The Story of the Thirteen ColoniesGuerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)
History
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies
Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)
United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Arriving at Charleston, he went southward and founded the city of
Sa-van´nah. Before doing so, however, he had an interview with the
Indians of that section, from whom he bought the land. In exchange
for his gifts, they presented him with a buffalo robe lined with
eagle feathers, saying: "The eagle signifies swiftness, and the
buffalo strength. The English are swift as a bird to fly over the
vast seas, and as strong as a beast before their enemies. The
eagle's feathers are soft, and signify love; the buffalo's skin
is warm, and means protection: therefore, love and protect our
families."
An attempt to cultivate olive trees and breed silkworms proved as
great a failure in Georgia as in Carolina; but rice soon became one
of the staples of the colony, and the first fine cotton was raised
there from seed brought from India. Oglethorpe, wishing to give his
colony a good start, said that neither rum nor slaves should be
allowed within its limits. But some of his colonists were displeased
at this, although both Oglethorpe and John Wesley--the founder of
the Methodist Church--tried to convince them that they would be far
better off if they did their own work and kept sober. Shortly after
the visit of the Wesley brothers, White´field also came out to visit
the Georgia colony, where he supported the first orphan asylum built
in our country.
In 1739, war having broken out between England and Spain, Oglethorpe
led a small army of Georgians into Florida, to besiege St.
Augustine. To punish the Georgians for this attempt to take their
city, the Spaniards invaded their land three years later, but only
to be defeated at the battle of Fred-er-i´ca. When these troubles
came to an end, Oglethorpe went back to England. But even before his
departure people began to change the laws, and in a few years they
introduced both rum and slavery. Although Oglethorpe gave up Georgia
to the king in 1752, he took a great interest in the settlement he
had founded, and as he lived to be very old, he saw it join the
other colonies in 1776, for it was one of the famous thirteen.
XLV. CHARTER OAK.
After King Philip's War was over in New England, Charles II. turned
his attention to the colony of Massachusetts Bay, where four things
did not suit him. The Navigation Law, which applied to all the
colonies, was not kept in Massachusetts; there were many quarrels
between that colony and the settlements in Maine; Massachusetts
would not have an Episcopal church; and it had coined money. To
punish the colony for these things, Charles took away its charter
(1679), and said that thereafter New Hampshire should form a
separate royal province.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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