response paper:

VICTIMS OF PHILANTHROPY

The first half of the 18th century was a relatively strange time for England. The previous two
centuries had many, many ups and downs, but were ultimately a great period. This time was dubbed
“unheroic.” Everyone was content with their complacency, unwilling to broaden their horizons and
venture beyond what was known and safe. Politics was corrupt, but the politicians, namely the first PM
Sir Rober Walpole, hid behind a facade of propriety. Philanthropic causes were either frauds or only had
the goal of making the streets of London look (and smell) pretty for the gentlemen walking around.

From all of that emerged a proposal to create yet another American colony, south of the Carolinas,
between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers. Its main goal, while not very clear, was to create a fair place
for hard-working – industrious – people to prosper and pick the succulent fruits of their labor. But the
main points that the colony’s creators, Lord Percival and General Oglethorpe, were trying to emphasize
was that they were not doing it for the profit, but with purely altruistic motives.

The first plan of colonization of Georgia was proposed in 1717 by Sir Robert Montgomery. It
consisted of one square mile plots of land and a simple but strict hierarchy. The plans of Oglethorpe and
the Trustees of Georgia, the government lobbyists for the colony’s interests, somewhat differed from
Montgomery’s original plan, but it kept the same basic ideas.

Some people’s displeasure with the English society was understandable. As the author says, it was
as constrained as Pope’s heroic couplets, which made it pretty unheroic. The people who colonized
Georgia weren’t religiously or politically persecuted, but they also didn’t contribute to the society in the
way that the authorities wanted. Moving them to another continent was a good gentrification tactic.

While having a plan is good, they often turn sour; and the grander they are, the larger the chance
they will fail. What Oglethorpe and his associates were trying to do was sensible – perhaps too sensible –
as was the way of their time, and that proved to be their undoing. In addition, the fact that they failed to
properly investigate the situation in the area they meant to colonize was borderline laughable. They ended
up gambling with the lives of tens of thousands of people who were to emigrate to the new world.

It’s also always interesting to see different perspectives on owning African slaves. Originally, there
weren’t meant to be any. They were too distrusting of black people, they thought that they would be too
difficult to manage and concluded that it would be easier for potential owners to actually do the jobs that
the slaves would do than to look after them. That decision was later reversed. About a century later,
Georgia was a Confederate state and one of the biggest supporters of slave ownership, which was a rather
big change of pace.

In conclusion, this was a project that was doomed from the start. The people who were meant to
be brought to Georgia didn’t fit into the constrained English society, but Georgia was just as constrained.
Oglethorpe wanted to create a utopia, but didn’t really care about solving the issues that came with that
socio-political structure. Ultimately, Georgia was only a pipe dream of the people who wanted to create
something better, but failed to do it due to trying to be too idealistic and being unprepared for the
problems that emerged.

Saša Aleksić