Jonathan Bryan's Plantation Empire: Land, Politics, and the Formation of a Ruling Class in Colonial Georgia

Abstract

1N9 ROM I736 until his death in I788 Jonathan Bryan acquired lands by grant and purchase in Georgia and South Carolina in excess of X 32,000 acres, on which he employed, at one time or another, over 250 slaves. These possessions placed him at the very top of the small group of men who ruled Georgia during the quarter century before the American Revolution. Bryan became one of the colony's richest and most powerful men because he understood every aspect of landownership, from accumulation to development and sale. Aggressive and astute, he built an estate that can truly be termed a plantation empire. This essay shows how Bryan used political influence and economic calculation to create that empire. His example illustrates the process by which the ruling class of -colonial Georgia was formed.1 Bryan was born in the vicinity of Port Royal, South Carolina, in I 708. The few whites who inhabited this frontier region engaged in trade with the neighboring Yamassee. On several occasions Bryan's father, Joseph, a trader, was rebuked by the South Carolina government for abusing the Indians and illegally settling on their land, which the colony's governor