Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

his chief ally, Viscount Percival, that the Georgia plan was that the colonists
"should be settled all together . . . and be subject to subordinate rulers, who
should inspect their behavior and labor under one chief head; that in time
they, with their families, would increase so fast as to become a security and
defense of our possessions against the French and Indians of those parts; that
they should be employed in cultivating flax and hemp, which being allowed
to make into yarn, will be returned to England, Ireland, and greatly promote
our manufactures." The promotional literature of the trustees also pointed out
how the Roman Empire had sent settlers to their frontiers: "It was by this
policy that they elbowed all the nations around them." In short, the recipients
of "humanitarian" largesse, the very needy who needed "to be done good to,"
were to be shipped to Georgia to live and work under the absolute power of
their masters, in order to serve as docile fodder for military campaigns and as
exploited labor in the interests of their rulers! Dependents upon charity, of
course, are far more passive and susceptible to the orders of their masters and
keepers than are independent and self-reliant workers and other citizens. The
lineaments of power were becoming clearly discernible under the attractive
trappings of altruism.
One interesting revelation of the trustees' intent was their policy in selecting
colonists to emigrate to the new land. An inescapable fact of nature is
that largesse cannot be unlimited; hence, anyone who proposes such gifts
must needs select and choose their recipients. What were the trustees' criteria
of selection? First, they were careful to select only the needy; clearly, those
already earning their living at home would hardly prove docile or grateful
workers or soldiers. Another frankly expressed reason for this criterion was to
get some of the growing number of unsightly and annoying poor off the
streets of London (to "carry off the numbers of ... poor that pester the
streets of London"). However, far from concentrating on distressed debtors,
the trustees made sure that the applicants were "virtuous and industrious,"
and detailed investigations were made of their moral character. It would not
do, obviously, to have an unruly and unproductive group settle in the colony.
Moreover, the trustees insisted that the populace be generally sturdy and
able-bodied—here were not alms to the truly needy but a careful insistence
that the Georgians be fit for the tasks to which the trustees meant to assign
them.
One of the loudly proclaimed purposes of the new colony was to provide a
haven for German and other Protestant refugees. A commendable humanitarian
aim, to be sure. But we find that the trustees distrusted intensely religious
refugees, and agreed to accept only applicants checked for their industry and
sobriety.
The first colonists, numbering over one hundred, arrived in Georgia in
early 1733, led by Oglethorpe himself, and founded the city of Savannah at
the mouth of the Savannah River. More colonists soon arrived, including
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