Fort King George State Historic Site is a fort located in the U.S. state of Georgia in McIntosh County, adjacent to Darien. The fort was built in 1721 along what is now known as the Darien River and served as the southernmost outpost of the British Empire in the Americas until 1727. The fort was constructed in what was then considered part of the colony of South Carolina, but was later settled as the Georgia colony. It was part of a defensive line intended to encourage settlement along the colony's southern frontier, from the Savannah River to the Altamaha River. Britain, France, and Spain were competing to control the American Southeast, especially the Savannah-Altamaha River region.
Fort King George was a hardship post for troops assigned there. A total of 140 officers (including Col. Barnwell) and soldiers died, mostly from camp diseases such as dysentery and malaria, due to poor sanitation (none from battle). The soldiers made up The Independent Company of South Carolina, an "invalid" company of elderly British Regulars, one hundred in all, sent over from Great Britain. Their suffering was largely caused by their own poor health, and inadequate provisions due to poor funding. Problems such as periodic river flooding, indolence, starvation, excessive alcoholism, desertion, enemy threats, and potential mutiny exacerbated hardships at the fort.
The fort was a model for General James Oglethorpe when he set up his southern defense system for Georgia and established a settlement along the Altamaha River. In 1736, Oglethorpe brought Scottish colonists to settle the site of the abandoned Fort King George. They called their village New Inverness, later named Darien. That same year, Oglethorpe built Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island. Oglethorpe borrowed extensively from ideas laid out earlier when South Carolina imperialists, such as John Barnwell, Joseph Bowdler, and Francis Nicholson, planned Fort King George as part of a defensive system. Oglethorpe decided to dismantle the fort in 1738."America and West Indies: April 1738." Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 44, 1738. Ed. K G Davies. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1969. 59-74. British History Online Retrieved 1 July 2021
Operated by the state of Georgia, the fort has been reconstructed and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is open to the public for historical tours. Structures include a blockhouse, officers' quarters, barracks, a guardhouse, baking and brewing house, blacksmith shop, moat, and palisades. The park's museum focuses on the 18th-century cultural history of the area, including the Guale, the 17th-century Spanish mission Santo Domingo de Talaje, the fort, and the Scottish colonists. An exhibit explains the 19th-century sawmilling at the site and the remains of two sawmills and ruins. Tabby cement ruins, based on a regional building material, also can be found on the property. Site staff offers living history programs year-round.
Background information
For nearly 200 years before the establishment of Georgia in 1733, Europeans of various nations had struggled to claim footholds in this vast territory. At one time, it was one of the most coveted regions in all of North America. Its bountiful river systems, the Altamaha, Ogeechee, and Savannah rivers, offered valuable conduits of transportation for empire building during the Age of Mercantilism. Europeans believed they could conquer its Native American peoples. The area's coastline had a labyrinth of barrier islands, mud shoals, sandbars, and impassable rivers that afforded a great natural barrier system for whoever controlled it.
Over time, this territory would become a "debatable land" for which Europe's three mightiest countries of the time: Spain, France, and Great Britain, all competed. This international rivalry brought many outcomes. First, the Spanish founded St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 to protect their shipping lanes for treasure-laden ships sailing up from South America.
As the French sought newer fur trade markets in the South, and ultimately the Southeast, French Louisiana was expanded in the late 17th century down the Mississippi and into the Gulf region. To curb French encroachment from the west, and to undermine Spain's traditional claims to areas north of Florida, the British colonists deemed it vital to expand and defend their southern borders, especially at the Savannah River. The resultant clash of European forces affected most of the regional Native American peoples, eventually destroying their traditional cultures and their independence.Gregory A Waselkov, pp. 23-32
The imperial struggle contributed in the 1720s to the establishment of Fort King George by the British, built at the headwaters of the Altamaha River, inland from Sapelo Island. Trade was also a key aspect of founding the fort. In 2011, an old map, dated 1721 and drawn by John Barnwell, was found in the fort's storeroom. It shows two roads from the fort: one leading north and the other along the river to a Muscogee (Creek) path, the tribe who were the desired trading partners.Louie Brogdon, "Artifacts help bring coastal history to life", (AP), Brunswick, Georgia, May 2011, in News From Indian Country. Accessed November 7, 2011. Spain sought to protect its rich harvest of precious metals in the Americas. France and England competed for control over the lucrative fur trade with the Native Americans. Additional resources such as timber, naval stores, and cash crops were also at stake for the British.
The British built Fort King George as a step toward settling the Altamaha River region. The British needed to control the river systems in order to control economic activities and commerce in the Southeast, especially that pertaining to the fur trade. The Altamaha River is one of the largest and far-reaching rivers in the region, and it allowed passage throughout the territory, especially to the powerful tribes of the Creek/Muskogee found west of the river system. Fort King George was part of a plan by the British to control the Altamaha and to secure economic imperial superiority in the Southeast.
