On this day ~
June 9, 1732
King George II of England signed a charter that created the colony of Georgia. The government’s main concern was to get debtors off its hands and show an English presence between the Carolinas and Florida. But religious considerations were high in the mind of the man who did more than anyone else to promote the Georgia creation. James Oglethorpe wrote: “Christianity will be extended by carrying out this design; since, the good discipline established by the society, will reform the manners of those miserable people, who shall be helped by it; and the example of a whole colony, which shall behave in a just, moral, and religious manner, will contribute greatly towards the conversion of the Indians, and remove the prejudices received from the wicked lives of such who have scarce any thing of Christianity but the name.”