Georgia = England

"How strange that Georgia, the world-heralded refuge of poor debtors, should bind her own to sloth and misfortune as ruthlessly as ever England did" (105)!

James Edward Oglethorpe, an English philanthropist, originally established Georgia as a safe haven for debtors. He had compassion for the many people in England who had gone bankrupt and then were thrown in prison. These people could not make money in prison to repay their debts. Often they remained in prison for long periods of time. Usually a husband would be thrown in prison and his wife and children would have to go to work to help him pay off the family's debt. Children would be taken out of school and forced to work in factories for very low wages. Oglethorpe reasoned that these people could pay off their debt by providing England with a new trading partner and resources from the Americas. They could create a colony called Georgia in the Americas. In addition, the people could start off with a fresh new life.

Du Bois finds it ironic that black tenant farmers are being treated by Southern society much the same way England treated its citizens. Black tenant farmers were imprisoned in a cruel cycle of poverty. They were always in debt and never made enough money to pay back their debt because of the low price of cotton. Whites charged incredibly high prices to rent mules and rent substandard property. Du Bois thinks it odd that a state once created to help the debtor now exists to drive him further into debt.