Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/91

 of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be sin, but may prove a benediction." Thus encouraged by ministers of the gospel, the merchants of Savannah cried out for "the one thing needful." So the harassed trustees were driven to give their consent, adding slaves to the already mixed population of Georgia.

As a result the lowlands of the colony were laid out into plantations tilled by slaves on their way to the status of freemen in "the heavenly Jerusalem," while the yeomen were driven steadily into the piedmont, giving a sectional flavor to the economics and politics of Georgia that lasted until the age of populism and beyond. When rum and slaves were introduced, the anxieties of the trustees increased rather than diminished until, exhausted by wearisome battles with the local assembly, the corporation gave up the ghost in 1752 and Georgia, like the neighboring Carolinas, became a royal province.