Another Story of the Settling of Georgia

Oglethorpe, Tomochichi, Mary Musgrove meeting and negotiating

​The historical founding of Georgia probably needs to go well before Oglethorpe traveled up the Savannah River on his boat with the colonists. Several years before Governor Johnson of South Carolina had asked Mary and John Musgrove to move to what we now know as Georgia and set up a trading post. That would help keep him and the South Carolinians aware of what was happening in the Native American world and as buffer from the Spanish in Florida. This land was called the ‘Disputed Lands’ and Spain, Native Americans, French and English made some claim on the land. Yet only the Native Americans can be said to have ‘settled’ any land in these parts.

Mary and John were an up-and-coming power couple in South Carolina. They had over five hundred acres of farmland and cattle (a rarity in that part of the colony). John also served in the South Carolina Militia. The governor looked to Mary and John to move from their successful farm in South Carolina to Georgia to anticipate and inform him of what was going on in the area.

At the same time in June 1732 during an Upper and Lower Creek peace negotiation with Charleston, Tomochichi, a mico chief, was visiting with the Governor. Tomochichi started in 1728 to organize a new tribe called the Yamacraws. Sometime after this they settled on the Savannah bluff. He was visiting the governor to receive assurances that his Yamacraw tribe now located across the boundary of the colony of South Carolina would not be seen as a threat and to enhance the trade between the tribe and South Carolinians. The eventual peace treaty negotiated between the colonists and the Creeks included the confluence of the Governor’s request to Mary and John and Tomochichi’s request. Both would settle on the Yamacraw Bluff. This agreement led to Mary and John establishing a trading post at the bluff on the Savannah River next to the Yamacraws. The agreement had benefits for both sides. The Creeks now had a tribe close to Charleston and the colonists had a buffer between them and Spain in the South and a foothold in the Disputed Lands. It also gave each side a neutral and safe place to trade with each other.

On January 11th, 1733 Gen. Oglethorpe’s ship with the Georgia colonists landed in Charleston. It must have been alarming to Tomochichi when Gen. Oglethorpe’s first negotiation was for the land on which they lived. Of course, Mary and Tomochichi would see economic advantages with trade with the colonists. and Tomochichi (who had strained relationships with the Creeks) would increase his power and influence by being the conduit of trade and information between the colonists and Creeks. This made the moves easier.

We know many years later that the economic and political friendship between Tomochichi and Mary with Oglethorpe would enable the success of the forming British colony. To not include these events and their settlements as the origins of Georgia is like excluding the story of John the Baptist as the preparer of the way in the Gospel stories. The British through Governor Johnson of the colony of South Carolina had already placed a footprint of the founding of the Georgia colony before Oglethorpe ever set sail from England.
​
I remember first reading of the treaty between the Creeks and the South Carolina colonists and was amazed that this history is not talked about in the telling of the founding of the Georgia colony. It may sound conspiratorial, but one must believe this story is neglected by the colonists to give prominence to Oglethorpe in our founding. The Europeans would eventually push the Creeks off the land. The story of Tomochichi, Mary, and John’s early settling of Georgia would have unsettled the narrative of the Europeans as they advanced West. Whatever may have been the case in previous tellings of the history; we should not be neglecting this history of the early settlement of Savannah now.

---