Georgia: A Historical Timeline

PRE-EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
Prior to 1520	The earliest known people living in the geographical region now known as Georgia are the Paleo and Archaic people of 10,000-1,000 BCE. The Moundbuilders, a group of Native Americans whose leaders live in temples above large mounds of earth, live in the area from 1000 to 1550, when the first European settlers arrive. The Cherokee also occupy the northern part of the state.
1520-1666 EARLY EUROPEAN EXPLORATION
1526	Lucas Vazques de Ayllon establishes the first colony on mainland America; the location is now believed to have been on Georgia's Sapelo Island.
1540	March 9) Hernando de Soto reaches southern Georgia. He finds Native Americans raising domesticated turkeys, caged opossums, corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, and plums.
1541	(May 8) De Soto discovers and crosses the Mississippi River, which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo. He encounters the Cherokee tribe, who number about 25,000.
1566	The Spanish build forts along the Atlantic Coast; the first in Georgia is on Santa Catalina (or St. Catherine's Island).
1629	Charles I grants a charter to Sir Robert Heath that includes territory reaching approximately from Albemarle Sound in North Carolina to Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia.
1650	The Cherokee Nation migrates south, occupying more than 40,000 square miles in the southern Appalachian Mountains.
1663	King Charles II of England awards land in America known as the Carolinas (including present-day Georgia) to eight members of the nobility who assisted with his restoration to power.
1666-1732 GEORGIA COLONY
1730	(July 30) British Member of Parliament James Oglethorpe and 20 associates petition King George II for a royal charter to establish a colony southwest of Carolina. Colonists name it Georgia in honor of the king.
1732	(April) King George signs Georgia's charter, and Georgia subsequently becomes the last of the 13 original colonies.
1733-1774 PRE-REVOLUTIONARY ERA
1733	(February 1) Oglethorpe and 116 colonists found Savannah, which is based on a grid of streets around six large squares. Oglethorpe hopes to establish an ideal colony for the resettlement of the English "worthy poor." He also imagines a "buffer state" to defend the southern parts of the British colonies from Spanish Florida. The colonists begin to grow upland cotton and peaches. (July 11) Forty Jews arrive in Savannah and form the Congregation Mickve Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in the U.S.
1735	Georgia enacts three Parliamentary laws. Slaves are now prohibited in the colony, as is rum. Traders are also required to purchase a license before trading with Native Americans.
1742	(July 7) The Battle of Bloody Marsh is fought at Fort Frederica and Fort St. Simons. Great Britain has declared war on Spain over the disputed border between Georgia and Florida. During the War of Jenkin's Ear (initiated in part by a Spanish soldier literally cutting off part of British mariner Robert Jenkins' ear), the Spanish invade Georgia. Oglethorpe troops hold them off, securing Georgia for the British, who finally defeat the Spanish in 1748.
1749	Georgia's law prohibiting the importation of slaves is rescinded. From 1750–1775, planters rapidly import slaves so that their population grows from 500 to approximately 18,000.
1752	(May 16) A group of 280 Puritans arrive in Georgia from Dorchester, South Carolina, bringing 536 slaves with them. A second group of 70 Puritans then arrives with 1,500 slaves. The groups settle at Midway and Sunbury. Georgia becomes a royal colony with an elected an assembly. King George appoints James Wright governor, and the right to vote is extended to Protestant freemen, with certain property restrictions. Suffrage, however, is denied to Catholics.
1756	Four hundred French Acadians arrive in Georgia after the Great Expulsion of 1755–1763, when British colonial officers and New England militia deport more than 14,00 Acadians from the Canadian maritime provinces.
1757	(February 8) Reflecting growing resentment and discrimination toward the Acadian community, the Georgia Assembly enacts a bill that permits justices of the peace to "bind out" (something akin to indentured servitude) all Acadians who refuse to work to anyone willing to feed, lodge, and clothe them in return for service.
1774–1790 REVOLUTIONARY GEORGIA
1774	(October) The First Continental Congress adopts the Association, an agreement to import nothing from Great Britain and to export nothing to Great Britain, Ireland, or the British West Indies. The Association is ratified within six months by all the colonies except New York and Georgia, which refuses to send delegates. (December) St John's Parish ratifies the acts of the Continental Congress and attempts to secede from Georgia to join South Carolina. The Continental Congress bans all interaction with Georgia except for St. John's Parish.
1775	(May 10) Lyman Hall convinces St. John's Parish to send him to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on behalf of Georgia. (May) Georgia patriots storm the royal magazine in Savannah and carry off ammunition. The following month, they use the occasion of the king's birthday for a raucous demonstration against the monarchy.
