Rev. George Whitefield, whose wonderful eloquence has made his name famous, and Hon. James Habersham, had great influence with the trustees; and it was mainly due to their efforts that the colonists were legally allowed to purchase and use negro slaves. Mr. Habersham affirmed that the Colony could not prosper without slave labor. Rev. Mr. Whitefield, on the other hand, was in favor of negro slavery on the broad ground of philanthropy. He boldly declared that it would be of great advantage to the African to be brought from his barbarous surroundings and placed among civilized Christians. When we remember what has happened, who can deny that the remark of the eloquent preacher was not more to the purpose, and nearer to the truth, than some of the modern statements about American slavery? What really happened (as any one may discover by looking into impartial history) was, that thousands of negroes who had been captured in battle, and made slaves of in their own country, were taken from that dark land and brought into the light of Christian civilization. Their condition, mentally and morally, was so improved, that, in little more than a century after White-field made his statement, the government of the United States ventured to make citizens of them. The contrast between their condition and that of the negroes who remained in Africa is so startling, that a well-known abolitionist, writing twenty years after emancipation, has described slavery as a great university, which the negroes entered as barbarians, and came out of as Christians and citizens.
The efforts of the Colony to secure a repeal of the act prohibiting slavery were successful. The trustees in London concluded that it would be better to permit slavery, with such restrictions and limitations as might be proper, than to permit the wholesale violations that were then going on; and so in 1749 the colonists of Georgia were allowed by law to own and use negro slaves.
Thus, when the cotton gin came fairly into use, slavery had been legally allowed in Georgia for nearly half a century. The rest of the Colonies had long enjoyed that privilege. The cotton gin, therefore, had a twofold effect,--it increased the cotton crop and the value of the lands, and it also increased the use of negro slaves. The Virginians and North Carolinians, who came to Georgia, brought their slaves with them; and the Georgians, as their crops became profitable, laid out their surplus cash in buying more negroes. The slave trade became very prosperous, and both Old England and New England devoted a large amount of capital and enterprise to this branch of commerce.