In the early 18th century, Europeans called the land lying between British South Carolina and Spanish Florida the "Debatable Land". Today's state of Georgia was then the center of a centuries-old imperial conflict between Spain and Britain. After the philanthropist James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, to provide a place where poor debtors could settle, colonists from England and Scotland, and refugees from the GermanElectorate of the Palatinate built Fort Frederica in 1736 to defend their new territory. They named Frederica for Frederick, Prince of Wales,. The name was feminized to distinguish it from Fort Frederick in South Carolina. In the 1742 battles of Bloody Marsh and Gully Hole Creek, forces under Oglethorpe successfully repulsed Spanish attempts to invade St. Simons Island. Afterward the Spanish no longer threatened the colony; in 1749 the government disbanded the garrison at Frederica. Soon the village fell into economic decline, and by 1755 it was mostly abandoned. The town survived a fire in 1758, but after a few more years, it was abandoned. Naturalist William Bartram visited the site in March, 1774. Though it was in ruins he noted that there was still a small garrison there. Fort Frederica was documented and authorized as a National Monument on May 26, 1936, under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression. During this period, the Works Progress Administration sponsored numerous surveys of historic areas and buildings across the country to identify, document and protect the resources for the future, as well as to provide employment. Starting in 1947, the National Park Service and the Ft. Frederica Association, a citizens' interest group, sponsored a series of archaeological investigations at the Frederica site. Using information from 18th-century maps and journals as guides, the archaeologists excavated sections of the fort and village. By correlating the archaeological data with the historic documents and excavating remains of structures, the archaeologists have provided important insight into Frederica's past and colonial history, a complex time of international rivalries. As a historic area under the National Park Service, the National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Fort Frederica is open to the public and admission is free.
