On the Rim of the Caribbean: Colonial Georgia and the British Atlantic World

by Paul M. Pressly

Overview

How did colonial Georgia, an economic backwater in its early days, make its way into the burgeoning Caribbean and Atlantic economies where trade spilled over national boundaries, merchants operated in multiple markets, and the transport of enslaved Africans bound together four continents?

In On the Rim of the Caribbean, Paul M. Pressly interprets Georgia's place in the Atlantic world in light of recent work in transnational and economic history. He considers how a tiny elite of newly arrived merchants, adapting to local culture but loyal to a larger vision of the British empire, led the colony into overseas trade. From this perspective, Pressly examines the ways in which Georgia came to share many of the characteristics of the sugar islands, how Savannah developed as a "Caribbean" town, the dynamics of an emerging slave market, and the role of merchant-planters as leaders in forging a highly adaptive economic culture open to innovation. The colony's rapid growth holds a larger story: how a frontier where Carolinians played so large a role earned its own distinctive character.

Georgia's slowness in responding to the revolutionary movement, Pressly maintains, had a larger context. During the colonial era, the lowcountry remained oriented to the West Indies and Atlantic and failed to develop close ties to the North American mainland as had South Carolina. He suggests that the American Revolution initiated the process of bringing the lowcountry into the orbit of the mainland, a process that would extend well beyond the Revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820345802
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	376
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

PAUL M. PRESSLY is director of the Ossabaw Island Education Alliance, a partnership between the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Ossabaw Island Foundation.
PAUL M. PRESSLY was the director of the Ossabaw Island Education Alliance from 2005–2017; he now serves as director emeritus. He also provides leadership on special projects related to the future use of Ossabaw Island and on collaboration with K-12 and university institutions to provide educational programming. Pressly is coeditor of Coastal Nature, Coastal Culture: Environmental Histories of the Georgia Coast and African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee. He is the author of On the Rim of the Caribbean: Colonial Georgia and the British Atlantic World (all Georgia).

Table of Contents

Illustrations follow page 92

Preface ix
Maps xii

Introduction 1

Chapter One
The Three Georgias 11

Chapter Two
Merging Planting Elites 32

Chapter Three
The West Indies, Cornerstone of Trade 50

Chapter Four
Savannah as a “Caribbean” Town 69

Chapter Five
Merchants in a Creole Society 93

Chapter Six
The Slave Trade in Creating a Black Georgia 112

Chapter Seven
The Making of the Lowcountry Plantation 134

Chapter Eight
Georgia’s Rice and the Atlantic World 153

Chapter Nine
Retailing the “Baubles of Britain” 172

Chapter Ten
The Trade in Deerskins and Rum 193

Chapter Eleven
Nationalizing the Lowcountry 213

Notes 229
Bibliography 301
Index 337

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Colonial Georgia was West Indian rather than North American. This startling conclusion becomes less surprising after reading Paul Pressly's extensively researched, impeccably written, and intellectually adventurous study of how Georgians turned a struggling colony into a dynamic economic success through copying West Indian plantation culture. By orienting Georgia southward rather than northward, Pressly convincingly shows that slavery, plantations, and the pursuit of economic gain by almost any means made Georgia a very different-because West Indian-part of the British Atlantic world."—Trevor Burnard, professor of history, University of Melbourne

"This bold and highly original study adds immeasurably to our understanding of the imperial crisis in Georgia. Paul Pressly presents a subtle, complex analysis that lays bare the political ramifications of Georgia's mercantile connections with the Anglophone Caribbean. This is a most impressive first book and one that will influence the field for many years to come."—Betty Wood, author of Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia

Editorial Reviews

Colonial Georgia was West Indian rather than North American. This startling conclusion becomes less surprising after reading Paul Pressly's extensively researched, impeccably written, and intellectually adventurous study of how Georgians turned a struggling colony into a dynamic economic success through copying West Indian plantation culture. By orienting Georgia southward rather than northward, Pressly convincingly shows that slavery, plantations, and the pursuit of economic gain by almost any means made Georgia a very different-because West Indian-part of the British Atlantic world.

professor of history, University of Melbourne - Trevor Burnard

On the Rim of the Caribbean makes an important contribution to the study of British mainland plantation colonies. . . . Pressly’s rich foundation of evidence and thorough research enable a fuller and more detailed history of an often neglected colony. He has both situated colonial Georgia appropriately in the British Atlantic World and described it unusually well.

New West Indian Guide - Bradford J. Wood

This bold and highly original study adds immeasurably to our understanding of the imperial crisis in Georgia. Paul Pressly presents a subtle, complex analysis that lays bare the political ramifications of Georgia's mercantile connections with the Anglophone Caribbean. This is a most impressive first book and one that will influence the field for many years to come.

author of Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia - Betty Wood

[An] extensively researched, impeccably written, and intellectually adventurous study of how Georgians turned a struggling colony into a dynamic economic success through copying West Indian plantation culture.

McCormick Messenger - Bob Edmonds

"Colonial Georgia was West Indian rather than North American. This startling conclusion becomes less surprising after reading Paul Pressly's extensively researched, impeccably written, and intellectually adventurous study of how Georgians turned a struggling colony into a dynamic economic success through copying West Indian plantation culture. By orienting Georgia southward rather than northward, Pressly convincingly shows that slavery, plantations, and the pursuit of economic gain by almost any means made Georgia a very different-because West Indian-part of the British Atlantic world."—Trevor Burnard, Professor of History, University of Melbourne

"This bold and highly original study adds immeasurably to our understanding of the imperial crisis in Georgia. Paul Pressly presents a subtle, complex analysis that lays bare the political ramifications of Georgia's mercantile connections with the Anglophone Caribbean. This is a most impressive first book and one that will influence the field for many years to come."—Betty Wood, author of Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia

“This richly documented, analytically complex, and well-written book is a major contribution to the study of Colonial Georgia and the 18th-century Atlantic world. . . .[On the Rim of the Caribbean] is indispensable for anyone interested in Georgia or American Colonial history.”—J. J. Rogers, Choice

From the Publisher