Contest for empire in the Southeast
The Spanish were the first to arrive in the Southeast, first with explorers, then with the settlement of St. Augustine in present-day Florida in 1565. They started creating a mission system, converting the Native American tribes and using them as workers for agricultural production. The city became a base so that the Spanish could protect their treasure ships carrying gold and silver from the South. They used missions to expand the Catholic faith to the numerous tribes found in the Southeast. The converted Native Americans were incorporated into the Spanish system of repartimiento. They used an indigenous labor force capable of growing surplus grains for needy colonists in the Spanish-American Empire.
By the mid-17th century, dozens of Spanish missions controlled the southeastern coastline with thousands of Native Americans drawn into and around them. This system centered on missions accompanied with troops occupying presidios.
They created four mission provinces: Tumucua (interior northern Florida), Apalachee (northwestern Florida), Guale (Georgia coast north of the Altamaha River), and Mocama (from the Altamaha River south to the St. Johns River). The name Guale was possibly derived from a Native American chief of that name who was visited by Pedro Menéndez on St. Catherines Island in 1566. In that year, Menéndez established troops on that island. Santa Catalina de Guale would later become one of the largest and most productive missions by the mid-17th century.
Another successful mission was Santo Domingo de Talaje. Established sometime in the early 17th century, this mission was located on a large bluff up the north branch of the Altamaha River. Native Americans had inhabited the bluff for thousands of years. The English later used this site as the location for Fort King George in the 1720s.
Guale was threatened by the settlement of English Carolina immediately to the north, where Charlestown was established in 1670. Through the late seventeenth century, Carolinian forces and their Indian allies were successful at destroying the Spanish mission system. Throughout the 1670s and 1680s, they attacked and destroyed missions on Saint Catherines Island, St Simons Island, Cumberland Island, and several interior missions situated close to the coast. San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island was destroyed by pirates in 1683, leading to Spanish abandonment of the Guale and Mocama provinces. Likewise, the British and allied forces reduced the Apalachee mission province during the first decade of the 18th century. The surviving mission Indians retreated and aggregated farther south until their remnants were situated just north of the Saint Augustine base near the St. Johns River. During the 1680s, the Carolina colonists had effectively driven the Spanish entirely from the modern Georgia coast. This campaign intensified hostilities between the Spanish and the English. It catalyzed British interest in settling the Savannah-Altamaha River region.
Further west, the French were moving down the Mississippi and into the Gulf region. In 1699 Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founded Biloxi, and Mobile, the first capital of French Louisiana, was settled in 1702. From these bases, French fur traders planned to move eastward to incorporate regional tribes, especially the Creek, into their business enterprise. In 1718, they built Fort Toulouse at the forks of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, in the heart of Creek country. This settlement, designed to take business from Carolina traders, was close to the Creek capital of Coweta. The British perceived it as a threat to their plans to control trade networks throughout the Southeast, especially among the Creek and Cherokee. The tribes' geographical proximity to the Carolina colony made their stability vital. The British intended to expand their trade westward to other Southeast tribes, such as the Choctaw and Chickasaw.
In 1702, during the War of Spanish Succession, Spain and France allied against Great Britain. South Carolinians were bordered by enemies to the south and west, which intensified the competition for Native American alliances. That year, the British colonists learned of their enemies' plan known as "Projet Sur La Caroline". Spanish Florida and French Louisiana allied forces intended to encircle South Carolina, especially with Native Americans. Officials in South Carolina convinced a large number of Yamasee to settle in the Beaufort, South Carolina area just north of the Savannah River basin. Good relations with the Yamasee ensured a protective buffer along the southern borders of the colony. The British also worked to maintain relations with the Creek and Cherokee tribes to the west. "Projet Sur La Caroline", while never implemented, left the South Carolina colonists with high anxiety for many years, and convinced officials of the necessity to maintain good Indian alliances.
The Yamasee War of 1715–1717 broke out. This war started because of grave injustices carried out by Carolina traders against their Native American clients. For many years the traders had been systematically cheating the Indians in the fur trade by using bogus weights and measures, applying tough credit standards, severely indebting Native American suppliers, and taking Indian slaves for unpaid debts. Finally, the Yamasee turned on South Carolina and nearly destroyed the colony. Virginia's support and Cherokee warriors helped deflect the Yamasee attacks. After the surviving Yamasee were expelled, they migrated to the St. Augustine area and cultivated a new alliance with the Spanish. South Carolina was left weak and vulnerable with no military buffer along its southern fringes, and the war alienated the Creek tribes to the west.