Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1901-12-26
Un90raten Chapters in Georgia History.
BY GEORGE G. SMITH, WnevIll., Macon, Ga.

Leone. in Africa, and sold them TO tho
planters on the coast. The men with
few slaves were generally elbowed out
Of the way of the larger planters. and
all along the Great and Little Ogechee
and on the Savannah and in the
swamps of Liberty. and on the Turtle
river, in Glynn, and on the Neck, in
Bryan, there were large bodies of
slaves even before the Revolutionary
war. The children of these well-to-do
planters inherited great plantations
and scores and hundreds of negroes,
and became the famous rice planters
of lower Georgia
The savages were gradually civilized,
and while never as long as slavery exc
listed fully enlightened they were vast
ly changed before they were set free
from the white mans control. I. viii In
another article give a picture of the
negro of 50 years ago as he then APP
peared on the rice plantations and the
sea islands, but, now am concerned
with the first negroes in Georgia There
are many readers of the Journal who
do not recognize the picture have
drawn, but those who lived on the
coast and who knew the African as he
was will be able to underwrite 1t.
These, however, were not the only
slaves in Georgia.
The Virginia negroes who came to
Georgia were Africans by descent. but
not by birth. The Barons OF the Poto-
mac and the James who, like King
Carter and Colonel Byrd, and the Ran
dolphs, and BoIings, had hundreds and
even thousands of slaves, did not come
to Georgia. The Virginians who came
to Georgia were at first men without
any slaves; then they brought few,
from three to twenty, and after cotton
planting began in rare cases the rich
planter with so slaves came to make
a settlement In Georgia. AS a general
thing he moved on till he reached the
black lands Of Alabama, the Mississip-
pi bottom on the Red River. The care
full study of Wilkes, Ebert. Green,
Columbia and Burke shows that those
who had such a large number OF
slaves in after time came TO Georgia
with only a few.
The largest slave owner in upper
Georgia before the beginning OF the
century. was John Cobb, who had S.,
and his kinsman, John Lewis, who had
more. These negroes were unlike the
Sea island negroes in everything but
color They had $50 years of Anglo
Saxon influence behind them and they
had changed in every feature, physi-
cal, mental and moral. They lived as
well as their masters did. They ate
If not at yet from the same table.
They were vigorous, well-built and Of
ten comedy. There was, OF course,
great variety among them. There was
among them many Uncle Remuses and
Old Sis and they descended in the
scale to the most brutal savage even
more despicable than his ancestor cap
tured in the swamps of the Congo. but
on the whole no race had ever pro-
crossed more wonderfully and more
rapidly.
These "old Virginy niggers," as they
loved to call themselves, were a people
to themselves. They had no use or
affinity for the low down negro from
the rice plantations. When Tom was
a coachman or Sally a ladies' maid
there was no way Of measuring the
contempt with which they regarded
poor white trash and low down, no
count plantation niggers. The laws
made by the Englishman and Scotch
man under the direction of the trus-
tees, laws which have been held up as
evidence of the Georgians brutality,
were not made by Georgians at all.
They are brought out fully in my his
tory and in that of Col. Jones and Bish-
Oh. Stevens, and while they sound
strangely in these days they were the
best possible then. They aimed 70 Sc
cure to the negro full protection of life
and limb and to see to 1t that he had
food, clothing, shelter and supervision,
but they aimed to keep a savage In
subsection.
In future chapter win tell a story
which in few years more win sound
like fiction Of the negro on the old
time plantation.