James Oglethorpe was a British general and philanthropist. With 19 associates in 1732, he obtained a charter to colonize Georgia as a haven for Protestant dissenters and insolvent debtors who had served time in British prisons. His plan was to provide economic opportunity enough to reform the idle and criminal classes of England.

Within Georgia, laws prohibited the sale of rum, outlawed slavery, and limited the size of individual land holdings. Oglethorpe also organized Georgia as a colonial outpost against attacks from Spanish Florida. His good intentions were frustrated by settlers who did not like the restrictions placed on them. In 1743 Oglethorpe returned to England and broke with the Georgia venture. With his associates, he yielded his charter in 1752, and Georgia became a royal colony.