Georgia was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to be established, receiving its founding charter in 1732.
The Province of Georgia was created under a charter granted by King George II to trustees led by James Oglethorpe. The first settlement, Savannah, was founded in 1733. Georgia occupied the southern frontier of British North America, between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.
The trustees promoted Georgia partly as a defensive buffer against Spanish expansion and partly as a place where poor English settlers could begin new lives. Early rules restricted slavery and limited the size of landholdings, although those policies changed as the colony developed. Georgia became a royal colony in 1752, after the trustees surrendered their charter.
Georgia joined the other twelve British colonies in the revolutionary movement and declared independence with them in 1776. The phrase “Thirteen Colonies” refers to the colonies that united against Britain, not to thirteen settlements founded at the same time. Georgia’s late founding completed the familiar group.