Description
This account of Augusta, Georgia, from 1736-1791 combines historical fact with a novelist’s attention to people—in this case to the historical figures of this fledgling colony. Berry Fleming quotes verbatim from primary sources, letting the people speak for themselves in the language of the day. They describe incidents and episodes with the immediacy of the eyewitness, forming a unique portrait of life in colonial Georgia. From the “principal Inhabitants” gathering at the fort with “some Bottles of Wine and some Biscuits” to salute General Oglethorpe on his birthday, to the “numerous train of respectable citizens” gathering to salute President Washington on his approach “to the frontier of the Union,” Autobiography of a Colony tells the story of two generations of colonial Augustans.