The Early History of the Big Bend Country
of the
St. Marys River of Georgia and Florida
By John A. Outterson
{Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4}
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The Big Bend Country of the St. Marys River is formed by the meandering of the St. Marys River the boundary between southeast Georgia and northeast Florida. The river empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Fernandina Beach but a few miles upriver, the river turns repeatedly forming a big bend. From the ocean the river travels northwest, after a few miles inland turns sharply southward, a few miles later it turns sharply westward and some miles later turns northward to its headwaters in the western part of the great Okefenokee Swamp. The land area on both sides of this big bend of the St. Marys River is called the Big Bend Country and is located in Charlton and western Camden Counties, Georgia and western Nassau and Baker Counties, Florida.
The Big Bend Country of the St. Marys River has a very rich and colorful history. Many of the descendants of the early pioneer families that settled this territory are current residents of the area. Their ancestors were the strong-hearted pioneers who tamed the wilderness, fought the Indians, and cleared and cultivated the land. The tenacity and dedication of these early settlers led to the exploration, opening, development, growth, and progress of the Big Bend Country and contributed greatly to the development of modern Georgia and Florida. To appreciate the contributions of these early pioneers and those who followed, it is necessary to understand the trials and tribulations they experienced in the growth and development of the beautiful Big Bend Country of the St. Marys River.
Ponce de Leon was thought to be the first European to explore the southeastern coast of the North American continent when in 1513 he landed near the present site of St. Augustine. He had been commissioned by the King of Spain to conquer and claim territory in the name of Spain. It is quite possible that previously Europeans had explored the southern coastline. Some think that John Cabot in 1497 sailed down the Atlantic coast possibly as far as Florida. Some years after Ponce de Leon landed on Florida soil, the Spanish government established a garrison at St. Augustine. The Spanish did little to colonize the area so most of Florida remained in the hands of the Indians.
The first white man to extensively explore the eastcoast of Florida and Georgia was a Frenchman, Captain John Ribault, in 1561. During these explorations, he mapped the shoreline, named the various rivers and sounded the harbors. He made no attempt to establish French colonies but later did start a small and short-lived colony a few miles north of the present site of Port Royal, South Carolina.
In the following years, the Spanish established small religious missions at many places northward from St. Augustine to as far north as what was to be called Port Royal in South Carolina. During this period the English were quite active in developing colonies which flourished along the northern Atlantic coast. Spain extended its dominion over the coastal land of southeastern North America, including the peninsula of Florida, and stretched its domain to the Mississippi River. The French established extensive colonies in the land west of the Mississippi River and in what is now Canada. Hostilities with the Indians were a constant problem with all of the colonists.
England was the strongest colonizer and slowly extended its authority southward. Spain resisted the English intrusion into what it considered Spanish territory but was too weak to defend its claim. Early in the 1700s, the English and the Spanish entered into an agreement that the territory between the Altamaha River and south to the St. Marys River was to be neutral territory, later referred to as the "Debatable Land." Neither country respected the agreement as there were many violations.
As the English settlers continued their advance into Indian country, they pushed the Indians farther south and west with some of the Creek Indians migrating to Florida. They mingled with the survivors of the original Florida tribes and Negro slaves who had escaped into the Spanish land. Years later, about 1750, the Chief of these migrating Creeks broke away from the Creek nation and his group became known as the Seminoles.
During this period, along the Atlantic coast, by diplomacy and force of arms, the English succeeded in driving the Spanish south from the Debatable Lands, beyond the St. Marys River, the present eastern part of the border between Georgia and Florida. Spanish Florida stretched from the eastcoast of the Florida peninsula to the Mississippi River.
In the early eighteenth century the only major English colony in what is now Georgia was in the Savannah area. In 1733, after many military engagements, the Indians ceded this land area to the colonists. During this period, the English were constantly at war with the Indians who resented the presence of the colonists. The English charter establishing Georgia as a colony provided that it would be a refuge, much like the colony of Pennsylvania, for European Protestants who were suffering injustices. The charter of colonization also anticipated that Georgia would become a haven for the less fortunate people of England.