1776	(February) Royal governor Wright flees Georgia. (April 15) A new, patriot-controlled Congress adopts "Rules and Regulations" of Georgia. Congress elects Archibald Bulloch as president. He serves only six months in office. In response to Georgia's refusal to adopt the Continental Congress's legislation, South Carolina adopts a resolution to annex Georgia. It threatens to destroy the state by constructing a town opposite Savannah, thus drying up Georgia's commerce.
1776	Georgia representatives Button Gwinnett, George Walton, and Lyman Hall sign the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
1777	(September 16) An act subordinates all Georgia laws to the Continental Congress.
1778	(December 29) British troops attempt a new strategy to defeat the colonials by capturing Savannah. Slaves escape to British lines, where they are promised freedom. By the end of the war, more than one-third of Georgia's slaves (approximately 5,000) have escaped.
1779	At the siege of Savannah, American and French troops attempt unsuccessfully to retake Savannah. The British remain in control of the city until July 1782. (February 14) Patriots defeat American Loyalists and the British at Kettle Creek, one of the most important battles to be fought in Georgia. The victory by the Patriots demonstrates the inability of the British to hold the interior of the state.
1788	(January 2) Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1790-1859 ANTEBELLUM GEORGIA
1794	Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin invention. King Cotton quickly comes to dominate Georgia agriculture, and the state's slave population, integral to the harvesting process, continues to grow.
1798	Georgia forbids the further importation of slaves.
1817	The First Seminole War begins as Georgia backwoodsmen attack Native Americans just north of the Florida border. It ends the following year. The Georgia Legislature enacts laws to define the common boundary with Tennessee and creates a boundary commission to survey and mark the state border.
1823	(December 19) Georgia passes the first U.S. state birth registration law.
1825	(February 12) Creek Indian chiefs cede all Creek lands in Georgia to the U.S. in the Treaty of Indian Springs. All but the Tukabatchee promise to leave Georgia for lands west of the Mississippi River by September 1.
1826	(January 24) The Treaty of Washington abrogates the Treaty of Indian Springs. The Creeks cede a smaller area of land to the federal government. By 1827 the Creeks are gone from Georgia.
1829	Gold is discovered in the north Georgia mountains, leading to the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in the U.S.
1830	The Indian Removal Act sends all tribes west to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, giving Georgia access to tribal lands.
1831	The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia that a Native American tribe may not sue in federal court. The following year, the Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Government has exclusive authority over Native Americans and their lands within any state in Worcester vs. Georgia.
1831–32	Slaves and Irish workers build the 16.5-mile Savannah-Ogeechee Canal to transport cotton and timber between the two rivers.
1835–38	tA Cherokee minority agrees to the migration of the whole tribe by signing the Treaty of New Echota. The treaty cedes all Cherokee land to the U.S. President Martin Van Buren sends federal troops to round up the Cherokee and move them west of the Mississippi in an act that becomes known as the "Trail of Tears."
1859-1900 THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION ERAS
1861	(January 19) Georgia secedes from the Union and becomes the fifth state to join the Confederacy.
1863	The two-day Battle of Chickamauga between Union and Confederate troops in northwestern Georgia is a significant Union defeat. It forces Union troops to retreat into Tennessee.
1864	The first Union prisoners arrive at Camp Sumter prison near Andersonville. The camp is designed for 6,000 prisoners but holds 33,000 by the end of the summer. Over the course of the Civil War, 45,000 Union prisoners are brought to Andersonville, and 29 percent die there. (May 6) Union general Sherman and his troops begin to advance on Atlanta. The siege forces Confederate troops to retreat to the mountains. General Sherman's forces seize Atlanta on September 2. (November 15) General Sherman begins his "March to the Sea." The campaign ends with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. About 10,000 slaves flee captivity to join Sherman's Army. Under Sherman's "scorched earth" policies, troops destroy much of the state, including civilian property, during the 300-mile march. Causing an estimated $100 million in damage, the army also destroys railroads and telegraph lines and seizes or destroys livestock and crops. The devastating Confederate defeat becomes a turning point in the war, and an infamous chapter in Georgia history.
1865	(December 9) The Georgia Legislature ratifies the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery.
1870	(Jul 15) Georgia is the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
