USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -He was a social reformer in England founding Georgia, after a grant from King George II, to resettle Britain’s poor, especially those in debtors’ prison. He established a small group on the Savanna River hoping to create a debtors colony that was free of vice.

Detailed explanation-2: -Oglethorpe wanted it to be different from the rest of the English colonies in America. He didn’t want the colony to be dominated by large wealthy plantation owners who owned hundreds of slaves. He envisioned a colony that would be settled by debtors and the unemployed. They would own and work small farms.

Detailed explanation-3: -Each debtor was to receive 50 acres of land to farm. This land could not be sold. Silkworms were transported from Europe with the hope of developing a silk industry in Georgia’s mulberry trees. Unfortunately, the plan itself was a miserable failure.

Detailed explanation-4: -The founder of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, specifically started the colony as a debtor’s refuge in 1732, as an alternative to English debtors’ prison.