Georgia

CHEROKEE AND CREEK Indians lived in Georgia before the arrival of the first European to sight it, Juan Ponce de Leon, who sailed past the coast of Florida in 1521. There was an attempt by the Spanish to establish a settlement in 1526, with French settlers coming some years later. British settlement started in the 1730s with James Oglethorpe, a former British Parliamentarian hoping that the “worthy poor” from England might be able to form a colony, with the first settlers coming in 1733. Initially, slavery was banned, but this ended in 1749 with large numbers of African slaves being brought to the region beginning the 1750s. After the American War of Independence, Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 2, 1788.

The first governor of Georgia was George Walton, who had supported the American Revolution. He took over the governorship in 1775, with eight others fulfilling the position for short periods until October 1779, when Walton was elected as governor. He only held the position for two months, when he was appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy that had been created by the resignation of James Jackson. Jackson had been elected to the first U.S. Congress, and had turned down the governorship of Georgia citing inexperience, although he did take up the position in 1798–1801 after serving in the U.S. Senate. His son, Jabez Young Jackson, was a congressman in the 24th and 25th U.S. House of Representatives, and his grandson, also called James Jackson, was later a representative for Georgia, serving on the staff of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (no relation).

In 1794, Eli Whitney, a Massachusetts-born inventor who was living in Savannah, patented the cotton gin, which increased cotton production and, as a result, increased the demand for slaves. Although there was a ban on the slave trade in 1808, many slaves were brought to Georgia from South Carolina and other states. Georgia became one of the major slave states, electing Jeffersonian Republicans in gubernatorial elections 1796–1831. George W Crawford was elected as a Whig governor and held office 1843–47. During the 1840s, the Georgia legislature moved from annual to biennial meetings, with state senate seats filled 16 months before an incumbent took office.

The Mexican War, 1846–48, was particularly divisive and splits took place in both the Whig and Democratic Parties, with the war becoming the most important issue in the 1846 congressional, and the 1847 legislative, senate, and gubernatorial elections for Georgia, as well as the 1848 presidential and congressional elections. This, in turn, led to the Democratic Party emerging as the major political force in the state, with every governor of Georgia 1847–2003 being Democrat, except during Reconstruction.

In 1857, Joseph Emerson Brown, a former member of the state senate, was elected governor. Three years later, in the presidential election, Georgia voted for John C. Breckinridge, the southern Democratic candidate, giving him 52,176 votes (48.9 percent) to John Bell of the Constitutional Union who received 42,960 votes (40.3 percent). Brown had rapidly become a supporter of secession, with Georgia seceding from the Union on January 19, 1861, and joining the Confederate States of America. When the Civil War started, Brown, in support of states rights, felt that Georgian soldiers should only be used in the defense of the state, trying to get Colonel Francis Barstow to withdraw his Georgian soldiers from the First Battle of Bun Run.

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