Georgia was the only one of the Thirteen Colonies absent from the First Continental Congress in 1774.
The Congress met in Philadelphia from September 5 to October 26, bringing together 56 delegates from twelve colonies. Georgia did not send representatives because Loyalist sentiment remained strong there, and the colony had not yet fully joined the resistance movement against Britain.
The gathering followed the Boston Tea Party and Britain's Coercive Acts, which colonists called the Intolerable Acts. Delegates debated how to defend colonial rights while avoiding an immediate declaration of independence. Their decisions included a petition to King George III and the Continental Association, which organized a boycott of British goods.
Georgia joined the revolutionary intercolonial movement the following year by sending delegates to the Second Continental Congress. This distinction is important: the phrase “Thirteen Colonies” describes the British colonies that later declared independence, but the First Continental Congress represented only twelve of them.