What if loyalty, not rebellion, was the default position in British North America?
It’s easy to forget that before 1776, most colonists identified as proud Britons. They didn’t see themselves as future Americans or revolutionaries; they saw themselves as subjects of a global empire. And in the colony of Georgia, many clung to that identity longer than we might expect.
We’re exploring the American Revolution in Georgia, a colony often left out of our histories of the American Revolution until the Siege of Savannah in 1779. Yet Georgia’s experience in the Revolution offers rich insight into Loyalism, imperial politics, and how personal conviction and local conditions shaped the course of the American Revolution’s events.
Greg Brooking, a historian of the American Revolution in the South and a high school history teacher, joins us to explore the American Revolution in Georgia with details from his book From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Episode Summary
Greg Brooking is a historian of the American Revolution in the South. He earned his Ph.D. from Georgia State University, and he teaches social studies at North Springs High School outside of Atlanta. He joins us today so we can explore Loyalism in Georgia with details from his book, From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia.
During our exploration, Greg reveals
1. How Georgia’s founding as a buffer colony and its early economy shaped its political culture
2. Why Sir James Wright, Georgia’s last royal governor, remained deeply committed to the British Empire—and why many Georgians did too
3. What the Revolution looked like on the ground in Georgia, from backcountry tensions and Indigenous diplomacy to British occupation and Loyalist exile
What You’ll Discover
- Sir James Wright
- The founding of Georgia
- Georgia as an agricultural colony
- Georgia’s relationship with South Carolina
- Georgia’s population centers
- Sir James Wright’s appointment as Georgia’s Royal Governor in 1760
- Georgia’s relationships with Indigenous peoples
- Proclamation Line of 1763
- Wright’s work to solve backcountry problems
- The American Revolution in Georgia
- The meaning of Loyalism in Georgia
- A Loyalist’s view of the American Revolution
- The loyalty of Sir James Wright
- Loyalty in the southern colonies
- How European involvement changed the War for Independence in Georgia
- The Siege of Savannah, 1779
- When the British lost the South
- The price of Loyalism
Links to People, Places, and Publications
1776 in Context Question
In your opinion, how do you think using the 250th anniversary of the Revolution as a reason to look more closely at the Loyalist point of view of the Revolution can help us better understand this event and major period of early American history?
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 171: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
🎧 Episode 280: The British Are Coming
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
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