17321776 Club
Oglethorpe wins the charter; a new colony rises between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida
Three years after watching his friend die in Fleet Prison, Oglethorpe and his partners secure the Province of Georgia as a haven for the "worthy poor" and a military buffer to the south.
Three years after touring England's debtors' prisons and watching his friend Robert Castell die of disease in Fleet Prison, James Oglethorpe had a use for his outrage: a new colony. On June 9, 1732, Oglethorpe, John Perceval, Benjamin Martyn, and a group of prominent Britons petitioned for — and were eventually granted — a royal charter to establish the Province of Georgia between the Savannah River and the Altamaha River. The colony would serve two purposes at once: a refuge for Britain's "worthy poor" and a military buffer between the prosperous Carolinas and Spanish Florida. Six months later, Oglethorpe sailed from Gravesend with 114 settlers aboard the merchant ship Anne…
