Province of Georgia

The Province of Georgia was chartered on April 21, 1732, and finalized by the Privy Council on June 9, 1732, when King George II granted General James Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees a corporate charter for the colony, the last of the Thirteen Colonies to be founded. Oglethorpe envisioned Georgia as both a haven for imprisoned debtors and the deserving poor and a military buffer against Spanish Florida, and settlers established Savannah at Yamacraw Bluff in 1733. The trustees' ban on slavery was lifted in 1751, and they surrendered the colony to direct crown control in 1752, after which Georgia was governed as a royal colony from 1755. Georgia was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to support the American Revolution, and the province ceased to exist when British forces evacuated Savannah on July 11, 1782; Georgia became a state and ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 2, 1788. As a colony founded under corporate trustee governance and later crown administration, it is grouped here among Kingdoms and Principalities, the closest available classification for a monarchical dependency pending a dedicated colonial-provinces category.