1886	(May) John S. Pemberton invents a cola beverage in Atlanta. Manufactured as a sugary syrup meant to be mixed with carbonated water; it contains small amounts of cocaine and more caffeine than the drink contains today. Frank Robinson, Pemberton's bookkeeper, suggests the name "Coca-Cola," writing it in the cursive script still featured in the company's logo. Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta is the first soda fountain to sell the drink.
1895	Two hundred Georgians of African descent leave Savannah for Liberia, an African country created as a home for repatriated former slaves.
1900–1929 EARLY 20TH CENTURY
1904	(December 28) Farmers burn two million bales of cotton in an attempt to prop up falling prices.
1905	Alonzo Herndon, a former slave, spends $140 to create Atlanta Mutual, which sells burial insurance to Atlanta's African-American community. The company becomes Atlanta Life Financial Group.
1906	(September 22) The Atlanta Race Riot begins. Rising tension between whites and African-Americans over job competition and civil rights erupts in race riots that kill 25–40 people before the violence is quelled on September 26.
1912	Juliette Gordon Low organizes the Girl Guides in Savannah, which later becomes the Girl Scouts of America.
1919	(July 24) Georgia rejects the 19th Amendment, denying women the right to vote.
1921	The boll weevil, which feeds on cotton buds and flowers, cuts Georgia's cotton production in half. The boll weevil infestation contributes to the South expanding into peanut farming.
1922	Rebecca Felton becomes the first woman to be seated in the U.S. Senate after serving out her deceased husband's remaining term.
1926	Teaching the theory of evolution becomes legally forbidden in Atlanta schools.
1930–1950 THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II
1936	(April 6) A category 4 tornado kills 202 and injures 1,800 in Gainesville.
1939	(March 18) Georgia ratifies the Bill of Rights, along with Connecticut and Massachusetts. While the legislation went into effect in 1791, these three states considered it unnecessary. (December 15) The motion picture Gone With the Wind, which features a vivid recreation of the state during the Civil War era, has its world premiere in Atlanta. Based on the book by Margaret Mitchell, it remains the highest-grossing film of all time adjusting for inflation.
1943	Georgia grants 18-year-olds voting rights.
1950–PRESENT MODERN GEORGIA
1953	(February 19) Georgia becomes the first state to approve a literature censorship board in a campaign against "obscene literature," reviewing books such as Erksine Caldwell's God's Little Acres and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. The commission ceases operations in 1973.
1961	(December 12) Martin Luther King, Jr. and 700 demonstrators are arrested in Albany, Georgia. King would be arrested several more times in Georgia through 1962. He is buried in Atlanta.
1970	(February 20) Georgia becomes the 45th state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The amendment actually went into effect in 1920. Ted Turner buys an Atlanta UHF station and builds it into the Turner Broadcasting System. It spawns CNN among other cable TV networks, becoming a broadcasting titan. The company merges with Time Warner in 1996.
1973	The Atlanta school system agrees to desegregate.
1974	Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves breaks Babe Ruth's home-run record by hitting his 715th career home run in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1978	Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler magazine, is shot and wounded outside a Georgia courtroom during a legal battle related to obscenity charges. White supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin confesses to the shootings, claiming he was outraged by an interracial photo shoot in the magazine.
1996	(July 27) A pipe bomb is set off at Centennial Olympic Park during the 26th Summer Olympic Games. One person is killed and 111 are injured. Security guard Richard Jewell is falsely accused of the attack, but Eric Rudolphe later pleads guilty to the bombing.
2003	Georgia's governor signs legislation to redesign the state flag without the Confederate emblem, which is considered by many to be evocative of Georgia's past history as a slave state.

Click to enlarge an image

Pre-1520: Present-day Flag of the Cherokee Nation

1526: Detail of the American Coast. Map by Diego Ribero.

1540: Hernando De Soto, Spanish explorer and conquistador

1541: Various routes have been proposed for de Soto's trail.

1629: Sir Robert Heath

1663: Charles II

1733: James Edward Oglethorpe, Georgia's founder

1733: Congregation Mickve Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in the United States

1775: Lyman Hall, signer of the Declaration of Independence

1776: Archibald Bulloch, lawyer, soldier, statesman

1778: map depicting Savannah, probably drawn by a British engineer

1829: Gold veinlets in gneiss from the Battle Branch Mine

1835: While Robert Lindneux' painting commemorates the Trail of Tears, it does not do justice to the death-march conditions.

1863: Battle of Chickamauga (lithograph by Kurz and Allison)

1864: Andersonville National Cemetery holds the remains of thousands of Union POWs.

1865: Sherman's March to the Sea left devastation in its wake. The burning of Columbia, South Carolina is depicted here by William Waud for Harper's Weekly.