The first two decades of colonial Georgia's existence—known as its Trustee era—have come down through history as a well-intentioned but failed experiment. In one largely overlooked way, contends Julie Anne Sweet, the first attempt to establish Georgia was a success. The climate of respect and cooperation sustained between the British settlers and the Native American group with whom they had the greatest contact—the Lower Creeks—strengthened the fledgling colony and helped prevent the armed conflict between Europeans and Indians that had plagued other American colonies.
As Sweet focuses on negotiations between James Oglethorpe, the English leader, and Tomochichi, the Lower Creek representative, over issues of trade, land, and military support, she also looks at other individuals and groups who played a role in British-Creek interactions during this period: British traders; missionaries, including John Wesley and George Whitefield; the Salzburgers of Ebenezer; interpreters such as Mary Musgrove; the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees; British colonists from South Carolina; and Spanish and French forces who vied with the Georgia settlers for land, trading rights, and Indian support.
This study of conflict and compromise, dominance and accommodation, will alter previous judgments about the Georgia Trustee colony—and the role of Tomochichi and the Lower Creeks in ensuring its survival.