Human Activity on Cumberland Island

The history of people on Cumberland Island is rich, varied and inextricably linked to the island’s complex natural habitat. No one really knows how long human beings have used its resources for survival, or been inspired to create art, or simply taken solace in its awesome beauty. We know aboriginal people populated the coastal region of what we call Georgia as early as 2000 B.C. and that they enjoyed its diverse and delectable food sources, including oysters, crabs, fish, deer and bear.

History that has a more specific record starts with the early Spanish missions in the 16th century. In the 1730s, James Edward Oglethorpe laid out two forts, one on each end of the island. And in the 1750s, aspiring planters came to the island once slavery was allowed on its shores. After the American Revolution, prestigious families, such as that of Nathaniel Greene, became interested in Cumberland’s natural resources; the first mansion was built on the site we now know as Dungeness. The British were present at Cumberland early in the 19th century, and there are detailed descriptions of Robert Stafford’s plantation as it existed between 1815 and 1870. (See specifically Mary R. Bullard’s book on Robert Stafford as listed in this section.)

The Civil War had a profound effect on the island’s human history, and Reconstruction saw both speculators and freedmen trying to wrest a living out of the chaotic devastation the war had caused.

In the early 1880s, Thomas Carnegie and his wife, Lucy Coleman Carnegie, came to the island and established the family’s presence, which exists to the present day. In the 1960s the human population began to diversify somewhat as the land started to leave the exclusive holdings of individual families, and the evolution of the National Seashore began. (Thomas Carnegie was the brother of the famous northern industrialist, Andrew Carnegie.)

For the sake of discussion, the settlement of Cumberland Island has been arbitrarily divided into the following eras. As the website evolves, details will be added to each of these categories.

• Aboriginal Era: Up to 1500 A.D.

• Spanish Mission Era: 16th Through 18th Centuries

• Oglethorpe and the Royal Governership:1736-1760

• Plantation Era: 1750s to 1860s (The island was barely inhabited during the American Revolution.)

• War Between the States and Reconstruction Era: 1860s and 1870s

• The Carnegie Era: 1880s to Present

• The National Seashore Era: 1970s to Presen