in Eng
land a feeling of bitter hostility toward all non-Protestants.
The charter forbade a grant of more than 500 acres of land to any
one person; but if titles were conveyed in fee simple it would not be long
before thrifty individuals would acquire a concentrated ownership of
lots, thus contravening the charter's manifest intent. Moreover, since
the trustees were defraying the passage of these settlers, maintaining
them on the voyage, giving them tools, weapons, seeds, etc., with which
to begin life anew in the colony, and agreeing furthermore to support
them for a season from the general stores, all this in addition to having
compromised with creditors for sums due them by these debtors, it
might, therefore, be well argued that the public had purchased from
these settlers, for an adequate consideration, whatever they could give
in the way of just equivalent. Consequently there seemed to be no alter
native, save to grant estates in tail male, if Georgia's character as a mili
tary province was to be maintained.
Nor were men of means to hold lands under a different tenure.
Where a settler defrayed his own expenses and brought ten able-bodied
servants, over twenty-one years of age, into the colony, he was to receive
500 acres of land, not an acre of which, however, could be sold; and at
his death this land was to descend to his male heirs. He was to pay a
rental of 20 shillings a year on each 100 acres but payment was not to