The colonial governments of Virginia and North Carolina for their part, eager for laborers, passed incentives by promising 5 years' worth of debt protection. The founder of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, specifically started the colony as a debtor's refuge in 1732, as an alternative to English debtors' prison.
The last of the 13 colonies to be founded, Georgia began as a line of fortress towns, creating a buffer between English settlers in the Carolinas and the Spanish in Florida. Created as a land for English debtors to start fresh in the New World, Georgia was a land filled with promise.