USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Oglethorpe opposed the practice of imprisoning English debtors and believed that oppressed members of dissenting religious sects deserved a place of refuge. He suggested a colony in Georgia for them would also serve as a buffer between the English settlers in the Carolinas and the Spaniards in Florida.

Detailed explanation-2: -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-3: -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-4: -The project was the brain child of James Oglethorpe, a former army officer. After Oglethorpe left the army, he devoted himself to helping the poor and debt-ridden people of London, whom he suggested settling in America.

Detailed explanation-5: -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.