Map/Chart > The Middle States

The coast, rivers and inlets of the Province of Georgia

Previously unpublished, this beautiful chart shows the coast of Georgia including all rivers and settlements, and includes Savannah.

Further Information

The British interest in this region intensified in 1778 as it became clear that support for the Colonial cause and Independence had gained strength to the point that the New England states were virtually lost.  By the time this chart was drawn the British had already decided that the largely loyalist middle and southern states might still be retained as part of the Empire, and under the new command of General Henry Clinton  they started to implement their 'Southern Strategy' as follows:

    By occupying the key town of Savannah (along with that of Charleston in South Carolina) and by mobilising and arming the loyalist population, including the slaves, they hoped to split these states from the rest.

If they controlled the rivers, harbours and waterways of the eastern seaboard vital supplies of munitions and other essentials needed by the Colonial army to stay in the war might be denied and a strangulation invoked.     The more loyalists that could be assimilated into the army, the more British troops could be concentrated elsewhere.     These Middle States produced the commodities upon which the economics of Empire was built - tobacco, rice, indigo and so on, and the British government planned to link these states along with their holdings in east Florida, the Bahamas and Bermuda as a new colonial grouping. In the December of 1778 the British captured Savannah with an expeditionary corps, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell, as the opening play of this plan.  Later, in 1779 the Americans along with their new French allies besieged the town between September 16th and October 19th in an unsuccessful attempt to regain control.  The town remained in British hands until the 1782, near the end of the War of Independence.  By this time, Georgia was economically devastated by the loss of plantations, which had been burned, and the collapse of the slave economy.  In 1775 the population of Georgia and South Carolina had been approximately 200,000, of which about half were slaves.  By the end of the war most of the slaves had been lost to the war, to the British army, or had absconded.  The area was not helped in its recovery in the aftermath of the war by the significant emigration from the area of loyalist supporters (Heritage Charts: A205,  A304 and A306). Previously unpublished, this is an unused and previously unseen of this chart surveyed by Joseph Avery and others The second state of the chart was published by J.F.W. Des Barres on 1st February 1780.  This first version differs from others inasmuch as it is uncolored and relies solely on heavy hachuring to depict relief and land.  All states of this chart are notable for the lack of soundings east of the north-south compass line.