Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The map conveys a lost era in the sense that the place-names and the world they connote
of English colonial planters were both banished not long after it was made. Demere's Island,
named for Captain Raymond Demere who was given the original grant in 1760, was renamed
Champney island. It lies in the delta of the lower River Altamaha (Alatamaha on the map)
near the Atlantic coast. North of Demere's Island, along the right-hand edge, lay the islands
of Lachlan McIntosh and Governor Wright, now Rhetts and Butler Islands respectively. Per-
haps these places were the inspiration for Georgia-born author Margaret Mitchell's leading
man in
Gone with the Wind
? We do know that James Wright was Georgia's last governor, and
that he also submitted a large claim. One name that has remained, despite being a tribute to
the English King George II, is that of Georgia itself.
Demere's island, under whatever name, is as the map shows, enclosed in two branches of
the river, which is tidal at this point. 'Cane swamp' may refer to sugar, which was grown on
this coast, while the oyster banks point to another local industry. The marshes would have
been of little agricultural use, although they support wildfowl. The island is shown with trees;
those mentioned on maps of nearby estates show hickory, oak, maple, black walnut, gum and
pine. These are confirmed by the diaries of the naturalist William Bartram who recorded the
flora and fauna when he paddled these parts of the Altahama River in a cypress canoe in
1773. Along with alligators, he found a rare flowering tree which he named
Franklinia al-
atamaha
and which survives only in cultivation as plants descended from seed he collected.
The text on the map shows that it was certified in 1771 as a re-survey, which clarified that
the island contained 1,000 acres: the original grant for 560 acres to Demere, plus a further
440 acres to John Graham, who was Lieutenant Governor. The text notes that the island lay in
St Andrew's, one of Georgia's eight parishes. As in England, parishes supported their church,
and also served as districts for elections, taxation, welfare and other tasks of the secular state.
If the administrative framework was similar, this example suggests how the estate map too
was transplanted to the colonies, to depict different landscapes and different ways of cultiv-
ating the land.
