Sansavilla Bluff: Survey at the Crossroads of the Colonial Georgia Frontier

This research report captures glimpses of life in the southern backcountry of the British Empire in eighteenth century Georgia. The search focused on a colonial battleground known as Fort Mount Venture massacre located on the lower Altamaha River. Fort Mount Venture and its small garrison of Georgia Rangers was attacked and burned by Spanish-allied Yamassee Indians in late 1742. All of the occupants who were at home at the time of the attack were slaughtered or taken prisoner. The project may have located vestiges of this massacre site in addition to many other very important aspects of eighteenth century settlement in the area. Consequently, human understanding of the areas history and archaeology is substantially enriched by the LAMAR Institute's study. The Sansavilla Bluff of the Altamaha River in Wayne County, Georgia was a strategic location on the frontier in the colonial to early federal eras. Here a major inland trail that connected Georgia with Florida crossed the Altamaha River. This prominent bluff location lent itself to selection for military fortifications. The most famous of these was Fort Mount Venture, also known as Mary Musgrove Matthews' Trading Post. Mary was a central figure in colonial Georgia, serving as an interpreter, advisor, and negotiator between the British and Creek Indians. By 1737 John and Mary Musgrove had "settled a trading house on the south side of said [Alatamaha] river, about 150 miles up the same river, by water, at a place called Mount Venture..." (White 1854:27). Fort Mount Venture was garrisoned by a troop of fewer than 20 Georgia Rangers in the early 1740s. By the late 1750s Georgia defensive of this region had shifted to the opposite bank of the Altamaha River in present-day McIntosh County, where Fort Barrington was established. Historians and archaeologists have shown interest in the Fort Mount Venture episode for many decades. Historian Margaret Davis Cate began a search for the Mount Venture site in the late 1930s (Cate various dates; Leslie 1976). Her research located a colonial plat that depicted an old house on a land tract on Sansavilla Bluff, which Cate suspected to be related to the Mount Venture settlement. Cate argued her case to historian John Goff, who discounted her interpretation, preferring a location at the forks of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers for Mount Venture (Cate 1954). Goff compiled extensive information files on early forts, trails and placenames in Georgia and was a recognized authority on the subject (Goff various dates; 1954; Hemperly and Goff 197-; Utley and Hemperly 1977). Cate was unsuccessful in enticing any archaeologists to investigate Sansavilla Bluff's potential and the area remained unexplored by professionals for three decades.