ImmigrantsThe Creek Indians meet with James Oglethorpe. By the time Oglethorpe and his Georgia colonists arrived in 1733, relations between the Creeks and the English were already well established and centered mainly on trade.Oglethorpe with Creek Indians to colonial Georgia came from a vast array of regions around the Atlantic basin—including the British Isles, northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, the Caribbean, and a host of American colonies. They arrived in very different social and economic circumstances, bringing preconceptions and cultural practices from their homelands. Each wave of migrants changed the character of the colony—its size, composition, and economy—and brought new opportunities and new challenges to the people already there. A majority of the immigrant white population traveled to Georgia because of the availability and cheapness of land, which was bought, bartered, or bullied from surrounding Indians: more than 1 million acres in the 1730s, almost 3.5 million acres in 1763, and a further cession of more than 2 million acres in 1773.From EuropeDuring the Trusteeship (1732-52), the overwhelming majority of Georgia immigrants—more than 3,000 in number—arrived from Europe. Around two-thirds of these pioneers were funded by the Trustees, This sketch of the early Ebenezer settlement was drawn in 1736 by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck. That same year the Salzburger settlement moved to a location closer to the Savannah River, where conditions were better for farming.Early Ebenezerwho offered them a passage across the Atlantic, provisions for one year, tools, and a tract of land in return for their labor.After 1752, under the headright system, every settler was entitled to 100 acres of land, plus 50 additional acres for each member of the settler's household, including slaves and indentured servants. (In 1777 the initial allotment per settler changed to 200 acres.) All settlers—men and women—could receive up to 1,000 acres of land through a headright grant. The headright grant was a primary mechanism for distributing land throughout royal rule and early statehood.
