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According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary (with etymologies), the name "Savannah" means "Shawnee"; it derives from a Muskoghean Indian word—a variant of Sawanoki, the native name of the Shawnees. Georgia colonists adopted this name for the Savannah River and then for the city.
Savannah's recorded history begins in 1733. That's the year General James Oglethorpe and the 120 passengers of the good ship "Anne" landed on a bluff high along the Savannah River in February. Oglethorpe named the 13th and final American colony "Georgia" after England's King George II. Savannah became its first city.
Another theory is that the name Savannah refers to the extensive marshlands surrounding the river for miles inland, and is derived from the English term "savanna", a kind of tropical grassland, which was borrowed by the English from Spanish sabana and used in the Southern Colonies.
Oct 21, 2024 · Savannah, industrial seaport city, seat (1777) of Chatham county, southeastern Georgia, U.S., at the mouth of the Savannah River. Savannah was established in 1733 by James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, who named it for the river.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Colonial and Revolutionary Eras
- Antebellum Period
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- Twentieth Century
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Savannah was, by design, the first step in the creation of Georgia, which received its charter from King George II in April 1732, as the thirteenth and last of England’s American colonies. In November 1732 Oglethorpe, with 114 colonists, sailed from England on the Anne. This first group of settlers landed at the site of the planned town, then known...
Antebellum Savannah was built around slavery and agriculture, primarily the chief money crops of cotton and rice, and was one of the leading cotton-shipping ports in the world. By 1820 Savannah was the eighteenth largest city in the United States and had established its preeminence as an international shipping center, with exports exceeding $14 mil...
Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, was constructed between 1829 and 1847 (Robert E. Lee, as a young West Point graduate, oversaw some of the early phases of construction). In early 1861, three months before the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, Confederate forces seized Fort ...
In the 1920s the southern cotton industry was devastated by the boll weevil, and Savannah port activities turned to new industries to fill the void. Savannah became a national leader in the paper-pulp and food-processing industries with the opening of large-scale operations at Union Bag (which merged with Camp Paper in 1956) and the Savannah Sugar ...
Savannah, not surprisingly, is uniquely in touch with its extensive, varied history and has long been a center of historical research and preservation. Toward this end, in December 1839 the Georgia legislature chartered the Georgia Historical Society, which was founded earlier that year by three Savannah residents. The society has been headquartere...
Mar 14, 2021 · The city of Savannah was founded in 1733 by a group of colonists led by a man named James Oglethorpe (1696-1785). The new town was laid out in a grid pattern, with broad streets and several public squares.
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Established in 1733 when General James Oglethorpe and 120 fellow passengers on the ship Anne landed on a bluff along the Savannah River, Oglethorpe named the 13th and final American colony Georgia after England’s King George II. Savannah became the first city of this new land.
